GE Gets Social Media
March 10, 2009 by Colleen Coplick
Filed under Social Media
As I was flipping through my feed reader this afternoon looking for something interesting to write about, Rick over at EyeCube caught my interest yet once again. He seems to manage to do that with just about every post he writes.
This one was about the GE Smart Grid site and the ever so cool video that they have up to promote their Smart Grid project.
See? Cool, right? So while I was looking at the video and playing with the Augmented Reality tools, I realized that GE gets it. They’ve totally nailed the whole idea of social networking and viral campaigns.
They’ve created this little tool, that is cool enough for people to send to their friends and say “hey, check this out, cool, right?” and it’s cool enough that each friend will then tell two friends and so on and so on (you know, like that old shampoo commercial). They haven’t hit you over the head with all the in depth information about the Smart Grid Energy Saving features, and instead have created a visually interesting little link that says “get plugged in”. That’s all there is to it.
Heading to the Smart Grid site, I found a wealth of information about energy distribution, how the Smart Grid technology will change that, and offers up resources for green living, as well as a whole whack of links for information on green related technologies. They’re offering detailed information for “energy professionals and enthusiasts”, which again, I just think is cool.
Without that cool, short little video however, I would have never seen the site, learned about some Green resources I wasn’t aware of or even think I could ever be interested in smart grid technology or energy distribution strategies. Instead, here I am, learning more ways to live my own life a little more greenly, and sharing their viral site with all of you.
The one thing about campaigns like this, that many people and businesses just don’t get, is that you can’t make something viral. You just have to make something cool and the viral happens.
Remember that the next time that you’re looking for a way to promote a new product, site or designing a new campaign. A little cool goes a very long way.
Great Post – and you are so right on – Viral wont just happen on it’s own – it’s got to be catchy. This is a great example!
How exactly GE identifying that augmented reality will play a core role into web and mobile future ties to GE gets social media? They published an augmented reality video on youtube … does that really mean they get social media?
@Rob it’s not the fact that they put a video on YouTube. It’s MUCH bigger than that. Did you look at the site? they provided viewers with something cool to do (you can make the altered reality thing yourself) and they didn’t do *anything* to push their Smart Grid agenda on the site except provide a link to learn more.
Further more, the site they link to – the smart grid site itself – isn’t a for-profit site, it’s information. There are several social media features to that as well.
I’m guessing if you’re thinking this is just a video on YouTube, then you’ve got more to learn about social media yourself.
@Colleen, so they posted a cool video and gave people something to do … again, not discrediting the strategy, but how is that social media? Posting a cool piece of content has nothing to do with social media … now if you tell me that they provided tools for sharing, monitored conversations –on velocity, community, sentiment, affinity, reach, influence–, engaged with influencers, benchmarked KPIs metrics, and I can go on and on, then yes, GE would trully get social media … I’m not saying they don’t, but this is not a representative example.