I have finally started to understand how Social Media can be used by non-technology manufacturers who sell business to business.
Part of that understanding is realizing that 75% of all traditional journalists get story ideas from reading blogs. And blogs are a great way to increase your exposure at the consumer level. If people are asking for your product, retailers will want to carry it.
So I'm sitting in the eye doctor's office reading my copy of Direct, the magazine of the Direct Marketing Association, and an article jumps out at me.
HP First Up Dragon, Social media effort boosts notebook sales. After reading the article, I rip it out of the magazine (looked up the link later) to save in my "swipe" idea file.
Bottom line is they were promoting a new, very high end notebook computer by giving them away as prizes on blogs. The results? "...got an immediate 85% sales bump in Dragons, a 15% increase in traffic to the hp.com Web site and a “halo effect” 10% hike in total consumer PC purchases" The cost -- what it cost HP to build 31 notebook computers (not what they were worth at retail). I'm sure they got a lot more exposure for the dollar than any traditional advertising in a computer magazine would have provided.
Why couldn't any manufacturer do the same, even with a low cost product?
One of my favorite carry with me always products is Wellspring Gift's Flip Note. I know Trip and the gang and have done some internal process work for them. So it was interesting to do a random blog search for "flip note" and have a contest pop up. While Wellspring didn't provide the product for the contest (an on-line retailer did), they could have easily been the sponsor for the cost of a few flip notes.
So what could you do to promote your product by giving it away on blogs?