(originally published on Dealer magazine)
Social Media marketing isn’t just about “doing it.” If you want to succeed, all of the pieces must fit together. You must be committed to doing it.. all of it.. not just some of it.
In this real-life example, I’ll be referring to a few things that I want to define for those unfamiliar with them.
1. Klout – Klout is a company that measures a person’s social media influence by monitoring their usage and actions from others in relation to it. Think of it like a credit score. The highest score is 100. My Klout is currently 61, which is very good. Klout stated that the average users Klout score is 11.
2. Klout Perks – Klout Perks is a service offered by Klout to companies that want to target influential social media users. These companies make offers, through Klout Perks, to these users in the hopes that they will talk about it via social media (ie. passes to movie screenings, etc.)
3. SCVNGR – SCVNGR is a location-based marketing service businesses use to create engagement and drive traffic to their location. Campaigns can be as small or as elaborate as the company wants to make it. Consumers check-in at the business locations and complete specific tasks to earn points towards rewards and/or badges (Think: 20% off your purchase or a free soda, etc)
Now, onto the story…
Subway restaurants recently ran a cross promotion with Warner Brothers for their new movie “The Green Lantern” through SCVNGR. The promotion involved using the SCVNGR mobile app to visit Subway restaurants and complete tasks to earn a free movie ticket to see The Green Lantern. They were only giving out 1,200 tickets so I jumped on it and visited my nearest Subway restaurant two days in a row to complete the tasks necessary to unlock this reward. I did so and SCVNGR delivered to me a free movie ticket (Hey, who doesn’t like free stuff?). Life was good. I liked Subway and appreciated the free movie ticket.
At the same time, Subway was also apparently running a campaign with Klout through their Klout Perks program to offer selected influential social media users a free $10 Subway gift card to try out their newest sub sandwich. That offer was extended to me and I accepted it.I liked Subway even more.
It goes downhill from here…
So, the Subway gift card comes in the mail. I’m not sure who actually sends these gift cards out (whether it’s Klout or Subway), but it comes with postage due of .63 cents. OK, some people make mistakes and I still got $9.37 free food at Subway. No big deal but I tweeted this:
Got offered a $10 @Subway gift card from @KloutPerks and when I got it, it came with $1 in postage due. Still appreciated but funny.
So, I take my wife to see The Green Lantern and, afterwards, decide to visit Subway to use the gift card offer Subway extended to me. I arrive at Subway at 9:50pm and it closes at 10pm. I don’t know off the top of my head what time they close, but I see lights on and I see people inside. As I approach the door, I see the store’s posted hours inform me that they are open until 10pm. When I go to open the door, it’s locked. I get the attention of an employee who comes to the door and informs me that they are closed. I bring it to her attention that it’s not yet 10pm and she tells me that the owner called her and told her to close early. Now remember, there are still people in the store and a couple is even at the counter ordering and, frankly, I don’t believe her.
Frustrated, I go to my car and tweet this:
Went to @Subway before 10pm and they were inside but decided to close early. Said the owner told them to. #fail #lazy #badliars
Frustrated, but still hungry, I left Subway and went to Little Caesars Pizza.
As a social media person, I wanted to see if anyone was paying attention at all, or cared, so I tweeted this:
@Subway @kloutperks Tried to use $10 gift card last night but the employees wouldn’t let me in even though it was 10 minutes b4 closing #fail
Did I ever get a response from either Klout Perks (who was paid to run the promotion) or Subway (who paid to run it)?
No. Not even a peep.
So instead of me tweeting and raving about The Green Lantern movie, the Klout Perks offer from Subway, or their new sandwich which was the whole point of these promotions, what they did was take a customer who engaged them and started happy and turned me into a customer tweeting negative comments. I certainly didn’t hold Subway corporate responsible for the local franchise’s failure, but I did assume that they were active on Twitter so when I heard nothing in response to my concerns, that further frustrated me and left me with the impression that they didn’t care.
The point of this article is to illustrate that merely running a social media campaign in and of itself is not sufficient. If you’re going to enter the social media space at all, you better be prepared to monitor and support the campaign. Failing to do this will result in accomplishing the opposite of what you intended.
The bottom line is that Subway spent money on a social media marketing campaign and Little Caesars Pizza got my money.
(Note: While writing this article, I discovered by chance that while Subway does own the @Subway twitter account, they are not active on it at all. Instead, for whatever stupid reason, they re-direct people from that account to a @subwayfreshbuzz account, which they seem very active on. Why on earth they wouldn’t monitor the other account or, at the very least, monitor mentions of their restaurants is beyond me and a big fail.)
