Tag Archives: emotional connection

#love #instagram: Mixing Technology, Emotion, Marketing

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love instagram: mixing technology, emotion, marketing
Instagram is more than just an app adding vintage filters to your pictures and sharing them on other networks: it’s the crossroad where technology and human interactions meet, with, at its heart, the emotional connection, which makes it so powerful.

Powerful for brands that have a channel to communicate with their community in an emotional way, a way of strenghtening the love.

But there’s more than that: there’s also the power of the “# hashtag”, allowing for themed, convergent channels, the hub of “the shared love”.

There’s a big potential for brands to tap into the emotional and technological power of Instagram, with a good use of the “# hashtag” as a hub and it’s surprising to see so few examples, yet.

The best example so far is given by Ford, who has launched a campaign in Europe for the Ford Fiesta using all the above mentioned elements: the Fiestagram, in addition to more typical marketing tools, such as contests with incentives, prizes, etc…

There’s a channel on Instagram and a dedicated Facebook page.

And to make it more relevant and lasting over time, there are more than one #hashtag. There’s the main # for the contest, #fiestgram, and then there are different themes, where people will be asked to take pictures of selected items or situations and tag them accordingly, to make them participate to a weekly challenge. The aim is to highlight the technology, pleasure, special features, etc.. #hidden (for hidden gems), #listening, etc.. In other words: to share the love.

And here’s the challenge’s rules in video: wXme8JAMPwM

Another example that I really liked, mixing also some of these elements is given by Bergdorf Goodman, extracting all pictures on Instagram containing the tag #bgshoes and displaying them on an interactive map of New-York: http://blog.bergdorfgoodman.com/bg-shoes/. They ask people having bought shoes at their store to take a picture “of their shoes in NYC” and to upload it on Instagram with the tag. The result is a map “augmented” by a very special look of NYC, it’s beautiful, emotional, original and mixes the love of the shoes, of New-York, and, in the end, of Bergdorf Goodman!
So, it’s your turn now to imagine original campaigns, tapping into your customers’ love for your brand, to empower them and highlight the result!

UPDATE 24 Nov: seen on PSFK, more stat about the contest: “The submitted images appear in a Facebook gallery and the best submissions will be published on billboards and photography galleries across Europe. The contest has received over 11,000 images in just over 4 weeks and the winner will be announced December 9th.
UPDATE Jan. 24: a couple of weeks later, I stumbled upon this great article on MarketingProfs, written by Ann Handley (love her!), I had the feeling of reading the reflection of my mind! Except that it added an important notion that I forgot in my article: the notion of “story”. True. Just read the full article!
UPDATE Jan. 17: there’s been another innovative campaign using Instagram “power”: the bmibaby campaign, asking people to tag their pictures with specific tags related to their country. First I saw it was about “#myswitzerland”. This allowed thousands of – beautiful – pictures, with as many perspectives as there were peopple and pictures. It results into a destination catalogue made out of pictures taken by others, with a much more powerful impact.
And, also, as mentioned in the article, AirFrance embrassed Instagram too with a contest and beautiful pictures. See pictures below.
Did you notice other examples of brands using Instagram? Would you share them here? Or more personal experiences on Instagram?
Or would you just share your Instagram ID so that we can connect?
Mine is @clodia_me :)

fiestagram-flyer contest ford fiest on Instagram

fiestagram europe

Example on Instagram

The Dawn of the Social Consumer – Emotional Connection at its Heart #socialconsumer #digitalmarketing

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Original article via briansolis.com
Emotional connection is at the heart of what makes social media in its whole so powerful and empowering.
The long-time readers of my blog know it represents one of the central pillars of my work, so central that I even state those values as core values in my posterous profile (and many others). Here, the inaugural article.
Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent, has – brilliantly – dug the phenomenon and implications for business, marketing, social media in numerous articles.
In this article, Brian Solis places and develops the idea around the concept of social consumer, social currency and I definitely agree upon the vision putting emotional connection at the center of the social commerce.
As for a brand, what are the direct implications of “creating emotional connections” with its stakeholders? Not only customers, but also employees, investors, potential investors, potential customers, potential employees, “friends”, depending on the proximity’s ring of the person? (see Jeremiah Owyang’s “Rings of Influence).

Going back to the values.

Company’s values, brand’s values need to be (re-) identified, stated, declined, shared inside the company, at all levels.
It is the pre-supposed condition upon which to build a long-term value-adding relationship. Values can be occasionnally translated into different shapes, through different media, devices, places, by different people and in many different ways. Each of these occasions being the touching point for an emotional connection, potentially leading to a further step.

Values are the continuous thread leading to added value in the long run.
Why? Because values contribute to create an overall perceived consistent image, experience of a brand, company.
Inlaid in the consistency, lays trust. In trust roots long-term mutual beneficial relationships.
In other words, we could say that well-identified and built upon values create in fine an increased perceived value (of the product/brand/company).
What is your take? Do you think that you can build long-term profitable business through marketing and social media without assessing first the core values ?Here, the inspirational Brian Solis’ article.