Social Media Example # 25: Yoplait

I was pretty excited to research Yoplait because I’m a big fan of the brand and its delicious flavors; just thinking about Yoplait Delights has me salivating. Num Num. Additionally, Yoplait is a major advocate for Breast Cancer Awareness which is a cause that is very important to me and many of my friends and family. So without further ado, let’s dig in (pun intended)!

 

Yoplait.com

Yoplait’s main website is informative, I’ll give them that and is also very aesthetically pleasing. It provides fun recipes, information on how yogurt helps your digestive tract (did you know yogurt can help with lactose intolerance?) and provides information on the cause it supports, Breast Cancer Awareness.

Unfortunately, there is nothing social. Though a couple of its individual brands are on Facebook, Yoplait doesn’t bother to link to these pages. And with all of this great information, where is the health and wellness blog I’d expect them to have? What a way to truly reach their audience, right? But no, sadly they are neglecting what feels like a great opportunity for this brand.

 

Yoplait on Facebook

The one thing that bothers me most is that Yoplait does not link to any of its brands’ Facebook pages from its home page (it makes sense to me that it would). Because of this I must sift through every Yoplait profile that has been created to identify the "real" Yoplait profile(s). Through this research, I discovered that there isn’t an official facebook fan page (not that I could find anyway) dedicated to the Yoplait brand. However, I did find two of the brands have fan pages that appear successful.

One of those brands is Yoplait Delights which has managed to generate well over 24,697 fans since the page was founded in September 2009. Yep, in just four months and it appears they have done this with very little interaction. Don’t get me wrong, there was that honeymoon phase (September and October) where they posted multiple times a week. But now a lot more nothingness (is that a word? Well, it is now). One post in November, one in December, one in January and ZERO response to fans and their comments. Yet, when they do post, they receive at least 50 comments and 30 likes, which means they know how to engage their audience, they just may not know how to be engaging- make sense? Because this treat is seemingly so popular, it makes me wonder what would happen if they spent a little more time interacting- how many fans would they have then? How often would they comment?

Yoplait on Twitter

I guess I should say Yoplait NOT on Twitter. I searched and searched for Yoplait’s official Twitter account but came up empty handed. I feel this is yet another missed opportunity. I keep saying "missed oppportuinty" because rarely do organizations have the privilege of haivng so many natural fans, consumers that simply LOVE this brand, its products and love talking about it. With such a fan base, Yoplait could boost sales by simply offering coupons via its Twitter account as well as perhaps bits of information and health facts found on their main page. How about building better Breast Cancer advocates as that is the cause supported by Yoplait? The education they could provide through some of these public outlets is endless. As you can see below, Yoplait’s fans are on Twitter and they’re talking, so why not join the conversation?

 

Additionally, being on Twitter will drive more buzz, create more conversation which in-turn can build more brand awareness. Every time I see someone tweet about Yoplait, the word "delicious" typically closely follows. How much more buzz could Yoplait cause if they were actually on Twitter? But wait, maybe, just maybe they are working on it. Someone has snagged the twitter.com/Yoplait URL but haven’t yet done anything with it. Yoplait, are you getting ready to join the fun? Please?

YouTube

Yoplait enthusiasts are everywhere, including YouTube. Yoplait commercials have been posted all over YouTube to fan’s channels, but there is no official Yoplait channel. However, the commercials are all posted on Yoplait.com and it does offer the ability to embed the video on your site and to share, which is a step, but no offcial YouTube channel (sigh).

Final Thoughts

When I took on #25 on our list, compiled from Peter Kim’s 2008 post "A List of Social Media Marketing Examples," I was excited. I just knew Yoplait had to be doing some cool stuff. What I didn’t know was they were only on his list for their French blog, Bravo la petite fleur! , and what I’d find them doing in the US would be a big whopping bowl of nothing, nodda, zip, zilch…you get the point.  If only I could get my hands on the brand to help get them started. I would have a blast.

Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean they won’t get there. It appears they’ve taken a few baby steps, or at least some of the individual divisions, like Yoplait Delights, will surely begin to pave  the way for the remaining divisions and overall brand to become more socially active. With all that said, I have to say what bothers me most about Yoplait brand being inactive within the social sphere while some of its divisions are,  is that segmenting product lines makes it impossible for consumers to find new products. Everything should be done through Yoplait brand channels and networks and then broken off from there (if at all). By segmenting product lines, you make it nearly impossible for consumers to discover information outside of that specific product’s information.

But for now, all this talk about Yoplait has brought on a craving for a Rasberry Chocolate Yoplait Delight so while I head to the grocery store, let me know what you think so I can read your thoughts while enjoying my tasty treat.



Ignite Social Media