Corporate Eye

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Archives for July 2010

How One Twitter Account Got 40,000 Followers in 5 Days and with Just 3 Tweets

On July 8, 2010, Twitter announced its new @earlybird profile.  With just 2 tweets published on July 8th and 1 tweet published on July 9th, the @earlybird profile had nearly 40,000 followers by July 12th.  Not bad.  Check it out below.

twitter_earlybird

What’s so special about this Twitter profile that people want to follow it?  Simple — they believe the promise of what this Twitter profile, called Twitter @earlybird Exclusive Offers, claims to be able to deliver — real-time deals and exclusive, limited-time only discounts.  If you follow @earlybird, great discounts will appear in your Twitter stream, so you can take advantage of them before they disappear.

Here is how Twitter describes @earlybird Exclusive Offers on the Twitter Help Center:

“Twitter @earlybird Exclusive Offers are special time-bound deals, sneak-peeks, and events that are promoted by the official Twitter @earlybird account. We partner with select advertisers and retweet offers that they have crafted only for the Twitter community. Our advertising partners determine the terms of the offer, including availability, amount, and price. As with other forms of advertising from Twitter, we are focused on bringing value to our users and will keep your interests in mind as we develop this program.”

Twitter partners with advertisers to choose the deals to promote on the @earlybird profile, which will always be time-sensitive or supply-sensitive.  Of course, Twitter will make some money from these partnerships, too.  At first, advertising partners will represent large, international brands or be focused on the U.S. market, but in time, Twitter plans to roll out more diverse deals, location-based deals, category-specific deals, and more.

As the success of the @DellOutlet Twitter profile demonstrates, consumers truly do use Twitter to find useful promotions and deals.  Twitter might just have something with the @earlybird Exclusive Offers program.  The company certainly needs to find ways to make money, and since the @earlybird Exclusive Offers program is opt-in, consumers only see the tweets and deals if they take an action and follow the @earlybird profile.  Advertisers also benefit from the opt-in feature, since followers are likely to be more receptive to the promotions they hear about through @earlybird.

I think it’s safe to assume that if the deals tweeted through the @earlybird profile are good ones, we’ll see that list of 40,000 followers grow quickly.  What do you think?

What Makes for Effective Investor Relations Sites? Part 20: Annual Reports – Make Them Easy for Investors to Find

For investors seeking information about a company, probably the single best source is that company’s annual report to shareholders. The annual report is an opportunity for companies to tell their story in detail to investors every year, combining a message from the Chairman and management with comprehensive financial information. So it makes sense to feature the report prominently on the investor relations web sites of companies.

Yet what I see on the web varies widely as it relates to a company’s annual report. Some companies give prominent display to their annual reports, with large graphics or prominent links to the document. Others bury the report among all other governmental filings. This is further compounded by the fact that some companies elect to give their reports a glossy finish, while others treat it as another bureaucratic form to be filled out. Finally, there are a number of ways that annual reports can be displayed on the web. So it almost goes without saying that one solution will not fit all companies.

With that as a lead-in, what I will try to do over the course of the next few segments of this series is to highlight what I think are some of the more effective methods companies use to highlight their reports. This first piece will simply look at best ways to make sure investors can find your annual report. Here are a few examples:

AngloAmerican Annual Report

The mining company Anglo American takes a front and center approach to featuring its annual report with a bold visual and link in the middle of the page.

EADS Annual Report

The defense contractor EADS takes a comprehensive approach to featuring its annual report, providing both a word link in the middle of the page and a graphic link on the bottom.

The approaches of these two sites are better than you see in many other sites which take a more general approach, simply placing a generally named text link in the page menu appearing on either the left or right hand side of the page. If you want to feature your annual report – and I suggest that it is a good thing to do – effective web site design means that you create a spot where investors can easily find the link to the report.

In this series:
Previous post: Help your most frequent visitors
Next post: Annual Reports II

Internet Remains Top Source for Consumers to Find Information

In a study conducted by Fleishman-Hilliard and Harris Interactive in January 2010, consumers with Internet access in several countries around the world were asked where they turned to when they need to find reliable information to aid in making purchase decisions.  The Internet took one of the top two spots in six out of six countries polled: United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Japan and China.  You can see the stats in the chart from eMarketer below:

emarketer_internet_information_sources

In fact, half of the countries surveyed ended up with the Internet taking the number one spot in terms of where consumers look for information.  Particularly interesting in this study is the fact that the Internet (excluding email) is considered “absolutely essential” or “extremely essential” to 71% of consumers with Internet access in China — a country that is already one of the biggest marketing opportunities for international business expansion.

It’s hard to believe that 10 years ago, the Internet wasn’t a necessity.  Many businesses still didn’t have websites and the social web was only just catching on.  Go back 10 years before that and most people didn’t have Internet access in their homes.  Times have certainly changed quickly.  Today, the Internet is the place for consumers in countries around the world to turn to first when they need information to help them make buying decisions.

No longer is the Internet an ancillary marketing tool or tertiary distribution channel.  Today, it’s a top priority for just about any business you can think of.  It’s amazing to sit back and think about how the world has changed in such a short amount of time.

Today, businesses have the luxury of instant access to people around the world 24 hours per day and 365 days per year, but they also have the disadvantage of too much information getting to consumers.  It’s a different world than it was 10 or 20 years ago, and as marketers and business people, we’re lucky to be a part of such an exciting time in the history of how we do business.

Just something to think about…

You can read the complete article from eMarketer mentioned in this post which includes additional statistics here.

Image: eMarketer

The Solar Plexus Punch of Targeted Marketing

The other day a flyer dropped out of a magazine I subscribe to. Yes, I do still read paper!

targetI tossed it towards the recycling pile, along with all the others that came with it, without a glance. No surprises there – open rates are very low, and action rates even lower.

However, in this case, one of my children picked it up and opened it, probably because of the image of two dirty, tired, and very young girls on the front. Inside, the names of the children: the same as the names of my two daughters.

Coincidence? Or very clever marketing?

Whichever it was, the message was very powerful indeed.

Rationally, targeted marketing like this would be expensive, but doable:

  • Problem 1. The magazine already has my name and address since I’m a subscriber, but the advertisers don’t – but perhaps I gave permission to share “with carefully selected partners” at some time?
  • Problem 2. They’d need to find my daughters’ names. More difficult, but not impossible, given the multiplicity of databases out there.
  • Problem 3. Then merge, print, and get the flyers in the right magazines. This is really just a logistical problem, tricky but not insurmountable.

So not easy, but worth it, perhaps, for the impact.

What can you do to personalise your message for your audience, so that you get the same power behind the message?

It’s Not Just BP That Consumers Don’t Trust

bp_signBP has been investing a lot of money into advertising and marketing efforts to rebuild it’s reputation after one of the biggest oil spills in history brought the company under massive global scrutiny.  While initial results from the effort seemed positive, a new study tells a different story.

According to a June 2010 survey by The Economist and YouGov, American’s don’t trust BP. 

Here are the results when respondents were asked whether or not they trust BP to “do the right thing in stopping the oil spill and cleaning it up”:

  • 27% have no trust in BP at all.
  • 24% have very little trust in BP.
  • 24% have only some trust in BP.
  • 13% have quite a bit of trust in BP.
  • 6% have a great deal of trust in BP.

Interestingly, a Rasmussen Reports poll tells us that BP is not alone in its position as an oil brand and company that American consumers don’t trust. 

According to that survey:

  • 41% had a very or somewhat favorable opinion of Exxon.
  • 43% had a very or somewhat favorable opinion of Chevron.
  • 47% had a very or somewhat favorable opinion of Shell.

A CBS News and New York Times poll seems to support those findings. 

According to that survey:

  • 38% say they trust oil companies to act in the best interest of the public “not at all.”
  • 36% say they trust oil companies to act in the best interest of the public “not much.”
  • 24% say they trust oil companies to act in the best interest of the public “some.”
  • 2% say they trust oil companies to act in the best interest of the public “a lot.”

The statistics reported in these surveys are a red flag for any company.  The question is how oil companies will respond not only to appease consumer fears and lack of trust but also in changing their business practices to actually earn that brand trust.  Now is the time.  Afterall, 2010 is the year of brand transparency, honesty and trust.

Do you think they can (or will) do it?

Image: Flickr

The June Wrap-up: Spotlight on BP


BP June 28

The standout story of June was British Petroleum’s handling of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.  “Careers” Meets Crisis, posted at the beginning of June, noted that BP’s Careers page remained unchanged more than a month after the crisis began.  Not only was there no mention of the spill, the “Featured job category” highlight extolled opportunities in the Gulf of Mexico.

A month later, the featured job category is IT.  But nothing else on the page has been added or updated to address the ongoing Gulf crisis.  Similarly, nothing has been added or updated since the spill on BP’s  Environment and Society page—which seems like an even bigger disconnect.

However, a few changes have been made to the corporate site.

  • The Gulf Response tab, which was put in place soon after the crisis began, is now more tightly organized, focusing on technical and practical issues.  The level of detail on this page conveys much more effectively the seriousness of BP’s efforts.
  • Some of the content originally shown on the Gulf Response tab is now on the landing page—so users who navigate directly to the site by typing www.bp.com into their browsers (or clicking on a sponsored link) will see Gulf-related material immediately.  The page begins with a large photo feature that depicts people at work: cleaning sand, pointing at maps, rescuing birds, etc.
  • Also on the BP landing page: videos about the company’s good intentions and positive efforts, along with information links (both contact information and news stories).  Overall, the page has a slightly positive spin, but not a pronounced “PR” flavor.
  • On the Investors page, a headline feature leads readers to the “Chairman’s letter to shareholders.” That’s the only reference.

In reality, people looking for information on the Gulf spill don’t make a beeline for the BP site.  Traffic statistics show that the majority of searchers proceed to stories from the Huffington Post, the New York Times, or other news sources.  But people looking for a job at BP are very likely to go to the corporate site—and the impression created there will matter to some job-seekers.

BP has made some moves into social media in the meantime, with a decent Twitter performance, a YouTube channel, and a Facebook page.  However their YouTube effort drew criticism because comments were not allowed for the first few weeks, and on Facebook comments are only allowed from those who have “Liked” BP.  These policies don’t seem to improve impressions of the company . . . .

A hat-tip to Fran Melmed, whose comment on our original story included the idea that BP could feature positive comments and stories from Gulf Coast employees on their Careers page.  (Fran tuned in to the BP/Careers story early with a hard-hitting post on her blog.)