Just A Snapshot of Blogher Business 09.
July 27th, 2009 |
kristin
How could 5 1/2 hours be so power-packed? After hearing survey results & statistics about how influential blogging has become, Blogher Business attendees gained insight into how different corporate brands acheived success using social media.
I’d have to say the most powerful and most relevant to me, was a case study about hobby industry brand, Fiskars. Fiskars and I go way back, as I had a seamstress mom and was a Creative Memories consultant.
Back in 2005, Fiskars wanted to find out what people were saying about their brand. They were disappointed 
to find out that noone was really saying much of anything. Name recognition they had, familiarity they had, but no converstions, and certainly no “rock star following”. People were passionate about scrapbooking for sure, but not necessarily their brand of scrapbooking tools.
As a corporation, Fiskars’ goal was to engage their customers, and created a clever marketing campaign, interviewing and hiring 5 “Fiskateers” to blog, interact, organize crops, and moderate forums, calling them “crafting ambassadors”. When the community site was preparing for launchin June 2006, their goal was 200 members by the end of the year. Well they had their 200 members in 24 hours. The Fiskateers even received a bit of celebrity status.
Fiskars also knew the power of exclusivity, and tweeked their trademark orange-handled scissors,to orange & green handled ones for their Fiskateers. (That may not mean anything to you, but to scrapbookers who follow the latest tools and trends, its a big deal!) . Fiskars brought goodies for the attendees…little scissors! Thanks! I gave Mom mine, since she can really appreciate good scissors. (Growing up, Mom was certainly quite generous & giving, but one thing my sister & I learned,…hands off her sewing scissors!)
Another Blogher Business case study came from Coach, our beloved luxury design house, who used the trend of “crowdsourcing” last year and offered a contest open to the public. After 3000+ entries, a winner was chosen (even though the public could vote, coach made the final selection themselves), and a limited edition Coach bag was made from her entry, and soldout for $228. The purpose wasnt profit-driven, but to give the general public an opportunity to interact with their corporate brand.
Those were my favorite case studies, and I look forward to implimenting some of those wise nuggets from top corporate brands. Any ideas on what features you’d like to see in our community? just send them my way!
