Social Media « Merriam Associates, Inc. Brand Strategies

Brands: Fight WikiPanic By Being WikiReady

Wikipanic—it’s the new word for the latest marketing threat. What will happen to your brand if Wikileaks attacks it? As Mastercard, Paypal, Visa, and Bank of America are finding out, marketers need to be ready in advance of disaster, whether a plane crash, an oil well explosion or a wikileak/hacktivist attack. Companies can’t risk a [...]

Web Video: How-To Advice

Web pundits are predicting continuing growth in Web video. With that in mind, here is a round-up of advice for producing effective video:

1) Light your shot—dark videos don’t invite eyes
2) Get the best sound you can—your viewers are likely listening through headphones
3) Use a tripod for Pete’s sake!!—You want to make visitors stick, not get [...]

Things Not to Do on Social Media Sites

The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur has some interesting (if sometimes contradictory) observations, tips and advice for businesses and individuals in this post: Things Not to Do on Social Media Sites

Wikileaks, Hacktivism and Brands as Political Symbols

It was just a matter of time before the kinds of people who vandalized brand symbols at world economic summits resorted to brand cyber-vandalism. The Wikileaks hacktivists have targeted and threatened global brands like Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, Amazon, Twitter and Shell.

Gone are the days when a brand was a simple guarantee of product quality. Brands [...]

Successful Marketers Using the Social Web

Today on Mashable.com, customer engagement expert Matthew Latkiewicz writes about new online marketing
trends. He notes that early marketing efforts in new media were really attempts to apply broadcast
and print advertising techniques to this new world. But new thinkers are exploring new ways to communicate.
This article, which quotes Merriam Associates, reviews what is working and what [...]

Social Media Brand Engagement Rules Toyota vs Chevrolet

Firefly Millward Brown’s New Rules for Brand Engagement study discusses the trouble brands are having effectively using social media. As we have discussed in previous posts, many marketers come across as insincere, pandering, or boring. The relationship/conversation thing seems to still stump many, many marketers. Consider the different Twitter approaches of the worlds’ leading car [...]

Facebook and Email: Brand Extension Lacks Permission or Purpose

Facebook’s launch of a new email client runs smack-dab into brand problems:

1) Facebook lacks consumer trust:
It seems like every week, Facebook faces charges of releasing unauthorized user data or of making sneaky changes to user settings to exploit information on users without permission. How many people will trust Facebook with their email contact lists?

2) Facebook’s [...]

Ziploc: Boring Doesn't Work as a Social Media Engagement Strategy

While I was taking out the recycling, this little brochure fluttered from my empty Ziploc package:

Wow! With a tagline of “Get more out of it!” I expect more out of Ziploc.

Maybe this major brand thought they needed to “do something” in social media, but couldn’t figure out what that something might be. It is hard [...]

National US Navy UDT-SEAL Museum - Salute to Veterans

As today is Veteran’s Day, I wanted to call attention to a very special place: The National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum located in Fort Pierce Florida. It was my honor to help promote the Museum’s Silver Anniversary (25th Year) Muster and help drive visitors to the Museum’s Web site.

This annual event attracted thousands of people from [...]

Crowdsourcing without a Crowd: Levia's Failed Attempt

Levia® launched a crowdsourcing video contest in September with much fanfare only to watch the entire effort fizzle. Called “Lights, Camera, Healing”, the program asked people to create and submit original videos extolling the virtues of the “healing power of light”. The Crowdsourcing idea famously worked for Doritos® in creating memorable (and cheap!) Super Bowl [...]

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