Brand Obama facing stiff competition online
09/03/09 08:14 AM Filed in: Marketing
messages
The Internet success of brand Obama has been well documented in the news media so as a response the competition, in this case Republicans and the Right, have allocated a lot of resources to online marketing. Some are saying that the Republicans now create more noise on Twitter than Democrats. It's marketing 101 strategy and a great response to attack a market leaders weakness.
So when a market leader is using a channel to outflank you should you create more noise to drown out his message? That really depends on where your audience is online and how effectively you can reach them but mobilizing others to create noise is a great strategy and that's exactly what the Republicans have done, especially when it comes to healthcare.
Social media does create a lot of opportunities for brands but brands who don't monitor the "noise" on social media can quickly find themselves overwhelmed with the power of the individual. Just type in the keyword "vonage sucks" and look at all the hits you get from people who had a terrible brand experience with Vonage. When the negative reaches this level and you don't address the influential people than at some point in time the dollars you're spending are returning a negative ROI.
Please don't tell me that social media "costs nothing to implement" because that is bullshit. You need to sit down and think through a strategy, determine who and how you're going to implement and then ensure that you have support for social media in Internet time not on your schedule with a meeting of others. There are some great companies out there that can monitor the "buzz" of social media including my favorite Scout Labs but once you monitor you need to quantify the results and respond to competitive threats to your brand.
Once you decide on a strategy, whether it's social media or other marketing programs, you need to do some competitive gaming to stay ahead of your competition. Launching a social media program and than saying "we're done" is not what it's all about..it's launching and then saying "now what can we do to take it to next level" !
