Graco Baby connects through Heart to Heart blog – Social Media Marketing to tech-savvy parents
You find out you’re expecting your first child. So many things are racing through your mind and you don’t know where to start. You need a crib. A stroller. A car seat. And like most expecting and new parents these days, you start with an online search and turn to social media for advice and information. After researching and listening to these online consumer conversations for 9 months, Graco developed a social media strategy and jumped into the social media scene with the launch of the Heart to Heart blog.
What Graco’s doing: Written by parents for parents, the Heart to Heart blog is a real online community where expecting and new (and often overwhelmed) parents can find trusted information and engage in conversation with other parents. Blog topics range from inspiring stories, pregnancy, to parenting advice and product information.
Supported by other social media platforms, including YouTube (so that’s how to assemble a playpen!), Twitter @gracobaby, and more recently Facebook, Graco has implemented an integrated social media marketing strategy that reflects their brand and engages consumers in meaningful conversation that’s important and relevant to them.
Measuring results: To measure the effectiveness of the Heart to Heart blog, Graco monitors the number of blog comments, the number of visitors to the blog, and the number of click-throughs to Gracobaby.com. Engagement of readers is also important and evaluated based on return visitors, frequency of comments, and if blog readers are connecting through other social media platforms, such as Twitter or the Graco Baby YouTube channel. So far, Graco Baby has seen these results.
Social Media for Business Performance lessons:
– Research, research, research! Graco took time to find out what their consumers were doing online and how to add value to this conversation in a way that aligns with their brand values and goals, before jumping in.
– Think integrated social media marketing strategy. Although the Heart to Heart blog was the lead piece of Graco’s social media strategy, they were able to leverage the power of several social media platforms by integrating them to create a whole social media experience for consumers, and increasing their total online brand touchpoints.
– Be transparent. The Heart to Heart blog is successful because it is written for parents, by parents. New parents and parents-to-be are seeking this connection and have found it in this informational yet personal blog.
Blog: http://blog.gracobaby.com/
YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/gracobaby/
Twitter: @gracobaby
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/GracoBaby
Web References:
http://moblogsmoproblems.blogspot.com/2009/07/social-media-mavens-interview-with.html
http://www.slideshare.net/GasPedal/blogwell-social-media-case-study-graco-presentation