Charles-Henry Ruyant » Social Media

Why not use social media for government scare campaigns?

Charles-Henry Ruyant — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:27:30 +0000

I realised think it would be a lot cheaper and (probably more effective) for any alcohol campaign organised by the government health service (NHS here in the UK) to use these shocking videos, as seen on Youtube…

Watch the video below and let me know if you think it is more shocking than any other videos from the NHS?

Paranormal activity is a social media success

Charles-Henry Ruyant — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:56:27 +0000

Paranormal activity is a new low budget horror movie from the US. With a budget of only $11,000, it has still managed to reach the top 5 of the box office rankings in the US after only two weeks!

Obviously without any money for a traditional marketing plan, they used the new social media platforms and word-of-mouth fan buzz.

Paranormal Activity Twitter

Starting with a posting of the very well done trailer and utilising Twitter and Facebook as its only marketing, the movie is now a hit. It is a simple technique but very efficient. The main ingredient was the trailer and the rest is just a question of word-of-mouth.

In the UK we will have to wait until the 27th of November to see it…

iGoogle: the new social media platform

Charles-Henry Ruyant — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:09:59 +0000

Google is not a big player on social media, different projects have been attempted but have never really succeeded. Its rival Microsoft owns part of Facebook and Twitter doesn’t want to sell.

Instead of starting from scratch, Google has used its iGoogle. A pretty good idea considering over ten million of people use iGoogle. Google announced the Social Gadget for iGoogle last friday.

iGoogle Social Media Application

The principal is simple; on your iGoogle page you can include some applications that you can share with your friends. These applications include games, to do list, pictures sharing …

The concept is pretty nice; it is a good and cheap way to develop a social media platform. Maybe Google will even take some social media market shares.

This idea also shows that people want to have everything in one place – search engine, game, chat, on one screen.

Lets see how well this social initiative will work out for Google.

‘This is now’ – Ford Social Media campaign

Charles-Henry Ruyant — Wed, 20 May 2009 09:12:43 +0000

Eight months ago, Ford started a social media campaign called ‘This is Now’ for the launch of the Ford Fiesta. The principal is pretty simple, upload a picture, video or song representing the concept ‘This is Now’. Ford uses the famous Flickr which is an image and video hosting website. This campaign is managed by We are Social which is a social media agency in London.

Flickr - This is Now

The ‘This is Now’ Flickr group is composed of various metaphoric pictures which represent the theme ‘This is Now’. As you can imagine there are a wide ranging number of representations of this motto, some of them very impressive.

To promote the Flickr group, they have set up a blog, a Facebook group and a Twitter profile! They have also contacted an impressive number of blogs, starting with the main marketing blogs and after fashion, art and photo blogs. The goal was to involve people who are not familiar with the automobile industry.

This is Now - Blog

‘This is now’ is a very interactive campaign with the usual elements such as photo posting, a blog (which allows guest writers to promote the events and pictures), Facebook and Twitter conversation.

After only eight months, the campaign is a ‘success’ according to Sandrine Plasseraud who is in charge of the Ford campaign for We are Social. With more than 40,000 pictures and reaching over one million people across Europe this campaign is definitely well managed.

Most of the online campaigns which include involvement/engagement of the public are normally the most successful and cost efficient. The blog, Facebook and Twitter were also an excellent choice of social media support to the main activity (uploading pictures on Flickr).

Ford has done an excellent job so far, let see what they will add (if any) over the next few months…