Back at it #4 – Get Some Better Case Studies

I think with this comment I’ve covered all I want to hit on in this article (http://tinyurl.com/ab3ug3) which is how shotty the case studies are that get used to promote social media.  If I used this quality of info for anything, I’d get hammered

Do all social media types get their training at the University of Phoenix?  VC Guy should be embarrassed in the way he uses these examples.  I know it’s a ra-ra type of presentation, but is this the info he uses to invest millions of dollars? They all have some element of social media, but claiming that piece as the sole reason for success is just wrong.  In other cases, whether it’s social or not they’re just shaky marketing.  Regardless of what role social media plays in each one and how hot they make it look, eventually hype won’t be enough

Burger King’s killing Facebook friends – It focuses on the Facebook numbers but overlooks the effectiveness of the messaging

Everyone in advertising has been briefed with “I want Subservient Chicken” causing so many eyes to be rolled, injuries have been reported.  In this case, BK incented Facebook users to kill their friends – not for real of course.  And there’s the glitch in this one – it’s negative.  I’m sure killing your friends is great for brands trying to attract juvenile boys, but even the juvenile clients we have would give this a second thought.  If you want a case study for how to get people to do stupid things, use this one.  If you’re a marketer and you think this represents how regular consumers will interact with anything you ask them to do, go for it and you’ll get a new meaning of negative

Building the Jonas Brothers without radio – Mistakenly gives all the credit to the web and ignores everything else

I have 8 and 12 year-old daughters who love music so I can comment on this one.  To say that Disney built this band with online rather than radio is totally misleading.  Sure they have fan pages and all the typical web stuff, but there’s not much that I would classify as “social” – it’s all safe and easy stuff for young kids and tweens.  On downplaying radio, the Jonas Brothers might not get tons of mainstream play, but radio has definitely played a role in their success.  Disney Radio has 31 million weekly listeners in the US.  Strangely, the playlist is heavy on Disney artists and hits over 4 million 6-11 year olds each week.  Pretty sure this helped

Typical for Disney, the biggest contributor to their success is TV – their Family Channel is a critical piece in their star making machine.  Unlike anything else, TV is able to build a fan base by showing off the Brothers in endless ways: interviews, movie specials, videos, appearances (like in an episode of Hannah Montana), tour info, behind the scenes footage, and more.  The music is important, but this exposure goes beyond that to connect the audience with the Brothers to build hardcore fans who go to their concerts, buy their CDS – and maybe even join their online fan club

Kogi BBQ with 14,000 Twitter followers – It’s not about the number of followers, it’s about the tacos – are the tweets selling tacos?

I think it’s amazing Kogi BBQ has 14,000 twitter followers.  But it’s a shame this is where the case study ends.  I tried to contact Aliiiiiice (PR person at Kogi) to ask if they had any stories about lineups at a truck after tweeting a location but didn’t get a response (I still think Alice and what she’s doing is cool).  So I did some extensive research in the LA market to figure it out:  LA taco trucks often sit on the same spot until they get kicked off.  They’re also typically the same offering from truck to truck.  Kogi’s food is different and they constantly hit different hot spots making their surprise arrivals seem like an event

I’m going to give this case the benefit of the doubt.  I think the social media like twitter is doing it’s job in creating the right kind of buzz for the brand – plus, it’s somewhat tactical.  But does a location tweet (which is like a mini LTO) to 14,000 people convert to anything in a market the size of LA?  Probably doesn’t matter – it’s part of the brand.  If you’re a starving restaurant operator, you need to do more homework than this

And although is wasn’t in this presentation, don’t give me Obama as the killer case study either.  Social media may have been used well by Obama’s election team (primarily for fundraising) but it was TV and PR that did the heavy lifting at persuading voters.  No matter who or what they were taking on, it was TV that they cranked up

The positive side here for social media (and the web) is that it did have a real role in these examples.  But let’s understand two things: 1) what is its real role within the mix of everything else and 2) how does it affect meaningful results like brand perception or sales