The story about the cat or a tale about how to make your owner famous and rich through social network

 

  I know Victoria Virta personally. Everyone in Russia, who is interested in promoting their company using SMM, is familiar with her name as a co-owner of the SMM studio Funaction.

  Victoria has been promoting a variety of companies on social networks for a long time, but  she became well-known thanks to her cat Nicky.

 

 

He was the very character that made her famous and wealthy. And now, with her work-shop "How to make SMM delicious and squeeze the juices from social networks", she holds work-shops allover Russia.

  When Victoria started to promote Nicky on Instagram, she noticed that, although, some subscribers have started to complain about the excess of cat photos on their timeline, in fact, all of her performances as a speaker, even during business meetings, always end up with a discussion of her cat Nicky.

        How it started.

  Victoria Virta bought Nicky at a pet store three years ago. She noticed him when he was sitting in his favorite human like position. The animal quickly settled into his new home, and besides the talent to sit like a human, and even to fall asleep in this position, he has mastered another exercise - get up on his hind paws. He has unique wealth of facial expressions. All emotions are reflected on his face, which is unusual for cats and is more common for dogs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fame.

“One day a completely crazy idea arose in my head - to create the most popular cat of the Runet (Russian Internet).  I took my cat Nicky as a prototype and made an Instagram account for him. It was just an experiment, however, competent work with the content did the job: in a week 300 people were following @FamousNiki. Suddenly we discovered that people like his pictures, they began to subscribe to Nicky's account," says Victoria.  "A year ago, British newspaper Daily Mail wrote about us , as well as Daily Mirror , Klonblog  and others. Since then, a barrage of publications began, a TV show and world fame," she added.

Creating a celebrity.

 Then we made sure we have constant support of cat's  account, he got his own secretary and different brands began to turn to him for advertising. Last year @FamousNiki advertised Microsoft products and Nespresso  on Instagram, this year he became the face of online accounting company.

 

Now @FamousNiki has 130,000 Instagram followers and 30,000 Facebook friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Cat has become a brand, and his accounts are now media assets of FunAction studio. Nicky gets payed for advertisements. Besides that Victoria makes T-shirts and sweatshirts with his image for sale.

  Viktoria's tips: Observe your pet, maybe it can do something interesting. If it can not do anything at all then we need to think what to do with it. For example, you can create comics with a cat being the main character. And, most importantly, content should invite positive emotions and make people laugh. Then you need to select a channel for the content: Instagram, Facebook, and so on.

  Each social network has its own technology of getting to the top, and  it is necessary for you to study it. For example, Nicky's goal on Instagram is to reach the audience of a million people. When you start getting a lot of followers and continue getting new ones, you can start earning money.

  In November, Victoria will launch new promo-page for Nicky and next year she plans to launch a mobile game and two books about her pet for kids and adults. "Now my goal is to make the brand of Russian cat famous all over the world ," says Viktoria.

  In her workshop Viktoria gives the example of Nikki's promotion and pays special attention   on getting to know the target audience for each specific social network.   Interesting, but I caught myself thinking how much Victoria's idea, that I heard at her last seminar, is similar to the ideas of the groundswell, into which I am gladly dipping today. As the authors of the Groundswell say,  there is no going back (75 Groundswell).   

You have to tap the groundswell and you will see that SMM works! But you need to deal with it properly.

 

PS: I have already written to Victoria and  recommended her to read Groundswell book.

Have you ever had an ideas of promoting your pets through Internet? And what do think about it?

 

 

 

 

The groundswell trend is not a flash in the pan…Some thoughts about Digital reputation

 

  As Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff say in  Groundswell  "This is important, irreversible, completely different way for people to relate to companies and to each other [...] The groundswell comes from the collision of three forces: people, technology and economics." (10 Groundswell).

    Yes, people are on the Internet now and they became a really powerful force with the power of technology. Media can no longer be neatly tucked away in boxes of newspapers, magazines and televisions. People gain strength when communicating with other people and become more influential, more often they get access unbiased and undistorted information.

 I remember how it was 10 years ago, the surest way to "sell" was TV advertising. It was necessary to have not a boring idea, a slogan, more or less bright design and often broadcasts, and that's all. Basically, it all came down to:

 

• try, like, buy

• try, don't like, do not buy

 

      
       What has changed?

    Social media, blogs, forums, and portals opened the door for the formation of the brand. The network actually creates impression and changes it.

       Blogs, online communities, YouTube, online encyclopedias, review pages, and other social technologies can both benefit businesses and seriously undermine them.

   

   This example is from one review page about a home builder company. If I can easily find these reviews, I am willing to bet that your customer can find them just as easily.    Would you trust this company to build your home?

 

    The phenomenon of the groundswell already applies to absolutely all aspects of our lives. This is Wikileaks website that shook world politics. Another example is blogs, where users criticize worthless products of well-known manufacturers. Information is no longer under the control of those who produce it: a beautiful advertising poster when interfered can become a powerful tool for anti-advertisement reproduced in blogs, comments to articles, and who knows where else. 

     Reputation of a politician may be badly tarnished if an unwished video would get on YouTube, and nobody can prevent it. Scandalous article can be removed from a magazine page, but nobody can take away its copies from the Internet, if they were circulated by a huge number of readers.

   If Groundswell can not be stopped or reversed, the only thing we can do is to study its rules and try to reach desirable goals. "You can understand it. You can not only live with it; you can thrive in it. [...] we should care about the groundswell." (9 Groundswell).

     Why negative groundswell is so terrible on the Internet? After all, it's just someone's personal opinion, often biased, sometimes emotional and not always supported with actual facts. How can one negative review kill a reputation of a whole company?

    Turns out it can! Did you know that CompanyofHeroes2 game was banned in Russia after a single user's review? The whole game, which has been created during the years, the work of hundreds of experts, has been withdrawn from the Russian market because of one person's review. Corporation giant bowed to its user, and even made a formal apology..

 

  "Two days after the sale of Company of Heroes 2 was put on hold in Russia, SEGA and Relic Entertainment have issued a joint statement  in an attempt to quell the anger stemming from the game’s seemingly controversial content. SEGA and Relic are working closely with their Russian distribution partner Softclub 1C over claims concerning Company of Heroes 2 and the historical context of the game from a Russian perspective.  Whilst investigations in to these concerns are ongoing we would like to express our regret at any offence caused to those affected by these claims."

 

     Now thousands of managers all over the world are beginning to comprehend the essence of the phenomenon, which  Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff called "Grounswell"(9,10 Groundswell),  and trying to use it in  business. Grounswell is changing direction all the time, it is growing and has a significant effect on any sector of the economy.

    Groundswell is our personal Fort Knox  and  guarantee of success on the market. And if we learn how to control Groundswell and understand the importance of online reputation, it is possible for us to gain recognition in our industry.

   Michael Fertik, an American Internet entrepreneur and privacy advocate known for pioneering the industry of online reputation management, says that digital reputation is now your reputation, whether you like it or not. It's now the truth about you.

 

 

 

  

    Should companies pay so much attention to digital reputation and do you trust it? Are there other areas they better focus on?

 

 

    

­­­­­My Facebook experience in the hotel industry

    Do you love to travel? Are you are referring to social networks choosing a hotel? Do you read  reviews?
   According to the latest data by business magazine Fortune, people more often get to the news sites though Facebook social pages, rather than through search engines. 

  According to the results of the analytical study of 400 different news sources, 43% of entries are performed through Facebook while Google is accountable for only 38%. Analysts say that search engines have already reached their peak, while social networks have only started climbing to the top of their capabilities.

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      When a couple years ago Travel + Leisure magazine announced SMITTY (Social Media in Travel and Tourism) Award, hotels from around the world shared their successful stories of launching advertising campaigns on social networks.

       Two hotels got SMITTY Award in "Best use of social networks for social activities" category. Hotel chain Kimpton Hotels used Facebook to hold the contest with free Christmas vouchers for families of US military as a prize. During Hurricane Sandy hotel InterContinental Barclay in New York was a source of social assistance publishing news on its Facebook accounts.

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        As you may already know, I work in a hotel, so a question of SMM use in the hotel industry is very important for me. The main problem with our hotel is that it is small and there is no special marketing service, but despite these circumstances and considering the competition, I think that we are doing a lot. FB is a social media we mainly focus on.

     The majority of our work in the hotel is in real life, but we are looking for opportunities to improve our service and interact with customers through social networks. Our page on Facebook.

 

     I want to point out that it is not always obvious that hotel chains’ activity on social networks pays back. However, you cannot disagree with the fact that social networks allow us to find common ground with our customers. If something unpleasant would happen in our hotel, reputation is at issue. Sometimes clients point out the problems in the hotel themselves and to do this they use FB. I guess it is better to know that there is a problem and offer some solutions, than to not know about its existence.

Here are some tools I use on FB in my work.

Interactive communication. I do not expect users to start posting comments on the hotel page. It is necessary to motivate them, to form interest. To do this I use:

- contests

- special conditions for subscribers. To increase the number of our subscribers, we do special offers for those subscribers that share information with their friends being our potential clients.

- post interesting facts and photos from the life of the hotel

 

 

 
 

- use discounts for using word-of-mouth. People trust the opinion of their friends. In the nearest future, we want to use the idea of ​​the Stockholm hotel that decided that activity on social networks could act as the currency. We will announce that Facebook users with over 2 thousand friends can stay in the hotel during the weekend for free. To do this, they should post about the experience of staying in the hotel.

      I would like to achieve much more in our hotel: to turn FB into a customer service channel, to be more initiative in obtaining feedback by sending personalized surveys of satisfaction in order to receive valuable information. I believe that with creative approach, we can remain visible on the Internet by interacting with customers and building our own customer base, creating publications everybody will be talking about.

    And in conclusion there is the video about one of the Hotel on Ibiza that connect Facebook with tech wristbands for social media crazy clubbers.

  By the way, what would you suggest to make the Facebook hotel page more interesting?