I am taking a class on Social Media Marketing at BCIT. We had a question posed to the class this week regarding whether or not we felt that blogging should be important to companies. In my opinion, the answer is YES! Why not separate yourself form the competition?
Although blogging can take a lot of time, I feel it is a valuable tool for any industry and something they should partake in.
1. Blogs give you some insight to what a brand is really about and what it stands for.
Myself as a consumer, I am more apt to purchase something from a company that I know about and aligns with my interests in values. For example, I am a fan of Lululemon. Not only because I like their products, but because they give me information on things that are of interest to me on their blog.
2. Relational Marketing
Blogs are an easy way to communicate with your target audience. I don't want to be blasted with advertisements constantly. However, post an article that interests me and ask my opinion? I'd be flattered and more than happy to offer my two cents.
3. Blogs are cheap
By cheap, I mean inexpensive. The only large cost associated with blogs is the time it takes to create insightful content and respond to those who hopefully engage with you. Companies spend thousands of dollars pushing a single advertisement out hoping to get a single message across. Why not get your message across constantly? Makes sense to me!
4. Blogs are great for SEO
Blogs are great for giving companies an increased presence on search engine rankings and driving traffic to company websites.
Do you read company blogs that are of interest to you? Any in the fitness and health industry that you could recommend? I would love to hear from you.
I have been a member of Steve Nash Fitness clubs for a number of years (formerly Fitness World). I tend to use the gym when the weather is poor, which I suppose, is right about now.
There seems to be a lot of competition in the fitness club industry in Vancouver and surrounding area. We have seen a lot of new facilities popping up all over the place, some offering very competitive prices. So, I decided to see were my gym fit in among the masses. What are people saying about Steve Nash Fitness?
To figure this out, I took to social media. There are a number of social media tracking tools available to not only see what Steve Nash Fitness Clubs are saying to us, but what and how we feel about them.
I started off using Addict-o-matic which is a free search tool that combines your search over a whole plethora of social media platforms, such as blogs, Twitter, YouTube, etc.
Addict-o-matic gave me some good insight as where to start and where their social media presence was. Being that Steve Nash is a prominent athlete, I did end up receiving a bunch of results that were not really relevant to my search on the fitness facilities.
I really liked the layout of this app as everything was very clear to read and easy to navigate through.
Next, I moved on to Social Mention. This site is pretty cool. This site not only gathers information on your search on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, but also picks up content from blogs. Social Mention also shows you stats of keywords, platforms and the top hashtags used. It also attempts to rate sentiment. Once again, because of the chatter of Steve Nash, the athlete, a lot of the results were irrelevant but it was not difficult to filter out.
I went on to explore Boardreader to see what people were saying about the gyms in Vancouver to see where my gym ranked. This is neat tool for anyone looking for any specific threads on discussion boards. You just plug in your keywords and it pulls all of the results for you.
At the end of the day, here is a sample of what people had to say regarding Steve Nash Fitness.
I looked at what people were saying to try to get a feel for how my gym was doing in the big scheme of things. For each comment, I used a ranking system. (-1 for negative, 0 for neutral, +1 for positive.
I do tend to believe that people tend to complain more than they do boast on social media so I take everything with a grain of salt. For this exercise, however, I am looking to see what problems people are having with my gym and what Steve Nash is willing to do about it. For the most part, the company did respond to all complaints.
Here is a summary and you can find the comments/conversations below.
What do you think about Steve Nash Fitness Clubs? Do you belong to a gym that you would recommend? If so, why? I would love to hear from you!
On September 12, 2013, Noble Biomaterials Inc. announced a global strategic alliance with Lululemon Athletica Canada Inc. The partnership gives Lululemon exclusive use of Noble's X-STATIC antimicrobial technology into their sought after performance wear.
Noble's X-STATIC is made with almost one hundred percent metallic silver and is woven directly into the garment providing permanent odour protection. It is said that it will not come out, even after having being washed. It is the same material that has been integrated into Lululemon's Silverescent fabric for a number of years. More information on the "Anti Stink" ingredient can be found on the x-static site.
This exclusive partnership will help Lululemon in keeping the competitive advantage when it comes to 'Anti Stink' workout gear.
Quotes:
"lululemon has worked with Noble for nearly a decade to differentiate our products and we welcome the opportunity to solidify this partnership" said Christine Day, CEO of lululemon.
I am currently taking a class on Social Media Marketing and the importance of transparency came up. Why is it important for an organization to be transparent in social media?
Transparency is about building trust and showing your agenda to the people in which you are communicating with.
As a consumer, this really got me thinking. How do I know who is being transparent and who is hiding something from me?
I was interested in trying out the Insanity workout DVD's that you have probably seen on late night infomercials. Do you know the ones I'm talking about? They come on when you're sitting on the couch in the dark, halfway through a bag of chips... or is that just me?
The price of these DVD's are expensive as far as I'm concerned and I wanted to do some research to weigh the pros and cons to see if this workout was for me. As I read numerous blogs and reviews, I became further confused. Half of the positive reviews came from people designating themselves as a "Team Beachbody Coach" and to order directly off their site.
As I dug into it, Team Beachbody offers a program, in which you become a coach and share the Team Beachbody story, in return they will offer that coach discounts and incentives.
Were their reviews of the Insanity workout honest? Or just manufactured so that I would like what I read and buy from them?
In my opinion, if I have uncertainty, then this person or company is not being transparent enough. If they had told me "Hey, I believe in this product, it changed my life and if you would be so kind to order from me I get 25% off my next DVD bundle.." Sure, I would order from them. No harm in helping someone else out. This wasn't the case in my online search. So, I ordered directly from the site.
We, as consumers do not want to feel like we are being lied to or used in any way, and why should we have to?
Many companies get themselves into trouble by not being transparent enough. Do you remember what happened with Lululemon and their sheer luon pants? They announced that they were recalling certain styles of their black luon pants because they were too sheer. They initially encouraged consumers who may have purchased these pants to come into their stores and bend over in front of an associate to determine if the pants were in fact, too transparent.
I have more pairs of Lululemon pants than my credit card bill and I would like to admit, so this announcement definitely made me nervous. Why would they not tell me what style was affected? I went home that day, tried each pair on and bent over in front of a mirror just to make sure. Thanks Lulu, for wasting my time.
The recall landed them in some hot water with a lot of consumers. Not necessarily because it happened, but how it was handled.
I came upon an interesting blog from Sprout Content that gets a little deeper into the story:
Bottom line is that if Lululemon were more transparent and forthcoming about what was going on, they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble. Tell us the styles that were affected, apologize and offer us a quick and convenient way of reimbursement, that's all we were asking for! We probably would have given them kudos for being upfront about it.
I suppose, they could've gone the other way and have been too transparent. However, I don't think that the following tactics would have helped their brand image:
Dear Consumer,
It seems as though we may have let a few batches of our popular luon pants get through to retail without proper quality assurance. We are now panicking as we are nearing our quarter end and will not be able to hit our targets that we proposed to our shareholders. In an effort to minimize our profit loss, we ask that we please review each pair of pants to see if there is anything salvageable. We thank you for your patronage and oh yeah, do one thing a day that scares you.
It looks as though that there is a very fine line when it comes to transparency in businesses and social media. I think that every company should take a look inside themselves and know where that line is and what is ultimately best for their company and their reputation.
In the end, I think they recovered nicely. They ended up owning up to their mistake and made changes in their company that were necessary to hopefully correct the situation moving forward.
I did have a pair of Wunder Unders that were under recall. I returned them to the store and Lululemon was great, they issued me a gift card immediately, with no questions asked. I am still a fan of Lululemon and I hope that they learned a valuable lesson from all of this.
What are your thoughts on how this was handled? Did your opinion of them change? Do you feel that it is important that companies are transparent in their social media marketing strategies?
Let me know your thoughts! Click on the post title and leave your comments below.
