The Good, The Bad and The Skittle's Social Makeover

As you probably know by now, the rainbow of flavors (Skittles) has taken the social media in a very experimental, Modernista kind of way. I've read some very interest articles about this social media phenomenon. Some say that they are gonna burn in hell for doing something so confusing, dumb and non-sense like this. By the other hand, there are others in the crowd that are standing up giving a triumphal ovation for such a approach. Here is my point of view, the negative side of the situation:

- There is no official information about the product. I mean, I could go to the Wikipedia site and edit the actual Skittle's product information and say that Skittles is the newest product distributed by Jelly Belly.
- No filters for porn, racial, rude and obnoxious comments from some social sites involved.
- No filters for their competition products, i.e. me saying something on twitter like: I just love M&Ms... visit www.m-ms.com.
- No filters for any malicious scripting or spamming.
- The SEO of their website may be affected (I would love to hear some comments from experts about this).

Like everything in life, there are two faces of the coin, so lets bring the good side from all this and what they are probably thinking with it:

- The expectation campaign is tremendous. What do they have under their sleeves? What is the next step? A new product? A stunning web 3.0 website? What? What?
- They are interested in what their clients, consumers, have to say about their product/brand.
- We can see a social media campaign acting live. How fast and easy can a product impact social media users.
- Branding through word of mouth. Everybody has something to say about this new Skittle's website. Skittles here and Skittle there!
- Cheap website and ad campaign. I mean, they are not really spending a dime here.
- Since traditional online advertisment (websites, banners, video spots) can be ignored, they are using a non traditional way that canít be ignored.

Whether you love it or hate it, this strategy is making noise in the business and social world and its gonna be interested to find out what is next.

What is your thought about all this?

Why Do I Need a Social Media Department in my Company?

“Now that you mention it… well, I don’t know!” And probably you are still thinking, “I mean, we already have a marketing department, a public relations department, a sales department, a creative department and so on…” Nowdays, companies are trying to figure out where should the social media duties fall under. But why should it fit under a particular department? It wouldn’t be better to create a separate department focused exclusively on its development and understanding?
Social media is becoming a powerful and valuable tool that helps companies understand the relationship between the customers and there products. So, if it is so important for your company’s growth, don’t you think a social media department would work better with its own separate team, strategies and budget? The answer is simple… yes! It should work as a separate entity and to make it clearer I will give some advantages:

1. An specialized department has the time, dedication, knowledge, interest on social media strategies and trends. They eat, sleep, breath social media, therefore they will always be on top of it.

2. Centralization of social media information. Having one specific place where other departments can find efficient and effective data to developed strategies based on it.

3. It is easier to measure budget and goals for different departments.

4. As we mentioned above, the relationship between customers and products is very important and one of the main tasks of a social media department is to strengthen it in a 24/7 regular basis.

5. Other departments have their own separate goals, therefore, the efforts on social media ones are not handle as they deserve. Creating a social media department will solve this issue.

This are the most important advantages of having a social media department. What do think?