When we started to talk to companies that were using social media tools for customer service,we found people in all kinds of industries who were doing exceptional work. One of those that really stood out was Les Cowie, Direct of Business Development at Worldwide Brands. The story and data we got from Les was so impressive, we decided to just publish it in its entirety:
Since leveraging Social Networking sites, www.worldwidebrands.com (“WBI”) has increased Traffic to our website by more than 15% with a resultant increase in sales and Memberships
Worldwidebrands.com uses: YouTube (videos), Squidoo (articles), Twitter (social following), FaceBook and Linked-in extensively.
Because Worldwidebrands.com offers a solution for online retailers selling via Amazon, eBay Auctions, eBay Stores, Yahoo1 stores and custom designed stores and specializes in helping for both Beginners and Experienced sellers, WBI wants to draw both Beginner and Experienced Traffic to www.worldwidebrands.com. Track record, reputation, Internet Talk Shows (like eBay Radio) and WBI’s own website helped immensely in the early days.
We began a deliberate Social Marketing strategy in August 2008 with better than expected results.
We began by placing education videos that WBI offers free on our own website on YouTube and seven other sites that display video material. There are 15 such sites that we know. We soon learned to avoid those that insert paid advertisements at the start of one’s material. We discovered these sites placing ads for competitive ‘get-rich-quick’ scams in front of our own videos. The minute we learned we have no control over the quality and ethics of such commercials, we dropped those sites. All of our videos carry a reference to www.worldwidebrands.com and have started bringing extensive Traffic to our site. During the 2008 Holiday Season we posted videos we produced in association with UPS and containing packing and shipping hints for web-base retailers. These were extremely popular.
We maintain a flow of fresh videos and articles to these sites.
For the reading community, we took the many articles that have been authored by our founder, Chris Malta, and selectively placed these on Squidoo. We also based educational content that had been authored with the help of the large Internet platform companies.
Then we began Twittering. Company executives from our president, Colette Marshall, to our Directors of Operations, Affiliate Relationships and Business Development established pages on FaceBook and Linked-In and began Twittering. Thousands of web-based retailers stated following our announcements and movements and the following grows daily. We are able to quickly update our following to recent developments at WBI or in the industry and point them to the appropriate page on our website to save them time. IN fact there is a Twitter Dual running right now between www.twitter.com/ColetteMarshall and www.twitter.com/tisharogers.
This strategy has become more effective than random press releases to keep our Member-base close to us.
Make no mistake. This takes a lot of commitment and time. One HAS to remember to Twitter. One has to maintain a schedule of ‘feeding’ these sites with interesting content using an appropriate mix of keywords and always with links back to ones website, Blog and Forum. The ROI is without doubt worth it!
