When Social Media Promotions Go Awry

One of the hardest lessons that marketers and retailers can learn in social media is when a promotion goes awry. You launch with the best of intentions–certain that a coupon or a discount will get you a whole bunch of fans–but somewhere along the line, something goes wrong. And it doesn’t take long for your new fans to become not-so-friendly.

Walgreens last week offered a free 5×7 photobook to anyone who becomes a Facebook fan by Oct. 2. As of today, Walgreens has over 200,000 fans. But when it told its new fans in an update on its Facebook wall that the free photobook actually will come with a $1.99 shipping and handling fee, the fans were not amused. They didn’t hesitate to voice their complaints on Walgreens’ Facebook page.

Sara Lee Deli, meanwhile, has been offering its new Facebook fans a $3-off coupon. But scores of them have had problems receiving the e-mail coupon, or printing it, and again, they have not been shy about expressing their frustration on Sara Lee’s Facebook page.

A similar thing happened to Starbucks a few months ago, when the company promoted its new line of pastries with a coupon offer on Facebook and other social outlets. Some stores ran out of pastries, and some consumers didn’t realize they needed to bring the coupon with them. They vented their frustrations on Facebook, Twitter and Starbucks’ own social media site.

The lesson to be learned here is that marketers and retailers must make sure a social media promotion is completely synced, both online and offline. It doesn’t take much for things to go awry. And if things do start going south, it is critical to respond positively–and quickly–and turn the negative energy back into goodwill.

Social Media Podcast with Smallbiz America

I was interviewed recently by David Wolf of Smallbiz America about social media marketing. In the interview I answer these questions:

1. You’ve been in this space since 1993—-has anything totally surprised you in terms of the ways internet advertising and marketing has unfolded?
2. At eMarketer—-you’ve got a birds-eye view of how the world of social media is changing the landscape of marketing. What does social media do that traditional media simply cannot do?
3. The issue of brand control has certainly been a concern for many companies as they make their entrance into social media. How are you seeing companies manage their brands in a world that’s all about letting go of control, and harvesting authenticity from the consumer?
4. How do you see strategic possibilities evolving for companies that want to participate in social networks as advertisers—-how are they looking to approach the challenge?
5. Do you think it’s more effective for companies to create their own social networking platforms—-or is it a better idea to leverage the existing platforms that have huge traction?
6. How is search marketing evolving—-and what can we look forward to in terms of changes there?

Good news: Social Media Spending Up. Bad News: (Read on)

Forrester Research finds in a December 2008 survey that 53% of marketers who are already using social media marketing will increase their spending on social media marketing in the next six months. Only 5% expect to decrease their budget. Good news, right?

Sort of. As report author Jeremiah Owyang points out in his blog, “this doesn’t mean that budgets are expanding immensely, since this is a ‘new’ media, these are small budgets. How small? I say minuscule. Three-quarters of marketers have $100,000 of less budgeted for social media marketing.”

Do the math: Forrester surveyed 145 marketers, 114 of whom were already using social media marketing (that’s an impressive 78% of marketers surveyed, by the way). But of those 114, 75%, or 85.5 marketers, are spending at most $100,000–or less than the price of a single prime-time 30-second spot in Q4 2008, according to data from Targetcast cited in The New York Times. Going price for that 30 seconds? $122,000.

Of course, 25% of Forrester’s respondents are spending more than $100,000 on social media marketing. But who knows how much more? $101,000? $500,000? $1 million?

Last week I spoke at the Seattle Direct Marketing Association’s annual conference. I sat in on the social media marketing session, which was so full that extra chairs had to be brought in. But one comment from a panelist stuck with me. He advised attendees to go out and prove their case for social media marketing by doing as much as they can for free. Then once they get results, he said they should go to their bosses and ask for budget to do more.

I wonder: How many bosses will look at what was accomplished for free and say “That’s good enough for me; why spend money?”

Addendum (3.18.09): ReadWriteWeb has additional details from the Forrester report. According to one chart, 49% of marketers surveyed had budgeted $30,000 or less for soft costs such as services, strategy and support, and 40% had budgeted the same range for actual social media tools. The survey group for this data consisted of 83 respondents who worked for companies with 250+ employees, and knew the details of their social media budgets.