How Cisco Tried to Make Routers Sexy Using Social Media
In March this year, Cisco launched the ASR 1000 Router Series. No big deal, but for the fact that it was delivered completely via social media. This was apparently Cisco's fifth most successful campaign, and according to the company it has proved to be a turning point for the way Cisco takes products to market: "virtually, virally, and visually."
The biggest lesson here is this: Routers aren't sexy. If Cisco can make a router exciting enough for social media, you too can utilize social media to create a buzz about your product or service.
Social media is all about building an experience - not an event. LaSandra Brill, manager of Web and social media marketing at Cisco discussed the tactics and results of the ASR 1000 launch at the Social Media Marketing Summit this week. I've listed the steps taken by Cisco to reach its goals below; you can see Brill's presentation on SlideShare.
ASR 100 Launch Campaign Steps
1. Created a fun micro site directed at uber users (the tech and early adopter audience) to help create and spread buzz.
2. Cross posted videos from the micro site to YouTube to extend reach.
3. Established Second Life presence that included a countdown calculator and pre event live concert to increase visibility; research showed much of their audience is on Second Life.
4. Created a FaceBook group to cater to users not part of Second Life.
5. Created an interactive 3D game - Edge Quest - to attract the large gaming audience.
6. Created a widget that holds a collection of key videos, documents and images that allows sharing for their content, while remaining on their server.
7. Blogged about it on the Cisco blog to try and intrigue bloggers and customers.
8. Heightened buzz with press with a vague two paragraph teaser press release to extend press coverage and fuel buzz.
9. Created a social media release to reach out to bloggers.
10. Introduced product via live online event; video on Second Life that was cross posted on FaceBook and YouTube.
11. Created 'Ask the Expert' - a forum where customers could talk to the engineers that created the product.
Cisco says they met their goal of increasing visibility and involving their audience by using the social Web, creating buzz and building a community at a negligible cost; a soft cost that involved time, resources, and creativity instead of budget.
Given the state of the US economy right now, the social Web seems to be the smartest choice corporations (or individuals) can make if they want to create passion and excitement for their brand - at a soft cost.
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this groups has 1000 members on fb
This is very interesting and shows the social media can really be leveraged across several markets and product types.
It would be very interesting to see the timeline for this campaign from start to finish. Sounds like there are many steps here that depend on the adoption of their predecessors.
Lidija, any chance you have the timing info?
Thanks again for sharing this.
Sav
Hi Lidija,
Really interesting post.
Would be interested to learn how the various social media tools were used to 'push' out messaging and 'pull' in participation to facilitate the conversation.
Cheers,
Mike Hickinbotham
But where's that THAT?
Brill's presentation is as boring and defaultish (Or I should say defaulty?) as it could be NOT! You know, take any presentation on Social Media (there are lots
out there), where you can find nice words, kinda web two point oh!, engagement, sharing is caring, treat it like a Holy Bible and yeah, you've made it, you are Überkul!
But look at the eyes of truth!
Facebook group has barely 1000 fans and all the talking there is pure jibber jabbery, Youtube channel is dead as TV for me and you know, it would be definitely interesting to do my own case study on Cisco SMO campaign.
By now router gets beaten by a a rooter.
Andrius:
First off, I work at Text 100, a global PR consultancy. Cisco is one of our clients. I wasn't on-board for this launch and now I'm speaking independently.
You are overlooking two things:
1. The presentation was given at a marketing summit. The audience was probably full of corporate marketing folks and I think the preso represents knowing your audience. I'm all for hip and cool presos, but that may not have gone over well.
2. This is not a consumer product, like a blender. This product is a $40k+ router. Having a Facebook group with 1000 fans is pretty impressive. In addition to the Facebook group, the blog posts, the video games and the videos, the slide show with this case study has received almost 5,000 views. These numbers all add up to bubble up awareness, not shoot everything into one big load.
People get hung-up on numbers when talking social media marketing. When you are dealing with the B2B or enterprise space, you will probably not get the high numbers that you will get with a consumer-focused product like a blender. Instead, you are looking to reach an audience of business decision makers and set your goals accordingly. The goal is not to get XX number of hits, it's to raise awareness of your product or brand and encourage discussion around a product.
Since I work with Enterprise clients everyday, I applaud anyone that can integrate social media tools into their campaigns in an honest and transparent way that piques the curiosity of their target audience and hopefully gets the audience engaged in some sort of discussion around the brand.
It is new territory and anyone who has the courage to try something should be applauded, not shot down.
The PPT for this presentation can be downloaded off of SlideShare here: http://www.slideshare.net/lasandra5/leveraging-social-media-and-web-20-in-a-product-launch
@Sav - see slide 5 too see the timeline. There were a few things that went beyond that but that's the meat of it.
@Andrius - Sorry that I bore you. I agree with Chris here, the #'s for a B2B campaign will never be as large as a B2C campaign where SM is most powerful. But all in all we did capture 7000+ registrations to our launch event and 40,000 people played the EDGE QUEST game which we created and only promoted via SM so something seems to be working. Plus we're talking about it on this blog aren't we?.
Sav,
From memory, I believe they began the campaign in February, launched in March, and had other events planned for April. As for the planning [or pre-production] I'm not quite sure. I expect it would have taken some time to research, as well as create the various components needed for the campaign.
Mike,
Wow - great question. Unfortunately one I cannot answer on LaSandra's behalf. However, LaSandra has posted Cisco's FaceBook strategy on her blog; a strategy that can potentially be applied to any social network. In the main, her tips include:
You can read her post here: The inside scoop to creating a FaceBook Group.
Also, take a look at slide 19 – lessons learned.
I really would like to answer your question in greater detail, but to do it justice would require much thought and great research; perhaps something to consider for a future post – thank you.
Andrius,
I am sorry to hear that you didn't enjoy LaSandra's presentation. Personally I found it a breath of fresh air to hear details of a campaign that worked for a large corporation, especially when most other presentations I've seen are - as you point out - all words and no action.
I'd be interested in hearing your take on the Cisco campaign; constructive criticism is always good and in the main welcomed.
Chris,
Thank you for your great insight.
It is a trick to get it right in the world of the social Web, especially for corporations that have [for so long] kept internal workings private.
This is new territory for many, and I really think we need to look to companies that have had any success in social media – both for inspiration and lessons learned. And yes, I agree that we should applaud those that offer us their data.
LaSandra
Thanks for stopping by. I must tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed your presentation. It pleases me to see companies share both their methodology and their lessons - thank you.
Building a community at negligible cost?
The microsite development, custom widgets, a customer video game, etc. Those all surely cost hard dollars, and a lot of them.
Add to that the fact that the YouTube videos all feature paid actors and were professionally created. I'm sure Cisco's ad agency was involved in creation and execution.
Granted the launch was creative, but this is the furthest thing from an example of how social media can support an effective low-budget product launch in a tough economy.
A quick intro; I manage the corporate marketing social media team at Cisco and supported LaSandra and team for their launch; she's out on leave right now so not able to respond quickly to these posts so I'll take a shot:
Mike,
I'll let you sort out the push vs. pull nature of each (since some are - or should be- bidirectional) but the tactics/sites/tools used included: YouTube (and syndication to 20+ other video sites); Second Life; Facebook, Twitter, blogging; social media press release; viral game contest (EdgeQuest); virtual event with live Q&A, blog/social media monitoring (Visible Technologies), embeddable info widget, and community activities (in Netpro, Cisco's support community).
Bo,
Point well taken about "low budget" - I would say we would vouch for "cost effective". These tactics drove comparable results to traditional live launch events that cost 5X the expenditures of this launch. To your point there were certainly costs on the development and creative side. But we always aim for improvements. Love to hear what Nortel is doing to help keep launch costs down. Certainly is going to be important in these economic times to stay efficient.