An interview with the Senior Social Media Marketing Manager of LEGO
This post was originally posted on my personal blog thedigitalrookie.com on 12/06/2014.
After my 1st interview that dealt with the YouTube ecosystem, I wanted to speak with an expert from the Social Media industry. I couldn’t find someone more suitable than Eleni Karamalegkou, who is the Senior Social Media Marketing Manager in LEGO’s Global team.
After quickly solving the debate of “are you a LEGO or PLAYMOBIL kind of guy?”, we talked about Content Planning and Measurement framework in the social media channels of a huge brand like LEGO.
1. Eleni, initially, what do you do in the LEGO team?
I’m part of the Global Social Media & Search team of LEGO, where we’re basically creating the global content calendar, which is then distributed to the marketing teams of each country where we operate. We’re internally managing all of our social media channels, and we really invest time in achieving the best quality for our content. We’ve also taken the responsibility of organizing our internal processes for creating content that serves each country’s needs, as well as those of each channel.
2. How’s your content calendar structured?
Our Team’s objective is to inspire and help children develop their abilities, on the communication aspect, and to keep things as simple as possible, on the organization aspect. We’re creating a yearly calendar which also contains a structured design of the upcoming campaigns, on a six-month basis. I’ll only mention that each year we design more than 300 new LEGO products launches. Each launch is carefully boosted, either in a small scale, or a larger one, depending on our objectives. Also, we are instructed to create all the brand content, both on larger, strategical objectives, as well as seasonal and tactical Brand activities (Christmas, Mother’s Day, etc.).
3. What is LEGO’s main target group?
The main users we’re targeting through social media are:
1. Children over the age of 13, since we want to ensure the security of all of our online channels’ users. Those who contact us and are under 13, are directed to our message boards, on our website, which is a completely protected environment. It’s important to offer parents the maximum possible security, both through our products, as well as our Internet activity.
2. The parents, of course.
3. Gift-givers — people buying gifts for a loved one (godmothers, grandparents, parents).
4. And finally those called AFOLs (Adult Fans of LEGO), those adults who are “geeks” and still play with their LEGO!
4. Which are the KPIs for LEGO’s Facebook fan page?
Initially, I have to mention that we maintain a global general page, where we communicate our most important news to the wider audience, and then we maintain a different page for each of our products, where we are directed to the specific user target group. The objective of our general page is to secure a high Brand visibility and offer a great online experience to our fans and followers.
More specifically, regarding KPIs, we can mention likes or engagement rate or consumptions, but in the end of the day there is no value in insight gathering if you can’t “read” it. To understand what works and what doesn’t, you have to each day invest in raising engagement with your users, since your page’s posts reach only a very small percentage of your total fans.
In the end, the Business Goal of each Company is very important (e.g. awareness, leads, transactions, etc.). The most important thing is to recognize your content strategy’s “voids” in time. Each user is different, and some will never interact with your page. They use Facebook as a newspaper, which they leaf through each day. Your page’s audience type is important, so that your message can reach that 2% of active and precious fans. So, define your marketing objective from the start, and recognize the channels that will allow you to achieve it.
For example, we recently launched the new LEGO Simpsons House. Initially, we communicated through our YouTube channel, posting a video with our designers, who designed the product completely from scratch. On the same time, we posted a “coming soon” post on Facebook, as well as picture material with “behind the scenes” footage, giving our users the ability to see exclusive LEGO content. On the same time, we used Instagram to promote the person who created the minifigures (the original content used for creating LEGO figures). All this functioned well for us, since we know our audience in each platform, and we always aim to give our fans a great experience.
After doing all that, we gave a link to our audience that leads to the physical store where they can buy our product.
5. What is LEGO’s social media channels’ final objective?
Our purpose is to inspire children and parents, as well as AFOLs, through our content, and to offer a high quality online experience. Our global content can’t be applied to every country. It differs by the geopolitical position of each country, as well as its culture, and how powerful our Brand is in it. From a Business perspective, our main objective is to organize all this web as simply as possible.
6. Which is your “strongest” and which is your “weakest” market?
Our strongest markets are the USA and Europe. From a communication perspective, Asia is a high priority, since our product and Brand there is relatively new, and we must raise awareness. In Europe, you speak of LEGO, and the parent already knows the Brand’s values, something we must build in Asia.
And when we speak about LEGO and Vine, the final result is something like this:
LEGO Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LEGO
LEGO YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/LEGO
LEGO Instagram: http://instagram.com/lego
LEGO Twitter: https://twitter.com/LEGO_Group
LEGO Vine: https://vine.co/LEGOVine
You can find Eleni Karamalegkou in Twitter as @itselenikara
