Carbonite goes Social and shares their Social Media Success Story

Carbonite went in the direction of social media pretty much from the day we started our website. As we started to design and develop it a key part of it was going to be the blog/news section.

At the beginning I used to update it every couple of weeks. However what I started to discover was that targeting particular topics or industries began to deliver traffic. It didn’t mean sales but it did mean awareness, which at the time was our biggest challenge.

What this began to teach me was to look for markets to talk to. It was a very good training ground for when we really went social.

I joined Twitter by setting up the CarboniteAU profile on the Fri May 01 2009, almost two years ago. Having read a lot about what Twitter could offer and seen a few people around the office use it, I thought how could it hurt.

I didn’t have a strategy nor a plan, I didn’t even tell my boss that I did it. I just created the profile and then started to follow people. Initially it was journalists. I did searches on Backup and PC Repairers and started following people who talked about these services. I then began to tweet. One at a time, mainly promoting our product, Carbonite.

Over a few weeks this started to broaden. Like what I had done with the blog, I started to expand what I talked about. It was basic marketing. Who has a need for backup. Small business, web designers, PC repairers, photographers, tech geeks, people interested in the Net. What this meant to me was groups of people that I could follow and who I hoped would eventually also follow me. In a way I found my market.

The next challenge was what to talk about. As you would know people talk about all sorts of things on Twitter. I focused on Backup and Small Business. These where topics I had written about quite a bit on our blog and felt comfortable with them. That is where I started. I gave my thoughts on small business, the challenges, what they were and weren’t doing regarding backup. I tweeted about what our customers where asking when calling us, what challenges they had when it came to backup.

I actually found it rather easy and comfortable to tweet. What I also found was that Twitter isn’t a vehicle for press releases. It is a conversation. A short one between two people/profiles but one that is continuous between those who follow you and you follow.

I also found out that you needed to show some of your personality, your interests, something about you and your opinions. At the end of the day it’s people behind each of these profiles and we react and trust and engage with people.

When I try and explain it I use a party scene as an example. If you go alone to a party and want to avoid being along all night, you need to begin talking to people. If you don’t know anyone there you eventually head toward people that might look like you or are discussing something that you feel comfortable about (maybe they are playing a game that you know) . To join the conversation you need to give a little. Twitter is much the same.

The more I actually conversed the more followers I achieved. Not that counting the number was what mattered. To be honest at the beginning it was the only way to gauge any success.

How has it benefited the business? It has created advocates of the brand, and many of them have never used the product.  This I put down to people liking what I talk about and having some faith in me.  It has also built the brand with journalists who now mention the product when  they compare and discuss online backup services.

In order to have done this without Twitter it would have cost us plenty in advertising and sponsorship. At the moment Twitter only (and I don’t say this lightly) costs us time.

Regarding Facebook, we started our Facebook page about 12 months ago. The focus here is a mini website and a place to tell stories regarding Carbonite through. I can’t say I feel as comfortable on Facebook as I do with Twitter but we are getting better and the traffic to our page is also growing.

Facebook on the whole has a much greater reach than Twitter does so we can’t ignore it. We need to invest more time in learning how to reach our audience and talk to them through it. The knowledge that you could have your brand bounce around in conversations across thousands if not millions of people is fantastic.

I believe we have achieved a lot in the past 2 years. Sales are certainly showing this and I believe that our investment in Social media has contributed considerably.

Special thanks to Arthur Koulianos from Carbonite for contributing and sharing their social media success story.  Follow Carbonite on Twitter here

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