Skirts’ TGIF…October 23, 2009

In the last three weeks I’ve been on the east coast, west coast and in the mountain states and the one common marketing media that everyone is talking about is Social Media and how to use it in our industry. Last week, I shared with you the top ten points from Google on social media for the industry. This week I thought I would share with you some general facts about social media and what other industries are doing with this medium.

1. Facebook Soars, MySpace Shrinks and Twitter Slows
New data from Hitwise highlights the dramatic reversal of fortunes in the social networking world. Facebook’s share of U.S. traffic to social sites has grown nearly fourfold in the last year, to 58.6% from 19.9% as of September. Heading in the opposite direction is MySpace, which has seen its share tumble to 30.3% from 66.8%, a 55% plunge.

2. Dunkin Donuts does Social Media
In January of this year they did a two day customer forum on FaceBook around their healthy menu since this is the time of year when everyone wants to be healthy. According to David Tryder, Manager Interactive & Relationship Marketing for Dunkin’ Donuts in an article on eMarketer ‘it was the perfect time to talk to customers about DDSMART—find out how they use it, what they think of it and get suggestions for how we can make it better.’ When they did this forum they had 370,000 brand fans on FaceBook, today they have 943,820. When Tryder was asked what did they learned from the two day event he said that it was that customers want to engage with a brand in a direct way. The “Aha” for Dunkin Donuts was that they could reach their customer base with a cost effective medium that was more than just an advertisement.

When I read this, I thought how could we apply this to our industry…I thought of several ideas – Have a customer forum on your company FaceBook page to discuss how you and your company can assist them in staying in their home rather doing a shortsale; or a discussion about the current market, how do buyers and sellers feel about real estate in your hometown.

3. Ford Motor Company- Fiesta Movement
The Fiesta Movement is Ford’s way to introduce their sporty, savvy new small car, the 2011 Fiesta to new customers. The company recruited 100 agents for seven months, who would take the cars on a test drive to company-sanctioned missions. These agents relate their experience through various social media sites. These sites include Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr.

In a press release on October 1st that is posted on http://www.ford.com. The social media driven agent’s postings have seen significant numbers on social media sites:

• More than 4.3 million YouTube views
• More than 540,000 Flickr views
• More than 3 million Twitter impressions

Through the accompanying nationwide test drive program, more than 162,000 customers have interacted with the Fiesta through walk-arounds and social interactions and 35,000 have taken a test drive. They are estimating that if the Fiesta was available now that they would have over 50,000 potential customers with 97% of them being brand new Ford customers. It will be fun to see if this new car will push Fords sales upwards, stay tuned.

Here’s my idea on how we can take Ford’s idea and use it for our industry. Ask a few of your sellers and buyers if they would mind sharing their buying or selling experience on a social media site. We all love those HGTV shows – watching buyers select a home. Why not make it local and social?

We will continue to share with you how other industries are using today’s new mediums to increase their brand awareness, market share and client retention so that you can develop programs for your company and your own business. Please share with us what you are doing to interact with your clients and prospects on social media sites.

Let’s Connect Soon,

Charlie

Tagged as: social media