Social Success Stories

Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

JULY 2012 1

Social Success Stories

Introduction Best Social Engagement in Retail Leading Retail Facebook Brand: Converse Leading Retail Twitter Brand: Whole Foods Key Takeaways/Best Practices for Retail Best Social Engagement in Sports Leading Sports Facebook Brand: NBA Leading Sports Twitter Brand: ESPN Key Takeaways/Best Practices for Sports Best Social Engagement in Services Leading Services Facebook Brand: Farmers

Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

3 4 5 7 9 10 11 13 15 16 17 19 21 22 22 23

Leading Services Twitter Brand: American Express Key Takeaways/Best Practices for Services Conclusion Additional Resources About Awareness Inc.

Social Success Stories

INTRODUCTION

Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

When it comes to social marketing, some brands seem to have an innate knack for doing it right. Dont be fooled; this success did not happen overnight. As the social landscape evolves, the best brands dedicate time and resources to their social presence. And we know theres always something to learn from the best. To help you optimize your social experience, Awareness Inc. analyzed the top social brands in retail, services and sports to identify and share their best-in-class strategies for success. We reviewed their social presence and analyzed the content strategies used by social marketing leaders such as Converse, Whole Foods, NBA, ESPN, Farmers Insurance, and American Express, on the two most popular social networks, Facebook and Twitter. We left no strategy unturned and we share the answers to the following questions: What do these successful brands post? How often? What kind of imagery supports their brand? What content makes their audience tune in and take action? Based on this analysis, we have distilled our findings into actionable best practices that every brand and marketer can follow to improve their companys social efforts. After reading this paper, marketers will be equipped with a new arsenal of best practices to help them achieve and sustain meaningful relationships with their audience. BACKGROUND To crack the code to the leading brands social media success, Awareness consulted the rankings of the most popular brands on The Fan Page List, dubbed as the social media directory of official accounts of your favorite brands, celebrities, movies, TV shows and sports teams. We focused on three industry sectors - retail, services and sports - and reviewed the top ten brands in each of those categories on Facebook and Twitter, using the size of their fan base as a starting point. We then dove into some of top leaders engagement metrics and strategies. For the retail sector we focused on Converse and Whole Foods, for sports NBA and ESPN, and for services Farmers Insurance and American Express. When analyzing the engagement for each of the leaders in our three categories, we used two types of metrics: Facebook Engagement Ratio:
# of people talking about a brand Total # fans of that brand

This is a point in time metric, as the number of people talking about a brand frequently fluctuates. Twitter Engagement Ratio:
Total # of Tweets Total # followers of that brand

Our analysis for each industry sector starts with a top 10 chart of the most popular brands, with their total number of fans at the time of this reports publication, and their engagement ratio for Facebook and Twitter. We then dig deeper into the marketing practices of specific market leaders by category to showcase how they use their social profiles, what content they post, and how well they integrate their social and digital presences.

Social Success Stories

Best Social Engagement in Retail

Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

In this section, we examine the top 10 retail brands on Facebook and Twitter. The Facebook leaders in this category are Converse, the brand with the most Facebook followers in our set, and our choice for a deep engagement dive, followed by Victorias Secret, Walmart, Zara, Target, Burberry, Levis, H&M, Lacoste and Nike. The retail leaders on Twitter are Whole Foods, the brand with the most Twitter followers and our choice for a deep engagement dive, followed by Zappos, Etsy, Toms Shoes, Cake Wrecks, H&M, Burberry, Victorias Secret, Marc Jacobs and Forever 21. How do the winners achieve success? The best performing retail brands carefully balance promotional posts with more neutral content whether that is video, pictures or contests. Successful brands also look for opportunities to include their communities by showcasing user photos, running polls, and having fill-in-the-blank style submissions.

Top Ten Retail Brands on Facebook and Twitter

Brand Converse Walmart Zara Target Levis H&M Nike Fans 30,996,009 18,741,656 16,431,023 13,562,553 13,392,590 12,914,216 12,215,819 11,208,321 9,781,674 9,322,892 Fans Talking About Brand 257,582 178,777 480,031 110,092 316,798 60,220 120,599 109,820 70,237 93,563 Engagement Ratio 0.83% 0.95% 2.92% 0.81% 2.36% 0.47% 0.99% 0.98% 0.72% 1.00% Brand Followers Total Posts 32,838 2,272 15,868 4,577 4,897 1,980 3,185 8,878 5,827 Followers Per Post 81.47 1052.10 103.38 269.40 248.54 525.61 277.40 71.93 97.96

Victorias Secret

Whole Foods Zappos Etsy

2,675,347 2,390,382 1,640,477 1,622,849 1,233,044 1,217,143 1,040,725 638,632 570,792

Toms Shoes H&M

Burberry

Cake Wrecks Burberry

233,021 6.96

Lacoste

Victorias Secret 883,532 Marc Jacobs Forever 21

Source: Data from The Fan Page List, as of June 19th, 2012.

Social Success Stories

Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

Leading Retail Facebook Brand: Converse
Converse is known as the Biggest Little Sneaker Brand on Facebook. Despite not being the biggest shoe brand, they dominate the sneaker category. How do they do it? Glad you asked

PROFILE ELEMENTS

Profile/Cover Photo Converse uses their signature shoe as their profile picture. It stands out against a vibrant cover image showcasing artistic photos of Converse shoes in action. Page visitors can quickly determine Converses brand personality: fun, classic and well-loved. Tabs: With the introduction of timeline, brands may now only show four tabs directly on their home page. For all others, visitors must click on a drop-down menu. Converse shows Photos, Likes, Events, and Videos on their homepage. Their extended tabs include a live video stream, Notes, and a Beirut Block Party. Converses Block Party hooks fans up with music downloads. Frequency: Post one to three times per day.

CONTENT

Top Sites: Promoted Converse.com, YouTube, Promotional Partners when running co-branded campaigns. Social Content Approach Converse uses content wisely, with a special focus on photography. Converse has over 50 photo albums. They have an iconic and easily recognizable product. They use photos to showcase new and old styles, special collections, and to share sneak peeks of upcoming product lines. For example, this photo of the Converse Americana Collection has over 11,230 Likes and comments. Sharing the brands history also increases fan engagement. A photo posted of the 1934 Chuck Taylor All Star generated over 35,000 interactions.

Social Success Stories

Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

Leading Retail Facebook Brand: Converse (cont.)
Music is a natural complement to Converse. Converse has a lengthy history with independent musical artists. In fact, Converse opened a music studio in New York, which offers free studio time to musicians. So its no surprise then that they frequently offer exclusive downloads of songs, having previously supported bands like the Gorillaz and Beirut. Contes:ts: Converse uses contests to keep levels of fan engagement high. One campaign, Show Me Yours: All Natural generated over 20,000 social interactions with fans. Converse regularly posts short challenges, encouraging fans to snap and send a shot of their shoes. Converse has featured Show Me Yours: Blue in support of World Autism Day, Show Me Yours in Your Neighborhood and Show Me Yours: Dirty. Converse then posts the best user-submitted photos in an album. Webs:ite Integration While there is limited promotion of social channels on the Converse website, they do embed sharing on each individual product page. Converse connects with Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Blogspot and Tumblr. Converse represents more than a product, rather a lifestyle, which includes supporting musical artists and activities such as skateboarding and creative design. Converse shoes and apparel are portraying themselves as the unofficial uniform of this lifestyle.

How Social Leads: to Revenue

Social Success Stories

Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

Leading Retail Twitter Brand: Whole Foods
Whole Foods is known for being an early trailblazer on social media. Their goal is to interact with their customers on their customers turf.

PROFILE ELEMENTS CONTENT

Followers: 2,675,216 Following 558,636 consisting of fans of Whole Foods, chefs, and likeminded companies. Background The Whole Foods background is a soothing solid green, with a bit of information to help a user find their local Whole Foods store on Twitter. Frequency: Whole Foods posts between 10-20 original tweets per day, not including customer replies. Ratio of Pos:ts: to Replies: Whole Foods is incredibly active in conversations with fans and store visitors. For example, they frequently respond to customers who share their lunch orders. The daily ratio of replies to posts is roughly 50:15. Frequently: dis:cus:s:ed topics: include Recipes. Whole Foods posts recipes and cooking ideas on their website and blog. Current events. Whole Foods shares special events and informs their users when various organizations are being recognized (i.e. 3rd Annual Hemp History Week). Contes:ts: Whole Foods occasionally offers contests, like $250 gift certificates for the best berry recipe or a $50 gift card randomly awarded for a retweet. Dis:cus:s:ions: Whole Foods frequently comments on the purchases of Whole Foods visitors. Whole Foods always takes a friendly and helpful approach, creating genuine engagement with their users.

Social Success Stories

Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

Leading Retail Twitter Brand: Whole Foods (cont.)
Cus:tomer s:ervice Whole Foods practices excellent customer service on Twitter, always interacting with their customers fixing compliants, chatting about food and just generally acting as a friend. Frequently: us:ed has:htags: Whole Foods commits to a hashtag for the duration of a contest or promotion. For most of June, they used #WFMfish nearly exclusively for their Fishmonger Face-Off competition, and #WFMdish for fish recipes. The Fishmonger FaceOff will highlight its fishmongers who work daily to help educate shoppers about responsibly-caught seafood choices and cooking tips. Before that, they used #Foodiechats. Webs:ite Integration The website includes social links, but does not integrate a social feed. They also include a page dedicated to helping hungry and interested fans find all official accounts. Whole Foods syncs with Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to allow users to share recipes with their social networks. Whole Foods has chosen to focus on the ingredients that make food great. By doing this, they are associating their brand with those ingredients, so the next time their customer is in the mood for an heirloom tomato and basil salad, they will think of Whole Foods.

How Social Leads: to Revenue

Social Success Stories

Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

Key Takeaways/Best Practices for Retail Brands
1. Know Your Audience! We cannot stress this enough. As Converses chief marketing officer, Geoff Cottrill, says their success can be attributed to letting the fans lead and acting like a party guest. Listen to your followers; let them post on your wall. Study how your competitors interact with them. Capitalize on opportunities that align your brand with your customers other interests like Converse and music. Converse has seen success from being flexible and relevant and adding to the conversation where possible. 2. Offer Exclus:ive Content Your fans are important. Make that clear. Offer them
exclusive content, sneak peaks at new products, or, as Converse did, a free download of a new song. Give your fans a reason to pay attention to your News Feed. What can you offer them? How can you be helpful? Create albums and photo-sharing contests that motivate your users to showcase their usage of your product or service.

3. Tell a Story: with Photos: 4. Develop Continuity:

Although only one person posts for Whole Foods at a time, that person is not identified by name on the account. Rather, Whole Foods focuses on strengthening their brand, which keeps professionalism high and grants continuity in case a different person steps in. Any loyalty remains with Whole Foods and not the accounts author. The current author behind the Whole Foods voice, Michael Bepko, spends a third of his day on Twitter, but often checks it during off hours and weekends. Customers always have complaints or queries that need to be answered. Without a high level of commitment, the brand could face frustrated fans.

5. Its: not a 9-5

While the main Whole Foods Twitter account is ideal for answering general complaints, it may not help a local store visitor with a timely question. Many of the individual stores have their own Twitter accounts manned by store employees. This allows for more targeted interactions, as well as local promotions, and relationship-building with local stores.

6. Get Local

Social Success Stories

Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

Best Social Engagement in Sports
In this section, we examine the top 10 sports brands on Facebook and Twitter. The Facebook leaders in this category are the NBA with the most Facebook followers in this set, and our choice for a deep engagement dive. Nike, WWE, UFC, ESPN, PUMA, NFL, Fox Racing, Foot Locker and The North Face round out the top 10. On Twitter, the sports leaders are the NBA, ESPN our choice for a deep engagement dive NFL, MLB, WWE, NHL, FIFA, UFC, Sports Illustrated, and FIFA World Cup 2014. Sports companies tend to focus on their users top interests game stats, players and scores. With only two days a year without a sporting event, sports brands and organizations are generally flush with content. In this section, well share how the NBA uses their Facebook presence and how ESPN approaches Twitter.

Top Ten Sports Brands on Facebook and Twitter

Brand NBA Nike UFC WWE ESPN NFL Fans 13,430,916 9,322,892 9,218,074 8,738,461 7,526,675 7,441,829 5,626,332 3,428,525 3,036,974 2,470,290 Fans Talking About Brand 345,958 93,563 238,514 121,367 227,321 32,426 82,768 26,251 78,499 46,009 Engagement Ratio 2.58% 1.00% 2.59% 1.39% 3.02% 0.44% 1.47% 0.77% 2.58% 1.86% Brand NBA NFL Followers 5,294,694 4,315,609 3,448,186 2,146,286 1,251,727 1,231,530 820,510 649,256 370,212 Total Posts Followers Per Post

29,708 178.22 40,821 105.72 14,933 230.91 36,608 58.63 22,026 56.83 32,681 37.68 9,530 86.10 26,142 24.84 35,976 10.29 9,592 26.87

ESPN MLB NHL UFC

WWE FIFA Sports Illustrated

PUMA Fox Racing

Foot Locker

The North Face

FIFA World Cup 2014 257,754

Source: Data from The Fan Page List, as of June 19th, 2012.

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Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

Leading Sports Facebook Brand: NBA
The NBA, the organization with the most Facebook followers at the time of this papers publication, also has a highly engaged audience, not surprisingly, as our analysis coincided with the NBA Finals, one of the most active periods for the league.

PROFILE ELEMENTS CONTENT

Profile/Cover Photo The NBA puts a year-round focus on the NBA Finals. After Facebook introduced Timeline, the NBA featured a photo of the 2011 NBA Finals Trophy, held up by the hands of the victors. When the 2012 NBA Finals began, the cover was changed to a snapshot of Game Ones tip-off. Tabs: Of the four visible tabs, the NBA chooses to show: photos (to the tune of 364 albums), a Virtual Stadium, Shaker NBA Finals an app that keeps fans up-to-date with upcoming games and offers trivia, prizes and the chance to chat with other fans to get ready for the game, and their Social Media Awards a never-been-held-before celebration honoring 12 players for their social media adoption. For instance, the Best in Game (BIG) Award was given to the player who best utilizes social media across all platforms including Facebook and Twitter. The Laugh Out Loud (LOL) Award was awarded to the team or player with the most shared and Liked blooper from the regular season. Awards were announced on June 20th. The expanded tabs include the NBA shop, events, total Likes, FanCam, Twitter, and Spanish NBA. Frequency: 7-10 posts per day Top Sites: Promoted NBA.com, NBA Store, NBA.com News, YouTube, TwitVid, Partner sites (like Spalding), and charities with whom the NBA has a relationship, like the American Diabetes Association.

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Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

Leading Sports Facebook Brand: NBA (cont.)
Social Content Approach Updates: The NBA features a lot of game clips, stats and action shots and rightfully so. Fans can relive favorite moments, discuss their favorite games and dispute the outcomes. The post (shown) that announced the Oklahoma City Thunders advancement to the NBA Finals had over 15,000 Likes and comments. Polls: The NBA frequently solicits the opinion of its viewers. This poll (shown) in anticipation of the Eastern Conference winner totaled over 30,000 votes.

Giveaway:s:/Contes:ts: The NBA hosts regular contests in partnership with sponsors. A contest in early June awarded one fan a trip to the 2013 All-Star Game. In order to enter the contests, fans must share their contact information and opt-in to receive NBA-related emails. Webs:ite Integration The NBA is all about integrating social media activity in real time. Aside from the typical embedded Twitter feed, their website lists the Top Ten Trending Players with real-time analytics on total mentions across the social web per hour. LeBron James is number one with 2,015 mentions per hour and 1,629,734 total mentions at the time of this papers publication. In addition, a dedicated section of the NBA website, the Social Spotlight, brings fans real time tweets from leading sports analysts, columnists and bloggers. Additionally, on each player page, a visitor has the option to Like the page on Facebook. Their various blogs connect with Facebook, Twitter and Google+ with typical social sharing buttons. The NBA photo gallery connects with Twitter for social sharing. A more engaged social audience is more likely to watch NBA games. More viewers increase the NBAs leverage and allow them to command more money for broadcasting rights. Additionally, the NBA does have a Shop NBA Facebook tab for direct sales through social.

How Social Leads: to Revenue

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Social Success Stories

Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

Leading Sports Twitter Brand: ESPN
ESPNs Twitter and TV strategy arent terribly dissimilar. Their goal is to bring their followers all sports news all the time. As a sport-agnostic channel, users see updates on everything from pro-hockey games to the national spelling bee championship.

PROFILE ELEMENTS CONTENT

Followers: 4,352,450 Following 335 consisting of mainly ESPN employees, reporters and players. Background At publication, ESPNs background is an image of a NBA court, in support of the NBA Finals with their logo as the profile image. Frequency: Between 5-15 original Tweets per day, not including retweets. Ratio of Pos:ts: to Replies: ESPN does not respond to anyone. They do, however, retweet their fans. ESPN posts roughly 10-15 retweets per day. Frequently: dis:cus:s:ed topics: include Stats/Articles. ESPN posts news stories and game stats with regularity thats what their followers care most about. Photos: ESPN brings their Twitter channel to life by adding pictures to relevant tweets. Videos & Live Streams: ESPN shares videos of games and makes live streams available on their website. Live Tweeting: For big games, like Game 7 of the NBA Eastern Conference finals, ESPN live tweets to keep the excitement level high. Affiliated Content: ESPN regularly relies on affiliated ESPN-partners, be that ESPN reporters and niche ESPN-accounts to bolster their social stream.

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Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

Leading Sports Twitter Brand: ESPN (cont.)
Cus:tomer s:ervice ESPN does not support customer service activities on Twitter. Frequently: us:ed has:htags: ESPN integrates hashtags regularly. They frequently reference a team, player, sport or series by hashtags (#Euro2012, #LSU, #PacBradley, #boxing), which helps keep track of sports conversations. They also use inspirational hashtags like #ChampionsRISE to keep fans hyped. Advertis:ing ESPN uses Promoted Tweets as part of their marketing mix. ESPN and Twitter recently announced a partnership to take advantage of the volume of sports-related tweets. #GameFace during the NBA Finals is the first example of this partnership, which features tight TV integration. Fans tweet their best #GameFace to ESPN and theyll show of the best ones on TV (ESPN and partner channels like ABC). This partnership aims to make channel integration stronger and easier than ever before. Webs:ite Integration The homepage does not include Twitter integration; sub-properties like ESPN NFL and others do include on-page Twitter integration. ESPN, like many big brands, have several highly visible sub-properties, all with their own social accounts as well. On each article published, ESPN includes share socially buttons for Twitter and Facebook. They also have Facebook Social Sharing, a service that automatically posts to Facebook when you read an article. Similar to the NBA, an engaged ESPN audience is likely to turn to them for their sports news needs. Just as important is the distribution of their web articles via Twitter. This increases traffic to their website, and more visitors creates more ad revenue for their site.

How Social Leads: to Revenue

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Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

Key Takeaways/Best Practices for Sports Brands
Stay: Relevant Post timely updates to keep fans updated and give them a reason to check their news feed. 1. Be Cons:is:tent Fans in a crunch need to know whom they can depend on for up-to-date news, and other vital information. Offer them what they are looking for, and theyll keep coming back. 2.
Post easy-to-read snapshots of key events the NBA keeps their fans updated with final scores and highlights.

3. Relis:h Victories: 4. Incorporate Channel Integration

ESPN promotes its many Twitter profiles well on their website, but what they do even better is the combination of social media with traditional media. While playing a highlight from a basketball game of a great dunk, they had reactions from other athletes on Twitter showing on TV. Rather than keep their online presence separate from their TV presence, ESPN understands the benefit in integrating them, such as when they use Twitter as a news source or to boost the views on their stories. ESPN requires employees to use Twitter only in a business capacity for discussing sports. Curbing personal branding may seem counterintuitive for social media, but by branding all of writers as ESPN writers, they establish continuity, which is strengthened by fostering a professional social media approach. No bloopers here!

5. Create a Cons:is:tent Brand Identity:

Explore the advertising platforms on social channels to grow following, spread awareness and/or make a sale.

6. Cons:ider Advertis:ing

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Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

Best Social Engagement in Services
In our last section, well examine the top 10 services brands on Facebook and Twitter based on their following. In the services section, we chose the number two and number three brands for our deep analysis dive to spice it up a bit. The Facebook leaders in this category are American Express, Farmers Insurance our choice for a deep dive, DirecTV, Live Nation, Visa, Ticketmaster, UPS, Ancestry.com, 24 Hour Fitness, and Accenture rounding out the top 10. On Twitter, the leaders are CME Group, CBOE, American Express our deep dive choice, Tepco, Live Nation, Ticketmaster, Vanguard, Comcast Digital Care Center, DirecTV and Accenture. Brands in the services industry register much smaller followings than their counterparts in retail and sports. This is not a huge shock; there is less up-to-the-minute excitement occurring for some of the brands below. In this section, well share how the Farmers Insurance connects with their audience on Facebook and how American Express builds strong connections on Twitter.

Top 10 Services Brands on Facebook and Twitter

The services brands with the largest followings may have fewer than our other categories, but that hasnt impacted their engagement rates. By and large, they are consistent with the others.

Brand

Fans

Fans Talking About Brand 5,694 4,431 26,430 11,235 118,330 10,531 7,120 4,088 1,760 1,566

Engagement Ratio 0.23% 0.19% 2.07% 1.39% 13.52% 1.92% 1.93% 1.27% 0.77% 1.32%

Brand

Followers

Total Posts 19,396 6,153 13,809 2,805 8,949 9,891 4,808 52,446 21,636 4,176

Followers Per Post 38.91 118.75 34.10 91.32 20.76 7.41 12.85 1.10 2.55 11.58

American Express 2,464,693 Farmers Insurance 2,334,713 DirecTV Visa Live Nation Ticketmaster UPS Ancestry.com Accenture 1,279,217 809,691 875,106 547,165 368,804 322,572 227,982 118,429

CME Group CBOE

754,740 730,686 256,166 185,785 73,356 61,768 57,835 55,162 48,354

American Express 470,930 TEPCO Live Nation Vanguard

Ticketmaster Comcast Digital DirecTV Care Team

24 Hour Fitness

Accenture

Source: Data from The Fan Page List, as of June 19th, 2012.

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Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

Leading Services Facebook Brand: Farmers

PROFILE ELEMENTS CONTENT

Profile/Cover Photo At the time of this papers publication, Farmers used their cover photo to promote a marketing event, in which winners earn two free tickets to attend a Rascal Flatts concert and meet the band. However, the cover image does not clearly define how one enters the contests, the terms and conditions, or when winners will be announced. Tabs: Farmers displays their photos with 11 albums, the summer Rascal Flatts concert promotion, their products, and a weather alert on their main page. For the additional tabs, they have integrated YouTube and an insurance quote generator. Some older tabs, though visible, are no longer supported. Frequency: 1-3 posts per week. Top Sites: Promoted Farmers rarely promotes other sites. Social Content Approach Farmers connects with its audience through small gestures and big campaigns. Besides the Rascal Flatts summer concert giveaway, they previously ran a campaign in conjunction with the release of summer blockbuster The Avengers, in which users were encouraged to make their own Farmers Agent superhero costumes. One post that struck a chord with Farmers fans was spontaneous. The author of the account posted a photo from a community baseball field that speaks to parents. It starts Hes just a little boy and reminds parents to keep perspective. It spread like wildfire on Facebook, generating nearly 15,000 interactions, almost half of which were shares (and shares increase EdgeRank). Farmers seized the opportunity to capitalize on its popularity and created follow-up posts offering to buy up to 1,500 posters for interested fans. The four total posts amounted to 27,663 social interactions.

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Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

Leading Services Facebook Brand: Farmers (cont.)
Farmers also hosts Like Donations for charities. For instance, they gave $1,000 for every 100,000 views their mockumentary The Lost Love. By offering to donate $10 per fan to the March of Dimes, they increased their fan base by 2,500. One of Farmers most enduring qualities is their positivity and sense of humor. They are always driving Likes by poking fun at themselves through jingle remixes, photos, and comments. Giveaway:s:/Contes:ts: Farmers also uses campaigns to grow engagement. They recently held their Star for a Day giveaway, where fans enter to win two tickets to any Rascal Flatts concert and go backstage to meet the band. To enter the competition, one must like the page and provide contact information. Webs:ite Integration Currently, Farmers isnt integrating social channels on their website. They simply have a link to their social properties on the homepage. They could add their Facebook posts and Twitter stream to keep the home page vibrant and updated. In the near future, expect to see Farmers Insurance catch up to other leading brands they are actively searching for a social media agency to help them grow their presence and engagement. Insurance isnt the sexiest Farmers is using Facebook to portray the brand as humorous, trustworthy, and human. Ideally, this trust will translate into sales when their fans search for insurance. In fact, the page does have an Our Products tab that allows for direct conversions.

How Social Leads: to Revenue

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Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

Leading Services Twitter Brand: American Express
AmEx is on the cutting edge of social media. They recently announced a partnership with Twitter that allows card members to sync their cards with the social media channel to redeem couponless offers.

PROFILE ELEMENTS CONTENT

Followers: 470,426 Following 18,143, with no apparent specific follow strategy. Background AmEx has a simple, on-brand, solid blue background. Frequency: Between 5-20 original Tweets per day, not including retweets and mentions. The record high was 35 tweets, occurring during an AmEx-sponsored Usher concert. Ratio of Pos:ts: to Replies: For a highly regulated industry, AmEx replies to fans often. Often, they send as many replies as tweets in a day. Social Content Approach Member Benefits: AmEx frequently offers their card-holders additional rewards, designated by a #MembershipRewards hashtag.

Contes:ts:/Giveaway:s: AmEx leverages their sizeable network and premium partnerships to bring members excellent contests and giveaways, like a chance to win a cruise.

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Leading Services Twitter Brand: American Express (cont.)
Spons:ored Events: American Express puts on concerts and other high-profile events. #AmExUNSTAGED are AmEx-sponsored concerts. Cus:tomer Service AmEx congratulates members on purchases and solves customer complaints. In fact, fans regularly state they receive faster support on Twitter than by more traditional routes. Frequently: Us:ed Has:htags: AmEx generously uses hashtags, generally divided into two camps. The first is specific to events they are sponsoring or hosting, such as #InsideTheDream and #AmExUNSTAGED. They also regularly use hashtags to boost fan engagement such as #MembershipRewards, and #MembershipEffect. One particularly fun hashtag is #AmExmademytrip where cardholders share stories of their travels made easier with an AmEx card. Webs:ite Integration AmEx has low website integration. The homepage includes links to their main social channels. On all product offers, American Express offers social sharing on Twitter and Facebook. AmEx does a masterful job of highlighting (but not over-promoting) the many benefits that are exclusively for cardholders, such as advance tickets.

How Social Leads: to Revenue

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Key Takeaways/Best Practices for Services Brands
1. Strengthen Brand Pres:ence through Promotions: American Express has done a great job at using

Twitter to drive conversations (and benefitting while doing so). AmEx launched their Sync service, in partnership with Twitter, earlier in the year to allow cardholders to save money at shops and restaurants by tweeting a hashtag, and found the service used by millions. Because of this innovative program, AMEX was one of the most talked about companies at SXSW Interactive.

Excel at Cus:tomer Service Many large companies struggle with customer service. Complaints may be frequent, complicated, and pressing at all hours of the day. American Express has done a great job at using Twitter to alleviate those complaints. If a customer is having trouble getting a response or reaching a representative, @AskAmEx is readily available to help. A negative customer situation can easily be turned into a positive one with a quick Twitter reply. 2.
Pay attention to what your audience likes and which posts receive attention. These can lead to great opportunities to keep the social momentum going. If a posts receives a lot of likes, what else can you do to add to the conversation?

3. Lis:ten to Your Fans: 4. Share Your Story: 5. Stay: Light

In the service industry you need to make a strong connection with your customers. Farmers Director of Social Media, Ryon Harms, shares that he wasnt using Facebook to tell people what they sell, but rather who they are. Post positive content, and be able to laugh at yourself.

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Conclusion

Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

All of the best practice examples we have highlighted above adhere to several basic tenets: 1) Know your customers, 2) Engage them in new and creative ways, and 3) Listen and monitor postengagement. Social media allows companies to understand their customers deeply and then effectively engage them. And by listening and monitoring responses, you come to know your customers even better, and drive even more effective engagement. And so the cycle continues. One of the most beautiful things about social media is the speed at which this feedback loop of customer insight and action can take place. It can now happen faster than ever before. We hope these best practices enable you to better prosper from the new social landscape.

Additional Resources
The Fan Page List Check out more brands and their social statistics on the Fan Page List site. Five Killer Strategies to Dominate Social Medias Big 3: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube Even with the increasing number of social networks, most experts still recognize that successful social marketing revolves around the Big 3: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. How to Audit Your Social Marketing Efforts Learn how to evaluate the effectiveness of your current social marketing strategy. Identify new ways to improve the return on your social marketing investment. Social Engagement: How to Crack the Code of Social Interaction Engagement is the enduring effect of content to motivate an audience to do something; motivate your audience with data proven best practices. Social Commerce Lessons: The 6 Social Principles that Increase Sales Learn more about content strategies and driving sales. Actionable Social Analytics A detailed guide on how to approach your social analytics process. 2102 Social Media and New Media Predictions This free e-book is full of insights on big data and other trending topics in social media. Hear from 32 social media experts, including David Meerman Scott, Brian Solis, and Erik Qualman. The Social Funnel: Driving Business Value with Social Marketing For a detailed discussion on how to effectively measure your social marketing initiatives, download our free e-book. The State of Social Media Marketing: Top Areas For Social Marketing Investment and Biggest Social Marketing Challenges in 2012 Learn how leaders allocate resources, discover the top social platforms and social media management tools they use, social marketing investment priorities, and the practices companies will adopt in 2012.

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Social Success Stories

About Awareness

Marketing Lessons from Industry Leaders

Awareness Inc. is the leading provider of enterprise-class, on-demand social marketing management software (SMMS) for marketers to publish and manage social content, engage with their audience and measure the effectiveness of their social media activities across multiple social media channels. The Awareness Social Marketing Hub is built upon Awareness expertise with some of the worlds leading brands and marketing agencies including MLB, Sony Pictures, Comcast, Likeable Media, Associated Press, Cox Communications, Mindjumpers and American Cancer Society. The Awareness Social Marketing Hub is built to address the challenges marketers face managing multiple social channels. The Social Marketing Hub is the first enterprise-class application for serious marketers who want to plan, implement and measure meaningful social media strategies across the organization. Get Connected:
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