Social / studies

A brand manager can't be there for every single zero moment today. Marc Vanlerberghe, Android's Senior Director of Global Marketing, shares his solution in this ZMOT case study, "I spend almost 100% of my time building and arming an 'Android Army' of fans. My job as a marketer is to cultivate that group and arm them with the right facts and the right things to say on our behalf at ZMOT."

Social media has made the classic marketing/sales funnel obsolete. Viral referrals and customer evangelism now play a major role in purchase decisions, so savvy marketers need to engage consumers where it really makes a difference. In this report, Wildfire by Google's experts will walk you through a framework for today's social customer journey based on a model created by Forrester Research. You'll learn:

• How consumers interact with social media while on their journey to purchase
• Successful strategies for how brands can meet consumers at critical junctures along the way
• How real brands are doing it today

Zoro Tools, an online supplier of over 250,000 industrial products, had limited resources and a massive product assortment. They had been using Adwords all along, but was intrigued with Google Product Listing Ads (PLA) because it allowed them to advertise every product.

As Zoro Tools expanded its PLA budget, the company saw ROI for PLA rise 49%. Over the same period, conversion rates rose 17% while cost-per-acquisition fell 21%.

Zoro Tools President Yugo Kanazawa shares, "We're not in the business of keyword-bid management; we're in the business of serving customers. [Google Product Listing Ads] allows us to focus our efforts on what's most important."

On average, only 17% of fans share a brand's campaign with friends and family. But top-performing social brands get 39% of their fans to share their campaigns. Social Superbrands excel at turning fans into sharers and advocates. Wildfire analyzed 10,000 Facebook campaigns over a 9-month period to uncover 6 best practices to turn your brand into a social "Superbrand" and achieve:

• 2x greater reach
• 3x greater engagement
• 10x greater fan growth

Did you know that Google+ is much more than a social destination site? Google+ is the "social spine" across all of Google's properties, and your brand's activity on Google+ today can positively impact your brand's search results and other advertising efforts across Google.

In this white paper, Wildfire - the cross-network social marketing software division of Google - suggests why Google+ should be a key part of your larger social and digital marketing strategy. Inside you'll learn:

• How to increase ad click-thru rates by 5 to 10% on average by enabling "social extensions".
• How to be eligible for enhanced right-hand Google Search listings by maintaining and active Google+ page
• 7 best practices for connecting with the fast-growing Google+ global audience.

One of the aims of Cadbury’s London 2012 programme is to engage with a younger audience of customers aged 18 to 25 years old. With the goals of interacting with this tech-savvy demographic, standing out from other sponsors and extending its reputation for creativity and innovation, Cadbury embraced Google+ in the following ways:

• With every advert or new creative, early in the process Cadbury thinks, ‘How are we going to bring this alive in social media? Is there a way for our fans to become a part of it?’
• Cadbury has been careful to give their followers a reason to come to their Google+ page by sharing exclusive content they can’t find anywhere else. For example, special edition Google+ chocolate bars were made to feature on the page.
• Hangouts let Cadbury connect fans to interesting personalities, from Olympic athletes to chocolate experts. "Hangouts are a really great way to quite literally see people eye to eye."
• Use of social extensions in AdWords, which links Cadbury’s Google+ page to its AdWords campaigns drove a 17% uplift in click-through rate (CTR) across all their AdWords campaigns.
• Installment of the Google+ badge on its homepage drove a consistent 10,000 new Google+ followers per day. Also, since the addition of the badge and code on www.cadbury.co.uk, Cadbury experienced an increase of 7.5% of traffic from Google URLs.

H&M uses Google+ to connect with over 940,000 users and deliver engaging exclusive content. Miriam Tappert, Global Social Media Manager at H&M, explains that the objectives for setting up the brand’s Google+ page were simple: “To be where our customers are, have a dialogue and share the latest fashion.” H&M shares some winning tips to social success below:

• Use video and photos frequently in posts, as visuals are an effective way to promote fashion and lifestyle.
• Make followers on Google+ feel that what they get is unique, offering access to behind the scenes footage.
• Use Google+ Ripples feature to analyze trendsetting and keep track of the top influencers for various categories.
• Use social extensions to integrate social strategy into search. Social extensions help the company obtain a higher number of brand recommendations, +1’s and direct traffic to their Google+ page, effectively increasing the number of followers. On average H&M has achieved a 22% CTR uplift on all their AdWords campaigns thanks to implementing social extensions.

A guide to how to get your business started on G+ and 10 tips on engaging with your users.

Google commissioned GfK to help understand women aged 25-50 who buy CPG products for their household. Key findings included:

• 88% of British women use the internet and search online.
• 60% of UK women have searched online within the CPG category.
• Women who search in the category spend, on average, 20% more in store.