New Content in Red Increasing

New Content in Red

Increasing the Awareness of Fearless Chocolate

Increasing the Awareness of Fearless Chocolate- Organic Chocolate

Using Social Media

The foundational elements of any effective marketing and promotional strategy can often be measured by how effectively they engage the potential customer and also sustain interest from those that are most brand-loyal. Social media and the collection of Web 2.0-based technologies as a communications platform continues to prove itself as a viable alternative to traditional marketing channels and platforms as a result (Bernoff, Li, 2008). The inherent nature of social media supports conversations between brands and prospects, customers and the most brand-loyal fans. Too often however companies look at these social media platforms as another channel or one-way, broadcast-like communications channel without interacting with potential and existing customers alike. For Fearless Chocolate, the challenge is to use social media to engage with prospective and current customers and get them to purchase more chocolate.

Promoting Fearless Chocolate Using Web 2.0 & Social Media Technologies

Getting beyond social media as a one-way communications channel is essential for Fearless Chocolate to grow their business using social media. Today their use of social media has for the most part been to broadcast news and specials, and small advertisements broadcast over Twitter. These leave the company undifferentiated and much like any other confectionary products provider globally.

Instead of using social media to just broadcast their pricing, new products and the announcement of a new advertising agency, which in all candor is more interesting to those that work at the company than its customers, Fearless needs to engage with prospects and customers far more effectively than they are today.

To accomplish this, Fearless needs to first focus on understanding its customers more effectively, with a clear sense of their preferences, needs and wants. One of the best approaches to doing this is creating a virtual community of customers globally and invite them to share their favorite flavors, pictures of how they enjoy consuming the chocolate, and what special occasions they gift Fearless Chocolate. This will bring a much-needed level of recognition of tis customers into their social media efforts, as customers look to find personas or representations of themselves in the products they are the most loyal to (Brodie, Ilic, Juric, Hollebeek, 2013).

As a first step in creating this online community, Fearless needs to sponsor more contests for customers, where the winner gets a free year's supply of all the Fearless Chocolate they want (limit of 250 lbs.) and a free trip to Berkeley, California to see the manufacturing of chocolate. Berkeley is just across from San Francisco, so giving a free week in that city would be a very big motivator for people to produce entries. This contest would be entirely hosted on YouTube with links to the Fearless site, showing every uploaded video entry. Having a contest like this brings the voice of the Fearless customer into the very center of their social media strategy and also sets the foundation of a highly effective virtual community. User-generated content is especially powerful in getting potential customers to see how they are part of the broader customer base, seeing how others like them are using the products shown (Andrew, Fischer, Yongjian, 2012). For Fearless this will also break down the barriers to having customers share more information, thereby creating a more effective dialogue than they are having today. The essence of any effective branding strategy is the embedding of messaging in social networks that support and strengthen the overall customer experiences a given product or service is attempting to convey (Zaglia, 2013). The YouTube Video Contest, with the grand prize being a trip to San Francisco and Berkeley, in addition to a year's supply of chocolate, will generate tens of thousands of entries, create a very strong dialogue between the company and its customers.