SOCIAL
MEDIA

Bell Pottinger Business & Brand has developed a unique tool for auditing the presence a brand has across key social media platforms and measuring the impact of conversations and engagement online.

The model looks at how social media communities, including employees, media, suppliers, stakeholders and consumers, interact with the brand in digital environments and delivers a Social Media Impact (SMI) score based on five critical variables of influence, engagement, popularity, trust and management.

This forms the basis for recommendations of how the company can deliver its key objectives through social media, identifying areas where improvements can be made to help maximise the impact of activity and improve the SMI score.

More than 25 audits have been completed for major UK and US corporates and industry to date in a range of sectors including market research, food and drink, mining and FMCG and we are providing ongoing support for companies currently implementing recommendations made.

Bell Pottinger Business & Brand has worked for The Brand Cellar since April 2011, launching this unique UK start-up by raising awareness of its innovative business model – acquiring lost or under-performing heritage brands and reinventing them for new generations of consumers in the UK and in emerging markets.

We unveiled the Brand Cellar’s story at London’s Museum of Brands Packaging and Advertising in July 2011, inviting national business and trade media to hear the results of a YouGov poll revealing the consumer appetite for bygone brands, and announcing serial entrepreneur Sir Rodney Walker as the company’s Chairman.

The launch focused on the revival of one of the once dominant high street butchers brand Dewhurst, featuring an appearance by The Dewhurst ‘Master Butcher’ in the shape of Brand Cellar founder Jonathan Hick.

The launch secured a wide range of national and international coverage, with articles in The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Mirror and The Sun, as well as the FT Bloomberg BusinessWeek websites. The BBC World Service interviewed a spokesperson for The Brand Cellar for its World Business Report, and the launch was covered in key trade publications including The Grocer, Retail Week and Marketing Week.

This was a fully integrated traditional and social media campaign, using a social media news release to share photos and video with target journalists and bloggers, and supporting this by establishing YouTube, Flickr and Twitter profiles for the company.

The successful launch has not only helped establish The Brand Cellar’s business pedigree, providing the basis of strong on-going relationships with key media outlets, but has also generated a series of enquiries from prospective brands and business partners. A member of the Brand Cellar staff commented – ‘the day after the launch the phone didn’t stop ringing!’

We were appointed by Lafarge to help them reach small builders and DIY enthusiasts, positioning the world-leading cement business as a source of guidance and practical advice.

We knew many of the people we wanted to reach are active within social media, and wanted to find a way to talk to them in their own language, on their home turf.

And so @LoveCement was born – a tongue-in-cheek programme aimed at positioning Lafarge as a conduit for all conversations DIY. A clear departure from its traditional ‘corporate’ image, the tone and language of our activity has helped Lafarge foster new relationships and engage a community of building enthusiasts who are key to its packed cement business.

Our multi-platform programme is led by an active twitter profile integrated with an interactive DIY microsite and blogger activity. We have developed a series of‘how to’ application videos which have had more than 100,000 YouTube hits, and our programme links closely with Lafarge competitions and promotions to drive participation.

In less than six months @LoveCement has become a fully integrated part of Lafarge Cement’s marcomms activity. It is now being used widely within the business to support recruitment initiatives and employee engagement, and has won recognition from across the sector for demonstrating best practice PR.