How many of you are passionate about your toilet paper? I ask that when I speak about content marketing and very few hands fly up in the air. It’s a nice lead-in to talk about Charmin and how it engages consumers on social media channels.
Frankly, Charmin is so funny and engaging on both Twitter and Facebook, that I … wait for it … just want to squeeze them. (If you’re under 35, Google, “Mr. Whipple.”) Whether it’s silly participation in someone else’s hashtag:
Or driving it’s own awesome one (#tweetfromtheseat):
Or even engaging other brands in clever ways:
Charmin’s Twitter presence is a never-ending roll of awesome. Its Facebook presence is similar, but logically more photo driven:
I would challenge anyone to scroll through Charmin’s social content on either channel and find more than one in 20 posts that seem to be selling Charmin. Like most large brands, Charmin understands that social marketing is as much about top-of-mind awareness and brand recognition than it is customer acquisition.
For Charmin, social marketing is about engagement. Not sales.
But there is an impact on sales. How do I know? I recently was put in a position to need to grocery shop with toilet paper on the list. What brand did I buy?
I bought the brand that I see in my stream every day that puts a smile on my face. It might take me 2-3 minutes to even name another toilet paper brand. (Granted, I’m not exactly a regular shopper for the product, but still.)
What Charmin teaches us is that engagement on social channels is absolutely worth while. Social marketing in this context is not about getting people to buy Charmin. That would be a direct response approach that would be awful in the social space.
Who wants to see tweets of, “Make sure you go out and buy some Charmin today!?
Social marketing in this context is about getting people to choose Charmin. Whenever it is they are faced with that choice.
Top of mind is worth millions of dollars to many brands. Social media engagement helps brands like Charmin get there.
What other brands do you think of on a regular basis because you see or hear about them in social channels? Which do you follow that put a smile on your face or more knowledge in your brain? There’s your case studies.
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