Social Media Marketing Strategy Case Study – Intel Inc. presence on Facebook, YouTube

Intel was one of the first companies that adopted social media, actively present on major social media platforms like Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. and also uses social network styled platforms both internally to engage with employees and externally to engage with community. The company currently has 75 Intel-related accounts with nearly 180,000 followers. The company has 19 different topical or regional blogs. The company has 11 communities in several different languages plus software community for developers. Intel’s Facebook presence comprises 50 Facebook Fan Pages in different countries, led by Facebook.com/Intel, which has 1.5 million fans, plus a YouTube Intel Channel. The company is everywhere - blogs, Facebook (close to 23 million likes, close to 400,000 people are talking about the company on Facebook), Twitter (close to 2.2 million followers, more than 400 tweets and more than 1,150 followers!), YouTube (2 channels, close to 5,000 videos, more than 45 million video views and close to 63,000 subscribers!), Instagram (more than 200 posts and close to 6,000 followers), Google+, LinkedIn, etc. Intel Free Press is a tech news site from Intel Corporation, covering technology and innovation stories focused on people, technology, events and topics relevant to Intel and the computing industry.

Under Intel’s global social media strategist, Ekaterina Walter leadership, Intel has seen a good 10% to 12% monthly fan base growth. Her principles for Facebook engagement include original content, not just automated, and original videos, not just YouTube links. In August 2012, Intel’s campaign “How computers were made” post on Facebook attracted 102,5K+ likes in a week since it was published on August 9. More than 34,069 people have chosen to share the link, while 3,258 commented on it. 80%, of the conversations around Intel and products happen on blogs and twitter. Facebook usage within the business has also increased with 250 individually created and managed pages which was becoming difficult to co-ordinate and manage multi market campaigns. After reviewing 250 Facebook pages  and 250 Twitter handles/account  presence,  Intel took the decision to alter their social media strategy from being decentralized to a centralized global strategy supported by internal guidelines, training programs, content editorial, publishing schedules, supplemented by a suite of publishing Vitrue, listening, Radian6, & internal reporting tools. This centralized strategy allows them to listen and respond globally, locally or to individuals, based on the context of the conversation.

Intel’s marketing is not just about hardware, chips and engineering--“experience” is the new focus.  "People don’t buy processors…they buy experiences," said David Veneski U.S. Media Director, at Intel Corporation. “You need to turn a moment into a momentum, and a momentum into a movement,” Veneski said. Projects like Intel’s Museum of Me use social media to encourage users to create a “visual archive of their social life.” Another campaign, “Intel Ultrabook Temptations” is a collaborative social experiment to assess how desperate people will be to get their hands on the product. In this experiment users are encouraged to jump around on a custom-built measurement device to generate their “excitement” rating and the event is captured on video and shared socially as the feature on Intel’s YouTube page.

“The focus has shifted from being iconic to posting a status update," said Veneski which makes Intel more humanized and relatable to the consumer. Intel is embracing social media and using it as a key element to understand the driving factors behind day-to-day experiences. Intel’s products are at the core of technologies that people use, and users like to capture those experiences, talk about them, and share them with friends, families and others. Through blogs, video, and social networks like Twitter, Intel is actively onboarding new customers’ faster and strengthening relationships with existing customers. Like most companies, the online community was initially built by marketing. "It is integrated into our marketing plan," explains Laurie Buczek, who heads enterprise marketing for Intel's Storage Group and works closely with the leaders of Intel's 3,000 to 4,000 salespeople. Intel also uses YouTube, which enables product managers to vividly demonstrate new technologies and Twitter (@Intel). Intel’s Social Media Center of Excellence sets the strategy and guidelines for all social media content across the company’s far-reaching locations and business units.