Tweet the Rainbow

 

Would you make Twitter your homepage? 

How about using Flickr photos tagged with your brand name as official company images or take what someone has written about your company history and products and use it as official brand language. 

Sounds a little crazy, right? Or it might be intriguing, but you know that suggesting it at your next marketing meeting may get you tossed out the window like the Bud Light guy in that Superbowl commercial. 

The folks at Skittles (parent company MARS) are only throwing one thing out the window — and that’s the traditional approach to brand websites. Log onto www.skittles.com and 2 bright red widget boxes pop up on your screen. One is a verification and disclaimer (T&C) clause that you have to accept. This is interesting. They’re attaching their online brand to user-generated content, yet MARS Inc. is not responsible for what you might see. 

Just a heads up: Any stuff beyond the Skittles.com page is actually another site and not in our control. This panel may be hovering over the page, but SKITTLES® isn’t responsible for what other people post and say on these sites. Click the box below to acknowledge that you know SKITTLES® isn’t responsible for that stuff.

After you accept, that leaves one box cemented on your browser window, with six tabs at the top. The new homepage for Skittles.com is the Twitter search stream for thh keyword “Skittles”. Clicking on any Products link pops you to the Wikipedia page. Same for Pics (Flickr stream), Videos (YouTube channel — only 3 videos, but that’s another topic), and Friends (Facebook Fan Page). Chatter takes you back to Twitter search [is this a sign that the “Home” tab may be changing?] and Contact gives you a feedback box on the only page that looks corporately owned. 

A few questions I had after my first glances at the site: 

• How much monitoring is going to take place on all these channels? It didn’t take long for slurs and negative statements  to show up on Twitter search (aka homepage), and we all know that anyone can edit a Wiki, post pictures to Flickr or become a fan on Facebook and post/tag rogue content. 
• Why would someone leave a feedback email when they can post to a homepage instantly in 140 characters? I would assume the same person that gets those emails is also reading the Tweets. 
• How will Skittles recieve, measure and respond to the Tweets, good and bad that are being posted? #Skittles has been a trending topic all morning, and the site just went up. 
• Also, if a brand is going to base its homepage presence on Twitter, shouldn’t it own its own Twitter handle? As of 10AM (ET), @Skittles had 1 follower (and a profile pic of a LOL Cat), @SkittlesCandy was being squatted on by a concerned fan, @SkittlesUSA and @MARSInc weren’t in use yet. 
• What do we call the new Skittles online presence? It’s not a true website. Portal, widget, application, channel, presence are all more appropriate descriptions of their new initiative. 
• Will the new efforts make an impact on sales? @PRSarahEvans posed this question to Twitter in a TwitPoll . Early results showed 63% of responders say Skittles makeover does not make them more likely to buy Skittles. 

The “who owns your brand” discussion is a popular one within social media circles, and I expect the Skittles initiative to spark another round of it. But I’m mostly curious to see if Skittles.com will change or be modified before the buzz dies down. 

One last thought – I’m not against the new Skittles web campaign. I think its a fresh approach that maybe didn’t consider all the corners (or they did, but don’t care). Skittles and MARS have taken the “everyone owns a pice of your brand” mantra and acted literally. They’re telling consumers “what you say and do about us is better than what we can tell you”…although this also has the feeling of “we’re saving thousands in web development dollars”. Skittles deserves Kudos for their unique approach, but I don’t expect to see it copied soon.

Are We Engaging Gen Y or Stalking Them Blindly?

The first actual conference session I went to Thursday was titled “Using Social Media to Engage Digital Natives”. Now, the idea of engaging young adults with technology that speaks to them is something I think about every day. Still, I was interested to hear about how other companies were using new media tools to reach out to other audiences.

A quick review of some vocab that we used in this, and other, conversations:
Digital native: person who grew up with technology and have very low adaptation curve to new media tools.
Digital Immigrants: Those who grew up with pen & paper and have to adapt to a digital world
Social Network: Peer-to-peer networking sites
Blog: Reverse diary for both personal and commercial use

By the end of the hour-long seminar, I was a little disheartened about what I think other (older) people took away from it:

Today’s seminar is all about (unofficially) “You, too, can stalk and find Gen Y on Facebook and start marketing to them, and it’ll probably work.” Totally hurting my newfound efforts to dispel that notion to marketers that Gen Y is only on Facebook.

Where’s the research that says that less than half of FB’s 65 million active users are actually college students? I know it’s there, because I just found it and put it into our own presentation. How about: only 15% of social media initiatives set forward are deemed successful? Hello WalMart, Pepsi, McCareers and Second Life.

Sure, the case studies that were presented were pretty effective and what most people would consider “successful”, but what about the “Best of Everything” YouTube video that has only gained 2,000 hits in three months – in a city with 1.7 million people?? Successful? Effective?

The social media discussions this week are terrific, and yes, I realize that is the point of the entire conference, but I think it’s important to also stress this is a part of the whole, not the “AHA” perfect solution.

I’m glad that our speaker did add, later, that their social media outreach to college students via Facebook was only part of their larger PR plan that still integrated traditional outreach methods, including pounding the pavement, sending out releases, etc. Web 2.0 is not THE answer, it is a part of an integrated approach to marketing, PR and communications.

Like David Pogue said at the keynote this morning (hilarious, btw), the new technologies are not replacing the old – rather the mainstream channels are splintering into more and more pieces. There’s just more ways for communicators to spread the messages, more channels to pay attention to, more to contribute (but we’re still getting paid the same, unless you’re a Hollywood writer).

I want to hear some success stories about using social media as a part of a larger PR initiative. Do you have one? Leave it, or other thoughts, below.