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Join Us for the Fiesta Movement: A Social Remix (Sponsored Post)

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fiesta movement a social remix

By all measures, the original Fiesta Movement in 2009 was a huge success. 100 Fiesta Agents helped us introduce a new vehicle to the U.S., break a Guinness Book of World Records record, travel more than 1.4 million miles and generate more than 3.7 million Twitter impressions.

However, the world has changed since 2009 and social media has advanced tremendously in the interim. New platforms have been developed, existing platforms have grown in reach and impact, and our stylish and fuel efficient Fiesta has evolved, as well. Since the Fiesta attracts more Millennials than any other Ford vehicle, we have to tell its story in a way that is different from other models.

That being said, we are so excited to announce the launch of Fiesta Movement: A Social Remix.

Unlike other campaigns, Ford will use content created only by selected influencers – “agents” – through multiple media channels and partners. This will be our first-ever entirely user-generated campaign. Once again, 100 passionate and socially connected people will be selected and given a new Fiesta and become stars in front of and behind the camera.

Ford’s CMO, Jim Farley, summed up our objective: “Fiesta was designed to reflect the individuality of the customer, so we feel the marketing efforts should give the reins to the people who will be driving it. We have a fuel-efficient, tech-savvy and stylish car that doesn’t sacrifice on performance – it truly has its own personality. That personality will come through in the stories and experiences of real people.”

Agents will debut the content they create on their own social pages and as it gains popularity, we will feature it on www.fiestamovement.com and amplify the best of the best across digital, print, broadcast and outdoor advertising. Any and all content can become part of the living, breathing story of the new Ford Fiesta.

That’s right, every advertisement you see, hear, and read for the upcoming 2014 Fiesta will come from the program. A Fiesta Agent-created YouTube video could end up as a nationally-run TV commercial or Instagram photos could be turned into print ads.

You’ll see some other twists with integrations into American Idol, X Games and music festival Bonnaroo. The new Fiesta Movement will bring together alumni from the original Fiesta Movement and will include celebrities, current Fiesta owners and new agents – all carrying out a series of exciting missions with the 2014 Fiesta. Ford will provide agents with gas, insurance coverage, cameras and other tools they need to create content.

Not only that, but you have until April 30, 2013 to apply and we know that the New Media Expo community is full of passionate content creators. Learn more and submit your application at www.fiestamovement.com. 

During the course of the original Fiesta Movement, content from Fiesta Agents produced 4.3 million YouTube views, more than half a million Flickr views and helped identify 50,000 interested potential customers—97 percent of whom didn’t own a Ford. This time around, it’s not just about the likes and shares; it’s about the democratization of media.

Disclosure: This post is from NMX sponsor Ford.

Telling Instead of Selling: How Smart Brands are Using Social for the Holiday Season

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With all of the banner ads out there promoting holiday shopping, how do businesses stand out online? How do they get their products under the tree? Smart businesses are finding new ways to reach consumers without distracting them from content they enjoy. They’re becoming a seamless part of the online conversation and, as a result, stay top of mind for consumers as they shop for their holiday gifts. Smart brands tell stories that create a connection to their brand.

So how are companies connecting with their consumers using storytelling in social media?

Here are a few examples of companies that are getting their story out there this holiday season.

jcpenney

jcpenney gets it right with creating stories about their products that are relatable and interesting to readers. They even do it in Spanish. One example is their social campaign to showcase a new clothing line from Liz Claiborne. They worked with bloggers like hablasfashion to create three different outfits from their fall clothing line. The readers then voted on their favorite outfit and commented on the line. This is a perfect example of social done well. By working with an influential blogger, jcpenny was able to create a personal story around their products that was authentic and engaging to readers.

Udi’s Gluten Free

Udi’s makes products that are gluten free for people with celiac disease or who just want to live a gluten free lifestyle. Their community page is a perfect example of how they are staying top of mind for consumers. This season, Udi’s is telling stories that relate to the holidays. They highlight stories about gluten-free living and how to survive the holidays.  The content creates an emotional connection with the brand because they talk about a personal experience, living gluten-free. It makes shoppers feel like Udi’s cares about them and their lifestyle.

Operation Christmas Child

This charity organization packs boxes full of toys and personal items for children in need that are delivered around the holiday season. They worked with bloggers like 2wired2tired to create narratives about packing boxes for their programs. The stories were first hand accounts of bloggers teaching their own children about social good and the needs of others around the world by packaging boxes for social good. The stories are personal and heartfelt blog posts that drive readers back to the Operation Christmas Child website where they can also begin the process of packing a box for charity.

Storytelling works because it is the natural way that people communicate. When you hear a heartfelt story about a personal experience shopping for the holidays, read about a recipe that someone created, or learn how someone taught their child to care for others, you feel an emotional connection with the writer. Brands that join the conversation and tell stories that mean something to the reader become more relatable. When consumers connect with a brand, they buy their products. Nothing connects consumers to a brand like a good story.

Editor’s Note:  Want to hear more from Jennifer Beaupre? Be sure to come hear her speak at BusinessNext Social, collocated with NMX, this coming January! She’ll be interviewed along with Sam Fiorella of Sesei Marketing in a session titled, “A Look Into The Future Of Influence Marketing.” Register today!

Michael Brito: Chat Transcript

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This month at NMX we launched weekly, lunchtime chats on Facebook. Our first special guest was Michael Brito, SVP of Social Business at Edelman. Michael’s also one of the speakers at our BusinessNext Social Conference in January. His session is titled “The New Influencers: Brand Advocacy Inside and Out.”

Michael’s worked with big brands such as Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Yahoo!. He is also the author of Smart Business, Social Business: A Playbook for Social Media In Your Organization. If you missed our first, weekly chat with Michael, the transcript is below.

Shane Ketterman I have a question! What are 3 main differences between “influencers” and “advocates” and why is this important?

New Media Expo Michael – Tell us some of the ways brands can inspire customers to act as advocates.
Michael Brito: hi!…sorry I am a few minutes late!
New Media Expo It’s all good – We’re on Facebook time!
Michael Brito when I think about advocacy … a term called Reciprocal Altruism comes to mind… it’s this concept that we as marketers need to “give to the community, without any expectation of receiving anything i return”
Michael Brito if you take that concept and apply it to everything you do from a content perspective, that is how you turn friends, fans and followers into advocates
Michael Brito @Shane .. this one is easy….
Michael Brito Advocates already love the brand and talk about it everywhere. Influencers, for the most part, require incentives…
Shane Ketterman Thanks Michael! Do you think that Influencers and also be Altruistic and is that important?
Michael Brito there are also several tools you can use to help facilitate a brand advocate program …
Michael Brito Gaggle AMP, Social Toaster, Zuberance, Influitive, Social Chorus
New Media Expo What are some things to consider when putting together a customer advocacy progam?
Shane Ketterman I like the distinction actually and in a way – – we are all advocates for something – – I fall in love with things I use and tell others on a continual basis, but companies may not even know that I’m doing it…
David Schwartz Are Edelman clients looking for social media ROI as well as metrics?
Michael Brito @Shane — good point. Usually influencers are advocates of a certain vertical i.e. travel, technology … there are always exceptions
Michael Brito but rarely are they going to talk about just ONE brand. The advocates will .. assuming the level of emotional equity associated with their experiences with it
Megan Enloe Good point Shane. Michael can you share some ways companies can find and reward the people who already love them and are naturally being their advocates?
Mark Fidelman Do you think traditional PR is making the leap to Social? or are they still resisting the move?
Tina Baljian Michael- In the ”what’s in it for me” world, what can a brand do to encourage word of mouth marketing ?
Michael Brito Mark Fidelman .. they have to and if they haven’t yet began the transition, they will surely find themselves irrelevant and losing business.
Michael Brito @David yes, many of our clients report into digital marketing organizations so ROI is extremely important.
Michael Brito @megan usually advocates can be found through a conversation audit. An audit will tell you where the conversation is happening (twitter, blogs, forums, etc.), the sentiment of conversations and also identify the advocates. Also looking at your own facebook/twitter activity is a way to find advocates … they are the ones that are commenting/sharing/RTing, Liking your content the most. Simply MEasured (monitoring company) can also do this.
Dave Taylor Michael, social media is fundamentally about *people*, but that often is at odds with the need of a brand to remain autonomous and anonymous. There’s no Mr. Nike or Ms. Starbucks. The result: we have companies like Panasonic and Wal-Mart creating fake people to tap into social media’s buzz – astroturfing – or brands more identified by their representatives (I’m thinking of Microsoft and Robert Scoble) even when the person’s left the company. How do you counsel companies find a balance with this complex tension and be successful here on FB and elsewhere online?
Michael Brito @David — some ROI metrics also include decreasing call center calls, etc.
Mark Fidelman Michael Brito who inn your opinion has made the transition?
Michael Brito @Dave .. i look at it differetnly. Social media is about content… but that content should be created (paid, owned, earned) in a way that changes behavior. You can’t change behavior unless the brand is “human”. Dell is a great example of a company that has created employee advocacy .. basically enabling their employees to build their personas online. And guess what, they don’t just have one person. They have several hundred as does Intel and IBM Social Business.
Michael Brito so when I think of the Dell brand, I don’t think of Austin or a logo or whatever. I think of the people that work there that I have relationships with…
New Media Expo Michael Brito What can a brand do to seem more human when all customers see is a logo?
Michael Brito creating fake people isn’t smart and I think most companies have learned that this isn;t a best practice. Instead, they are using employees, customers and partners to feed into the content engine.
Michael Brito Mark Fidelman do I really need to answer this? LOL .. of course Edelman but also Ogilvy has done a fantastic job and even some of the smaller PR firms like Shift Communications, Voce, etc.
New Media Expo Beyond Facebook, what are some of the ways brands are reaching out to their communities/customers and achieving good results?
Michael Brito New Media Expo .. as I said in an earlier comments, employee advocacy (which I will talk about in my session) is the key to humanizing a brand. Not just empowering employees, but “enabling” them using content, process and even technology.
Michael Brito New Media Expo they are data mining their Jive/Lithium support communities and many are creating new communities using advocacy platforms like Fancorps, Influitive and Social Chorus.
New Media Expo Michael Brito – I know you had another appointment this afternoon. Thanks so much for joining us for our chat today, and I hope you won’t be a stranger on the NMX Facebook page.
Michael Brito Thank you New Media Expo .. had a great time!
Michael Brito I will stick around for a few more mnutes in case there are any more questions.
New Media Expo Thanks, Michael! Looking forward to your presentation at NMX and feel free to use this space to pitch your latest project.

Mark Fidelman Michael Brito I am very disappointed with most PR firms, where do you feel the industry needs to evolve? Also, Will traditional PR be dead in 5 years?

Michael Brito Mark Fidelman .. traditional PR functions like media relations will never go away. It will change but won’t be dead. The evolution needs to come because the skillset requirements will change. Many traditional PR pros don’t get social, search, paid media, etc. That will change.
If you enjoyed this chat, be sure to check out Michael’s session at the BusinessNext Social conference in January! And, if you’d like to join us for our next lunchtime chat, visit us on Facebook this Wednesday (10/31) at 10am PT/1pm ET as we welcome our special guest Phil Hollows, perhaps best-known for his work at FeedBlitz and author of List Building for Bloggers.

The Difference Between Social Business & Social Brand

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Session: Social Business: From Organizational Chaos to Corporate Governance
Speaker: Michael Brito

Did you know that there is a difference between a “social business” and a “social brand”? According to Michael Brito, the SVP of Social Business at Edelman Digital, a business that uses social media channels to communicate with their customers has a social brand but is not necessarily a social business.

In his new book Smart Business, Social Business: A Playbook for Social Media in Your Organization, he explains that a social business is actually defined by its social infrastructure.

“It’s the difference between kind of the internal communications versus the external communications,” he says in the below WebProNews interview. “An organization cannot have effective and meaningful conversations with customers unless they are having effective and meaningful conversations with each other.”

So, which is it for you – do you have a social brand or a social business?

Michael Brito will be speaking about this topic in further detail in his “Social Business: From Organizational Chaos to Corporate Governance” session during the Social Media Business Summit at BlogWorld LA. Be sure to check it out!

BlogWorld and New Media Expo is partnering with WebProNews, a news publication covering search, social media, and ebusiness, in an effort to broadcast how new media can grow your business, brand, and audience. WebProNews has covered BWE since its first show in 2007. Check out reports from previous shows here, and stay tuned for much more coverage from BWE LA.

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