The good social companies are the ones that listen, engage and provide value to their customers and target markets. The worst are the ones that spam, DM, out-in, and do everything they can to get your attention in the most annoying ways possible.
The perfect companies are the ones that, in addition to being “good,”
1) Spot unordinary opportunities in the relationships between customers and organizations
2) Capitalize
3) Follow through
Below is an example from lowcostholidays.com, showing how they capitalized on an opportunity in a big way. A man by the name of Thomas Cook jokingly asked the Thomas Cook travel agency for a free trip to Paris as compensation for sharing his name. The agency respectfully declined, which would seem like the normal thing to do. However, that’s when lowcostholidays.com stepped in and offered the trip for free to Mr. Cook. Talk about social media done right.
Lowcostholidays.com’s ingenious move was possible because they were actively monitoring their market, analyzing the situation and able to bet on a risky proposition. Though their gift to Thomas Cook cost several thousand dollars, the returns include over 50,000 impressions on Reddit, Imgur, Facebook and Twitter in less than 4 hours. Not only are they the hero, but they created a double-win scenario because they also painted their competitor Thomas Cook (the company) as the “bad guy.” Needless to say, they are very deserving of the benefits from such a well placed bet.
Some people just don’t understand the power of social media marketing, but they certainly do. Kudos to social media done right.
Ask yourself what you can do to make someone fall in love with your company today. It doesn’t have to be a free trip to Paris, but get creative and call out to the Thomas Cook’s in your industry and make a customer for life. Who knows- they many even tell a few friends.
Original Post at www.MrRyanConnors.com
This is very funny and amusing! It’s not that hard to believe, though, because there really is no limits to the different ways you can push your own brand over another brand. This is definitely a win for low cost holidays, barring any legal matters that I really have no idea about. Here is another article on proper use of social media. http://www.sbtelegram.com/2012/09/14/new-age-marketing-getting-a-handle-on-social-media/