Nokia on Social Media
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One fine day I got this email from one womworld.com and it asked me if I would be interested in reviewing a Nokia device. For a minute I thought that it was yet another African Widow Scam or Unknown Heir Spam. But somehow this one looked genuine and I queried other people on twitter. Within minutes I was told that two more known bloggers from India (TwilightFairy and Ashish) have got similar emails (TwilightFairy agreed to review the device, Ashish refused).
Convinced that it is for real, I replied to WOM and surprisingly they shipped the device all the way from London, within 24 hours (with pre-paid ship-back envelope attached :D). They asked me to use it, play with it, test it, review the device and publish the opinion on the blog. And return the device at the end of the day.
Lets evaluate if Nokia’s social media strategy is actually worth it. From what I can see, there are quite a few distinct steps involved in the entire campaign.
1. Identification and Selection of Bloggers
Most probably they are using some kind of algorithm (machine based or human) to make a list of popular bloggers on the Internet. This is how commonsense says they would have approached the problem.
- Identification of few popular bloggers and people who are real active on the Internet. Often known as A-listers, influencers, etc. Conventional wisdom says that these people hold a lot of influence over their contacts and can influence the decision making process.
- Followed by profiling of these people. This is important because I need to know if I should send a business phone or an entertainment phone or an expensive phone to these people.
- Target visitor profiling. Very important because I need to know what kind of visitors does that blog entice and are these the people that I want to sell my product to?
Are there more variables that I need to take care of? And thanks to all the behind-the-scenes magic (or maybe some luck), I got a Nokia E66 to review.
2. Costs and Risk Analysis
Costs and risks are very very important. Before a marketer agrees to spend money on any advertising or communication medium, they need to be assured of the returns. WOM said in their email that the device is worth Euro 500 and I am assuming that shipping costs between London and Mumbai would be another Euro 50 each side. They are thus risking 600 Euros on a review that I might post on my blog that about 20 people read on a daily basis. Is it worth it? To be honest I dont think so. May be I missing something. Any thoughts?
3. Results
I will not talk about technical or usability or features of the phone. They are meant for reviews. Since I am talking about social media strategy, I will talk about only the buzz marketing results.
- I posted few messages on twitter on Nokia E66 and engaged few interesting ones to know more about the device.
- I interacted with about 100 people in these 15 days (friends, colleagues, relatives, meetings with contacts from twitter, orkut, facebook, blogging etc.). Most were curious about the device and I was proud enough to talk to them brag. And I am sure these contacts would have spoken to more people.
- I would post a lot of things about this on my blogs, leave comment on other blogs talking about the same thing and since everything that you put on the Internet is permanent, Nokia E66 is getting a large chunk of my mind-share.
4. Results v 2.0
Results on the individual level are fine but what does the larger picture look like? How can Nokia utilize all these sporadic posts and messages by all these users and fit them in a larger context?
- Nokia is aggregating all posts on the device at one place and making them accessible to the world at large (here). So next time, I need to buy a phone, I would logon to WOM device list and check out feedback from bloggers (real men-next door, honest opinions, real men, non-marketers).
- It is making hundreds of bloggers (who ever is a part of the program) to write about the device on their respective blogs and spread the word within their respective circles of influence. This is as good a publicity as Nokia can buy. Customized, personalized, coming from first contact, personal review and honest opinion. And all these are very vital in building any kind of brand.
5. What next?
- Results? I would love to see the results. I have no clue how would I monitor the costs and ROI but I cant simply give away phones to people (cos even if they are returned in mint condition, they still cant be sold).
- What next? Everything that Nokia has done is very common-sensical and obvious. Is there a way to think of new ideas to get the buzz registers ringing?
And in the end, since I am as magnanimous as anyone the world has ever seen, I want to know why did they pick me. So why me?
- Old Blog? My blog is over 4 years old. Does this help .. ?
- Nokia fandom? I talk about Nokia and other mobile phone devices often on Twitter.
- Razr fandom? Then I keep on posting about my Motorola razr v3i.
- Jan Chipchase? I am a huge fan of one of Nokia’s employee, Jan Chipchase. I keep talking about him all the time and have said it umpteenth time that he’s got my dream job.
- Large circle of influence? I attract some 40 page views daily on my primary blog (mostly from search engines and most people are searching for lyrics and other India centric things) and post about 50 status updats on twitter everyday with about 700 people following me.
Could these things have helped me pop-up in the magic algorithm (if there is any)? Anyways, apart from this off the topic rant, I am really impressed by things that Nokia does on Social Media and activation amongst users and developers. (Talking about developers, two codecamps are coming up in Bangalore and Mumbai - register here).
What are you thoughts on use of Social Media by Nokia? Is the strategy coherent? Does it make sense? Are they correct in their approach? Are the costs worth it?
P.S.: I am yet to publish the review of the device they sent me :D
chhavi:
Saurabh, I think you’ve got most of the stuff right. They might also have looked at you on claimid and seen how far your network spreads and what kind of reach your wom has. It’s not just the blog - it’s your social media presence that adds up.
August 20, 2008, 3:57 pmAs for the costs - hell, yeah, they’re worth it. How many do you think they sent out? My guess is they’ll refurbish and sell them in a little while on overstock.com etc ;D
Twilight Fairy:
I dont think it really matters what kind of penetration one has in terms of “audience” .. what matters is that they are generating interest this way. Through you so many ppl now know that such a thing is happening or that such a handset exists (I didnt know of its existence before that). The handsets can always be re-used. The generated interest may even sell of some of their handsets.
BTW - I prefer being known as Twilight Fairy in the online world :).. and yes, my URL is twilightfairy.in , not .com :).
August 20, 2008, 6:46 pmHow Can the Nokia Blogger Review Program Become Even Better? | Gauravonomics Blog:
[...] has some interesting thoughts on the why and how of blogger review programs, including why Nokia might want to ship out Euro 500 [...]
August 20, 2008, 7:59 pmPavanaja:
If I were you, I would not have accepted the device with the condition that I have to return it. If they want it back, they should at least pay you for your efforts. Nokia is a profit making company and can not expect anyone to render a free service to them. I hope they send you one N96 in return to your efforts.
-Pavanaja
August 21, 2008, 3:51 amShefaly:
@ Saurabh:
Thanks for asking me to look at your post and give my views. Sorry I could not do it sooner.
Many large organisations are beginning to dip their toes testing the waters of social networks for marketing purposes. Both official efforts, such as this one, and bootleg ones, which companies do not acknowledge or just turn a blind eye to (as long as the brand is not damaged) are growing.
There is however nothing foolproof about experimentation. For instance, you say that perhaps 20 people will read your review. The questions here on are two-fold. One, is 20 a sufficient number? Perhaps, yes, if it is a well-selected audience. Secondly, is 20 a sufficient number to get into the hassle for? You will find out soon enough depending on how many ask you now that you have revealed the metric which they had possibly assumed to be larger for any number of reasons! :-) Besides you do not know all the bloggers who were approached, so, it is safe to say that much of your analysis here is based on several assumptions.
Companies such as Nokia can absorb the costs if they are reasonable. In your analysis, for instance, you are using end user price as the metric. To understand what it means to the company’s marketing budget, you need the BOM of the phone. As an illustration of the absurd ‘relationship’ between the BOM and the price tag, see this:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1896
In the UK, iPhone with contract sells for nearly £400/ US$ 800. Nokia’s BOM may be smaller because it has realised its economies of scales. Its components are also more integrated (iPhone 3G uses 2 chipsets whereas most other 3G phones use one chipset; design has significant bearing on weight and costs but now I am digressing).
Asking select people for reviews is also not new. Nokia is trying, as far as can be seen, to cultivate its own community. Amazon, with a well-established community of reviewers, has a programme, Amazon Vine, which sends free books/ CDs/ software etc to reviewers who then write reviews in huge numbers. I have been a top-1000 reviewer on Amazon-UK for a while and am also a Vine Voice reviewer. For Nokia these costs may well be being capitalised, not just expensed under ‘marketing’. Getting advance previews is also helpful in shaping opinions and influencing purchase since WOM is promoting all reviews written. And don’t under-estimate the warm-and-fuzzy that many young reviewers will get from this cross-linking, encouraging them to turn into Nokia mouthpieces without getting paid or even realising.
It was said of advertising dollars that half of them were always wasted, the trouble was we couldn’t say which half. The same can now be said of social marketing expenses.
The efforts have to be framed with the firm’s specific and the industry’s broader context to assess their relevance and cost-effectiveness. Hope this helps. Thanks.
August 21, 2008, 8:53 amMark Guim:
The WOM guys are pretty cool. I ask them all the time to borrow devices I can review. They’re also known to give bloggers opportunities to speak directly with product managers by sending them on trips to product launches, workshops, etc.
August 21, 2008, 4:45 pms4ur4bh:
Thanks for the wonderful response guys. Here are my thoughts ..
@Chhavi I never thought about the selling on overstock.com and come to think of it, they might use the used devices to “bribe” more bloggers by giving it away.
@TwilightFairy edited your name and the URL to .in. I think what you are saying is correct by I still am trying to understand why me. I understand that I can voice my thoughts to a lot of people and they will get to know from a human, a first hand source, they might test it, borrow it from me but why ME :D
@Gaurav posted a comment on blog :) And for the benefit of other readers, I think it should be BOTH pull and push. And yes Nokia should use link love. And yes apart from link love, they should help you promote it even more by giving you free tools to create more media. Probably sponsor the show (by not paying cash but by giving you dope for the vidcast). The opportunities are endless if they use some imagination. Question is, are they using it .. ?
@Pavanaja I dont think money would make sense. Moment my contacts know that I am being paid for it, they might not trust my opinion. They would know that this is something I am being paid for and hence the review might be biased. And yes even I hope .. rather PRAY that they send me a N96 :)
@Shefaly On metric .. Honestly I dont think its about the number. I think its about being at the top of search engines when someone queries for E66. With Google Blogsearch and other such social media search tools, recency plays a vital part. More people talk about the device, more relevant results and higher in the results they get.
ON BOM .. I ignored that one completely. Read about it and yes agreed that the price that they can manufacture a device for themselves can be ridiculously low.
And yes, it helped :)
@Mark Hope this is not one of those spam comments masqueraded at genuine comment to drive traffic. You must have read that I get only 20 visitors a day :)
Regards,
August 22, 2008, 4:28 amSG
Saurabh Garg on The New New Thing » Blog Archive » 2008 Aug 22 - Friday Update:
[...] happen, better is the quality of ideas/work. I actually saw it work for me when I wrote about Nokia’s use of social media and all the people I wanted to read the post, read [...]
August 22, 2008, 12:45 pm