Marketing and Selling Directly to Consumers

Using Social Media

Michael Terpin, CEOSocialRadius

ERA Europe, Monte Carlo, MonacoJune 29, 2010

Direct-to-consumer communication is changing.

24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation

There are over 200 MILLION Blogs

34% of bloggers post opinions about product and brands

78% of consumers trust these peer recommendations

Some doubt that television in its current form can survive another decade. ..

Social media marketing is NOT just branding & PR.

Social media activity is highly trackable, including links and conversions to e-commerce

Landing pages, offers and messaging can be tested just as rigorously in social media as TV and radio (or even more…).

Lead generation, affiliate marketing and direct response using blogs and social networks are THE new wave.

Four Pillars of Social Media Marketing Blogger Outreach Thought Leadership Social Networks Multimedia Engagement

Editorial Blogs

Thought Leaders & Enthusiasts

Personal Diaries

Blogosphere Influencer Pyramid ™

Blogger Outreach

Editorial blogs are as powerful as traditional media, but more viral – and with better metrics.

Traditional media also have blogs now – but they rarely have their own independent readership.

Independent blogs have overpowered traditional media in the past five years in speed, breadth of coverage, circulation growth and CPMs.

Editorial Blogs

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Blogger Outreach

Though leaders and Enthusiasts are similar… …and they are different.

Thought leaders are typically experts at something (or portray themselves as such).

Thought leaders rarely take advertising or have contests: they are promoting themselves.

Both groups have 4-5x the engagement of editorial blogs. How are they different?

Thought Leaders

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Blogger Outreach

Though leaders provide credibility… …Enthusiasts provide access and energy .

Mommy bloggersFashion bloggersBeauty bloggersGreen/sustainable product bloggers

Thought leaders seek access to information and understanding. Enthusiasts want cool stuff to share with their readers.

Enthusiasts

TT E

Blogger Outreach

Citizen journalism is at an all-time high. You can now write for the #1 blog (Huffington Post).

Integration of Twitter into Google, Bing increases the importance of the “real time Web”

Midterm elections will provide readership bump – and new best (and worst) practices.

In the US, revised, clarified FTC guidelines in place for blogger disclosure.

Personal Diaries

The First Pillar: Blogger Outreach Engage and influence thought leaders & enthusiasts. Create “earned media” from bottom up strategy, tactics. Show thought leaders your products first. Coax enthusiasts to link to your offers with contests. Create relationships across all categories of bloggers. Done well, blogger outreach will be your best SEO.

The Second Pillar: Thought Leadership Create and distribute your unique message. Build a following in sync with your product, brand. Create alliances with other thought leaders. Control more real estate than your landing page. Influence SEO with “off page” tactics. Move negative posts off front page of Google. Reverse direct marketing: best prospects find you.

Case Study: Bombay Sapphire – Blogger Brand Excitement“Spirit of Exploration” adventure blog was created to coincide with integrated marketing campaign, including extensive print ads and contests.

Invited bloggers to participate in contest, defining their personal “Spirit of Exploration” and to cover and compete for an exotic trip to Skybar in Thailand.

Within one month of launch, more than 100 bloggers participated, more than 10,000 wrote about the brand and competition - and the competition blog had over 1 million unique visits.

Blogger OutreachCase Study

EcoMom – Turning Endorsement into E-CommerceEcoMom is an e-commerce site for healthy, sustainable products for babies and young children.

Targeting mommy blogs for product reviews, giveaways and contests led to massive exposure, traffic and direct sales.

Concurrently, more than 70 percent of EcoMom’s sales come directly from links on blogs.

Blogger Outreach + Thought Leadership Case Study

The Third Pillar: Social Networks Every social network is different. They all have different rules – and different paths to influence and monetization. Twitter is a microblogging service with network effect Facebook has 500 million users, high engagement. Every nation has its own “hot” network (and they continue to change frequently). LinkedIn remains the kind of B2B in US, Xing in EU. All social networks can be tracked with off-network metrics, including short URLs. The rules of the community rule: it’s their sandbox.

Facebook for the D2C Marketer Largest global social network (500 million+) Highly engaged users (more traffic than Google) Facebook has little impact on search engines. Fan pages have no limit on friends, profiles do. Events, Causes, Groups can be powerful marketing tools. Most companies do not need an “app”

Twitter: Rapid Growth, Constant Change • Twitter just passed 125 million users, 200 monthly visitors (June 2010).• Most staggering numbers: 2 billion tweets per month, 600 million searches per day.• Sponsored tweets will mainly impact big brands.• Businesses continue to embrace Twitter.

Twitter: Best Practices for D2C Marketers Establish authority first with information and engagement. Don’t just sell – grab market share by giving (content, discounts). Deploy multiple accounts for unique products & demographics. Track everything obsessively:

Use, but don’t abuse, #hashtags. Drive users to many places, not just the same order page.

o Follower to follow ratioo Tweet to retweet ratio

o Speed of follower growtho Test offers by time, etc.

Philips – Activating a Social CommunityPhilips Relationship Care sought to differentiate its line of intimate massage products as high-end and designed for couples, not individuals.

Created and grew Twitter accounts targeting UK and German markets to 2,000+ relevant followers in two-month period, resulting in reviews, recommendations, excellent SEO and direct sales.

Concurrently seeded Amazon recommendation lists, generated enthusiast reviews and brought multimedia assets to larger relevant audience. Results included $100,000 in product publicity.

Blogger Outreach + Social NetworksCase Study

The Fourth Pillar: Multimedia Engagement Universal search changes the Google game. YouTube: 15 billion videos served per month. Flickr: 4 billion photos, 50 million members, 200 mm visits. Podcasts: Wizzard alone has 1.4 billion downloads a year. Vodcasts are becoming the new blog networks. Don’t just repurpose content; rethink it for a new medium. Integrate calls to action directly into multimedia.

Case Study: ‘Yes We Can’ Create a Viral Sensation•Recorded January 30-31, 2008•Released February 1-2•1 million views in 72 hours •47 million views within three weeks•Tiered outreach to bloggers and NO traditional media outreach created a media frenzy•Six articles in New York Times•CNN/Larry King•CNBC, Inside Edition, E, ET•Today Show•This Week with George Stephanopoulos•Campaign won Emmy, Global Media Award, Cannes Golden Lion and Webby awards.

Case Study Viral Video

Multimedia Engagement

Case Study: David Lynch – Blogger Outreach Creating Direct SalesThe David Lynch Foundation wanted to engage fans of music and meditation, plus education thought leaders, for their new site launch and live concert. As well as sell $6 million of tickets. The results speak for themselves:

• More than 1,200 traditional news stories.• More than 5,000 blogger stories, many of which led to online ticket sales.• 250,000 views on live stream from pre-show online media conference• 1.2 MILLION hits, a massive growth in Google results• Twitter grew from 100 to more than 20,000 followers in one month

Our

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Founded by entrepreneur and innovator Michael Terpin, founder of Terpin Communications and Marketwire, the third largest press newswire service in the world.

SocialRadius employs web and communications veterans with a wide range of backgrounds, including social media marketing and public relations experts in technology, business, entertainment and consumer products.

Wh

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Social Media Marketing

Innovative Social Campaigns- Blogger Outreach- Twitter / Social Networks- Community Building- Loyalty Programs- Social Brand Engagement

Traditional Public Relations

Leader in Emerging Tech PR- Strategic Communications- Extensive Media Relations- High-Level Strategy- Full Service Traditional PR- Analyst Relations

Traditional clients have included:

Michael Terpin, Founder and CEODirect: 702-513-3181

michael@socialradius.comTwitter: @michaelterpinwww.socialradius.com

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