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Samsung Canada and the use of Social Media

In the present scenario with a far from perfect use of social media by marketers there are instances when they get it right. Samsung Canada got it right when they used it to give a free custom Samsung Galaxy SIII to a Samsung fan with his artwork on it.



Shane posted a pic of his conversation on the Facebook page of Samsung saying that he was a big fan of Samsung and wanted a free version of Samsung Galaxy SIII. Samsung responded by saying that they couldn't give a free phone everyone and returned the favor with a pic of kangaroo on a unicycle. The entire conversation went viral on reddit. Finally Shane got a custom made Samsung Galaxy SIII, the only custom made SIII in Canada.

Brand managers at Samsung will feel the heat due to loss of reputation and confidence in Samsung Smart Phones as a result of the lost patent law-suit against Apple. From a brand building perspective such activities on social media can mitigate the impact of loss in reputation. Public relations practitioners term these strategies as "secondary response strategies". Due to the legally complicated nature of the case, Samsung has not commented much on the loss in the case. But brand building measures such as this one aimed at relational goals facilitated by interactivity have the potential to increase the reputation of Samsung in the minds of consumers. 

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