In our recent webinar, two industry thought leaders shared their perspective on social in the CPG industry. Bert DuMars, VP of E-Business & Interactive Marketing at Newell Rubbermaid, and Carole Irgang, President of Red Shoes Marketing & former SVP of Integrated Marketing Communications at Kraft Foods, offered their thoughts on the importance of social media in the industry, and shared examples of brands who have seen success in the space.

Here are three big ways CPG uses social commerce.

Tear down the wall between consumers and your brand.

Manufacturing brands can have a tendency to focus on their immediate customer – the retailers who carry their products – focusing on share of shelf when it comes to reaching consumers. But as more retailers leverage UGC to improve online and offline sales, they’re making active distribution decisions based on product review data. Connecting end users – both with your brand and with each other – to drive demand creates demand among retailers. Capture share of shelf among retailers and share of voice among consumers.

Consumers’ words breathe life into traditional advertising. Carole Irgang spoke to how user-generated content makes marketing more interesting, allowing CPG brands to “become part of the consumer conversation without interrupting it.” Don’t think about user-generated content a “silo” in certain media channels or marketing efforts. If used properly, consumers’ words are impactful everywhere throughout the marketing mix.

Rubbermaid recently ran a print campaign for their Easy Find Lids product. The ad included a coupon and a snippet of real review content, with the products’ star rating featured. Rubbermaid saw a 10% lift in coupon redemption over a similar ad for the same product that didn’t include UGC.

User-generated content is the new focus group. Many brands hesitate to embrace UGC out of a fear of negative reviews, but 1-star reviews offer valuable information brand teams can use to improve products.

Rubbermaid did market research and found that consumers were worried about swine flu and germs. They reformulated a popular sink mat to be bacteria resistant, but the new design gave up some stain-resisting power and started getting negative reviews – including negative feedback from a customer who had been buying the product for more than 45 years!

Rubbermaid reached out to the customers who wrote negative reviews, and found that bacteria resistance was less important  to their customers than stain resistance. They reformulated the mat back to stain resistance, and gave these negative reviewers the first new products off the line.

The customers were thrilled with this level of service. “If you can make a positive person a little more positive, that’s nice but they won’t be very verbose about it,” said Bert. “But if you can take a negative experience and make it positive, it’s a home run. These people were out on Facebook and Twitter talking about how we were responding to them – that’s the best response you can have.”

Have a question that wasn’t answered in the webinar? Share it in our comments section.

Learn how to create your own CPG social strategy.

Our full webinar with Bert and Carole is available for free download.

Over the winter holidays, Bazaarvoice partnered with Burt’s Bees to help them launch their “Who’s Your Reason for Giving?” Stories campaign. Over 200 heartwarming stories started pouring in from their community shortly after launch. I had the opportunity today to catch up with Molly Fisher from the Burt’s Bees team:

What is your role with Burt’s Bees and what role does social marketing play for your organization?

I am Burt’s Bees’ Interactive and eCommerce Manager. Social Marketing has quickly become a leading way for consumers to engage and interact with our Brand. Burt’s Bees has had a loyal following from very early on, but social marketing avenues have empowered us to have a transparent conversation with our consumers, engage them on a personal level, and more deeply reinforce the values and mission of this company. This depth of engagement has been valuable in helping us shape our ideas and gain a robust picture of our consumers.

What inspired the Burt’s Bees team to come up with its Who’s Your Reason for Giving campaign?

With any campaign we launch at Burt’s Bees, we try to add elements of doing good and paying that goodness forward. In the midst of a second Holiday season made difficult for many by the economic downturn, our team felt that a return to simple values was meaningful and appropriate. We started asking the questions “Who inspires you to be more giving? Who makes you happy just by being them?” Let’s honor people who make a difference and inspire others no matter their situation.

How has the Burt’s Bees community responded to this campaign?

The response was amazing – We saw a higher than expected participation rate largely driven by media, PR, and messaging to our existing email base. We (and our consumers) were overwhelmed by the heartfelt, beautiful, inspiring stories we read.

Were there any customer stories or types of story that particularly stood out to you or that you weren’t expecting?

We quickly noticed a powerful theme of “everyday heroes”…strong mothers, good friends battling breast cancer, co-workers going above and beyond with courage and enthusiasm. This was more than just a fun campaign, it served as an invitation to stop for a moment and thank someone.

Living the Greater Good is a large part of your company culture. What are some of the ways that Burt’s Bees gives back to its community?

Living the greater good is the “how” and “why” we do what we do. It’s about operating our company with the highest level of social responsibility – focusing on three key areas: natural well-being, environmental sustainability and social responsibility. Working at Burt’s Bees requires a steadfast commitment to these core values.

What advice would you give others on how to engage their communities through customer stories?

Media messaging used to be about telling consumers what to do and touting all the bells and whistles of your product or service. Social media allows for a more natural decision making process and ideally a longer-term loyalty. Invite consumers to engage with your brand in a personal way (reviews, stories, opinions, etc.) and you will be surprised how they will not only share, but also become advocates of your brand. Also increasingly important, give them the tools and technology to make it easy to participate and invite others in their networks as well.