Social Media Monitoring: Sharpie

An Introduction to Sharpie



    Sharpie is a product of the Sanford Ink company (The Sanford Manufacturing Company before 1940).  The Sanford Manufacturing Company was founded in Worcester, MA before moving to Chicago, IL. Sharpie’s home is now Shelbyville TN. For one day in March 2004 to celebrate Sharpie’s 40th anniversary, Shelbyville was named Sharpieville USA. The first Sharpie was introduced in 1964, and has since expanded to more than 47 unique products including markers, pens, pencils, highlighters, and specialty products with 24 different colors.


Sharpie on Social Media

     The Sharpie brand exists across many types of social media including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, StumbleUpon, and a blog. On Twitter, Sharpie has 232,632 followers and 8,121 tweets.

On Facebook, Sharpie is more popular than on Twitter with 2.9 Million likes






Sharpie does a good job engaging with their customers on these sites. They often engage with their Twitter followers by responding to their tweets:

This is a great use of social media because their customers feel empowered by being able to connect with the Sharpie brand. The majority of posts on Sharpie pages are positive. Customers are using it as a space to share artwork, and creative ways people are using their product. There are very few negative comments. Sharpie seems be responsive most often when there is a negative comment, or a comment that could potentially be negatively spun. This is also the case on Sharpie's Facebook page. While a lot of people are posting artwork and positive comments, Sharpie seems mostly to focus on the negatives. This is one example of Sharpie commenting on potentially negative posts:

Sharpie decides to handle this situation privately. While it is positive that Sharpie responds to the comment, it may have been more effective to have the conversation that likely followed these posts in a way so that they could be publicly viewed. This would further empower the groundswell to interact with Sharpie through social media. The positive posts stand wonderfully on their own, promoting to a strong brand image for Sharpie:

Sharpie's positive social media presence is also exemplified in their Sharpie Squad. The Sharpie Squad is a group of Sharpie artists that are featured for a year as the "Sharpie Squad." These artists use sharpies in a cool creative way, and their stories definitely promote people to use the product. One example of a Sharpie Squad member is Mark Rivard.

Mark appears in the advertisement above, on the Sharpie website, as well as in the following video advertisement:

The Sharpie Squad is a very effective way for Sharpie to expand their brand image and engage their customers.

Sharpies are very consistent in their social media presence. On February 22nd they had the exact same amount of Total Social Mentions according to samepoint.com.

Additionally, according to competitor.com and google.com/analytics, Sharpie has followed a pretty consistent trend with regards to interest and unique visitors. The two graphs below demonstrate Sharpie's consistency:

There is a significant peak in unique visitors in August 2011, and this corresponds with the introduction of the new Sharpie Mini markers.
 

What Should They Do?

Sharpie does a good job of utilizing social media such as Facebook, Twitter, etc, but has almost no presence in the phone/tablet application market. Phone apps are a new popular way that companies are connecting with the groundswell. Companies do this by creating creative or competitive apps. The top phone application that pops up when searching for Sharpie is Drunk Sharpie:

This application has some positive and some negative aspects. It puts the Sharpie name on the app market, but promotes an irresponsible behavior.

In order for Sharpie to be more affective in their social media marketing, they should target a high-school through college student audience. This audience has proven to be outspoken in social media about Sharpie, and uses them often for artwork and signs. To reach this audience, Sharpie could create a phone application that allows people to draw with different thicknesses and colors of Sharpie. Sharpie could also create a game like “Draw Something” where users have the opportunity to compete in a “Pictionary” type of game. This would make Sharpie more prevalent in consumers’ lives strengthening their image with current customers, and bringing them closer to potential customers.

Wrapping up Groundswell

Chapter 11 of the book Groundswell discusses the idea that tapping the groundswell within a company can be just as beneficial as tapping the groundswell with customers. As the people who know you company from the inside, the employees are vital to maintaining a positive overall brand image, and can also contribute new and interesting ideas.

One example of this that I have seen is in the pizza company Dominos. One of their recent commercials discusses how their new product, parmesan bread bites, was created by a manager at a local store:

What I find interesting about this example is that this company is utilizing their inner groundswell, but is also advertizing the fact that they're using it. I believe this commercial is a message to consumers about the type of company that Domino's is as much as it is about their new product. I also understand this commercial as a message to Domino's employees about their value to the company.

Also in chapter 11, the company Avenue A/Razorfish and the CEO, Clark Kokich is discussed. The piece I found particularly interesting is a quote from Clark discussing how their online community has contributed to his job as CEO: "It's the virtual equivalent to management by walking around" (222). While I believe that new communication technologies allow us new ways to be connected, I don't believe they are all positive. In this example, Clark was able to stay more connected with more employees, but at the same time, if this connection comes in place of personal face-to-face connections, he may begin to seem more removed from the employees at his company.


To wrap up, Groundswell discusses how the groundswell has become, and continues to grow as, one of the most important things for a company to maintain a positive relationship with their customers and employees. In today's world, it has become almost expected that a company have a website, and even further, that it uses the internet and other communications technologies to interact with customers. Companies that are doing this well are clearly experiencing the benefits.

Kraaazy Glue

One brand that is using social media interestingly is Krazy Glue. This is a glue company that produces a type of "superglue" that is incredibly strong.






Krazy Glue released the following commercial in 2010. What's unique about this commercial is that it follows a trend of high adrenaline stunts in advertising, and it also urges people to go to their Facebook page to see if it is real or not:

I think that this commercial is effective at drawing people in to the product and the brand. I not only vividly remembered this commercial after airing it, but I remembered what brand it was for, what they produce, and also how strong their glue actually is.

Also interestingly, this company asks that you "Like" it's Facebook page before you get to see the behind-the-scenes footage.

Check out their page to see for yourself!