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In This Issue
Social Media: A Case in Point
Fly on the Wall: A Service of ClayComm 2.0
Continuing Blogs from a Mad Man
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Welcome to the Claymanite.
Social Media is often defined as "social networking." The emphasis is often on posting tweets or blogs or status updates. The idea of sending out information is often what attracts people to Social Media, and it's also what can make Social Media seem like an impossibly huge time commitment for a company. Who has time to write all of those blogs? Who has time to tweet on a regular basis?

If you find that the output facet of Social Media is a bit intimidating, this issue of The Claymanite might be just the encouragement you need.

In this issue, we talk about Social Media listening. We believe strongly that before engaging in any Social Media activities, research and listening are necessary. As it turns out, even some of the biggest companies in the nation are starting to realize that listening is just as important as "talking" in this new world. It's some food, or should we say, some drink, for thought.
Social Media: A Case in Point -- Building Gatorade Sales 
 
end of the world
Gatorade is drinking the Social Media Kool-aid big time or so Valeria Bauerlein recently reported in an article in the "Business Technology" section of The Wall Street Journal (September 14, 2010). Gatorade, once one of the most profitable brands in the PepsiCo stable of brands, has been losing ground over the last three years to other "sports" drinks teenaged athletes deem "more cool." The Gatorade Challenge: How to become "cool" in teen athletes' perception.

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Fly on the Wall: A Service of ClayComm2.0fly on the wall 
In the previous article of The Claymanite, we talked about how Gatorade was monitoring Social Media sites to gain valuable information about their customer base and to "jump in" to conversations where it was appropriate (like helping someone find out where they could purchase their Gatorade products).
 

Continuing Blogs from a Mad Man
Well, Blockbuster has declared bankruptcy. Raise your hand if you saw that coming 5 years ago. Better yet, read Larry's blog and let him know if you saw that coming in the comments!
CrisisCommunication 
Social Media: A Case in Point -- Building Gatorade Sales
 101
Gatorade is drinking the Social Media Kool-aid big time or so Valeria Bauerlein recently reported in an article in the "Business Technology" section of The Wall Street Journal (September 14, 2010). Gatorade, once one of the most profitable brands in the PepsiCo stable of brands, has been losing ground over the last three years to other "sports" drinks teenaged athletes deem "more cool." The Gatorade Challenge: How to become "cool" in teen athletes' perception.

PepsiCo chose a strategy based on going where the teens go -- Social Media. In April, PepsiCo assembled a group of employees to monitor teenage mentions of Gatorade on Social Media sites on a 24/7 basis. If a teen tweets his mom that he is out of Gatorade at football practice, PepsiCo knows. Any mention of Gatorade on any media site "pops up" on screens at what has become known as Gatorade's "Mission Control." Staffers who monitor these Gatorade mentions or conversations can choose to join in or just to "hang back" and observe. Meg Poulelis, one of the staffers, noted: "If they're directly asking where to buy products, we're going to weigh in. . . . If they want to talk about working out, we let them have that conversation."

Ms. Poulelis and other staffers will also tweet individual athletes to wish them "good luck" in their sports endeavors or to answer questions relevant to sports drinks that are raised in the course of a tweet or a Facebook chat. The personal interaction has to be careful not to become creepy or an uninvited intrusion. Staff must decide when commenting is welcome. In one case, PepsiCo staff corrected a Facebook conversation that was talking about a poster that said Gatorade had high-fructose corn syrup -- a big no-no for the health conscious.

Whether or not conversations are joined or mentions are responded to, the "Mission Control" staff are collecting a wealth of information. They can see how different banner ads on general searches lead to click throughs to Gatorade sites and they can follow the conversations of identified "fans" to discover how their discussion of Gatorade contributes to brand recognition, perception, and build-up. This and a mass of data are impacting marketing decisions including taking a 60 second ad tune and building it to a full track available for download. Gatorade wants to be teen athletes' new best Social Media friend.

According to Bauerlein, PepsiCo will not discuss what all of this costs or the "proprietary set of protocols" designed by major providers of Internet tracking and evaluation methodologies. PepsiCo will say that if monitoring and participating in Social Media improves sales that they will expand the strategy to other product lines as well, including Quaker Oats and Tropicana. Gatorade sales were up 7% for the second quarter and 2.4% for the first half of 2010.  Bauerlein wonders if this improvement is because of the Social Media efforts or because it was just a really hot summer?

Not surprisingly, Bauerlein reports that Coca-Cola recently announced it's launching a Social Media strategy for its own line of sports drink -- Powerade. Even though their brand has seen growing sales without major Social Media effort, Coca-Cola reports that their current chief strategy of having "street teams" pass out free samples is "old-school Social Media" and nothing spells "Uncool" more than "old-school."

With players like PepsiCo and Coca-Cola experimenting with such Social Media strategies, it probably will only be a matter of time before other brands will be doing at least a little bit. Just how this will impact smaller players with smaller marketing budgets remains to be seen.

Fly on the Wall: A Service of ClayComm2.0
101 
In the previous article of The Claymanite, we talked about how Gatorade was monitoring Social Media sites to gain valuable information about their customer base and to "jump in" to conversations where it was appropriate (like helping someone find out where they could purchase their Gatorade products).

While reading the initial article in the Wall Street Journal that stimulated our article, we couldn't help but to be drawn back to a program that we introduced to our clients almost a year ago. We called this program the "fly on the wall" because we are offering the same kind of monitoring that Gatorade and so many other consumer brand companies are using.

The benefits for business-to-business companies are no different. What better way to get inside information on what your customers are thinking than to be a "fly on the wall" while they are conversing with their peers about products and services like those you bring to market. Even if we don't find that your specific product brand is in the middle of a conversation, there is still tremendous benefit to "hearing" the discussion and finding what the "hot buttons" are regarding the decision making process for products like yours.

Obviously, if someone on a Social Media site actually mentions your product by name, we've hit the jackpot. If they have nice things to say about your product, they are already playing the role of a product evangelist for you. If, on the other hand, they mention your product negatively, that is equally important and may prove to be even more important if they have identified a product flaw that others will eventually find as well and you can attack the problem early as opposed to late.

We are happy to see the big consumer companies coming around to an idea that we felt had merit a year ago. Now it's time for business-to-business companies to join the party.

As we approach the new year, we invite you to take another look at our "fly on the wall" program. It just might quench your thirst for valuable information.


Sincerely,