moving from old-fashioned to social SAVVY
The way consumers engage with brands evolved with the introduction of social media. So how do you take a 100+ year-old brand into the modern age of social engagement? I introduced Greyhound to social media, launching official Facebook and Twitter channels with the initial intent of listening to what people said about the brand so we could learn before engaging. We then began using it as a way to promote fare sales, but we quickly learned that customers primarily wanted to use these channels to complain about their experience. In response, I built a team of social media experts to support our brand efforts and another team dedicated to complaint resolution. We then needed to find a way to encourage advocacy among our fans, and thus the influencer marketing program was born. Below are just a few highlights of how I led the transformation from a brand’s old-fashioned way of customer engagement into one of social savviness.
social command center
With thousands of posts, tweets and grams about Greyhound, we needed to find a way to centralize them, track them and respond. I engaged Sprinklr to build a platform specific to our needs and then enhanced it through a command center that visualized the social conversations, from sentiment analysis to trending topics, as well as competitor listening and top influencers. The platform integrated with the company’s CRM system so customer information was centralized and we had a 360-degree history of all interactions with them (transactions, complaints, resolutions, conversations). The social command center opened in 2017.
The Hound Blog
While social media channels provide “short bursts” of information, I wanted to create a place where we could share in-depth stories that consumers would enjoy and would align with the Greyhound brand. Enter The Hound, a blog that features stories about various destinations, how to prepare for your trip, a behind-the-scenes look at Greyhound and unique travel experiences. Customers could also submit their own road trip stories for publishing. The blog tied into our social channels so official Facebook and Twitter posts appeared real-time via a streaming tool. The Hound won the Silver Adrian Award for digital marketing in 2013 by the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International.
Influencer marketing
Getting the basics right in social media is important, but how do you generate advocacy for your brand? Influencers became the answer, but not those with rock star celebrity status. It was important to find people who had a large social media following, but also created compelling, entertaining content that would allow Greyhound to seamlessly integrate into their story so that it was natural, believable and not perceived as an ad. Working with our entertainment marketing agency, we were able to identify influencers who were the right fit and we provided them the brand parameters to follow. Ensuring the artists had control of their art was extremely important, and the end result was impressive. Millions of views on YouTube, thousands of comments and shares, and a shift in positive perception of the Greyhound brand. The program earned the Event Marketer EX Award in 2017. Below are just a few of the top videos produced. To see more, visit Greyhound’s #AffordtoExplore playlist on YouTube.
