.Global, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — June 1, 2011 8:30 — 17 Comments

6 Social Media Lessons from David Ogilvy

Social Media Lessons from David Ogilvy

Way back in 1983 David Ogilvy wrote a book titled “Ogilvy on Advertising” at the time it was a real eye opener for those in Advertising, Marketing and PR. Today there his words of wisdom still very much apply. Six points really stand out and are vital to a brands success in Social Media.

1. Know Your Product Positioning

Before you even consider entering your brand into Social Media you must know how you want to ‘position’ your product. David deinfes ‘positioning’ as “what the product does, and who it is for.’ For your brands sake, please do not enter into Social Media without having a clear idea about your product/service’s positioning. Social Media is ruled by the consumer so if you don’t have a clear idea about your products/service’s positioning, your social media audience will do it for you and it may not be the position your want.

2. Define Your Brands Image

Knowing your brands image or personality is just as important as defining your products ‘positioning’. David believes your brands image is “an amalgam of many things – its name, its packaging, its price, the style of advertising, and, above all, the nature of the product itself”.  When it comes to social media, I believe you also need to consider ‘tone of voice’ as part of your brands image. After all, your will be using written communication on Social Media rather than verbal so how your say/write what is uber important.

3. Understand ‘Word of Mouth’ (WOM)

David states that “It sometimes happens that advertising campaigns enter the culture.” He goes on to say that “nobody knows how to do it on purpose. At least I don’t”. Today this does seem a little naive. These days we understand ‘fans’, ‘influencers’ and ‘brand advocates’. These are the people that can bring your marketing message to the culture. Reaching and activating these consumers can create ‘word of mouth’. In fact, there are now a number of marketing agencies that specialise in Word of mouth marketing. Understand how ‘word of mouth’ happens online before you enter the Social Media arena.

4. Take a Lesson from Direct Response

Whether posting a blog article or running paid media on Facebook, you must know ‘timing’. David believes that we all have a very big lesson to learn from direct response advertising. He says that “general advertisers broadcast their commercials in expensive prime time, when the audience is at it’s peak. But direct response advertisers have learned that they make more sales late at night”. When you think about readership on social media (particularly given the global nature of this media) you really must consider when is the best time to be publishing your blog articles, tweeting and posting status updates on Facebook. The obvious is not always the most effective.

5. Use Headlines That Stand Out

David says “on the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headlines sells your product, you have wasted 90 per cent of your money”. Today the same applies. Unless your headline sells your message 90% of social media users will read your message. This applies to blog articles, Facebook posts and Tweets.

6. Understand & Use Research

“Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals”. Today, more so than ever, this statement rings true. In our social online world you cannot ignore what the people are telling you. This means using social monitoring tools. Don’t do it and your brand will suffer.

If you’re interested in Ogilvy’s current views on Social Media here is a great video from John Bell one of Ogilvy PR’s Global Managing Directors. In this video John talks about how social media has caused a shift in consumer behaviour.

Do you have your own Social Media lessons you want to share? Leave us a comment below and share you wisdom.

 

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About the author

Kohlben Vodden has written 71 articles for WhatWorksWhere.com

Head of Social Media & Content Strategy @ #Ogilvy London + Editor of @whatworkswhere - Social Media Blog. Connect on LinkedIn: http://goo.gl/6Qv4b

17 Comments

  1. James Chamerlik says:
    June 1, 2011 at 4:28 pm

    Thanks for posting, Kohlben. It is refreshing to see someone reference Ogilvy, and base an entire article on basic points of advertising that a legend first wrote about many years ago. I tell our clients that SM really isn’t rocket science, it is really building a brand and a campaign using the same mindset as we always, just with new tactics at hand. Your post helps reiterate this. There isn’t a “silver bullet”, it is more about doing what ad people have always done, but doing a lot of thinking about these fundamentals before each tweet, post, blog article.. you know the game. :)

    • Kohlben Vodden says:
      June 1, 2011 at 6:19 pm

      Hi James, thanks for the comment. Glad you liked it. Do you have any great books that you’d recommend to our readers?

      • Bijay says:
        May 31, 2012 at 1:54 am

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  2. Rosie says:
    June 14, 2011 at 4:37 am

    Now I feel suptid. That’s cleared it up for me

  3. Karah says:
    June 14, 2011 at 1:35 pm

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    May 30, 2012 at 8:49 pm

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  5. Samantha P. says:
    June 14, 2012 at 5:59 pm

    Fuck yeah!

  6. Chris Ford says:
    July 28, 2012 at 7:01 pm

    I think what Ogilvy was saying about #3 is he has no idea what makes a campaign “viral” (our generation’s version of WOM). And regardless of how much we now know about influencers, fans and brand advocates, we still don’t know what the catalyst for initiating the influencers to promote a brand–that’s still the magic juju of the business. There’s no formula or magic bullet for getting the people you want to spread your message, and a company’s brand messaging can be really far from the public’s image of the brand.

    For example, look at one of ATTs failed brand messages, when they were claiming to have the most connected network, but failed to deliver on their brand promise. The message the company was promoting was vastly different than the reality of customers dealing with lots of dropped calls and connectivity issues. In fact, ATT actually changed their brand message in 2010 to “Rethink Possible”, focusing on innovation instead of a value proposition, and is currently talking about re-branding yet again. The influencers in the sphere promoted a message that was diametrically opposed to the message the company was trying to promote.

    Thanks for the thought provoking article! It would be a great series–to explore how to apply traditional advertising and design gurus’ messages to our current technologies. It really made me consider how the more things change, the more they stay the same.

    • Kohlben Vodden says:
      July 29, 2012 at 10:32 am

      Hi Chris, Thank you for your message. Glad you enjoyed the article. I agree that there value in exploring how we can apply traditional advertising messages to our current technologies. Stay tuned.

  7. Jacob Emma  says:
    August 1, 2012 at 6:49 pm

    Great line up. We will be linking to this great article on our site. Keep up the good writing.

  8. Dewey Kaplin says:
    October 15, 2012 at 11:33 am

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  9. Gavin Khoun says:
    November 1, 2012 at 12:08 am

    Excellent post, I can’t wait for the next one.

  10. Ronny Leflar says:
    November 4, 2012 at 1:06 pm

    Nice job

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