Mr. Samsung learns to fish where the fish are

Every now and then, a company will create a plan of attack for social media that manages to actually address the strengths of that medium. Mr. Samsung has learned to fish where the fish are!

Let me fill in some backstory: Samsung and CNET have partnered up to provide assistance and troubleshooting for anyone on the CNET forums who have questions about Samsung’s high def products. They’ve introduced Mr. Samsung, an employee who had been at the forums in an unofficial capacity for about a year before going public, as the official resource for support and comments.

Most companies participating in a market space like Samsung like to pride themselves on their support, often providing 24 hour assitance. But Mr. Samsung takes his services to the venues his customers are already accustomed to hanging out in. This is a key differentiator, and is part of the ‘fish where the fish are’ strategy.

In addition to CNET, Samsung have also been moving forward with other social media strategies; incorporating Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo accessibility into their mobile devices, and developing promotions that incorporate Social Networking in their directives.

It’s becoming increasingly evident that successful marketing campaigns are no longer geared at driving traffic to the brand site, but must live almost entirely as platform agnostic entities. Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, YouTube, CNET et al, are not only the new media entities, but also the new town squares. Samsung have been quick to realize (and capitalize off) this.

"Using" Social Tools. They Dont Give You Something To Say.

Yep, that's right. You still have to think of good ideas.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube provide distribution and the technology to link to people. It does not provide a brand with the magical idea.

Tips:

Study The Community
You are going to play in "their" territory. So spend more time thinking about whether you are "on value to them" and less about whether you are "on brand". Always be wary of people who say "on brand" all the time. They would rather something be boring and safe and rely on expensive repetitive advertising media to get a point across.

Constantly Ask Yourself This
"Will people reeeaally do this?" Ideas can sound good in a boardroom but remember that you need people to actively pass this idea on or adopt it in someway. Pass on and adoption are just not in the future of safe, easy and lazy ideas.

People Dont Really Care About Brands
There is a lot more interesting stuff going in people's lives than your product. Sure, they may use it. But they do not live for it. So just keep a check on reality when you say "People would love to pass around our commercial."

The takeaway ? You cannot fake this. You have to spend time in these communities. You actually have to be a funny or entertaining person or work with an agency or people who are.

Blogs About Blogs

In the music industry, when you take someone else’s song, and make it your own, it’s called a remix. In the movie industry, when you take an old film and create a new version of it, it’s called a remake. In the literary world, when you use someone else’s words in your own publication, it’s called plagiarism. However, on the internet, it’s called reblogging!

There’s an interesting economy in cyberspace, where the common currency is measured in page views. So usually any time a user is exposed to your content, regardless of the source, is looked at as a favorable thing. However, if we follow this same economy analogy whereby currency = page views, then credit = links back to the original source. Where reblogging varies from the more traditional plagiarism is the ability to give credit where credit is due.

In its more base form, reblogging is a great way to take what someone else has written, slap on a paragraph of ‘analysis’ about whether you agree or disagree with it, throw in a link back to the source, and call it your own. However, reblogging can also be a great tool for social analysis, pointing out inconsistencies in reporting, or journalistic bias. A web savvy group of friends can reblog each others’ entries about an event or experience they all shared, each giving his or her own perspective. Writers can garner a greater exposure of their work when other web sites reblog their content. In fact, we encourage it! So feel free to reblog this entry about reblogging. (But don’t forget to credit me.)

Twitter me this...

Micro-blogging seems like the perfect compromise for a society with ever dwindling attention spans. Take a limited text count, say 140 letters, and try to fit as much information as possible while still retaining a semblance of context and voice. The finished product reads like a mixture between a LiveJournal entry and a Facebook status update. A soundbite of your life, if you will.

Ever increasingly, brands are starting to take advantage of this medium. Comcast made news when they introduced Comcast Cares, and shortly after grew it to become one of the top subscribed to Twitters ever created. Comcast has dedicated one of their customer service representatives to handle this form of support as a full time job. Tools like search.twitter.com allow for a quick reference to people who have Twittered about disputes with their cable or internet, allowing Comcast Cares to offer online assistance. They’re really quite efficient at addressing customer disputes!

Here at Reindeer, we’ve started a twitter for SoBe Life Water with the goal of transparency in mind. Our updates come from the point of view of the brand, and have been giving an inside look at what’s going on here at Reindeer, and with the campaign. SoBe is lucky to have a huge faction of superfans, and they’ve become a key part in the success of the campaign. So for us, Twitter is an indispensable tool in our Social Media arsenal. It allows us to produce a soundbite update, and communicate with users about thoughts and suggestions they have as well. This kind of interaction is a key part of the Reindeer plan, and what sets winning brands apart from the rest. Of course, like Comcast Cares, a successful Twitter requires constant attention and optimization in order to produce the best results. However, when brands allocate the resources needed to make it happen, the return on investment can be monumental. This makes Twitter a great way to reach that elusive demographic with an ever dwindling attention span.