Social Media Marketing Hits and Misses

Just read a study by the One Up Web Marketing people by the name Social Media Marketing Hits and Misses, How 2007 Hot Holiday Brands and Products Performed Online.

Basically, it was a look at 12 "Hot" holiday products and websites and how they performed online in their social media marketing efforts. The companies and products looked at were:
Nintendo Wii
Taryn Rose
Coach
Pronto
Webkinz
Starbucks
Casio Exilim
Ipod Touch
Pleo
A Thousand Suns
Sephora
Target

Some of the sites that got bad marks and encountered sales losses included Target for hiring "rounders". Rounders are individuals who were hired to comment positively on Target. The downside came when it was discovered that rounders were encouraged to keep it a secret that they were rounders.

Taryn Rose was criticized for having a "Flog". A fake blog that was never updated and not dated. A Thousand Suns author began with a strong blog, but the posts tapered to a stop and it was no longer used. Another company had technical difficulties that shut down it's efforts for a time and killed it's social media marketing momentum.

Some of the winners included Webkinz, that had an interactive site for kids and Apple that continued to be consisent, flexible and innovative, especially with the Ipod.

Stabucks had some great response on it's website for various approaches, but sales continue to remain flat or decline in spite of this.

The takeaway is that some social media stuff can be very helpful in connecting with people. But, it must be interesting, useful and consistent. Also, it is no substitute for other solid practices. Once again, I am reminded of the meatball sundae from Seth Godin. For the more practically minded: If you are going to engage in this type of connection....blogging, etc., make sure you keep it updated.

To check out this article, see One Up Web's White Pages.