Forrester Report: Best And Worst Of Social Network Marketing, 2008

July 18th, 2008 | Category: Analyst, Forrester, Social Networking, Web Marketing

It’s true, most social network marketing isn’t being done effectively, why? Many brands (and their agencies) are deploying “interactive marketing” (user to website) experience rather than relying on the tools of social networks “social marketing” (member to member). As a result, many brands are wasting their time, money, and resources to reach communities in social networks without first understanding that the use case is very different than a microsite campaign. Don’t just take my word for it, research from Deloitte also suggests the same –WSJ (link via Fabrice)

In this latest report, we created a scorecard (which you can use to checklist your own efforts) which amplifies the real opportunities of social network; the community themselves. This report is great for anyone brand deploying a social network marketing effort, or for agencies that are trying to enter this new world. Marketing efforts did best when the control was turned over to the hands of the community.

[We tested marketing efforts on Social Networks using ‘Social’ criteria (rather than traditional marketing tactics) that meets the needs of the community, sadly, only 1 out 16 brands passed]

We took a multi-industry approach, and reviewed 16 firms from four industries: automotive, media, technology, and consumer products. Sadly, out of this 16 contenders that were appropriate, only the BMW Series 1 received a passing grade, and half of the firms scored a zero or lower. We also tried to find examples in many social networks including Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Imeem, and Microsoft’s Windows Live Spaces. I was already asked on Twitter if there were B2B examples, unfortunately, we only found one that made the report, Microsoft Live Server.

Despite these dismal scores, there were some great examples such as the The Dell/Microsoft (Red) program provided a rich media theme that was easily sharable, Sony’s BMG page for Alicia Keys was personable and interactive, and Kraft’s DiGiorno Pizza delivered a unique interactive experience with its members. To improve social network marketing, brands must develop community-centered content and activities, measure success based on new criteria, and be prepared to participate.

Forrester Report: Best And Worst Of Social Network Marketing, 2008

If you leave a question on Forrester report page, I promise to respond to the best of my ability.
If you’re a client, you can download instantly, or if you’re not a client, you can purchase the report, and if you’re not fully satisfied you can return with no questions asked –we stand by our work.

Also, I propose we do away with the term “campaign” when it comes to social networks, it derives images of military movements, and short term commitments –exactly what not to do when it comes to communities.

Although some of them have changed since we first started to judge the 16 social network marketing efforts are:
Note: A passing score is a minimum of 8.

Automotive
BMW 1 Series scores a 9 (Pass) read more
Mazda3 scores a -1
Chevy scores a 3 (who sponsored the effort at the time)
Ford scores a -4

Media
HBO’s Entourage scores a 2
FOX News scores a -4
Disney: Enchanted Movie scores a -4
Sony BMG’s Alicia Keys scores a 7

Technology
Samsung’s Blast scores a -3
Dell/Microsoft (RED) scores a 6
Microsoft’s Windows Server Live scores a 6
Intel scores a -5

Consumer Products
Nike scores a 2
Kraft’s DiGiorno Pizza scores a 5
Pepsi’s Aquafina scores a -2
Mars: Skittles & Starburst scores a 0

The whole process was a tremendous amount of work, we spent hours testing, reviewing, and compiling data, you should use this report as a benchmark and a checklist for your future efforts on social networks. It was a lot of work, but should really help you to all move forward and reach communities even more effectively.

Lastly, I use social media tools as a small percentage of my research methodology, for example, I asked the 12,000+ readers of this blog (and 9000+ on Twitter) to help define what they think are success metrics for campaigns, some of this was factored into the scorecard requirements. At Forrester we serve different roles, mine being Interactive Marketers, it’s also important to know the largest segment of readers to this blog are Interactive Marketers according to a recent survey. So I use the same tools that I cover, and try to practice what I preach. Last by not least, thanks to Christine Overby, Harley Manning, Sarah Glass and Scott Wright at Forrester for all their help.

Scope Clarification:
Update: One brand was unsure of the scope of this research report. To be clear, this report encompassed only the marketing efforts on a social network. It does not include blogs, podcats, youtube, communities that a brand may create on their own site, or efforts within the intranet. Also, some brands may have had multiple marketing efforts on social networks, this report would have only examined and graded one.

57 Comments so far

The Simple Formula for Marketing Successfully on Social Networks | Marketing Ninja July 19th, 2008 12:39 am

[…] Owyang’s latest post, “Forrester Report: Best And Worst Of Social Network Marketing, 2008,” answers a question that came up constantly in the early days of F8 and the Facebook […]
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[…] Owyang, σύμβουλος της Forrester που “έτρεξε” την έρευνα, παρουσιάζει στο blog του πολύ συνοπτικά τα αποτελέσματα της έρευνας για τις 16 εταιρείες που […]
Angela LoSasso July 19th, 2008 9:16 am

Jeremiah: Again, a really good report that I can share internally to help educate and evangelize, but also a very useful checklist to keep my assets and future programs on track, too.

Just a note/question: It’s incredibly difficult to accomplish all the criteria/goals within one effort; rather, I’m finding that it’s more of a journey, a long-term committment to get all of these features and must-haves into our first community efforts — especially the engagement and dedication of at least one internal employee (who just happens to be me) to each program in order to provide the features that will encourage and enable member to member interaction, member advocates, content sharing and more. In its nascent stage (both for the communities and as specialty/marketing career path within HP), it’s still can be an uphill battle for people to “get” the personal touch and interaction that is required and deserved to truly represent a company socially for the customer’s benefits, wants and needs. However, I am hopeful and determined to adequately measure how the personification of our brand makes for very happy customers going forward — both for our members and for HP.
jeremiah_owyang July 19th, 2008 1:08 pm

This didn’t show up in trackbacks for some reason, but there’s a post commenting about this report here:

http://www.thisisherd.com/2008/07/forrester-report-gives-half-brands-it.html
Forrester’s Owyang Calls BMW Drawing Contest Best of Social Network Marketing, 2008 July 20th, 2008 8:45 am

[…] Jeremiah Owyang’s Best and Worst Social Network Marketing round up, BMW’s Graffiti drawing contest in Facebook gets the top […]
Yuce Zerey July 20th, 2008 2:59 pm

Really appreciative post. Thanks
Lyme July 20th, 2008 6:42 pm

Interesting. At least one example of a specific marketing campaign failure or success might have been even more interesting, not just the name of the company. At $279, I’ll pass…that’ll buy a lot of adwords clicks…forget about social.
jeremiah_owyang July 20th, 2008 7:36 pm

Lyme click on the BMW “read more” and you’ll get a great write up by Chasnotes.

Also, click on my ‘case studies’ tab to find more.
Digital Design Blog » Blog Archive » Best and Worst of Social Network Marketing, 2008 July 20th, 2008 10:14 pm

[…] Marketing in 2008.” Jeremiah Owyang, who authored the report, has a great overview on his blog — Web Strategy By Jeremiah. Couldn’t agree more with his overall […]
Bryan Rhoads July 21st, 2008 12:03 am

This is good… we can (hopefully) only move up and should be a wakeup call to many social marketing efforts out there. Thanks for the post.
SooSoociety 2.0 » Blog Archive » Das Beste und Schlechteste in Sachen Social Marketing July 21st, 2008 4:13 am

[…] Forrester Research hat 16 Social-Marketing-Kampagnen unter die Lupe genommen und auf ihre Werbetauglichkeit hin untersucht. Das Ergebnis: Nur BMW bestand mit einer Facebook-Kampagne für den 1er BMW den Test (Web-Strategist.com). […]
jeremiah_owyang July 21st, 2008 7:13 am

Bryan

Thanks. For what it’s worth, I saw a more recent Intel marketing effort on Facebook that certainly would have scored much better.

Take the scorecard and apply it towards future and past efforts and improve

You’ve got a great attitude, thanks for being proactive. You know how to contact me for more details, I’m here to help.
Small World Labs July 21st, 2008 9:47 am

Social Media Monday…

It is going to be a good week! Want to know why think that? It has everything to do with the first blog posts of the week. Here are my two favorites:

Jake @ Community Guy highlights Pete Blackshaw’s 6 drivers of brand credibility.

and

Jeremiah …
social media marketing, onlinemarketing, | Medien kompakt July 21st, 2008 1:46 pm

[…] Research hat 16 Social Network Marketing Kampagnen untersucht. BMW konnte hierbei mit seinem BMW 1er Graffiti Contest auf Facebook als einzigstes […]
jeremiah_owyang July 21st, 2008 5:39 pm

Another trackback that didn’t show up:

http://thesocialbutterflyeffect.blogspot.com/2008/07/it-was-best-of-efforts-it-was-worst-of.html
kenekaplan July 21st, 2008 5:59 pm

Great report that’ll help us improve. Your analysis helps frame much of the great ideas and recommendations you’ve been making for months (longer!). It’s all jam packed inside the report and this post.

My analogy is that you give us big nuggets of gold, we merely have to do the work to chip away at it and cash in the coins. Listen, learn, do, grow, do, learn, listen, do, repeat.

Thanks for the work you put into this report!
jeremiah_owyang July 21st, 2008 6:17 pm

Intel folks have such a great attitude, thanks Ken and Bryan, really. Let me know how I can help.
Willy Lim - InterNETwork Marketing in Asia July 21st, 2008 7:42 pm

Interesting to note how off-line companies are also leveraging on the viral power of social networking sites. It’s like word-of-mouth advertising but on steriods..

Willy Lim
The Financially Free Advisor
InterNETwork Marketing in Asia
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[…] were released today with enlightening perspectives on social networking and online communities. Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research released their Best and Worst of Social Networking, 2008, and Deloitte […]
jeremiah_owyang July 21st, 2008 10:51 pm

One last thing to the Intel folks, I’ve seen some of the more recent social network efforts by Intel, and they certainly would have scored much better.
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[…] pavement) because it has to make people remember your brand or the event you’re marketing. Jeremiah Owyang is referencing some interesting “social media marketing campaigns”, that are most of the time “micro website campaigns” […]
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[…] Strategy highlights the best and worst social media campaigns. BMW 1 Series was the only one with a passing score in four […]
Stefan Martens July 22nd, 2008 1:33 pm

Hey Jeremiah,

the link in your post is broken: should be http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/02/19/what-makes-a-marketing-campaign-on-social-networks-successful/

Cheers,
Stefan
jeremiah_owyang July 22nd, 2008 1:37 pm

Stefan

Thanks good catch, I corrected.
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[…] von Forrester Report […]
Jonathan Trenn July 25th, 2008 7:48 am

Jeremiah

Any gauge of how these efforts affected sales? Are these measured by social engagement and involvement? Or by turning involvement into sales and profit?
jeremiah_owyang July 25th, 2008 8:05 am

Jonathan

That would be a good follow-up report. Since this was a heuristic (expert review) we did not contact the brands directly to find out the end results.

Most brands appeared to be raising awareness or increasing consideration. Some of the consumer products and tech consumer products could indeed directly correlate to an ecommerce increase.
» More on the falacy, 94% of efforts are failing on this Forrester Study - Marketing Conversation - New Marketing and Social Media by Abraham Harrison LLC Marketing Conversation - New Marketing and Social Media by Abraham Harrison LLC July 25th, 2008 10:53 am

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Jeff Beringer July 26th, 2008 10:39 am

Pulled the full report and found it a valuable read. Clear, simple criteria that can be applied for evaluating programs. Thanks for sharing it.
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jeremiah_owyang July 28th, 2008 4:14 am

Thanks Jeff, let me know of any other feedback or questions you may have.
Danielle July 28th, 2008 5:18 am

As an educator, I have participated in a true product based community, which really has become the community to judge other communities by -the Discovery Educator Network. It started off as educators who were using unitedstreaming/DiscoveryStreaming, but has since then evolved to other Discovery Products. Look at their model and see how they have remained strong.

Also, I have participated in two other online communities. The first is CSI: Las Vegas - where we used wikis to figure out who the miniature killer was and communicated via discussion boards. The other community was the American Idol community for David Cook. We planned pre-AI events and made use of the discussion boards and are now meeting up at the concerts.

I think the difference those with all three is that people saw the long term of those communities, they had a passion to join them, and while they were brand related- they are about the people.

So if you want to have a successful community - make sure it’s about the people first.
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Melissa October 9th, 2008 4:54 am

A very comprehensive report. I am curious as to your thoughts on Harley’s efforts to go social. Facebook, youtube, etc…
jeremiah_owyang October 9th, 2008 5:25 am

Melissa

Can you give me more context as to your question? What do you mean? Are you talking about Harley Manning?
Melissa October 11th, 2008 4:22 am

I was referring to the motorcycle maker - Harley Davidson. YouTube accounts, Facebook app (which is uninspiring at best) and their new Facebook page. My opinion is they are approaching a new marketing medium with old marketing thinking. I was just curious as to your thoughts.
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