On Tuesday, July 13 Old Spice kicked off what some called the biggest short term social media success to date. The Old Spice ‘Your Man’ campaign, created by Wieden + Kennedy, included 183 videos featuring Isaiah Mustafa personally replying to consumers on YouTube.

The campaign yielded astonishing results:

• 130 million YouTube views
• +118% Facebook fans
• +227% YouTube subscribers
• +2800% Twitter followers

The campaign was groundbreaking in many ways. Wieden’s global interactive creative director Iain Tait told Fast Company they had a team of editors and creatives creating the ads in real time. And the tactic clearly established a strong community footprint for Proctor & Gamble’s Old Spice brand.

Overall conversation sentiment was 86% positive.

But interestingly, Isaiah Mustafa was the most mentioned related to the topic. No words directly related to Old Spice’s products even appear in the topic cloud.

How did the online buzz translate to sales? An Ad Age article reported: for the four weeks ending June 13, Old Spice’s sales were up 106% from the prior-year period. But, sales of Gillette body wash, backed by buy-one-get-one-free coupons and by their own TV ads were up a lot more, 277% (though it’s by far a smaller brand in the category).

And while Old Spice enjoyed a noticeable spike in the Body Wash conversation over Nivea, Gillette, Dove and Axe during the weeks surrounding the campaign, overall online chatter has leveled off among all competitors in the category.

Can Old Spice keep the conversation going? And what will Old Spice do with the online community footprint it has built to convert the fans and followers into loyal customers?

In addition, what’s a Facebook fan really worth? With answers ranging from $136.38 to $3.60, Forrester research says: zero, unless and until the brand does something to create value with Facebook fans.

How can other brands learn from this campaign to create other successful real-time marketing campaigns?

Word of mouth is on fire.

The control of brands is shifting from the companies to people. According to Forrester Research, 1 in 3 of adults online want to hear the opinion of a friend or family before making purchasing decisions. More people are using social networks and trusted influencers to aid in their purchasing decisions.

Social Radar can help you manage your brand using one of the biggest content collections in the world. Talk of your brand, company, or products can be measured and managed.

How is the new social web changing your marketing strategies?

The ability to simply listen to social chatter lets you engage customers and thought leaders like never before.

Gain valuable feedback on your products and services not coming from focus groups or complicated marketing research techniques, but from the unfiltered voices of your customer base.

Target negative feedback and use it as a chance to engage someone and create a positive customer service situation where none existed before.

Target highly influential people in your industry and leverage the trust they have built with their readership to put your product/service in front of the right people.

Understand the happenings and trends in your industry as well as activities of your competitors.

Keeping a blind eye to the conversations on the web and tracking the wrong statistics can create a very unrealistic perception of what people truly talk about and how they feel about your brand. Don’t be left in the dark.