Who Has Mastered the Social Media Experience?

Hewlett-Packard does a good job of creating an experience for their customer using social media. They have mastered streamlining a message that carries across all of their outlets including Facebook, YouTube and encouraging user generated content to generate hype for their new products. They use Facebook as their hub to promote their other social media efforts because Facebook is the most popular and commonly used avenue. The general public understands Facebook and has started to use it to find new products. Social Networks have become a place to compare usage and satisfaction of products. The Groundswell book says social media is important because it promotes relationships and interaction between people. Facebook is THE tool to manage relationships between friends and even between consumers and companies. Companies are struggling to understand how to monetize this new avenue in a way that can be measured and improved. There has been a major shift from search engine optimization to social media madness. Hewlett-Packard has made successful strides in their usage of social media and is leading the way for other companies.

The biggest benefit of social media is that it offers the customer an outlet for becoming a part of a conversation with the company. The new age of consumer is one who feels educated about the product and not only wants as much information as possible but wants to give feedback and make requests. The new consumer has turned something intended for social interaction into a place to discuss products and services. HP recently conducted a YouTube contest to encourage consumers to create videos showing how their laptop affects their life and why it is so important to them. It was an extremely successful campaign with thousands of entries. HP found a way to control the user-generated content without alienating the consumer. The Groundswell book mentions the problem with YouTube videos and blogs is there is no way to manage or control the content that it put out into the world. This competition gave the consumer an opportunity to make videos and get attention for them while remembering why they love their HP laptop so much. The campaign created relationships and encouraged conversation by allowing the public to comment and vote on their favorite videos. It was well integrated into their general marketing campaign of making the PC personal again. The campaign was meant to remind the consumer of how a laptop can be personalized and unique in order to make every individual’s life better. The YouTube competition was a way for the consumer to tell the world what they love about their laptop and how it is special to them. HP also got to understand the features that made a laptop special to the consumer by the thousands. It was a great way for them to conduct research if they took advantage of the content. This was a great example of HP took advantage of a social media avenue their consumers were already using to increase their image and promote their new campaign. It was also well integrated into the marketing campaign, which can be difficult to combine all of the communications.

Because one in four Americans use Facebook monthly as said by Groundswell it is important for companies to have a fully developed page. HP has almost 150,000 likes on their main Facebook page, but also has several sub pages that are targeted to specific audiences. HP’s Facebook page has a subpage for support where consumers can ask for help with products. There’s a page dedicated to HP’s efforts around the world including marketing campaigns and new products. There is also a page called “Live Green,” which shows their investment in the consumer because being “Green” has become very important to the modern consumer and any way they can minimize their carbon footprint increases their satisfaction and confidence in products.