What follows is a modified article on a report about best practices for brands using social networking sites. From the advice to marketers however, one could be forgiven for thinking the advice was for using television. It’s got the classic, mass media oriented, “we talk, you listen” voice of commercial brand marketing.
It’s probably not a huge insight to suggest that most all internet media has more in common with the telephone than with the mass media of TV, radio, and print. The mass media broadcast one-to-many messages. The phone and internet media tend to be more conversational. Casual. Personal. Chatty. Intimate. Like social networking sites!
So I thought: what if we treat social networking sites more like the telephone? How would the article read if they were talking about telephone marketing? Good marketing advice for using phones should be good advice for social networking sites, and bad marketing advice for phones would probably bad marketing advice for social networking sites.
So I did a find-and-replace on the article, and changed instances of “social networking pages” to “telephone numbers.” Let’s see how it pans out.
Brands wasting capabilities of telephone networks
LONDON - Online marketers are not using telephones properly to promote their brands, according to a report from JupiterResearch.
The report, ‘Branded Telephone Numbers: Best Practices for Successfully Engaging Users’, found that half of advertiser-branded telephone numbers in Europe have fewer than 1,000 callers.
The average branded telephone number, on networks such as O2 or Virgin, has only 6,494 callers.
Despite telephone marketing’s potential to engage users, many advertisers create branded telephone numbers that broadcast content rather than invite users to interact, according to the report.
Most advertisers are reportedly using their telephone numbers as they would typical online marketing microsites, rather than using the capabilities of the platform to increase consumer engagement.
However, JupiterResearch claims to have found a number of tactics that brands can use to make their telephone marketing more effective.
The research firm suggests that marketers should promote their telephone numbers with paid ads rather than rely on viral marketing to get the message out.
Advertisers are also advised to engage users who dial their brand’s number, with activities such as contests. Jupiter found that contests, on average, doubled the number of friends calling each branded number.
Nate Elliott, research director at JupiterResearch and lead author of the report, said: “Most advertisers simply don’t know how to market properly with telephone numbers.
“Too many marketers create dull, non-interactive telephone numbers and wait for a viral marketing effect to make users dial their number.
“But our research clearly shows that ongoing promotion and advertising, as well as the use of even relatively simple forms of engagement, are vital to the success of branded telephone number.”
Jupiter also found that marketers must appeal to phone users love of multimedia to get noticed. Telephone users are twice as likely to dial a branded phone number focused on media content than a branded number focused on products, according to the report.
David Schatsky, president of JupiterResearch, said: “As online advertisers make increasingly large investments in telephone marketing and mobile phones, it’s vital that they get the most for their money.
“By following the examples of what’s worked for other marketers and listening to what consumers want — such as original and entertaining multimedia content — advertisers can greatly improve the effectiveness of their telephone marketing efforts.”
Brands such as Marmite and Nike are performing well on O2. Marmite has rustled up 92,054 fans since it launched a branded number on the network in February.
The group invites members to make suggestions on how Marmite “can be made even better” and start their own discussions around the brand.
Nike has 60,472 fans at the time of writing, while Nestle Rowntree’s Smarties branded Virgin number has attracted just 517 fans since launching in March this year.
Dior, which lists various products on its branded Virgin number has just 895 fans.
What do you think? Good advice?
I’ve been really impressed with Avaaz’s use of video in recent campaigns. Hopefully with this post I can give you a good sense of how they are using it, and also encourage you to add your voice to one urgent campaign. 
