08 October 2008

The Blogosphere According to Bloggers


I know I'm a little slow in reacting to the Technorati State of the Blogosphere report, but I kept coming back to something I couldn't quite shake. More on that in a minute. First, let's talk about a few of the interesting tidbits about brands and blogging.

"Whether or not a brand has launched a social media strategy, more likely than not, it’s already present in the Blogosphere. Four in five bloggers post brand or product reviews, with 37% posting them frequently. 90% of bloggers say they post about the brands, music, movies and books that they love (or hate)."




Yep, folks. People are talking about you, whether you like it or not. More importantly, people are looking for information online, and when they find it, they may not realize they're on a blog. It's just a link they clicked from their Google search.

Social media users tend to label our tools and put them in buckets - blogging, microblogging, crowdsourcing, whatever. But the people that FIND information on the web aren't classifying things the same way we are. They just want to know what people are saying about the laptop they're thinking of buying, or the hotel they're thinking of staying at. When they click on a link, it may not register with them that it's a blog or a forum post or a mainstream news article online, but it's the information they're after. But they ARE looking for it, so we ought to be putting it in places they can find it and - perhaps more importantly - interact and react to it.

"Company information or gossip and everyday retail experiences are fodder for the majority of bloggers."


Which means people want to talk about you, and given no other choice, will use the information they find to make judgments about your business. It's ever more important that you as the brand are contributing your voice and perspective to the conversation, and showing that other people's viewpoints matter to you, too.

But here's my word of caution. The report is decidedly slanted - Technorati (fittingly) only surveyed bloggers for this report. I understand that they're trying to take the pulse of THEIR community - the bloggers - and understand how and why they do what they do.

But if you're a consultant or company looking at this information, be careful not to overinflate some of the findings, and recognize that they're from a plugged-in audience. Of course they're going to predict the continued growth of blogs and the demise of print - that's the world they live in. Of course they're going to believe that blogs' influence will get ever greater in the grand communications highway - it's part of the sea change that they're creating.

I believe these things - I do. I work with lots of people to understand and tap the potential of marketing through social media - blogging included - and I think blogging is a powerful, accessible medium that really has changed the face of media. But the fishbowl can make you see things through curved glass.

So I'll end by saying that once again, we all need to be mindful of the individual business value of these tools, the important factors for consideration, and how they integrate into the larger landscape. Traditional methods of communication can still be very viable, and even more powerful when enhanced with carefully selected social media tools to transform a message into a dialogue.

And the conversation is only as good as the quality of its participants. More on that later this week...



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07 October 2008

Your Brand, In Plain English

I'm not a big fan of buzzwords. Why? They dilute brands more effectively than almost anything else. And I promise, these have all come from real corporate documents, though names have been withheld to protect the offenders.

The Compound Buzzword
This is what you get when you take a perfectly good normal word - like "organic" - and cram it into some business-related context because it sounds cool, often smashing it together with some other buzzword. Something like:

We create organic solution stacks to solve our clients' infrastructure issues.

You've now compounded the confusion by making up collections of words that independently may (or may not) mean something to your customer, but have lost all context.

The Noun-Into-A-Verb
Ever heard this one?

We've tasked our customer service team to meet your every need.

Beside the fact that this violates every grammar rule because it's just a made-up word, it sounds self-important. As if you're too good to just have customer service teams that are dedicated to meeting needs. They have to be "tasked" to do so. Ergh.

The Tech Upgrade
This practice uses technically-related terms and applies them to non-technical subjects.

Our mission statement outlines our read-only values: integrity, creativity, and collaboration.

In essence you're trying to say that those values can't or won't be compromised. So why not use a word designed for that purpose? Like, say, uncompromising?

The Mashup
It can be tempting to create a whole new word, hoping that someday, someone will know you coined that term. Most of the time, you just sound like you're trying too hard:

We keep our client meetings centergistic and focused on outcomes.

What do you think? Does this make you want to hire them, or does it make you wonder if their meetings will be equally difficult to interpret?

The Misnomer
Here we've got words that are either oxymorons - meaning that that by definition the two words are opposites - or words that are completely redundant and unnecessary. My favorite example of late:

We form collaborative partnerships to help you meet your goals.

I don't know about you, but I haven't met a partnership that wasn't - at least by the pure definition of "working together" - collaborative.

Ok, Amber....What's your point?
Ok. The above are kind of fun, and you may have gotten a chuckle out of it. (For even more laughs on the buzzword front, check out BuzzWhack.) But the truth is these kinds of offenses are rampant in the world of marketing, and even more so now in social media.

Everyone wants to be different, innovative, the first to the finish line. And in the process, we've left behind some very simple words to describe what we do.

A brand isn't about 20 point Scrabulous words (or Scrabble, for you analog folk). It's about clearly defining your brand in words that make it easy for your customers to explain it to someone else.

So next time you're writing copy for your website or putting together your pitch for a new client, skip the lingo, and don't try to be a hero. Use real words that real people use and understand, and they'll be much more likely to talk about you. If you have trouble explaining your brand in a sentence, you ought to spend some time distilling it down until you can.


Sometimes, simple really is better.


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30 September 2008

Is your social media consultant...social?

There was a great post on Mashable yesterday about ways to know when you should fire your social media consultant. I agree very much with the points Alex raised, but would also like to add a few of my own to the list.

They swim mostly in the fishbowl.
What I mean by this: some so-called social media gurus love to spend a lot of their time backslapping each other about how great they are. (Note to these folks: spending the bulk of your time pimping your blog on Twitter while not taking the time to engage on any of the comments on said blog does not qualify you as a social media "expert"). A good adviser of ANY kind needs to be taking in a strategic spectrum of expertise across industries and disciplines - of course with a focus on their area of expertise - in order to advise their clients in the most informed manner. You simply can't do that if you only spend time with your own "kind".

Jason Falls cautioned social media professionals yesterday about spending too much time in the bubble, and it's great advice. Make sure your consultant has offline expertise and the ability to understand the bigger business picture.

They tout social media as the only strategy.
I could probably retire if I had a penny for each time I had to explain that social media is NOT a replacement for sound corporate communication strategy overall. It is not a shortcut. It is but one piece of a larger picture, and it is not necessarily the right approach for every company. Yes, community and relationships are valuable no matter what the industry, and I believe companies should strive to build lasting relationships with their customers. But social media requires an investment of time and resources, and not all the tools are suited to any given company.

If your consultant is insisting that creating a page on Facebook or an account on Twitter is the answer to all your marketing problems, don't walk away. RUN.

They don't practice what they preach.
This is a biggie with me. Is your consultant building a relationship with YOU? Do they respond to emails, engage readers on their blog, seem like a community is something they enjoy being a part of? Ask them why they do what they do. Talk to passionate and dedicated people like Mack Collier, Jason Falls, Connie Reece, Liz Strauss, or Geoff Livingston, and see how much the conversation truly matters to them. They're shining examples of what it means to walk the walk, and I learn from all of them, every day.

I can't speak for everyone else, but social media is a passion for me because I believe that relationships are the cornerstone of truly great businesses. How those relationships are cultivated is different for everyone, but you have to love the philosophy in order to apply it well. Social media is a powerful and dynamic set of tools, but the underlying premise of building stronger and more fruitful communities should be the undercurrent of why you're using them.




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29 September 2008

Marketing, Social Media and Web...oh my!

After some discussion and sharing on Twitter, I pulled together this list of some of the upcoming conferences and events for those wanting to expand their horizons in marketing and social media (and a little Web 2.0 thrown in for good measure). This list is by no means exhaustive; if you know of a great event that marketing folks should know about, please include it in the comments with a link.

TechnoMarketing - Oct 6-7, 2008, Chicago and Oct 20-21, Newport Beach

Corporate Communications in a Web 2.0 World - Oct 14-16, 2008, Cary, NC

New Marketing Summit
- Oct 14-15, 2008 - Foxboro, MA (2009 dates too)

MarketingProfs DMM
- Oct 22-23, 2008, Scottsdale, AZ

PRSA International - Oct 25-28, 2008, Detroit

BlogWell - October 28, 2008, San Jose, CA

Forrester's Consumer Forum
- Oct 28-29, Dallas, TX

SWOMFest - October 30, 2008, Austin, TX

Ad:Tech New York - November 3-6, 2008, NYC (int'l dates year round)

PubCon Search Marketing Conference - Nov 11-14, Las Vegas

AdAge 360 Marketing Conference - Nov 12, 2008, NYC

WOM Crash Courses - Nov 6, Dec 10, and Jan 21 in Chicago

SES Chicago (dates and locations worldwide) - December 8-12, Chicago

Affiliate Summit - Jan 11-13, 2009 in Las Vegas

SXSW Interactive - March 13-17, 2009, Austin, TX

Web 2.0 Expo - March 31 - April 3, 2009, San Francisco

SBMU - TBD in April 2009, Houston, TX

SOBCon - May 1-3, 2009, Chicago

SMX (Search Marketing Expo) - International Dates

If you missed these events from last month, be sure and watch their sites to catch them in 2009:

BlogWorld Expo - September

Interact - September

Inbound Marketing Summit

Gnomedex

TechCrunch 50

BlogHer

If big formal conferences aren't your thing, check out these unconferences that are happening all the time, maybe in your area (or host your own):

PodCamp

BarCamp

24 September 2008

A Penny for Your Brilliance.

"Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882)

Everyone has something to give. And knowledge is a powerful currency.

I spent the last several days at the Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference put on by the amazing (did I mention amazing?) folks at Search Engine Guide. I absolutely love that this event is limited in scale to about 100 people. At that size, you can actually meet and interact with people at a level you just can't do at a Big Business Expo.

A powerful theme emerged on day one, and continued throughout the next several days. And it has huge relevance in the business world.

Left and right, people were giving away their knowledge.

Yes, we paid to go to the conference, but as conferences go, even that was a modest investment. But it wasn't just the sessions where information and knowledge was being shared. It was in the hallways. At the lunch table. On the walk from the conference center to the hotel. Over dinner, drinks, even poolside.

People of all stripes - web marketing, search, social media, branding, marketing, business owners, lawyers, technology folk, social media monitoring, video and podcasting - were all too happy to spend time with one another learning, asking questions, sharing, lending a few words of knowledge or experience. And what happens? Everyone benefits.

It's the have-a-penny-leave-a-penny philosophy of business. You're an expert at something, so leave some knowledge for someone else who needs it. And in return, someone is bound to come along to replace that knowledge with something you needed too.

When you're marketing your business, via traditional or social means, contributing your expertise is one of the most valuable things you can do. An e-book. A white paper. An educational video. Or 30 minutes of your time spent with someone to impart a bit of your vast knowledge. Some friendly advice or insight to a new business owner.

Now, before someone freaks out on me for advocating giving away the "secret sauce", that's not what I'm suggesting. But pieces of it? You bet. No one is going to be able to replicate or replace your business by using your PowerPoint slides. But by teaching and sharing, you are cultivating a sense of ownership and learning in others.

I learned so much from my friends this weekend. I have come away richer for the experience, and hopefully left a little something in the penny jar for someone else. Thank you to you all for your intellectual philanthropy, and making it fun in the meantime.

If you aren't out there sharing what you know with someone who can benefit from just a handful of your expertise, please go pick up the phone or send an email. Right now. I'll be here when you get back, counting my pennies.

image by r-z
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11 September 2008

Six Things I Learned From Kodak

Reading the recent Q&A with Kodak (see parts one and two), I was struck by a number of simple but compelling takeaways from their success that I think any company can and should pay attention to.

1. Get on Twitter.
Twitter isn't nearly the obscure, niche site it once was. Companies are using it, and it's snowballing when they realize what they can do with it. Kodak has dozens of members from around the globe on Twitter, and they're not alone. Check out this collection of brands using Twitter, and this great take from the inimitable Chris Brogan about how businesses can make the most of it.

2. Understand your goals.
This isn't exclusive to social media. Any solid communication effort requires understanding what you want to get out of it. Who are you talking to, and what are you hoping they'll do or say as a result of that conversation? Then, and only then, can you move on to deciding what tools to use. Which brings me to:

3. Choose the tools that are best for your business.
This isn't the same for everyone. Some businesses can make great use of a blog if they've already got a large contingent of their customers online and and interested in what they have to say. Forums can be great for connecting brand evangelists with one another. A Facebook page can work if you can deliver content and activities that get and keep people engaged. Kodak looked carefully at the tools they knew they could learn, maintain, and get excited about while achieving their goals.

4. Find the right people.
There's been a lot of debate about where the responsibility for social media lies within an organization (just ask Jason Falls). And while I agree that it should be guided and managed by people who have an understanding of good communication practices, the people participating on your blog or on Twitter absolutely, positively have to want to to it. They need to enjoy forging and building relationships with customers, period. And they can be found outside your marketing or PR department, in the form of product managers or customer support people, or even in (gasp) finance or IT. Kodak found the passionate people in their organization, and put them to work.

5. Social media results aren't instant.
Kodak, like many other companies, has realized that social media is a long term investment of time, effort, and dedication. Like the development of any relationships, participating in social media has to be something that a company commits to and works hard at in order to reap all the rewards. It's not a silver bullet. (Check out my post on other things that social media isn't, for more thoughts along these lines).

6. ROI isn't always about direct revenue.
No, I'm not saying social media shouldn't HAVE an ROI. But I took notice that, on Kodak's list of social media ROI, not one of them cited any dollar figures. It's about building relationships, building your brand, and making people want to learn more about you. These are the things that drive revenue for your company over the long term, even if it's a meandering path.

Bonus: Have Fun.
It's so clear to me that the Kodak team enjoys what they do. I mean, really! Jenny Cisney gets to talk about her passion for her company, for photography, and go to the Olympics to showcase it. That can't possibly suck, on any level (ok ok, I know it's still work). Not everything worth doing in business has to be drudgery.

So what did you take away from this? Did you learn anything about your own social media exploits by reading Kodak's point of view? Did they encourage you to try something in social media that you hadn't considered? I'd love to know what you think.

Image credit: foundphotoslj

10 September 2008

Kodak's Social Media Success: Part 2


Yesterday, we started talking with Kodak about their social media initiatives. Today, the team talks about their plans for the future, and what they consider ROI for their efforts.

How do you hope to build on the success you’ve had in social media, and involve it in your future communication plans? Do see your social media efforts increasing, decreasing, or staying the same for 2009?

Krista Gleason: Kodak is focused on growth and we are always looking at new and innovative ways to communicate, share information, and build relationships with customers. Our participation in these various forms of social media gives us the opportunity to spread our message further and to a larger audience. Our focus now and going forward is how to best integrate all these tools in our communications. For example, when we do a traditional press release, we also consider a companion blog post, we twitter about the news, we post to Facebook and delicious, we might do a podcast, we join the conversation in blogs and forums.

Was involvement in social media a natural progression for Kodak, or was it a culture shift for you?

Krista Gleason: In many ways, our involvement in social media is a reflection of the new company we have become – what we often refer to as the New Kodak. Film remains an important part of our business but Kodak is also now a foremost leader in digital imaging and printing.

What departments and staff members are involved in social media at Kodak, and how do you determine who is involved in each project?

Krista: In April, we named Jenny Cisney our Chief Blogger and she is responsible for overseeing all our social media activities. As Chief Blogger, Jenny also covers trade shows and events (like the Olympics) and represents Kodak at social media conferences. Tom Hoehn is our Director of Brand Communications and Convergence Media and also plays a lead role. We have an internal Blog Council that meets regularly with representation from our film business, consumer business, graphic communications business, and technology office. Our employee bloggers represent virtually all aspects of the company including technology, R&D, product development, branding, marketing, online, etc.

Jenny Cisney: It’s easy to find people in the company who are passionate about what they do and about Kodak products. There are a lot of photography enthusiasts who are eager to share their pictures and tips.

Kodak does a great deal of sponsorship and events; have you found social media to be a valuable part of these efforts, and why or why not?

Krista: Yes. A great example of this is our announcement of the Kodak Challenge – part of our new partnership with the PGA TOUR. In addition to the traditional press release and press conference, we also had several blogs about the Kodak Challenge, podcasts that were also posted to YouTube, several people twittering including Jenny and our Chief Business Development Officer Jeff Hayzlett who made the announcement, we posted photos to flickr and Facebook, and news on delicious.

How do you define your “ROI” from involvement with social media?

• Feedback from readers and customers via the blogs and email.

• Invitations to speak at top-tier conferences, including BlogWorld Expo and BlogHer.

• Links to our blogs from other blogs and online articles.

• Recognition from social media experts and media such as:

Mario Sundar - #1 Olympic blog, 2008
Debbie Weil - 5 examples of effective corporate blogs, 2007
PR Week - 5 corporate blogs that built buzz, 2007
Business Week
Mentions and compliments in the book “Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online” by Andy Beal and Judy Strauss.

• Awards: Earlier this year Kodak won three awards for our blogs – the PRSA Bronze Anvil, American Business Award (Stevie Award) and an Interactive Media Award.

What advice do you have for other companies contemplating social media tools like blogging and podcasting?

Jenny Cisney: If you start participating in social media, you have to be dedicated to it. You cannot leave your blog untouched for weeks. Make sure you listen to your customers and take their feedback into account. Be sure you get back to them in a timely manner. And remember your blog doesn’t have to be like other company blogs. Tailor your social media to best suit your business.

My special thanks again to Krista Gleason and Jenny Cisney along with the entire team at Kodak for sharing their story with us! I've got some great takeaways from this that I'll share with you tomorrow, so stay tuned.
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08 September 2008

Kodak's Social Media Success


Today, Part 1 of my two-part interview with the awesome social media team at Kodak. I was impressed with some of their blogging during this year's Olympic Games, which prompted me to want to learn more about what they're up to.

We'll be talking about their blogging efforts, the role social media plays in their business, and how they'll be incorporating social media into their future plans. My special thanks to Krista Gleason, Jenny Cisney, and Tom Hoehn for their friendliness and participation!

When did Kodak make the decision to make social media part of their corporate strategy, and why?

Krista Gleason: We launched our first blog – A Thousand Words – in September 2006 and have engaged in other social media since then including podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, flickr, and delicious. Our social media activities are part of our overall communications and marketing strategy. We use social media to connect with our customers – communicate, listen, interact, engage – and share information about our company and our products and services.

We wanted to have a presence in the blogosphere. It’s important for us to be a part of the conversation.

Tell me a little bit about the three blogs you have, and how and why each one is important to Kodak.

Krista: Kodak has three blogs. A Thousand Words features stories from Kodak employees on a variety of topics but with a focus on photography and imaging. Plugged In features stories about Kodak products and services. Grow Your Biz features stories from Kodak’s Graphic Communications business. Together, they reflect the breadth and expertise of our company - traditional (photography and film), digital, and print.

What kind of impact has blogging and social media had on your company culture? Your customer relationships?

Krista: Internally, blogging has opened up opportunities for employees to share their personal stories thereby helping to boost employee morale. Kodak employees are passionate about their work and their company and the blogs give them a chance to communicate that passion. We currently have over 70 employees who blog (including international bloggers) and new employees continually expressing interest. Externally, our blogs give customers and readers (from over 100 countries) a better understanding of Kodak – from how our products and services can help them do more with their pictures to how the company’s innovations are impacting our world. Our blogs also give Kodak a human face.

People can of course participate in our blog through comments but can also become the subject of our Picture Wednesday blog by submitting a photo to Kodak’s Picture of the Day.
During the Olympics, for example, one blogger commented “I want that camera!” to a post about the panoramic feature on our cameras. We get comments like that often.

Jenny Cisney:
There have been many online experts who feel that Kodak 'gets it' and customers who appreciate us listening to them. A woman on Twitter was having a problem with her printer and was so grateful when we twittered back with the solution to her problem.

How did blogging enhance the 2008 Olympic experience for Kodak, both as individual staff members, and for your company as a whole?

Jenny: Our blogs demonstrated to readers how Kodak products, services and technology were being used at the Olympics, from services for photojournalists, to printing accreditation badges, postcards and newsletters, to digital photo services for fans. It also showed how the Games and Beijing were captured using Kodak cameras. Photos and video taken on site were shared with tips on taking pictures when traveling. It’s all part of communicating how Kodak can help you “make, manage and move images and information.”

You also have a comprehensive series of podcasts; what drove you to explore this medium? Has it been successful for you, and what have you learned from it?

Krista: Kodak has its own production studio (albeit a small one) so doing podcasts is a great fit. We are pleased with the success of our podcasts (also available through RSS and iTunes). Our Pro Imaging podcasts (new this year) have been especially popular and are also featured on www.imaginginfo.com.

Podcasts are another great tool to communicate with our customers though probably consume the most time given the nature of production. But it’s something we feel adds value to our communications and marketing and we have a lot of fun putting them together.


Stay tuned for tomorrow's post, where Kodak talks about their definitions of social media ROI, and their words of wisdom for companies contemplating the social media plunge. Thursday I'll recap what I've learned from Kodak, and some ideas for you and your business to explore!

02 September 2008

Social Media: What About The Risks?

Someone asked this a couple of weeks ago on Twitter, and I've been chewing on it ever since.

Is social media risky?


Business in general is fraught with risk. The next client or contract or customer isn't assured. Our advertising campaign could offend someone, our direct mail campaign could be beautifully designed and tested but still fail to achieve the results we want.

Accounting errors happen, and even worse, fraud. Customer service reps have a bad day. IT departments have meltdowns and failures. Products fail to meet expectations, budgets get missed. Employees misbehave, embezzle, share trade secrets. And it all happens on channels outside of social media.

As a very public, lasting, and dynamic communication platform, social media has it's share of potential challenges. And for as powerfully as I believe in its potential to elevate brands, it would be irresponsible to assume that venturing into social media territory doesn't carry some level of risk. Here are a few of the risks associated with social media that we've been talking about:

A customer could leave a negative comment on your blog, or on a social network about your brand.

Criticism happens all the time, and companies need to respond appropriately and thoughtfully. Crisis communication strategy exists purely for this reason. I don't think that social media necessarily increases the chances that something negative will be said about you, but it certainly can amplify the message. Companies embarking on social media adventures need to understand how to monitor their brand online - especially on the company-owned channels - and learn how to engage and respond in a way that bolsters the brand.

An employee could say something on behalf of the company that's not authorized, is potentially offensive, or share something confidential.

Kellye Crane today pointed me to a post that Leigh Durst put on her blog about Whole Foods' potential misstep on Twitter. Apparently, their Twitter representative(s) reposted a tweet with questionable language, and some fallout ensued. Can one misstep like this have more staying power than five smart moves? Social media folks always say that Google never forgets, and more and more we find proof that it doesn't.

Beth Harte penned a great post about her recent experiences on Twitter; the height of the political season has folks tossing barbs left and right, and there is certainly potential for brand damage - both personal and corporate.

We've spent years now using the phone and email to communicate, and the potential exists to really screw up there, too. So what makes social media different? Is it the ubiquitous, open and organic nature of conversation on the web? Does the anoynmity of a computer screen encourage poorer judgment?

Participating in social networks or blogging requires dedicated resources or productivity, and can be difficult to sustain at an active level.

For a moment, I'm going to put aside the argument of whether engaging in social media is a waste of time in the first place, and assume that it's not. But engaging in social media the "right" way requires a commitment, and can be hard work. Understaffing, underestimating, and doing it poorly can be worse than doing nothing at all. A blog with one post that hasn't been updated in months can send a lack of commitment message that a mere absence of blogging might not.

As Mack Collier deftly points out, putting the wrong resources to work can misfire, too. Just because only one employee is familiar with blogging doesn't mean that they're the right choice to blog on behalf of a company. Choosing social media stewards for your company needs to be as well thought out as appointing any major project managers. (One could even argue more so, considering the very public nature of this kind of role.)

The corporate message can't be as easily controlled or managed.

Yes, it's true that you as a company don't necessarily control all your messaging anymore, and your customers are having a greater and more lasting impact on your brand.

But Jeff Summers and Jane Chin are both smart to point out that some industries carry more risk and liability than others for that very messaging. Financial institutions or health care organiations very likely have regulations they must adhere to, and legal obligations that control what kind of information they can disclose and how. For companies in these spaces, social media is a very serious business and legal consideration that has to be approached carefully (if its appropriate at all).

It's more than clear that a sound social media strategy involves analysis of potential issues that can arise as well as the potential benefits. And like any other smart business move, stepping into social media should be treated with respectful planning and communication. Just because it's a shiny "new" toy doesn't mean that it ought to be treated lightly.

Are these risks different than those for other areas of business? Are the standards for social media the same or different, and why? Is there equal risk in doing nothing at all and missing the boat on social media altogether?

Let's continue the conversation in the comments. This is an important subject!

Thanks also to Sonny Gill, Tara Whittle, Tim "Masiguy" Jackson, Rhonda LaShae, and Barbara Baker for weighing in on the conversation, and their great contributions as always (which you can read here on Plurk).

Image by hellolapomme

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28 August 2008

The Brand Damage Snowball Effect

All of us, at one point or another, have had a bad experience with a company. Sometimes, it's mild enough for us to grumble for a few moments and go on our way, and give them another shot another day. Other times, it's bad enough that we'll never do business with that company again, but we don't spread that to other people.

Then, there's the tipping point where we're so ticked off, we not only vow never to do business with them again, but we tell everyone.

And if you're the company that's at the business end of that shotgun, you had better be paying attention.

My friend (and disclosure: client) David Alston is undertaking a move this week, which sucks in and of itself. And he was relying on U-Haul to help him with that move. When his wife dealt with some absolutely abominable customer service regarding their truck reservation, he put his gripe on Twitter for thousands of people to see. He also blogged about it (in a much more objective and level headed way than I might have).

What ensued was an onslaught of responses from David's Twitter community, and a great post from Catch Up Lady detailing some of the responses and the snowball effect of David's tweet reaching his followers and their followers and so on. (Just in case you think Twitter still doesn't matter. But this, for another post.)

One of those followers posted the CEO's phone number, and David sent him a message. He did call back, but as of this post, I don't think they've connected. I'll be curious about what this guy has to say about the behavior of his field locations and representatives (and the subsequent damage they're doing to his brand). I'll also be curious to know whether the phone call is merely a gesture, and if this guy is aware of the negative publicity he's receiving across the web (of which I'm sure David will make him aware).

David also did his part by canceling his reservation with U-Haul and subsequently booking with Penske, and he then tweeted about how great their customer service was.

If anything to me, this is yet another powerful case for why listening to social media is critically important, and you can do that even if you don't have a blog or a Twitter account. Hearing what's being said can uncover a gold mine (or quagmire) of information from your customers - or former customers - just waiting for you. If I were the U-Haul CEO, I would sure as heck want to know that all these people, in the span of a few hours, had just shared how much they think my company sucks.

Dozens and dozens of people responded to David with their horror stories (and I have one of my own). This many horror stories, and they're still out there managing to do business? What if no one had managed to give David the CEO's contact information? Would they have heard a thing? Or cared? Do you think this experience is significant enough to teach an old dog new tricks?

And then the next level: Where is the tipping point, I wonder, to take down a giant like U-Haul or force them to do things differently, and when does our collective patience run out? How do we translate the negativity we feel and express in words, and translate it into action by not supporting the brand enough where they have to change or perish? What separates a stubborn brand from one willing to evolve based on what they learn?

Can social media tip the scales and turn talk into action?



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25 August 2008

Fancy term. Really (really) basic ideas.

If the term "social media" freaks you (or your boss or your clients) out and causes consternation in the conference room, consider this. It's a fancy term that describes the tools we use to do something that's been around in business since the dawn of time: get more customers and keep them happy.

Let's scrap the tools for a minute - forget the "What" part of social media and suspend your notions of Twitter or Facebook or blogs or podcasts.

This actually seems so utterly fundamental that part of me hesitates to write this as if everyone's going to say "well duh, Amber." But I keep seeing folks scrutinizing social media as if it were this revolutionary, alien concept in business that has no bearing on what they're used to. And when it comes to the technology specifically, that may be the case. These are the means, but not the end game. In practice, all social media does is facilitate a few good tenets of a customer-oriented business like:

Saying Hello
A good part of smart business is finding new ways to say hello to people who are not yet your customers, ideally by carefully locating them somewhere they gather most, and starting a conversation about something interesting. (Note I did not say finding your customers and immediately starting off by selling something.). And of course, greeting your regular customers in a friendly way, wherever you see them.

Being Available
Before someone does business with you, they may have questions they want to ask about who you are and what you do. They may want to see the people behind the business, get to know and trust you. And once they're your customer, they'll look to you to be accessible, responsive, and personable when they interact with you. Because as we've all heard a dozen and forty times, people do business with other people they like.

Being Accountable
Every business screws up eventually. The more you learn about exactly how and where you've screwed up - including from people who would never tell you directly, but who might tell their friends instead - the better your chances of fixing issues when they happen (if not before). Apologizing, taking responsibility for the mistake, and offering a remedy builds trust and credibility. And a little sense of humor never hurts.

Solving Problems
You're in business because something you make or do makes life or business easier for someone else. Your contributions are more valuable if you can hear the subtleties of those problems in order to better your product or service. And if you hear new problems to solve, that's even better. One suggestion box is good. A few hundred (thousand?) - with built in ways to respond quickly and easily and provide valuable ongoing information to your customers? Better.

Saying Thank You
So much easier when you have people actively listening, and widespread mechanisms for communicating with them.

The real question we ought to be asking ourselves, folks, is not what social media is going to do differently for us. It's how we're going to use a host of new, more amplified, and more ubiquitous tools to do what we ought already be doing, but better.

photo by helico

21 August 2008

Social Media Powers Better Advertising

One of my issues with advertising has always been that, as a consumer (not an ad expert), I feel like so much advertising misses the mark. It's not personal. It's not relevant. It's often flashy or gimmicky or shocking for the sake of it, but rarely does it help me better understand a brand or build a relationship with it. My good friend and marketing smart guy posted recently about advertising that sucks, and I posted about an ad from the ASPCA that I think totally misses the mark.

I watch the Super Bowl commercials each year like everyone else, but have to be honest that I rarely remember the brands themselves that were part of the remarkable spots. And as much as I love the Budweiser Clydesdales, I'm still not going to buy their beer.

To me, advertising should be about creating awareness for a company, product, service or idea in a way that really connects with people. In human terms. And demonstrates how the brand embodies those ideas. People develop brand loyalty because it does something for them in a way nothing else can, or because they feel a personal affinity for the company/product/service for a particular reason.

And I don't find any of those things in a jingle, a stunt, sophmoric humor, or flashy weird graphics that are meant to be bizarre or avant garde but have no material connection to the brand itself. And I see lots and lots of ads that do so many of those things. The ads themselves may be interesting or "remarkable" but that doesn't translate to the brand. Am I missing something?

And I know we use Dell as an example a lot, but that's really because they're doing so many things right, like their ReGeneration project. They've asked a question: What does green mean to you? And as part of their project, they launched a contest on Facebook where they asked folks to submit artwork that spoke to their feelings about being green. I'm actually a bit behind here - the campaign is several months old now - but it has sticking power in my head because of how open Dell was to letting the community determine the direction for their project.

The cool part to me is that Dell did something that's one of the pillars of social media in my mind: They let their community create their advertising for them. They took some of the artwork and created ads around them. No fancy agencies, no "crafted messages", no gimmicks or in-your-face corporate speak. A sample is below.

Dell realized that their customers could and do build up their brand as well or better than they can. Jeremiah Owyang has a good breakdown of the campaign here.



So are you leveraging what your customers and fans are doing on behalf of your brand? How do you think companies can better embrace the brand assets that their customers might be creating for them? Do you think advertising is as misguided as I do, and if so, why hasn't it changed? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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19 August 2008

Contemplating the Social Media Plunge

When I asked around about the reasons why companies hesitate to get involved with social media - whether misconceptions or legitimate concerns - it sparked some great discussion.

By far, the overwhelming consensus was that social media makes companies far more transparent than they're used to being. Dave Murr and Matthew T. Grant on Twitter and Sonny Gill on Plurk all said that companies are uncomfortable not completely controlling the brand message anymore. Of course, the message we're delivering loud and clear is that customers are the ones driving much of your brand messaging anyway, with or without you (and they started doing it the minute they became your customers). Frank Martin says that the practice of some traditional media - press releases, advertising messages - being company-controlled gives companies the illusion that they should be able to control all of their marketing. In a digital age, that's nearly impossible.

Putting time and money toward something that doesn't have hard ROI attached.
Beth Harte and Laura Pritchard agree that many companies want to see a hard, direct line between efforts and sales leads. So far, metrics for social media are soft and indirect, and tend to be reflected instead through measurements in other areas - website traffic, customer satisfaction levels, strength of relationships with customers and prospects. How do you think these effects compare to other cultivation efforts - like customer appreciation events, golf outings, or other business development activities?

Taking communication outside the communication department. Companies may have a hard time trusting their non-communications trained employees to do and say the right thing without intense supervision. The trick is that customer service reps are talking to customers about product issues, your accounting team is discussing the slow decision processes with their vendors, your product managers are talking about disagreement about the new widget design. Employees aren't following the script in their everyday business interactions, anyway, and giving them a chance to communicate more openly on behalf of the company can bring to light new insights.

Thinking that social media is an all-or-nothing proposition. Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester has a great post today about how scare tactics are causing some companies to steer clear of social media. The reality is that social media isn't an overnight sea change, nor is it a silver bullet. It's one (important) part of a comprehensive, and well thought out communication strategy for any business.

Being faced with questions they don't have answers to. Tara Whittle mentioned this one and I was glad she did. Sometimes, online customers will ask questions or point out issues that don't have immediate resolutions. In these cases, I think it's less the immediate solution to the problem, but how the company handles it that matters. Do they have the confidence to answer "We're not sure! But we're going to find out, and here's how we'll let you know when we do." That can build trust and credibility.

Committing the resources to do it right. Social media done comprehensively takes an investment of time, capital, and human resources. As I've posted before, engaging in social media can be a part of anyone's job. Listening alone takes effort - GM alone has at least 10 staff people dedicated to monitoring their brand on the web. As Sonny says, monitoring social media has become an extesion of brand mangement. And once you've heard what's being said, responding and doing something of value with the feedback you receive requires new thinking and sometimes, new ways of doing things. And, as another savvy plurker pointed out, some companies might even think that
shifting their position and messaging in response to feedback can make them seem weak. I'd venture to say that evolving your messaging to respond to your community does quite the opposite, but would welcome your take on this too!

It's just new. Frank points out that it may not be fear so much as that many companies simply aren't early adopters, and he's right. Kellye Crane points out that much like websites once were the unproven tool, some companies are waiting to see just how other companies are making use of social media and how they in turn can leverage it for their specific business. And some may be comfortable with the status quo, thinking that "if it ain't broke...". The more that bellwether companies like Dell, Starbucks, Ford, Beam Global, Southwest Airlines and more blaze the trail, the more likely others are to see the value for themselves, too.

So how about you? Is your company venturing into the waters of social media, and what are your concerns? Are you the champion for social media, and how are you addressing these concerns with your clients or management? Please share in the comments!

Photo by danflo
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14 August 2008

On Women and the Internet

This morning, the New York Times ran an article about women online, this time in the Technology section about advertising on women's sites.

I thought the article was well done, and I'm glad that it was placed where it was. (BTW - I get the whole logistics about the siloed section placements in the mainstream papers. We've been over this, so please let's not revisit that quagmire. I still think it's a crappy system. But that's not what this post is about.)

The article had a very balanced tone, was very business focused, and featured objective writing about the appeal of female-centric websites for advertisers wanting to reach this influential audience. Statistics and studies abound - see just a few results from Forrester here - about the influence and buying power of women in markets both online and off.

I do think there's tremendous value in segmenting gender demographics for marketing and branding purposes, because let's face it - men and women are different. And statistically speaking, we skew our interests toward certain things. Marketing and advertising have spent many, many millions of dollars on gender-focused campaigns for this very reason. And as far as social media goes, advertising dollars are shifting online, and in large part to women-centric sites.

The discussion on Plurk this morning, however, shifted gears a bit, and we started talking about women and the internet in general. How do they use it? Are the largest volume of them really using sites dedicated to fashion, food, or entertainment?

To wit: this question from my social media-savvy friend Deb from I Can't Keep Up:

Why not show how women participate online in other ways? I really struggle over this issue. I would rather see more evidence of women using the internet intellectually, professionally, and even for their sport. So maybe I just want to see something on women's participation in non-gender based sites. Then we would have an idea of women's impact overall.

This report from Pew talks about how women are more likely to use the internet to foster their human connections with others. The popular blog Lip-Sticking talks about marketing to women online - and covers topics as diverse as entrepreneurship in Afghanistan, health and fitness, real estate, and technology (and yes, there are plenty of posts about fashion, family, and other traditionally female topics).

Personally, I don't frequent sites that are female-focused exclusively. I prefer to get my information from all across the web, and my tastes are probably not "traditionally" female. But oddly, I talk to a LOT of women who have similar interests to mine, and eschew destinations focused on lighter fare like fashion or celebrities. (For the record, I wholeheartedly endorse the work of bloggers like Dooce. 850,000 people read her blog - including me on occasion - which means she is unequivocably providing fun and at times irreverent content that people love. Great stuff, and the essence of building a community online.)

So, the big questions:

Am I just swimming in a fishbowl of other non-traditional women? Are we predisposed to dismiss "women's" sites simply because they're not our cup of tea, and are we missing something as a result? Are we too sensitive about the idea that women like to talk fashion, celebrities, and sex?

Does the impact of women online who don't target their activities based on their gender matter to the future of the internet and social media?

The statistics don't lie, and the women's sites abound and thrive (which I think is great, for the women who DO want that content). Advertisers are spending their money there, and presumably they're seeing returns for their efforts. But according to the NYT article, advertisers just aren't seeing the value in reaching women on sites that focus on more serious topics like politics or business. Why is this?

How is the internet going to adapt to and connect with women that aren't in that traditionally female niche? Should it?

Are they reaching us already, in more mainstream ways? Are we in the minority, and is it merely a numbers game? Do we just not respond to advertising in the same way, and why should they care about us?

Would love to hear your thoughts and insights. I know I'll be chewing on this one for a while!

photo by Valerie Renee
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12 August 2008

The Plurk Brain Trust

Today, I was stumped.

I was suffering from writers block for the blog. It happens. So, I threw out a Plurk to my friends asking about what they'd like to see here.

The discussion that ensued was a rapid-fire, but deep well of information and inspiration.

My very public thanks to friends Deb Robison, Sonny Gill, Te-Ge Bramhall, Justin Whitaker, Mack Collier, Eddie Soto, Donna Tocci, Naomi Meredith, Connie Bensen, Mao de Mao, Amie Gillingham. You guys - along with all of my connections on Twitter, Plurk, and everywhere else - are the very definition of community.

So, stay tuned for a new post series I'm researching on internal social networks. Seems more and more companies are exploring them, and I'd like to focus in closer on some of the advantages, challenges, and questions that these create. I think building communities and connections within companies can be as important as doing it outside, and I'm excited to see what I learn. Look forward to sharing with all of you, and as always, thanks for reading.

image by flattop341
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11 August 2008

Are your social networks too scattered?


On Plurk, my friend Kellye Crane pointed me to a social map that Brian Solis of PR 2.0 did for his online presence - both the places where he maintains a presence, and those where he's simply in touch or aware. Check out his post about it here.

So naturally, it got my gears turning. Since social media is so much of what I do and breathe every day, I'm pondering where the perfect fulcrum is to balance having a social presence with being so completely decentralized that you can't give any one community it's due. Brian says:

The truth is that we are embracing new tools because they’re are either intriguing and fascinating to us and/or because those within our social graph are also adopting them to stay connected and participate in online conversations.

We are responsible for the decentralization of our content and our attention.

Some individuals are using things like FriendFeed to aggregate all of their sites and try to stay abreast of them all. Personally, that removes the unique elements of each community and seems to make participating more about me than contributing to the community, which kind of goes against my grain. And I don't see companies making use of FriendFeed to connect with individuals (please let me know if you know otherwise, I'd certainly be interested!).

Then there are tools like Ping.fm that help you post a singular update to many networks. But again, this takes away some of the interaction quality to me because, in my case, it wouldn't be as natural to hang around and participate in the (hopefully) ensuing conversation.

I haven't yet participated actively on YouTube, StumbleUpon, or Mixx even though I have a presence in those places, if nothing else to understand what they're about in basic terms. Obviously, I've barely scratched the surface. And I haven't even touched many other sites at all - ooVoo or Qik or Utterz. In some cases, I avoid something that seems like a new-but-not-distinctly-different iteration of something I already use with success, like Twitter or LinkedIn.

Shift gears away from my personal experience, and put it in business perspective. Where are my potential clients online? Where are your business' potential customers and clients? How are they using these tools, or are they? Is this all a fishbowl, and are we swimming around just running into the same people in different places?

My savvy and always insightful friend Connie Reece put it this way:
Amber, yes the "right" networks are the ones that will be most profitable for your business, and that will be where your customers are.
Takes a lot of research and careful consideration to find exactly what those are, sure. But to me, this is a critical aspect of making social media strategy a viable, effective part of your overall communications plans. Many of these networks are most familar to the early adopters, or people who focus on this space for a living. But is this where the critical mass of customers is?

Taking the time to understand your customers and how they're using the web to engage with businesses cannot be underestimated. Not every social site or network is going to be right for every business. And participating in one or two at a really engaged, invested level is much more important than having a face everywhere but a personality nowhere. It's also important to recognize that just because I enjoy participating in a social community, it doesn't mean that I'm connecting with a business audience of potential customers. They may be somewhere else entirely.

So what say you? How do you draw the line, and what criteria do you use to make sure your investments of time and effort in social media are paying off? Do you have different criteria for your personal involvement and that of your business? I'd love to hear about your approach.

image by jurvetson
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07 August 2008

ASPCA: Marketing For a Cause Gone Awful

I'm a huge animal lover. I have two rescue dogs, two rescue cats, and would probably have a houseful if only I had acreage.

But I cannot watch the ASPCA commercial that's been on the air now for several months. (I'm embedding it below, but I warn you that it's hard to watch, and might be near impossible if you're an animal lover. I had to stop it playing on YouTube just so I could copy the link. If you're sensitive, might just skip it and take my word for it.)



It's been running on the Food Network, which is a favorite TV destination of mine. This whole thing is awful to me for two big reasons.

1) Food Network is losing a viewer on a regular basis, because every time the commercial comes on, I switch channels. And often I forget to switch back. This morning, I've switched three times in the last hour, and I now will not go back for fear of running into this spot again.

2) The ASPCA has gone past the line of sympathy and empathy, and crossed into anguish. If I can't watch the commercial because of how distressing it is, I'm not going to be compelled to stay tuned and give. It's causing the opposite reaction - complete avoidance, despair, helplessness. That's not what they're after I'm sure. And I've heard from literally dozens of people who won't watch the commercial either. Are they giving?

Tugging at heartstrings might have it's place in advertising, marketing, fundraising - emotional appeal is a cornerstone of strong messaging, and I understand the motivation. But I think there's a line. I'd be much more likely to get online and give if I saw a spot full of success stories - happy animals moving on to bigger and better lives after being rescued by the ASPCA. Instead, I'm afraid to head to their site lest I be bombarded with horrific images of mistreated animals all over again.

I *know* what the ASPCA does - I'm not ignorant of the mistreatment of animals, it's harsh reality, and the great strides the ASPCA is making to combat it. But seeing it in all of its brutal reality isn't making me more likely to get closer to their organization.

So what do you think? Is this spot too extreme for you, or do you think this is just the right message? Are you motivated to give, or to change the channel?
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Blogs from the Social Media Fishbowl

A few days ago, I was asking around on Twitter and Plurk about social media people's must-read blogs. After a good influx of responses and requests to share, here we go! I'm happy that while some of these are old favorites, a few were new to me. And of course this is not an exhaustive list and isn't meant to be definitive; these simply represent the 25 that were mentioned most often (most more than once).

Some focus on PR, some on marketing, some on a blend of everything. Please add yours in the comments, too.



1. The Buzz Bin by Geoff Livingston

2. Chaos Scenario by Cam Beck, John Herrington and Paul Herring

3. Church of the Customer Blog by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba

4. ChrisBrogan.com

5. Communication Overtones by Kami Huyse

6. Conversation Agent by Valeria Maltoni

7. Diva Marketing Blog by Toby Bloomberg

8. Every Dot Connects (multiple authors)

9. For Immediate Release by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson

10. Influential Marketing Blog by Rohit Bhargava

11. Logic+Emotion by David Armano

12. Marketing Profs Daily Fix (multiple authors)

13. Mashable (multiple authors)

14. /Message by Stowe Boyd

15. Micropersuasion by Steve Rubel

16. Online Marketing Blog by Lee Odden

17. PR Squared by Todd Defren

18. PR 2.0 by Brian Solis

19. Read Write Web (multiple authors)

20. Social Media Explorer by Jason Falls

21. The Social Media Marketing Blog by Scott Monty

22. Social Media Today (multiple authors)

23. Techipedia by Tamar Weinberg

24. The Viral Garden by Mack Collier

25. Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang

Like I said, I could easily extend this into a list of 100+, so please share in the comments what blogs are can't-miss for you!


Image by Mike Licht



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04 August 2008

25 Reasons Social Media Can (Should?) Be Anyone's Job

Social Media is still a new thing to many people and companies, so I’m thinking optimistically - even aspirationally - here. There are most certainly companies that are ahead of the curve with the way they’re allowing social media to be an undercurrent of many aspects of their business. Here, 25 ways that social media can apply to lots of different job descriptions, no matter what you’re in business to do. Add yours, too, in the comments!

Marketing and PR
This is the obvious category, of course, since these are the folks responsible for crafting, managing, and communicating the company’s messaging to customers and prospects. It’s often (but not always) the “home” for social media in a company. Here, social media can:
  • Help you understand if your customers are online, and if they are, what sites and tools they use most.
  • Provide insights into your own company culture and highlight your business’ comfort level with social media tools.
  • Give the company a human face through online discourse, highlighting the people behind the brand and the hearts and minds that drive it.
  • Let you hear how your community – instead of the company – defines the brand. Messaging in their language is more likely to stick.
  • Give you human insight into market dynamics, instead of relying on only structured reports or surveys. Take the “pulse” of your community, from their perspective.
  • Hear how your competitors are perceived online, too, to identify additional ways to differentiate your brand from theirs.

Sales and Business Development
In sales, finding and solving problems is the key to success, and good listening skills are essential. In the world of social media, business development pros can:
  • Locate prospects that might be self-identifying elsewhere on the web without making themselves readily apparent to the business.
  • Listen to the words your customers use to describe you, for better or worse. They might write your sales pitch for you.
  • Maintain relationships with customers before and after the sale by continuing to connect with them online.
  • Again, competitive analysis and insights about how and where your competitors are reaching the prospects that you might be looking for.
  • Identify trends and niche markets that you might not yet be tapping.
  • Hear how your prospects and clients are articulating their needs and pain points so your future presentations and proposals can address them directly.
  • Open more channels for communication – different tools and sites – and provide opportunities for dialogue that are more comfortable for customers.

Customer/Client Services
Customer service can be a never-ending, demanding job but it’s absolutely a make-or-break piece of any business. So, how can customer and client service pros tap into social media?
  • Identify product or service issues that are being talked about online first. Believe it or not, some people don’t come straight to the company with their issues.
  • Say thank you to clients and customers in their own space.
  • Solve minor issues on the spot (even in other peoples’ online territory, like their website or a community forum) and demonstrate that you’re listening. Be the conduit back to the company to resolve more complex issues, faster.
  • Build trust by developing and maintaining relationships with customers during a critical time – in between sales.
  • Serve as the outward-facing voice of the company to build its’ community and provide a direct line of communication back to you.
  • Actively ask for feedback from your customers about their recent experiences with you, and what would have made it better. Doing it live and online turns it into a living, breathing dialogue instead of just another static survey.
Product or Brand Managers
Even though product or brand managers aren’t always directly customer facing, social media can still play a key intelligence role. By listening, your product and brand teams can:
  • Identify quality issues in competitor’s products for a leg up in product improvements.
  • Hear customer’s “wish lists” that they’re posting on the web for products you may not have, or enhancements to the ones you do.
  • Work with customer support teams to develop comprehensive responses to product or service issues in real-time.
  • Help develop a useful FAQ for customers and clients based on common issues communicated on the web. Instead of relying on third party forums, make your company site the destination for information.
  • Gather anecdotal evidence of innovative ways that customers might be using your products (that could be very different than what you intended!). Great example: Ikea Hacker.
  • Create product tutorials that directly address the feedback and issues you might hear from users online. (Best part: go where they are and introduce them directly.)

I didn’t break out executive ranks above because I’m thinking there’s an executive role in every category (?). But as several people pointed out to me, executive buy in is critical. Otherwise, the big gold mine of information gathered via social media won’t be worth a fig. Somewhere, someone has to do something with the insights and use them to move forward.

Seems as though that might be the biggest challenge of all: what to do when you know the information is valuable but there are disconnects? Executives might delegate without being invested in the results. Managers might not be empowered to act. Production folks might not have all the information they need to understand why that information is important in the first place. Perhaps another post for another time. I’d love your thoughts on this one!

Thanks to Geoff Livingston, Frank Martin, Gianandrea Facchini and Sonny Gill and all of my fantastic fellow marketing/social media mavens for their great input on this post! You all teach and inspire me daily.

What do you think, folks? Help me round out the list with your ideas, and let’s share these with our colleagues, clients, teams.

cool image by Ralph Bijker

08 October 2008

The Blogosphere According to Bloggers


I know I'm a little slow in reacting to the Technorati State of the Blogosphere report, but I kept coming back to something I couldn't quite shake. More on that in a minute. First, let's talk about a few of the interesting tidbits about brands and blogging.

"Whether or not a brand has launched a social media strategy, more likely than not, it’s already present in the Blogosphere. Four in five bloggers post brand or product reviews, with 37% posting them frequently. 90% of bloggers say they post about the brands, music, movies and books that they love (or hate)."




Yep, folks. People are talking about you, whether you like it or not. More importantly, people are looking for information online, and when they find it, they may not realize they're on a blog. It's just a link they clicked from their Google search.

Social media users tend to label our tools and put them in buckets - blogging, microblogging, crowdsourcing, whatever. But the people that FIND information on the web aren't classifying things the same way we are. They just want to know what people are saying about the laptop they're thinking of buying, or the hotel they're thinking of staying at. When they click on a link, it may not register with them that it's a blog or a forum post or a mainstream news article online, but it's the information they're after. But they ARE looking for it, so we ought to be putting it in places they can find it and - perhaps more importantly - interact and react to it.

"Company information or gossip and everyday retail experiences are fodder for the majority of bloggers."


Which means people want to talk about you, and given no other choice, will use the information they find to make judgments about your business. It's ever more important that you as the brand are contributing your voice and perspective to the conversation, and showing that other people's viewpoints matter to you, too.

But here's my word of caution. The report is decidedly slanted - Technorati (fittingly) only surveyed bloggers for this report. I understand that they're trying to take the pulse of THEIR community - the bloggers - and understand how and why they do what they do.

But if you're a consultant or company looking at this information, be careful not to overinflate some of the findings, and recognize that they're from a plugged-in audience. Of course they're going to predict the continued growth of blogs and the demise of print - that's the world they live in. Of course they're going to believe that blogs' influence will get ever greater in the grand communications highway - it's part of the sea change that they're creating.

I believe these things - I do. I work with lots of people to understand and tap the potential of marketing through social media - blogging included - and I think blogging is a powerful, accessible medium that really has changed the face of media. But the fishbowl can make you see things through curved glass.

So I'll end by saying that once again, we all need to be mindful of the individual business value of these tools, the important factors for consideration, and how they integrate into the larger landscape. Traditional methods of communication can still be very viable, and even more powerful when enhanced with carefully selected social media tools to transform a message into a dialogue.

And the conversation is only as good as the quality of its participants. More on that later this week...



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07 October 2008

Your Brand, In Plain English

I'm not a big fan of buzzwords. Why? They dilute brands more effectively than almost anything else. And I promise, these have all come from real corporate documents, though names have been withheld to protect the offenders.

The Compound Buzzword
This is what you get when you take a perfectly good normal word - like "organic" - and cram it into some business-related context because it sounds cool, often smashing it together with some other buzzword. Something like:

We create organic solution stacks to solve our clients' infrastructure issues.

You've now compounded the confusion by making up collections of words that independently may (or may not) mean something to your customer, but have lost all context.

The Noun-Into-A-Verb
Ever heard this one?

We've tasked our customer service team to meet your every need.

Beside the fact that this violates every grammar rule because it's just a made-up word, it sounds self-important. As if you're too good to just have customer service teams that are dedicated to meeting needs. They have to be "tasked" to do so. Ergh.

The Tech Upgrade
This practice uses technically-related terms and applies them to non-technical subjects.

Our mission statement outlines our read-only values: integrity, creativity, and collaboration.

In essence you're trying to say that those values can't or won't be compromised. So why not use a word designed for that purpose? Like, say, uncompromising?

The Mashup
It can be tempting to create a whole new word, hoping that someday, someone will know you coined that term. Most of the time, you just sound like you're trying too hard:

We keep our client meetings centergistic and focused on outcomes.

What do you think? Does this make you want to hire them, or does it make you wonder if their meetings will be equally difficult to interpret?

The Misnomer
Here we've got words that are either oxymorons - meaning that that by definition the two words are opposites - or words that are completely redundant and unnecessary. My favorite example of late:

We form collaborative partnerships to help you meet your goals.

I don't know about you, but I haven't met a partnership that wasn't - at least by the pure definition of "working together" - collaborative.

Ok, Amber....What's your point?
Ok. The above are kind of fun, and you may have gotten a chuckle out of it. (For even more laughs on the buzzword front, check out BuzzWhack.) But the truth is these kinds of offenses are rampant in the world of marketing, and even more so now in social media.

Everyone wants to be different, innovative, the first to the finish line. And in the process, we've left behind some very simple words to describe what we do.

A brand isn't about 20 point Scrabulous words (or Scrabble, for you analog folk). It's about clearly defining your brand in words that make it easy for your customers to explain it to someone else.

So next time you're writing copy for your website or putting together your pitch for a new client, skip the lingo, and don't try to be a hero. Use real words that real people use and understand, and they'll be much more likely to talk about you. If you have trouble explaining your brand in a sentence, you ought to spend some time distilling it down until you can.


Sometimes, simple really is better.


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30 September 2008

Is your social media consultant...social?

There was a great post on Mashable yesterday about ways to know when you should fire your social media consultant. I agree very much with the points Alex raised, but would also like to add a few of my own to the list.

They swim mostly in the fishbowl.
What I mean by this: some so-called social media gurus love to spend a lot of their time backslapping each other about how great they are. (Note to these folks: spending the bulk of your time pimping your blog on Twitter while not taking the time to engage on any of the comments on said blog does not qualify you as a social media "expert"). A good adviser of ANY kind needs to be taking in a strategic spectrum of expertise across industries and disciplines - of course with a focus on their area of expertise - in order to advise their clients in the most informed manner. You simply can't do that if you only spend time with your own "kind".

Jason Falls cautioned social media professionals yesterday about spending too much time in the bubble, and it's great advice. Make sure your consultant has offline expertise and the ability to understand the bigger business picture.

They tout social media as the only strategy.
I could probably retire if I had a penny for each time I had to explain that social media is NOT a replacement for sound corporate communication strategy overall. It is not a shortcut. It is but one piece of a larger picture, and it is not necessarily the right approach for every company. Yes, community and relationships are valuable no matter what the industry, and I believe companies should strive to build lasting relationships with their customers. But social media requires an investment of time and resources, and not all the tools are suited to any given company.

If your consultant is insisting that creating a page on Facebook or an account on Twitter is the answer to all your marketing problems, don't walk away. RUN.

They don't practice what they preach.
This is a biggie with me. Is your consultant building a relationship with YOU? Do they respond to emails, engage readers on their blog, seem like a community is something they enjoy being a part of? Ask them why they do what they do. Talk to passionate and dedicated people like Mack Collier, Jason Falls, Connie Reece, Liz Strauss, or Geoff Livingston, and see how much the conversation truly matters to them. They're shining examples of what it means to walk the walk, and I learn from all of them, every day.

I can't speak for everyone else, but social media is a passion for me because I believe that relationships are the cornerstone of truly great businesses. How those relationships are cultivated is different for everyone, but you have to love the philosophy in order to apply it well. Social media is a powerful and dynamic set of tools, but the underlying premise of building stronger and more fruitful communities should be the undercurrent of why you're using them.




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29 September 2008

Marketing, Social Media and Web...oh my!

After some discussion and sharing on Twitter, I pulled together this list of some of the upcoming conferences and events for those wanting to expand their horizons in marketing and social media (and a little Web 2.0 thrown in for good measure). This list is by no means exhaustive; if you know of a great event that marketing folks should know about, please include it in the comments with a link.

TechnoMarketing - Oct 6-7, 2008, Chicago and Oct 20-21, Newport Beach

Corporate Communications in a Web 2.0 World - Oct 14-16, 2008, Cary, NC

New Marketing Summit
- Oct 14-15, 2008 - Foxboro, MA (2009 dates too)

MarketingProfs DMM
- Oct 22-23, 2008, Scottsdale, AZ

PRSA International - Oct 25-28, 2008, Detroit

BlogWell - October 28, 2008, San Jose, CA

Forrester's Consumer Forum
- Oct 28-29, Dallas, TX

SWOMFest - October 30, 2008, Austin, TX

Ad:Tech New York - November 3-6, 2008, NYC (int'l dates year round)

PubCon Search Marketing Conference - Nov 11-14, Las Vegas

AdAge 360 Marketing Conference - Nov 12, 2008, NYC

WOM Crash Courses - Nov 6, Dec 10, and Jan 21 in Chicago

SES Chicago (dates and locations worldwide) - December 8-12, Chicago

Affiliate Summit - Jan 11-13, 2009 in Las Vegas

SXSW Interactive - March 13-17, 2009, Austin, TX

Web 2.0 Expo - March 31 - April 3, 2009, San Francisco

SBMU - TBD in April 2009, Houston, TX

SOBCon - May 1-3, 2009, Chicago

SMX (Search Marketing Expo) - International Dates

If you missed these events from last month, be sure and watch their sites to catch them in 2009:

BlogWorld Expo - September

Interact - September

Inbound Marketing Summit

Gnomedex

TechCrunch 50

BlogHer

If big formal conferences aren't your thing, check out these unconferences that are happening all the time, maybe in your area (or host your own):

PodCamp

BarCamp

24 September 2008

A Penny for Your Brilliance.

"Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882)

Everyone has something to give. And knowledge is a powerful currency.

I spent the last several days at the Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference put on by the amazing (did I mention amazing?) folks at Search Engine Guide. I absolutely love that this event is limited in scale to about 100 people. At that size, you can actually meet and interact with people at a level you just can't do at a Big Business Expo.

A powerful theme emerged on day one, and continued throughout the next several days. And it has huge relevance in the business world.

Left and right, people were giving away their knowledge.

Yes, we paid to go to the conference, but as conferences go, even that was a modest investment. But it wasn't just the sessions where information and knowledge was being shared. It was in the hallways. At the lunch table. On the walk from the conference center to the hotel. Over dinner, drinks, even poolside.

People of all stripes - web marketing, search, social media, branding, marketing, business owners, lawyers, technology folk, social media monitoring, video and podcasting - were all too happy to spend time with one another learning, asking questions, sharing, lending a few words of knowledge or experience. And what happens? Everyone benefits.

It's the have-a-penny-leave-a-penny philosophy of business. You're an expert at something, so leave some knowledge for someone else who needs it. And in return, someone is bound to come along to replace that knowledge with something you needed too.

When you're marketing your business, via traditional or social means, contributing your expertise is one of the most valuable things you can do. An e-book. A white paper. An educational video. Or 30 minutes of your time spent with someone to impart a bit of your vast knowledge. Some friendly advice or insight to a new business owner.

Now, before someone freaks out on me for advocating giving away the "secret sauce", that's not what I'm suggesting. But pieces of it? You bet. No one is going to be able to replicate or replace your business by using your PowerPoint slides. But by teaching and sharing, you are cultivating a sense of ownership and learning in others.

I learned so much from my friends this weekend. I have come away richer for the experience, and hopefully left a little something in the penny jar for someone else. Thank you to you all for your intellectual philanthropy, and making it fun in the meantime.

If you aren't out there sharing what you know with someone who can benefit from just a handful of your expertise, please go pick up the phone or send an email. Right now. I'll be here when you get back, counting my pennies.

image by r-z
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11 September 2008

Six Things I Learned From Kodak

Reading the recent Q&A with Kodak (see parts one and two), I was struck by a number of simple but compelling takeaways from their success that I think any company can and should pay attention to.

1. Get on Twitter.
Twitter isn't nearly the obscure, niche site it once was. Companies are using it, and it's snowballing when they realize what they can do with it. Kodak has dozens of members from around the globe on Twitter, and they're not alone. Check out this collection of brands using Twitter, and this great take from the inimitable Chris Brogan about how businesses can make the most of it.

2. Understand your goals.
This isn't exclusive to social media. Any solid communication effort requires understanding what you want to get out of it. Who are you talking to, and what are you hoping they'll do or say as a result of that conversation? Then, and only then, can you move on to deciding what tools to use. Which brings me to:

3. Choose the tools that are best for your business.
This isn't the same for everyone. Some businesses can make great use of a blog if they've already got a large contingent of their customers online and and interested in what they have to say. Forums can be great for connecting brand evangelists with one another. A Facebook page can work if you can deliver content and activities that get and keep people engaged. Kodak looked carefully at the tools they knew they could learn, maintain, and get excited about while achieving their goals.

4. Find the right people.
There's been a lot of debate about where the responsibility for social media lies within an organization (just ask Jason Falls). And while I agree that it should be guided and managed by people who have an understanding of good communication practices, the people participating on your blog or on Twitter absolutely, positively have to want to to it. They need to enjoy forging and building relationships with customers, period. And they can be found outside your marketing or PR department, in the form of product managers or customer support people, or even in (gasp) finance or IT. Kodak found the passionate people in their organization, and put them to work.

5. Social media results aren't instant.
Kodak, like many other companies, has realized that social media is a long term investment of time, effort, and dedication. Like the development of any relationships, participating in social media has to be something that a company commits to and works hard at in order to reap all the rewards. It's not a silver bullet. (Check out my post on other things that social media isn't, for more thoughts along these lines).

6. ROI isn't always about direct revenue.
No, I'm not saying social media shouldn't HAVE an ROI. But I took notice that, on Kodak's list of social media ROI, not one of them cited any dollar figures. It's about building relationships, building your brand, and making people want to learn more about you. These are the things that drive revenue for your company over the long term, even if it's a meandering path.

Bonus: Have Fun.
It's so clear to me that the Kodak team enjoys what they do. I mean, really! Jenny Cisney gets to talk about her passion for her company, for photography, and go to the Olympics to showcase it. That can't possibly suck, on any level (ok ok, I know it's still work). Not everything worth doing in business has to be drudgery.

So what did you take away from this? Did you learn anything about your own social media exploits by reading Kodak's point of view? Did they encourage you to try something in social media that you hadn't considered? I'd love to know what you think.

Image credit: foundphotoslj

10 September 2008

Kodak's Social Media Success: Part 2


Yesterday, we started talking with Kodak about their social media initiatives. Today, the team talks about their plans for the future, and what they consider ROI for their efforts.

How do you hope to build on the success you’ve had in social media, and involve it in your future communication plans? Do see your social media efforts increasing, decreasing, or staying the same for 2009?

Krista Gleason: Kodak is focused on growth and we are always looking at new and innovative ways to communicate, share information, and build relationships with customers. Our participation in these various forms of social media gives us the opportunity to spread our message further and to a larger audience. Our focus now and going forward is how to best integrate all these tools in our communications. For example, when we do a traditional press release, we also consider a companion blog post, we twitter about the news, we post to Facebook and delicious, we might do a podcast, we join the conversation in blogs and forums.

Was involvement in social media a natural progression for Kodak, or was it a culture shift for you?

Krista Gleason: In many ways, our involvement in social media is a reflection of the new company we have become – what we often refer to as the New Kodak. Film remains an important part of our business but Kodak is also now a foremost leader in digital imaging and printing.

What departments and staff members are involved in social media at Kodak, and how do you determine who is involved in each project?

Krista: In April, we named Jenny Cisney our Chief Blogger and she is responsible for overseeing all our social media activities. As Chief Blogger, Jenny also covers trade shows and events (like the Olympics) and represents Kodak at social media conferences. Tom Hoehn is our Director of Brand Communications and Convergence Media and also plays a lead role. We have an internal Blog Council that meets regularly with representation from our film business, consumer business, graphic communications business, and technology office. Our employee bloggers represent virtually all aspects of the company including technology, R&D, product development, branding, marketing, online, etc.

Jenny Cisney: It’s easy to find people in the company who are passionate about what they do and about Kodak products. There are a lot of photography enthusiasts who are eager to share their pictures and tips.

Kodak does a great deal of sponsorship and events; have you found social media to be a valuable part of these efforts, and why or why not?

Krista: Yes. A great example of this is our announcement of the Kodak Challenge – part of our new partnership with the PGA TOUR. In addition to the traditional press release and press conference, we also had several blogs about the Kodak Challenge, podcasts that were also posted to YouTube, several people twittering including Jenny and our Chief Business Development Officer Jeff Hayzlett who made the announcement, we posted photos to flickr and Facebook, and news on delicious.

How do you define your “ROI” from involvement with social media?

• Feedback from readers and customers via the blogs and email.

• Invitations to speak at top-tier conferences, including BlogWorld Expo and BlogHer.

• Links to our blogs from other blogs and online articles.

• Recognition from social media experts and media such as:

Mario Sundar - #1 Olympic blog, 2008
Debbie Weil - 5 examples of effective corporate blogs, 2007
PR Week - 5 corporate blogs that built buzz, 2007
Business Week
Mentions and compliments in the book “Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online” by Andy Beal and Judy Strauss.

• Awards: Earlier this year Kodak won three awards for our blogs – the PRSA Bronze Anvil, American Business Award (Stevie Award) and an Interactive Media Award.

What advice do you have for other companies contemplating social media tools like blogging and podcasting?

Jenny Cisney: If you start participating in social media, you have to be dedicated to it. You cannot leave your blog untouched for weeks. Make sure you listen to your customers and take their feedback into account. Be sure you get back to them in a timely manner. And remember your blog doesn’t have to be like other company blogs. Tailor your social media to best suit your business.

My special thanks again to Krista Gleason and Jenny Cisney along with the entire team at Kodak for sharing their story with us! I've got some great takeaways from this that I'll share with you tomorrow, so stay tuned.
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08 September 2008

Kodak's Social Media Success


Today, Part 1 of my two-part interview with the awesome social media team at Kodak. I was impressed with some of their blogging during this year's Olympic Games, which prompted me to want to learn more about what they're up to.

We'll be talking about their blogging efforts, the role social media plays in their business, and how they'll be incorporating social media into their future plans. My special thanks to Krista Gleason, Jenny Cisney, and Tom Hoehn for their friendliness and participation!

When did Kodak make the decision to make social media part of their corporate strategy, and why?

Krista Gleason: We launched our first blog – A Thousand Words – in September 2006 and have engaged in other social media since then including podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, flickr, and delicious. Our social media activities are part of our overall communications and marketing strategy. We use social media to connect with our customers – communicate, listen, interact, engage – and share information about our company and our products and services.

We wanted to have a presence in the blogosphere. It’s important for us to be a part of the conversation.

Tell me a little bit about the three blogs you have, and how and why each one is important to Kodak.

Krista: Kodak has three blogs. A Thousand Words features stories from Kodak employees on a variety of topics but with a focus on photography and imaging. Plugged In features stories about Kodak products and services. Grow Your Biz features stories from Kodak’s Graphic Communications business. Together, they reflect the breadth and expertise of our company - traditional (photography and film), digital, and print.

What kind of impact has blogging and social media had on your company culture? Your customer relationships?

Krista: Internally, blogging has opened up opportunities for employees to share their personal stories thereby helping to boost employee morale. Kodak employees are passionate about their work and their company and the blogs give them a chance to communicate that passion. We currently have over 70 employees who blog (including international bloggers) and new employees continually expressing interest. Externally, our blogs give customers and readers (from over 100 countries) a better understanding of Kodak – from how our products and services can help them do more with their pictures to how the company’s innovations are impacting our world. Our blogs also give Kodak a human face.

People can of course participate in our blog through comments but can also become the subject of our Picture Wednesday blog by submitting a photo to Kodak’s Picture of the Day.
During the Olympics, for example, one blogger commented “I want that camera!” to a post about the panoramic feature on our cameras. We get comments like that often.

Jenny Cisney:
There have been many online experts who feel that Kodak 'gets it' and customers who appreciate us listening to them. A woman on Twitter was having a problem with her printer and was so grateful when we twittered back with the solution to her problem.

How did blogging enhance the 2008 Olympic experience for Kodak, both as individual staff members, and for your company as a whole?

Jenny: Our blogs demonstrated to readers how Kodak products, services and technology were being used at the Olympics, from services for photojournalists, to printing accreditation badges, postcards and newsletters, to digital photo services for fans. It also showed how the Games and Beijing were captured using Kodak cameras. Photos and video taken on site were shared with tips on taking pictures when traveling. It’s all part of communicating how Kodak can help you “make, manage and move images and information.”

You also have a comprehensive series of podcasts; what drove you to explore this medium? Has it been successful for you, and what have you learned from it?

Krista: Kodak has its own production studio (albeit a small one) so doing podcasts is a great fit. We are pleased with the success of our podcasts (also available through RSS and iTunes). Our Pro Imaging podcasts (new this year) have been especially popular and are also featured on www.imaginginfo.com.

Podcasts are another great tool to communicate with our customers though probably consume the most time given the nature of production. But it’s something we feel adds value to our communications and marketing and we have a lot of fun putting them together.


Stay tuned for tomorrow's post, where Kodak talks about their definitions of social media ROI, and their words of wisdom for companies contemplating the social media plunge. Thursday I'll recap what I've learned from Kodak, and some ideas for you and your business to explore!

02 September 2008

Social Media: What About The Risks?

Someone asked this a couple of weeks ago on Twitter, and I've been chewing on it ever since.

Is social media risky?


Business in general is fraught with risk. The next client or contract or customer isn't assured. Our advertising campaign could offend someone, our direct mail campaign could be beautifully designed and tested but still fail to achieve the results we want.

Accounting errors happen, and even worse, fraud. Customer service reps have a bad day. IT departments have meltdowns and failures. Products fail to meet expectations, budgets get missed. Employees misbehave, embezzle, share trade secrets. And it all happens on channels outside of social media.

As a very public, lasting, and dynamic communication platform, social media has it's share of potential challenges. And for as powerfully as I believe in its potential to elevate brands, it would be irresponsible to assume that venturing into social media territory doesn't carry some level of risk. Here are a few of the risks associated with social media that we've been talking about:

A customer could leave a negative comment on your blog, or on a social network about your brand.

Criticism happens all the time, and companies need to respond appropriately and thoughtfully. Crisis communication strategy exists purely for this reason. I don't think that social media necessarily increases the chances that something negative will be said about you, but it certainly can amplify the message. Companies embarking on social media adventures need to understand how to monitor their brand online - especially on the company-owned channels - and learn how to engage and respond in a way that bolsters the brand.

An employee could say something on behalf of the company that's not authorized, is potentially offensive, or share something confidential.

Kellye Crane today pointed me to a post that Leigh Durst put on her blog about Whole Foods' potential misstep on Twitter. Apparently, their Twitter representative(s) reposted a tweet with questionable language, and some fallout ensued. Can one misstep like this have more staying power than five smart moves? Social media folks always say that Google never forgets, and more and more we find proof that it doesn't.

Beth Harte penned a great post about her recent experiences on Twitter; the height of the political season has folks tossing barbs left and right, and there is certainly potential for brand damage - both personal and corporate.

We've spent years now using the phone and email to communicate, and the potential exists to really screw up there, too. So what makes social media different? Is it the ubiquitous, open and organic nature of conversation on the web? Does the anoynmity of a computer screen encourage poorer judgment?

Participating in social networks or blogging requires dedicated resources or productivity, and can be difficult to sustain at an active level.

For a moment, I'm going to put aside the argument of whether engaging in social media is a waste of time in the first place, and assume that it's not. But engaging in social media the "right" way requires a commitment, and can be hard work. Understaffing, underestimating, and doing it poorly can be worse than doing nothing at all. A blog with one post that hasn't been updated in months can send a lack of commitment message that a mere absence of blogging might not.

As Mack Collier deftly points out, putting the wrong resources to work can misfire, too. Just because only one employee is familiar with blogging doesn't mean that they're the right choice to blog on behalf of a company. Choosing social media stewards for your company needs to be as well thought out as appointing any major project managers. (One could even argue more so, considering the very public nature of this kind of role.)

The corporate message can't be as easily controlled or managed.

Yes, it's true that you as a company don't necessarily control all your messaging anymore, and your customers are having a greater and more lasting impact on your brand.

But Jeff Summers and Jane Chin are both smart to point out that some industries carry more risk and liability than others for that very messaging. Financial institutions or health care organiations very likely have regulations they must adhere to, and legal obligations that control what kind of information they can disclose and how. For companies in these spaces, social media is a very serious business and legal consideration that has to be approached carefully (if its appropriate at all).

It's more than clear that a sound social media strategy involves analysis of potential issues that can arise as well as the potential benefits. And like any other smart business move, stepping into social media should be treated with respectful planning and communication. Just because it's a shiny "new" toy doesn't mean that it ought to be treated lightly.

Are these risks different than those for other areas of business? Are the standards for social media the same or different, and why? Is there equal risk in doing nothing at all and missing the boat on social media altogether?

Let's continue the conversation in the comments. This is an important subject!

Thanks also to Sonny Gill, Tara Whittle, Tim "Masiguy" Jackson, Rhonda LaShae, and Barbara Baker for weighing in on the conversation, and their great contributions as always (which you can read here on Plurk).

Image by hellolapomme

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28 August 2008

The Brand Damage Snowball Effect

All of us, at one point or another, have had a bad experience with a company. Sometimes, it's mild enough for us to grumble for a few moments and go on our way, and give them another shot another day. Other times, it's bad enough that we'll never do business with that company again, but we don't spread that to other people.

Then, there's the tipping point where we're so ticked off, we not only vow never to do business with them again, but we tell everyone.

And if you're the company that's at the business end of that shotgun, you had better be paying attention.

My friend (and disclosure: client) David Alston is undertaking a move this week, which sucks in and of itself. And he was relying on U-Haul to help him with that move. When his wife dealt with some absolutely abominable customer service regarding their truck reservation, he put his gripe on Twitter for thousands of people to see. He also blogged about it (in a much more objective and level headed way than I might have).

What ensued was an onslaught of responses from David's Twitter community, and a great post from Catch Up Lady detailing some of the responses and the snowball effect of David's tweet reaching his followers and their followers and so on. (Just in case you think Twitter still doesn't matter. But this, for another post.)

One of those followers posted the CEO's phone number, and David sent him a message. He did call back, but as of this post, I don't think they've connected. I'll be curious about what this guy has to say about the behavior of his field locations and representatives (and the subsequent damage they're doing to his brand). I'll also be curious to know whether the phone call is merely a gesture, and if this guy is aware of the negative publicity he's receiving across the web (of which I'm sure David will make him aware).

David also did his part by canceling his reservation with U-Haul and subsequently booking with Penske, and he then tweeted about how great their customer service was.

If anything to me, this is yet another powerful case for why listening to social media is critically important, and you can do that even if you don't have a blog or a Twitter account. Hearing what's being said can uncover a gold mine (or quagmire) of information from your customers - or former customers - just waiting for you. If I were the U-Haul CEO, I would sure as heck want to know that all these people, in the span of a few hours, had just shared how much they think my company sucks.

Dozens and dozens of people responded to David with their horror stories (and I have one of my own). This many horror stories, and they're still out there managing to do business? What if no one had managed to give David the CEO's contact information? Would they have heard a thing? Or cared? Do you think this experience is significant enough to teach an old dog new tricks?

And then the next level: Where is the tipping point, I wonder, to take down a giant like U-Haul or force them to do things differently, and when does our collective patience run out? How do we translate the negativity we feel and express in words, and translate it into action by not supporting the brand enough where they have to change or perish? What separates a stubborn brand from one willing to evolve based on what they learn?

Can social media tip the scales and turn talk into action?



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25 August 2008

Fancy term. Really (really) basic ideas.

If the term "social media" freaks you (or your boss or your clients) out and causes consternation in the conference room, consider this. It's a fancy term that describes the tools we use to do something that's been around in business since the dawn of time: get more customers and keep them happy.

Let's scrap the tools for a minute - forget the "What" part of social media and suspend your notions of Twitter or Facebook or blogs or podcasts.

This actually seems so utterly fundamental that part of me hesitates to write this as if everyone's going to say "well duh, Amber." But I keep seeing folks scrutinizing social media as if it were this revolutionary, alien concept in business that has no bearing on what they're used to. And when it comes to the technology specifically, that may be the case. These are the means, but not the end game. In practice, all social media does is facilitate a few good tenets of a customer-oriented business like:

Saying Hello
A good part of smart business is finding new ways to say hello to people who are not yet your customers, ideally by carefully locating them somewhere they gather most, and starting a conversation about something interesting. (Note I did not say finding your customers and immediately starting off by selling something.). And of course, greeting your regular customers in a friendly way, wherever you see them.

Being Available
Before someone does business with you, they may have questions they want to ask about who you are and what you do. They may want to see the people behind the business, get to know and trust you. And once they're your customer, they'll look to you to be accessible, responsive, and personable when they interact with you. Because as we've all heard a dozen and forty times, people do business with other people they like.

Being Accountable
Every business screws up eventually. The more you learn about exactly how and where you've screwed up - including from people who would never tell you directly, but who might tell their friends instead - the better your chances of fixing issues when they happen (if not before). Apologizing, taking responsibility for the mistake, and offering a remedy builds trust and credibility. And a little sense of humor never hurts.

Solving Problems
You're in business because something you make or do makes life or business easier for someone else. Your contributions are more valuable if you can hear the subtleties of those problems in order to better your product or service. And if you hear new problems to solve, that's even better. One suggestion box is good. A few hundred (thousand?) - with built in ways to respond quickly and easily and provide valuable ongoing information to your customers? Better.

Saying Thank You
So much easier when you have people actively listening, and widespread mechanisms for communicating with them.

The real question we ought to be asking ourselves, folks, is not what social media is going to do differently for us. It's how we're going to use a host of new, more amplified, and more ubiquitous tools to do what we ought already be doing, but better.

photo by helico

21 August 2008

Social Media Powers Better Advertising

One of my issues with advertising has always been that, as a consumer (not an ad expert), I feel like so much advertising misses the mark. It's not personal. It's not relevant. It's often flashy or gimmicky or shocking for the sake of it, but rarely does it help me better understand a brand or build a relationship with it. My good friend and marketing smart guy posted recently about advertising that sucks, and I posted about an ad from the ASPCA that I think totally misses the mark.

I watch the Super Bowl commercials each year like everyone else, but have to be honest that I rarely remember the brands themselves that were part of the remarkable spots. And as much as I love the Budweiser Clydesdales, I'm still not going to buy their beer.

To me, advertising should be about creating awareness for a company, product, service or idea in a way that really connects with people. In human terms. And demonstrates how the brand embodies those ideas. People develop brand loyalty because it does something for them in a way nothing else can, or because they feel a personal affinity for the company/product/service for a particular reason.

And I don't find any of those things in a jingle, a stunt, sophmoric humor, or flashy weird graphics that are meant to be bizarre or avant garde but have no material connection to the brand itself. And I see lots and lots of ads that do so many of those things. The ads themselves may be interesting or "remarkable" but that doesn't translate to the brand. Am I missing something?

And I know we use Dell as an example a lot, but that's really because they're doing so many things right, like their ReGeneration project. They've asked a question: What does green mean to you? And as part of their project, they launched a contest on Facebook where they asked folks to submit artwork that spoke to their feelings about being green. I'm actually a bit behind here - the campaign is several months old now - but it has sticking power in my head because of how open Dell was to letting the community determine the direction for their project.

The cool part to me is that Dell did something that's one of the pillars of social media in my mind: They let their community create their advertising for them. They took some of the artwork and created ads around them. No fancy agencies, no "crafted messages", no gimmicks or in-your-face corporate speak. A sample is below.

Dell realized that their customers could and do build up their brand as well or better than they can. Jeremiah Owyang has a good breakdown of the campaign here.



So are you leveraging what your customers and fans are doing on behalf of your brand? How do you think companies can better embrace the brand assets that their customers might be creating for them? Do you think advertising is as misguided as I do, and if so, why hasn't it changed? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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19 August 2008

Contemplating the Social Media Plunge

When I asked around about the reasons why companies hesitate to get involved with social media - whether misconceptions or legitimate concerns - it sparked some great discussion.

By far, the overwhelming consensus was that social media makes companies far more transparent than they're used to being. Dave Murr and Matthew T. Grant on Twitter and Sonny Gill on Plurk all said that companies are uncomfortable not completely controlling the brand message anymore. Of course, the message we're delivering loud and clear is that customers are the ones driving much of your brand messaging anyway, with or without you (and they started doing it the minute they became your customers). Frank Martin says that the practice of some traditional media - press releases, advertising messages - being company-controlled gives companies the illusion that they should be able to control all of their marketing. In a digital age, that's nearly impossible.

Putting time and money toward something that doesn't have hard ROI attached.
Beth Harte and Laura Pritchard agree that many companies want to see a hard, direct line between efforts and sales leads. So far, metrics for social media are soft and indirect, and tend to be reflected instead through measurements in other areas - website traffic, customer satisfaction levels, strength of relationships with customers and prospects. How do you think these effects compare to other cultivation efforts - like customer appreciation events, golf outings, or other business development activities?

Taking communication outside the communication department. Companies may have a hard time trusting their non-communications trained employees to do and say the right thing without intense supervision. The trick is that customer service reps are talking to customers about product issues, your accounting team is discussing the slow decision processes with their vendors, your product managers are talking about disagreement about the new widget design. Employees aren't following the script in their everyday business interactions, anyway, and giving them a chance to communicate more openly on behalf of the company can bring to light new insights.

Thinking that social media is an all-or-nothing proposition. Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester has a great post today about how scare tactics are causing some companies to steer clear of social media. The reality is that social media isn't an overnight sea change, nor is it a silver bullet. It's one (important) part of a comprehensive, and well thought out communication strategy for any business.

Being faced with questions they don't have answers to. Tara Whittle mentioned this one and I was glad she did. Sometimes, online customers will ask questions or point out issues that don't have immediate resolutions. In these cases, I think it's less the immediate solution to the problem, but how the company handles it that matters. Do they have the confidence to answer "We're not sure! But we're going to find out, and here's how we'll let you know when we do." That can build trust and credibility.

Committing the resources to do it right. Social media done comprehensively takes an investment of time, capital, and human resources. As I've posted before, engaging in social media can be a part of anyone's job. Listening alone takes effort - GM alone has at least 10 staff people dedicated to monitoring their brand on the web. As Sonny says, monitoring social media has become an extesion of brand mangement. And once you've heard what's being said, responding and doing something of value with the feedback you receive requires new thinking and sometimes, new ways of doing things. And, as another savvy plurker pointed out, some companies might even think that
shifting their position and messaging in response to feedback can make them seem weak. I'd venture to say that evolving your messaging to respond to your community does quite the opposite, but would welcome your take on this too!

It's just new. Frank points out that it may not be fear so much as that many companies simply aren't early adopters, and he's right. Kellye Crane points out that much like websites once were the unproven tool, some companies are waiting to see just how other companies are making use of social media and how they in turn can leverage it for their specific business. And some may be comfortable with the status quo, thinking that "if it ain't broke...". The more that bellwether companies like Dell, Starbucks, Ford, Beam Global, Southwest Airlines and more blaze the trail, the more likely others are to see the value for themselves, too.

So how about you? Is your company venturing into the waters of social media, and what are your concerns? Are you the champion for social media, and how are you addressing these concerns with your clients or management? Please share in the comments!

Photo by danflo
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14 August 2008

On Women and the Internet

This morning, the New York Times ran an article about women online, this time in the Technology section about advertising on women's sites.

I thought the article was well done, and I'm glad that it was placed where it was. (BTW - I get the whole logistics about the siloed section placements in the mainstream papers. We've been over this, so please let's not revisit that quagmire. I still think it's a crappy system. But that's not what this post is about.)

The article had a very balanced tone, was very business focused, and featured objective writing about the appeal of female-centric websites for advertisers wanting to reach this influential audience. Statistics and studies abound - see just a few results from Forrester here - about the influence and buying power of women in markets both online and off.

I do think there's tremendous value in segmenting gender demographics for marketing and branding purposes, because let's face it - men and women are different. And statistically speaking, we skew our interests toward certain things. Marketing and advertising have spent many, many millions of dollars on gender-focused campaigns for this very reason. And as far as social media goes, advertising dollars are shifting online, and in large part to women-centric sites.

The discussion on Plurk this morning, however, shifted gears a bit, and we started talking about women and the internet in general. How do they use it? Are the largest volume of them really using sites dedicated to fashion, food, or entertainment?

To wit: this question from my social media-savvy friend Deb from I Can't Keep Up:

Why not show how women participate online in other ways? I really struggle over this issue. I would rather see more evidence of women using the internet intellectually, professionally, and even for their sport. So maybe I just want to see something on women's participation in non-gender based sites. Then we would have an idea of women's impact overall.

This report from Pew talks about how women are more likely to use the internet to foster their human connections with others. The popular blog Lip-Sticking talks about marketing to women online - and covers topics as diverse as entrepreneurship in Afghanistan, health and fitness, real estate, and technology (and yes, there are plenty of posts about fashion, family, and other traditionally female topics).

Personally, I don't frequent sites that are female-focused exclusively. I prefer to get my information from all across the web, and my tastes are probably not "traditionally" female. But oddly, I talk to a LOT of women who have similar interests to mine, and eschew destinations focused on lighter fare like fashion or celebrities. (For the record, I wholeheartedly endorse the work of bloggers like Dooce. 850,000 people read her blog - including me on occasion - which means she is unequivocably providing fun and at times irreverent content that people love. Great stuff, and the essence of building a community online.)

So, the big questions:

Am I just swimming in a fishbowl of other non-traditional women? Are we predisposed to dismiss "women's" sites simply because they're not our cup of tea, and are we missing something as a result? Are we too sensitive about the idea that women like to talk fashion, celebrities, and sex?

Does the impact of women online who don't target their activities based on their gender matter to the future of the internet and social media?

The statistics don't lie, and the women's sites abound and thrive (which I think is great, for the women who DO want that content). Advertisers are spending their money there, and presumably they're seeing returns for their efforts. But according to the NYT article, advertisers just aren't seeing the value in reaching women on sites that focus on more serious topics like politics or business. Why is this?

How is the internet going to adapt to and connect with women that aren't in that traditionally female niche? Should it?

Are they reaching us already, in more mainstream ways? Are we in the minority, and is it merely a numbers game? Do we just not respond to advertising in the same way, and why should they care about us?

Would love to hear your thoughts and insights. I know I'll be chewing on this one for a while!

photo by Valerie Renee
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12 August 2008

The Plurk Brain Trust

Today, I was stumped.

I was suffering from writers block for the blog. It happens. So, I threw out a Plurk to my friends asking about what they'd like to see here.

The discussion that ensued was a rapid-fire, but deep well of information and inspiration.

My very public thanks to friends Deb Robison, Sonny Gill, Te-Ge Bramhall, Justin Whitaker, Mack Collier, Eddie Soto, Donna Tocci, Naomi Meredith, Connie Bensen, Mao de Mao, Amie Gillingham. You guys - along with all of my connections on Twitter, Plurk, and everywhere else - are the very definition of community.

So, stay tuned for a new post series I'm researching on internal social networks. Seems more and more companies are exploring them, and I'd like to focus in closer on some of the advantages, challenges, and questions that these create. I think building communities and connections within companies can be as important as doing it outside, and I'm excited to see what I learn. Look forward to sharing with all of you, and as always, thanks for reading.

image by flattop341
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11 August 2008

Are your social networks too scattered?


On Plurk, my friend Kellye Crane pointed me to a social map that Brian Solis of PR 2.0 did for his online presence - both the places where he maintains a presence, and those where he's simply in touch or aware. Check out his post about it here.

So naturally, it got my gears turning. Since social media is so much of what I do and breathe every day, I'm pondering where the perfect fulcrum is to balance having a social presence with being so completely decentralized that you can't give any one community it's due. Brian says:

The truth is that we are embracing new tools because they’re are either intriguing and fascinating to us and/or because those within our social graph are also adopting them to stay connected and participate in online conversations.

We are responsible for the decentralization of our content and our attention.

Some individuals are using things like FriendFeed to aggregate all of their sites and try to stay abreast of them all. Personally, that removes the unique elements of each community and seems to make participating more about me than contributing to the community, which kind of goes against my grain. And I don't see companies making use of FriendFeed to connect with individuals (please let me know if you know otherwise, I'd certainly be interested!).

Then there are tools like Ping.fm that help you post a singular update to many networks. But again, this takes away some of the interaction quality to me because, in my case, it wouldn't be as natural to hang around and participate in the (hopefully) ensuing conversation.

I haven't yet participated actively on YouTube, StumbleUpon, or Mixx even though I have a presence in those places, if nothing else to understand what they're about in basic terms. Obviously, I've barely scratched the surface. And I haven't even touched many other sites at all - ooVoo or Qik or Utterz. In some cases, I avoid something that seems like a new-but-not-distinctly-different iteration of something I already use with success, like Twitter or LinkedIn.

Shift gears away from my personal experience, and put it in business perspective. Where are my potential clients online? Where are your business' potential customers and clients? How are they using these tools, or are they? Is this all a fishbowl, and are we swimming around just running into the same people in different places?

My savvy and always insightful friend Connie Reece put it this way:
Amber, yes the "right" networks are the ones that will be most profitable for your business, and that will be where your customers are.
Takes a lot of research and careful consideration to find exactly what those are, sure. But to me, this is a critical aspect of making social media strategy a viable, effective part of your overall communications plans. Many of these networks are most familar to the early adopters, or people who focus on this space for a living. But is this where the critical mass of customers is?

Taking the time to understand your customers and how they're using the web to engage with businesses cannot be underestimated. Not every social site or network is going to be right for every business. And participating in one or two at a really engaged, invested level is much more important than having a face everywhere but a personality nowhere. It's also important to recognize that just because I enjoy participating in a social community, it doesn't mean that I'm connecting with a business audience of potential customers. They may be somewhere else entirely.

So what say you? How do you draw the line, and what criteria do you use to make sure your investments of time and effort in social media are paying off? Do you have different criteria for your personal involvement and that of your business? I'd love to hear about your approach.

image by jurvetson
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07 August 2008

ASPCA: Marketing For a Cause Gone Awful

I'm a huge animal lover. I have two rescue dogs, two rescue cats, and would probably have a houseful if only I had acreage.

But I cannot watch the ASPCA commercial that's been on the air now for several months. (I'm embedding it below, but I warn you that it's hard to watch, and might be near impossible if you're an animal lover. I had to stop it playing on YouTube just so I could copy the link. If you're sensitive, might just skip it and take my word for it.)



It's been running on the Food Network, which is a favorite TV destination of mine. This whole thing is awful to me for two big reasons.

1) Food Network is losing a viewer on a regular basis, because every time the commercial comes on, I switch channels. And often I forget to switch back. This morning, I've switched three times in the last hour, and I now will not go back for fear of running into this spot again.

2) The ASPCA has gone past the line of sympathy and empathy, and crossed into anguish. If I can't watch the commercial because of how distressing it is, I'm not going to be compelled to stay tuned and give. It's causing the opposite reaction - complete avoidance, despair, helplessness. That's not what they're after I'm sure. And I've heard from literally dozens of people who won't watch the commercial either. Are they giving?

Tugging at heartstrings might have it's place in advertising, marketing, fundraising - emotional appeal is a cornerstone of strong messaging, and I understand the motivation. But I think there's a line. I'd be much more likely to get online and give if I saw a spot full of success stories - happy animals moving on to bigger and better lives after being rescued by the ASPCA. Instead, I'm afraid to head to their site lest I be bombarded with horrific images of mistreated animals all over again.

I *know* what the ASPCA does - I'm not ignorant of the mistreatment of animals, it's harsh reality, and the great strides the ASPCA is making to combat it. But seeing it in all of its brutal reality isn't making me more likely to get closer to their organization.

So what do you think? Is this spot too extreme for you, or do you think this is just the right message? Are you motivated to give, or to change the channel?
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Blogs from the Social Media Fishbowl

A few days ago, I was asking around on Twitter and Plurk about social media people's must-read blogs. After a good influx of responses and requests to share, here we go! I'm happy that while some of these are old favorites, a few were new to me. And of course this is not an exhaustive list and isn't meant to be definitive; these simply represent the 25 that were mentioned most often (most more than once).

Some focus on PR, some on marketing, some on a blend of everything. Please add yours in the comments, too.



1. The Buzz Bin by Geoff Livingston

2. Chaos Scenario by Cam Beck, John Herrington and Paul Herring

3. Church of the Customer Blog by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba

4. ChrisBrogan.com

5. Communication Overtones by Kami Huyse

6. Conversation Agent by Valeria Maltoni

7. Diva Marketing Blog by Toby Bloomberg

8. Every Dot Connects (multiple authors)

9. For Immediate Release by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson

10. Influential Marketing Blog by Rohit Bhargava

11. Logic+Emotion by David Armano

12. Marketing Profs Daily Fix (multiple authors)

13. Mashable (multiple authors)

14. /Message by Stowe Boyd

15. Micropersuasion by Steve Rubel

16. Online Marketing Blog by Lee Odden

17. PR Squared by Todd Defren

18. PR 2.0 by Brian Solis

19. Read Write Web (multiple authors)

20. Social Media Explorer by Jason Falls

21. The Social Media Marketing Blog by Scott Monty

22. Social Media Today (multiple authors)

23. Techipedia by Tamar Weinberg

24. The Viral Garden by Mack Collier

25. Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang

Like I said, I could easily extend this into a list of 100+, so please share in the comments what blogs are can't-miss for you!


Image by Mike Licht



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04 August 2008

25 Reasons Social Media Can (Should?) Be Anyone's Job

Social Media is still a new thing to many people and companies, so I’m thinking optimistically - even aspirationally - here. There are most certainly companies that are ahead of the curve with the way they’re allowing social media to be an undercurrent of many aspects of their business. Here, 25 ways that social media can apply to lots of different job descriptions, no matter what you’re in business to do. Add yours, too, in the comments!

Marketing and PR
This is the obvious category, of course, since these are the folks responsible for crafting, managing, and communicating the company’s messaging to customers and prospects. It’s often (but not always) the “home” for social media in a company. Here, social media can:
  • Help you understand if your customers are online, and if they are, what sites and tools they use most.
  • Provide insights into your own company culture and highlight your business’ comfort level with social media tools.
  • Give the company a human face through online discourse, highlighting the people behind the brand and the hearts and minds that drive it.
  • Let you hear how your community – instead of the company – defines the brand. Messaging in their language is more likely to stick.
  • Give you human insight into market dynamics, instead of relying on only structured reports or surveys. Take the “pulse” of your community, from their perspective.
  • Hear how your competitors are perceived online, too, to identify additional ways to differentiate your brand from theirs.

Sales and Business Development
In sales, finding and solving problems is the key to success, and good listening skills are essential. In the world of social media, business development pros can:
  • Locate prospects that might be self-identifying elsewhere on the web without making themselves readily apparent to the business.
  • Listen to the words your customers use to describe you, for better or worse. They might write your sales pitch for you.
  • Maintain relationships with customers before and after the sale by continuing to connect with them online.
  • Again, competitive analysis and insights about how and where your competitors are reaching the prospects that you might be looking for.
  • Identify trends and niche markets that you might not yet be tapping.
  • Hear how your prospects and clients are articulating their needs and pain points so your future presentations and proposals can address them directly.
  • Open more channels for communication – different tools and sites – and provide opportunities for dialogue that are more comfortable for customers.

Customer/Client Services
Customer service can be a never-ending, demanding job but it’s absolutely a make-or-break piece of any business. So, how can customer and client service pros tap into social media?
  • Identify product or service issues that are being talked about online first. Believe it or not, some people don’t come straight to the company with their issues.
  • Say thank you to clients and customers in their own space.
  • Solve minor issues on the spot (even in other peoples’ online territory, like their website or a community forum) and demonstrate that you’re listening. Be the conduit back to the company to resolve more complex issues, faster.
  • Build trust by developing and maintaining relationships with customers during a critical time – in between sales.
  • Serve as the outward-facing voice of the company to build its’ community and provide a direct line of communication back to you.
  • Actively ask for feedback from your customers about their recent experiences with you, and what would have made it better. Doing it live and online turns it into a living, breathing dialogue instead of just another static survey.
Product or Brand Managers
Even though product or brand managers aren’t always directly customer facing, social media can still play a key intelligence role. By listening, your product and brand teams can:
  • Identify quality issues in competitor’s products for a leg up in product improvements.
  • Hear customer’s “wish lists” that they’re posting on the web for products you may not have, or enhancements to the ones you do.
  • Work with customer support teams to develop comprehensive responses to product or service issues in real-time.
  • Help develop a useful FAQ for customers and clients based on common issues communicated on the web. Instead of relying on third party forums, make your company site the destination for information.
  • Gather anecdotal evidence of innovative ways that customers might be using your products (that could be very different than what you intended!). Great example: Ikea Hacker.
  • Create product tutorials that directly address the feedback and issues you might hear from users online. (Best part: go where they are and introduce them directly.)

I didn’t break out executive ranks above because I’m thinking there’s an executive role in every category (?). But as several people pointed out to me, executive buy in is critical. Otherwise, the big gold mine of information gathered via social media won’t be worth a fig. Somewhere, someone has to do something with the insights and use them to move forward.

Seems as though that might be the biggest challenge of all: what to do when you know the information is valuable but there are disconnects? Executives might delegate without being invested in the results. Managers might not be empowered to act. Production folks might not have all the information they need to understand why that information is important in the first place. Perhaps another post for another time. I’d love your thoughts on this one!

Thanks to Geoff Livingston, Frank Martin, Gianandrea Facchini and Sonny Gill and all of my fantastic fellow marketing/social media mavens for their great input on this post! You all teach and inspire me daily.

What do you think, folks? Help me round out the list with your ideas, and let’s share these with our colleagues, clients, teams.

cool image by Ralph Bijker

08 October 2008

The Blogosphere According to Bloggers


I know I'm a little slow in reacting to the Technorati State of the Blogosphere report, but I kept coming back to something I couldn't quite shake. More on that in a minute. First, let's talk about a few of the interesting tidbits about brands and blogging.

"Whether or not a brand has launched a social media strategy, more likely than not, it’s already present in the Blogosphere. Four in five bloggers post brand or product reviews, with 37% posting them frequently. 90% of bloggers say they post about the brands, music, movies and books that they love (or hate)."




Yep, folks. People are talking about you, whether you like it or not. More importantly, people are looking for information online, and when they find it, they may not realize they're on a blog. It's just a link they clicked from their Google search.

Social media users tend to label our tools and put them in buckets - blogging, microblogging, crowdsourcing, whatever. But the people that FIND information on the web aren't classifying things the same way we are. They just want to know what people are saying about the laptop they're thinking of buying, or the hotel they're thinking of staying at. When they click on a link, it may not register with them that it's a blog or a forum post or a mainstream news article online, but it's the information they're after. But they ARE looking for it, so we ought to be putting it in places they can find it and - perhaps more importantly - interact and react to it.

"Company information or gossip and everyday retail experiences are fodder for the majority of bloggers."


Which means people want to talk about you, and given no other choice, will use the information they find to make judgments about your business. It's ever more important that you as the brand are contributing your voice and perspective to the conversation, and showing that other people's viewpoints matter to you, too.

But here's my word of caution. The report is decidedly slanted - Technorati (fittingly) only surveyed bloggers for this report. I understand that they're trying to take the pulse of THEIR community - the bloggers - and understand how and why they do what they do.

But if you're a consultant or company looking at this information, be careful not to overinflate some of the findings, and recognize that they're from a plugged-in audience. Of course they're going to predict the continued growth of blogs and the demise of print - that's the world they live in. Of course they're going to believe that blogs' influence will get ever greater in the grand communications highway - it's part of the sea change that they're creating.

I believe these things - I do. I work with lots of people to understand and tap the potential of marketing through social media - blogging included - and I think blogging is a powerful, accessible medium that really has changed the face of media. But the fishbowl can make you see things through curved glass.

So I'll end by saying that once again, we all need to be mindful of the individual business value of these tools, the important factors for consideration, and how they integrate into the larger landscape. Traditional methods of communication can still be very viable, and even more powerful when enhanced with carefully selected social media tools to transform a message into a dialogue.

And the conversation is only as good as the quality of its participants. More on that later this week...



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07 October 2008

Your Brand, In Plain English

I'm not a big fan of buzzwords. Why? They dilute brands more effectively than almost anything else. And I promise, these have all come from real corporate documents, though names have been withheld to protect the offenders.

The Compound Buzzword
This is what you get when you take a perfectly good normal word - like "organic" - and cram it into some business-related context because it sounds cool, often smashing it together with some other buzzword. Something like:

We create organic solution stacks to solve our clients' infrastructure issues.

You've now compounded the confusion by making up collections of words that independently may (or may not) mean something to your customer, but have lost all context.

The Noun-Into-A-Verb
Ever heard this one?

We've tasked our customer service team to meet your every need.

Beside the fact that this violates every grammar rule because it's just a made-up word, it sounds self-important. As if you're too good to just have customer service teams that are dedicated to meeting needs. They have to be "tasked" to do so. Ergh.

The Tech Upgrade
This practice uses technically-related terms and applies them to non-technical subjects.

Our mission statement outlines our read-only values: integrity, creativity, and collaboration.

In essence you're trying to say that those values can't or won't be compromised. So why not use a word designed for that purpose? Like, say, uncompromising?

The Mashup
It can be tempting to create a whole new word, hoping that someday, someone will know you coined that term. Most of the time, you just sound like you're trying too hard:

We keep our client meetings centergistic and focused on outcomes.

What do you think? Does this make you want to hire them, or does it make you wonder if their meetings will be equally difficult to interpret?

The Misnomer
Here we've got words that are either oxymorons - meaning that that by definition the two words are opposites - or words that are completely redundant and unnecessary. My favorite example of late:

We form collaborative partnerships to help you meet your goals.

I don't know about you, but I haven't met a partnership that wasn't - at least by the pure definition of "working together" - collaborative.

Ok, Amber....What's your point?
Ok. The above are kind of fun, and you may have gotten a chuckle out of it. (For even more laughs on the buzzword front, check out BuzzWhack.) But the truth is these kinds of offenses are rampant in the world of marketing, and even more so now in social media.

Everyone wants to be different, innovative, the first to the finish line. And in the process, we've left behind some very simple words to describe what we do.

A brand isn't about 20 point Scrabulous words (or Scrabble, for you analog folk). It's about clearly defining your brand in words that make it easy for your customers to explain it to someone else.

So next time you're writing copy for your website or putting together your pitch for a new client, skip the lingo, and don't try to be a hero. Use real words that real people use and understand, and they'll be much more likely to talk about you. If you have trouble explaining your brand in a sentence, you ought to spend some time distilling it down until you can.


Sometimes, simple really is better.


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30 September 2008

Is your social media consultant...social?

There was a great post on Mashable yesterday about ways to know when you should fire your social media consultant. I agree very much with the points Alex raised, but would also like to add a few of my own to the list.

They swim mostly in the fishbowl.
What I mean by this: some so-called social media gurus love to spend a lot of their time backslapping each other about how great they are. (Note to these folks: spending the bulk of your time pimping your blog on Twitter while not taking the time to engage on any of the comments on said blog does not qualify you as a social media "expert"). A good adviser of ANY kind needs to be taking in a strategic spectrum of expertise across industries and disciplines - of course with a focus on their area of expertise - in order to advise their clients in the most informed manner. You simply can't do that if you only spend time with your own "kind".

Jason Falls cautioned social media professionals yesterday about spending too much time in the bubble, and it's great advice. Make sure your consultant has offline expertise and the ability to understand the bigger business picture.

They tout social media as the only strategy.
I could probably retire if I had a penny for each time I had to explain that social media is NOT a replacement for sound corporate communication strategy overall. It is not a shortcut. It is but one piece of a larger picture, and it is not necessarily the right approach for every company. Yes, community and relationships are valuable no matter what the industry, and I believe companies should strive to build lasting relationships with their customers. But social media requires an investment of time and resources, and not all the tools are suited to any given company.

If your consultant is insisting that creating a page on Facebook or an account on Twitter is the answer to all your marketing problems, don't walk away. RUN.

They don't practice what they preach.
This is a biggie with me. Is your consultant building a relationship with YOU? Do they respond to emails, engage readers on their blog, seem like a community is something they enjoy being a part of? Ask them why they do what they do. Talk to passionate and dedicated people like Mack Collier, Jason Falls, Connie Reece, Liz Strauss, or Geoff Livingston, and see how much the conversation truly matters to them. They're shining examples of what it means to walk the walk, and I learn from all of them, every day.

I can't speak for everyone else, but social media is a passion for me because I believe that relationships are the cornerstone of truly great businesses. How those relationships are cultivated is different for everyone, but you have to love the philosophy in order to apply it well. Social media is a powerful and dynamic set of tools, but the underlying premise of building stronger and more fruitful communities should be the undercurrent of why you're using them.




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29 September 2008

Marketing, Social Media and Web...oh my!

After some discussion and sharing on Twitter, I pulled together this list of some of the upcoming conferences and events for those wanting to expand their horizons in marketing and social media (and a little Web 2.0 thrown in for good measure). This list is by no means exhaustive; if you know of a great event that marketing folks should know about, please include it in the comments with a link.

TechnoMarketing - Oct 6-7, 2008, Chicago and Oct 20-21, Newport Beach

Corporate Communications in a Web 2.0 World - Oct 14-16, 2008, Cary, NC

New Marketing Summit
- Oct 14-15, 2008 - Foxboro, MA (2009 dates too)

MarketingProfs DMM
- Oct 22-23, 2008, Scottsdale, AZ

PRSA International - Oct 25-28, 2008, Detroit

BlogWell - October 28, 2008, San Jose, CA

Forrester's Consumer Forum
- Oct 28-29, Dallas, TX

SWOMFest - October 30, 2008, Austin, TX

Ad:Tech New York - November 3-6, 2008, NYC (int'l dates year round)

PubCon Search Marketing Conference - Nov 11-14, Las Vegas

AdAge 360 Marketing Conference - Nov 12, 2008, NYC

WOM Crash Courses - Nov 6, Dec 10, and Jan 21 in Chicago

SES Chicago (dates and locations worldwide) - December 8-12, Chicago

Affiliate Summit - Jan 11-13, 2009 in Las Vegas

SXSW Interactive - March 13-17, 2009, Austin, TX

Web 2.0 Expo - March 31 - April 3, 2009, San Francisco

SBMU - TBD in April 2009, Houston, TX

SOBCon - May 1-3, 2009, Chicago

SMX (Search Marketing Expo) - International Dates

If you missed these events from last month, be sure and watch their sites to catch them in 2009:

BlogWorld Expo - September

Interact - September

Inbound Marketing Summit

Gnomedex

TechCrunch 50

BlogHer

If big formal conferences aren't your thing, check out these unconferences that are happening all the time, maybe in your area (or host your own):

PodCamp

BarCamp

24 September 2008

A Penny for Your Brilliance.

"Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882)

Everyone has something to give. And knowledge is a powerful currency.

I spent the last several days at the Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference put on by the amazing (did I mention amazing?) folks at Search Engine Guide. I absolutely love that this event is limited in scale to about 100 people. At that size, you can actually meet and interact with people at a level you just can't do at a Big Business Expo.

A powerful theme emerged on day one, and continued throughout the next several days. And it has huge relevance in the business world.

Left and right, people were giving away their knowledge.

Yes, we paid to go to the conference, but as conferences go, even that was a modest investment. But it wasn't just the sessions where information and knowledge was being shared. It was in the hallways. At the lunch table. On the walk from the conference center to the hotel. Over dinner, drinks, even poolside.

People of all stripes - web marketing, search, social media, branding, marketing, business owners, lawyers, technology folk, social media monitoring, video and podcasting - were all too happy to spend time with one another learning, asking questions, sharing, lending a few words of knowledge or experience. And what happens? Everyone benefits.

It's the have-a-penny-leave-a-penny philosophy of business. You're an expert at something, so leave some knowledge for someone else who needs it. And in return, someone is bound to come along to replace that knowledge with something you needed too.

When you're marketing your business, via traditional or social means, contributing your expertise is one of the most valuable things you can do. An e-book. A white paper. An educational video. Or 30 minutes of your time spent with someone to impart a bit of your vast knowledge. Some friendly advice or insight to a new business owner.

Now, before someone freaks out on me for advocating giving away the "secret sauce", that's not what I'm suggesting. But pieces of it? You bet. No one is going to be able to replicate or replace your business by using your PowerPoint slides. But by teaching and sharing, you are cultivating a sense of ownership and learning in others.

I learned so much from my friends this weekend. I have come away richer for the experience, and hopefully left a little something in the penny jar for someone else. Thank you to you all for your intellectual philanthropy, and making it fun in the meantime.

If you aren't out there sharing what you know with someone who can benefit from just a handful of your expertise, please go pick up the phone or send an email. Right now. I'll be here when you get back, counting my pennies.

image by r-z
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11 September 2008

Six Things I Learned From Kodak

Reading the recent Q&A with Kodak (see parts one and two), I was struck by a number of simple but compelling takeaways from their success that I think any company can and should pay attention to.

1. Get on Twitter.
Twitter isn't nearly the obscure, niche site it once was. Companies are using it, and it's snowballing when they realize what they can do with it. Kodak has dozens of members from around the globe on Twitter, and they're not alone. Check out this collection of brands using Twitter, and this great take from the inimitable Chris Brogan about how businesses can make the most of it.

2. Understand your goals.
This isn't exclusive to social media. Any solid communication effort requires understanding what you want to get out of it. Who are you talking to, and what are you hoping they'll do or say as a result of that conversation? Then, and only then, can you move on to deciding what tools to use. Which brings me to:

3. Choose the tools that are best for your business.
This isn't the same for everyone. Some businesses can make great use of a blog if they've already got a large contingent of their customers online and and interested in what they have to say. Forums can be great for connecting brand evangelists with one another. A Facebook page can work if you can deliver content and activities that get and keep people engaged. Kodak looked carefully at the tools they knew they could learn, maintain, and get excited about while achieving their goals.

4. Find the right people.
There's been a lot of debate about where the responsibility for social media lies within an organization (just ask Jason Falls). And while I agree that it should be guided and managed by people who have an understanding of good communication practices, the people participating on your blog or on Twitter absolutely, positively have to want to to it. They need to enjoy forging and building relationships with customers, period. And they can be found outside your marketing or PR department, in the form of product managers or customer support people, or even in (gasp) finance or IT. Kodak found the passionate people in their organization, and put them to work.

5. Social media results aren't instant.
Kodak, like many other companies, has realized that social media is a long term investment of time, effort, and dedication. Like the development of any relationships, participating in social media has to be something that a company commits to and works hard at in order to reap all the rewards. It's not a silver bullet. (Check out my post on other things that social media isn't, for more thoughts along these lines).

6. ROI isn't always about direct revenue.
No, I'm not saying social media shouldn't HAVE an ROI. But I took notice that, on Kodak's list of social media ROI, not one of them cited any dollar figures. It's about building relationships, building your brand, and making people want to learn more about you. These are the things that drive revenue for your company over the long term, even if it's a meandering path.

Bonus: Have Fun.
It's so clear to me that the Kodak team enjoys what they do. I mean, really! Jenny Cisney gets to talk about her passion for her company, for photography, and go to the Olympics to showcase it. That can't possibly suck, on any level (ok ok, I know it's still work). Not everything worth doing in business has to be drudgery.

So what did you take away from this? Did you learn anything about your own social media exploits by reading Kodak's point of view? Did they encourage you to try something in social media that you hadn't considered? I'd love to know what you think.

Image credit: foundphotoslj

10 September 2008

Kodak's Social Media Success: Part 2


Yesterday, we started talking with Kodak about their social media initiatives. Today, the team talks about their plans for the future, and what they consider ROI for their efforts.

How do you hope to build on the success you’ve had in social media, and involve it in your future communication plans? Do see your social media efforts increasing, decreasing, or staying the same for 2009?

Krista Gleason: Kodak is focused on growth and we are always looking at new and innovative ways to communicate, share information, and build relationships with customers. Our participation in these various forms of social media gives us the opportunity to spread our message further and to a larger audience. Our focus now and going forward is how to best integrate all these tools in our communications. For example, when we do a traditional press release, we also consider a companion blog post, we twitter about the news, we post to Facebook and delicious, we might do a podcast, we join the conversation in blogs and forums.

Was involvement in social media a natural progression for Kodak, or was it a culture shift for you?

Krista Gleason: In many ways, our involvement in social media is a reflection of the new company we have become – what we often refer to as the New Kodak. Film remains an important part of our business but Kodak is also now a foremost leader in digital imaging and printing.

What departments and staff members are involved in social media at Kodak, and how do you determine who is involved in each project?

Krista: In April, we named Jenny Cisney our Chief Blogger and she is responsible for overseeing all our social media activities. As Chief Blogger, Jenny also covers trade shows and events (like the Olympics) and represents Kodak at social media conferences. Tom Hoehn is our Director of Brand Communications and Convergence Media and also plays a lead role. We have an internal Blog Council that meets regularly with representation from our film business, consumer business, graphic communications business, and technology office. Our employee bloggers represent virtually all aspects of the company including technology, R&D, product development, branding, marketing, online, etc.

Jenny Cisney: It’s easy to find people in the company who are passionate about what they do and about Kodak products. There are a lot of photography enthusiasts who are eager to share their pictures and tips.

Kodak does a great deal of sponsorship and events; have you found social media to be a valuable part of these efforts, and why or why not?

Krista: Yes. A great example of this is our announcement of the Kodak Challenge – part of our new partnership with the PGA TOUR. In addition to the traditional press release and press conference, we also had several blogs about the Kodak Challenge, podcasts that were also posted to YouTube, several people twittering including Jenny and our Chief Business Development Officer Jeff Hayzlett who made the announcement, we posted photos to flickr and Facebook, and news on delicious.

How do you define your “ROI” from involvement with social media?

• Feedback from readers and customers via the blogs and email.

• Invitations to speak at top-tier conferences, including BlogWorld Expo and BlogHer.

• Links to our blogs from other blogs and online articles.

• Recognition from social media experts and media such as:

Mario Sundar - #1 Olympic blog, 2008
Debbie Weil - 5 examples of effective corporate blogs, 2007
PR Week - 5 corporate blogs that built buzz, 2007
Business Week
Mentions and compliments in the book “Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online” by Andy Beal and Judy Strauss.

• Awards: Earlier this year Kodak won three awards for our blogs – the PRSA Bronze Anvil, American Business Award (Stevie Award) and an Interactive Media Award.

What advice do you have for other companies contemplating social media tools like blogging and podcasting?

Jenny Cisney: If you start participating in social media, you have to be dedicated to it. You cannot leave your blog untouched for weeks. Make sure you listen to your customers and take their feedback into account. Be sure you get back to them in a timely manner. And remember your blog doesn’t have to be like other company blogs. Tailor your social media to best suit your business.

My special thanks again to Krista Gleason and Jenny Cisney along with the entire team at Kodak for sharing their story with us! I've got some great takeaways from this that I'll share with you tomorrow, so stay tuned.
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08 September 2008

Kodak's Social Media Success


Today, Part 1 of my two-part interview with the awesome social media team at Kodak. I was impressed with some of their blogging during this year's Olympic Games, which prompted me to want to learn more about what they're up to.

We'll be talking about their blogging efforts, the role social media plays in their business, and how they'll be incorporating social media into their future plans. My special thanks to Krista Gleason, Jenny Cisney, and Tom Hoehn for their friendliness and participation!

When did Kodak make the decision to make social media part of their corporate strategy, and why?

Krista Gleason: We launched our first blog – A Thousand Words – in September 2006 and have engaged in other social media since then including podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, flickr, and delicious. Our social media activities are part of our overall communications and marketing strategy. We use social media to connect with our customers – communicate, listen, interact, engage – and share information about our company and our products and services.

We wanted to have a presence in the blogosphere. It’s important for us to be a part of the conversation.

Tell me a little bit about the three blogs you have, and how and why each one is important to Kodak.

Krista: Kodak has three blogs. A Thousand Words features stories from Kodak employees on a variety of topics but with a focus on photography and imaging. Plugged In features stories about Kodak products and services. Grow Your Biz features stories from Kodak’s Graphic Communications business. Together, they reflect the breadth and expertise of our company - traditional (photography and film), digital, and print.

What kind of impact has blogging and social media had on your company culture? Your customer relationships?

Krista: Internally, blogging has opened up opportunities for employees to share their personal stories thereby helping to boost employee morale. Kodak employees are passionate about their work and their company and the blogs give them a chance to communicate that passion. We currently have over 70 employees who blog (including international bloggers) and new employees continually expressing interest. Externally, our blogs give customers and readers (from over 100 countries) a better understanding of Kodak – from how our products and services can help them do more with their pictures to how the company’s innovations are impacting our world. Our blogs also give Kodak a human face.

People can of course participate in our blog through comments but can also become the subject of our Picture Wednesday blog by submitting a photo to Kodak’s Picture of the Day.
During the Olympics, for example, one blogger commented “I want that camera!” to a post about the panoramic feature on our cameras. We get comments like that often.

Jenny Cisney:
There have been many online experts who feel that Kodak 'gets it' and customers who appreciate us listening to them. A woman on Twitter was having a problem with her printer and was so grateful when we twittered back with the solution to her problem.

How did blogging enhance the 2008 Olympic experience for Kodak, both as individual staff members, and for your company as a whole?

Jenny: Our blogs demonstrated to readers how Kodak products, services and technology were being used at the Olympics, from services for photojournalists, to printing accreditation badges, postcards and newsletters, to digital photo services for fans. It also showed how the Games and Beijing were captured using Kodak cameras. Photos and video taken on site were shared with tips on taking pictures when traveling. It’s all part of communicating how Kodak can help you “make, manage and move images and information.”

You also have a comprehensive series of podcasts; what drove you to explore this medium? Has it been successful for you, and what have you learned from it?

Krista: Kodak has its own production studio (albeit a small one) so doing podcasts is a great fit. We are pleased with the success of our podcasts (also available through RSS and iTunes). Our Pro Imaging podcasts (new this year) have been especially popular and are also featured on www.imaginginfo.com.

Podcasts are another great tool to communicate with our customers though probably consume the most time given the nature of production. But it’s something we feel adds value to our communications and marketing and we have a lot of fun putting them together.


Stay tuned for tomorrow's post, where Kodak talks about their definitions of social media ROI, and their words of wisdom for companies contemplating the social media plunge. Thursday I'll recap what I've learned from Kodak, and some ideas for you and your business to explore!

02 September 2008

Social Media: What About The Risks?

Someone asked this a couple of weeks ago on Twitter, and I've been chewing on it ever since.

Is social media risky?


Business in general is fraught with risk. The next client or contract or customer isn't assured. Our advertising campaign could offend someone, our direct mail campaign could be beautifully designed and tested but still fail to achieve the results we want.

Accounting errors happen, and even worse, fraud. Customer service reps have a bad day. IT departments have meltdowns and failures. Products fail to meet expectations, budgets get missed. Employees misbehave, embezzle, share trade secrets. And it all happens on channels outside of social media.

As a very public, lasting, and dynamic communication platform, social media has it's share of potential challenges. And for as powerfully as I believe in its potential to elevate brands, it would be irresponsible to assume that venturing into social media territory doesn't carry some level of risk. Here are a few of the risks associated with social media that we've been talking about:

A customer could leave a negative comment on your blog, or on a social network about your brand.

Criticism happens all the time, and companies need to respond appropriately and thoughtfully. Crisis communication strategy exists purely for this reason. I don't think that social media necessarily increases the chances that something negative will be said about you, but it certainly can amplify the message. Companies embarking on social media adventures need to understand how to monitor their brand online - especially on the company-owned channels - and learn how to engage and respond in a way that bolsters the brand.

An employee could say something on behalf of the company that's not authorized, is potentially offensive, or share something confidential.

Kellye Crane today pointed me to a post that Leigh Durst put on her blog about Whole Foods' potential misstep on Twitter. Apparently, their Twitter representative(s) reposted a tweet with questionable language, and some fallout ensued. Can one misstep like this have more staying power than five smart moves? Social media folks always say that Google never forgets, and more and more we find proof that it doesn't.

Beth Harte penned a great post about her recent experiences on Twitter; the height of the political season has folks tossing barbs left and right, and there is certainly potential for brand damage - both personal and corporate.

We've spent years now using the phone and email to communicate, and the potential exists to really screw up there, too. So what makes social media different? Is it the ubiquitous, open and organic nature of conversation on the web? Does the anoynmity of a computer screen encourage poorer judgment?

Participating in social networks or blogging requires dedicated resources or productivity, and can be difficult to sustain at an active level.

For a moment, I'm going to put aside the argument of whether engaging in social media is a waste of time in the first place, and assume that it's not. But engaging in social media the "right" way requires a commitment, and can be hard work. Understaffing, underestimating, and doing it poorly can be worse than doing nothing at all. A blog with one post that hasn't been updated in months can send a lack of commitment message that a mere absence of blogging might not.

As Mack Collier deftly points out, putting the wrong resources to work can misfire, too. Just because only one employee is familiar with blogging doesn't mean that they're the right choice to blog on behalf of a company. Choosing social media stewards for your company needs to be as well thought out as appointing any major project managers. (One could even argue more so, considering the very public nature of this kind of role.)

The corporate message can't be as easily controlled or managed.

Yes, it's true that you as a company don't necessarily control all your messaging anymore, and your customers are having a greater and more lasting impact on your brand.

But Jeff Summers and Jane Chin are both smart to point out that some industries carry more risk and liability than others for that very messaging. Financial institutions or health care organiations very likely have regulations they must adhere to, and legal obligations that control what kind of information they can disclose and how. For companies in these spaces, social media is a very serious business and legal consideration that has to be approached carefully (if its appropriate at all).

It's more than clear that a sound social media strategy involves analysis of potential issues that can arise as well as the potential benefits. And like any other smart business move, stepping into social media should be treated with respectful planning and communication. Just because it's a shiny "new" toy doesn't mean that it ought to be treated lightly.

Are these risks different than those for other areas of business? Are the standards for social media the same or different, and why? Is there equal risk in doing nothing at all and missing the boat on social media altogether?

Let's continue the conversation in the comments. This is an important subject!

Thanks also to Sonny Gill, Tara Whittle, Tim "Masiguy" Jackson, Rhonda LaShae, and Barbara Baker for weighing in on the conversation, and their great contributions as always (which you can read here on Plurk).

Image by hellolapomme

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28 August 2008

The Brand Damage Snowball Effect

All of us, at one point or another, have had a bad experience with a company. Sometimes, it's mild enough for us to grumble for a few moments and go on our way, and give them another shot another day. Other times, it's bad enough that we'll never do business with that company again, but we don't spread that to other people.

Then, there's the tipping point where we're so ticked off, we not only vow never to do business with them again, but we tell everyone.

And if you're the company that's at the business end of that shotgun, you had better be paying attention.

My friend (and disclosure: client) David Alston is undertaking a move this week, which sucks in and of itself. And he was relying on U-Haul to help him with that move. When his wife dealt with some absolutely abominable customer service regarding their truck reservation, he put his gripe on Twitter for thousands of people to see. He also blogged about it (in a much more objective and level headed way than I might have).

What ensued was an onslaught of responses from David's Twitter community, and a great post from Catch Up Lady detailing some of the responses and the snowball effect of David's tweet reaching his followers and their followers and so on. (Just in case you think Twitter still doesn't matter. But this, for another post.)

One of those followers posted the CEO's phone number, and David sent him a message. He did call back, but as of this post, I don't think they've connected. I'll be curious about what this guy has to say about the behavior of his field locations and representatives (and the subsequent damage they're doing to his brand). I'll also be curious to know whether the phone call is merely a gesture, and if this guy is aware of the negative publicity he's receiving across the web (of which I'm sure David will make him aware).

David also did his part by canceling his reservation with U-Haul and subsequently booking with Penske, and he then tweeted about how great their customer service was.

If anything to me, this is yet another powerful case for why listening to social media is critically important, and you can do that even if you don't have a blog or a Twitter account. Hearing what's being said can uncover a gold mine (or quagmire) of information from your customers - or former customers - just waiting for you. If I were the U-Haul CEO, I would sure as heck want to know that all these people, in the span of a few hours, had just shared how much they think my company sucks.

Dozens and dozens of people responded to David with their horror stories (and I have one of my own). This many horror stories, and they're still out there managing to do business? What if no one had managed to give David the CEO's contact information? Would they have heard a thing? Or cared? Do you think this experience is significant enough to teach an old dog new tricks?

And then the next level: Where is the tipping point, I wonder, to take down a giant like U-Haul or force them to do things differently, and when does our collective patience run out? How do we translate the negativity we feel and express in words, and translate it into action by not supporting the brand enough where they have to change or perish? What separates a stubborn brand from one willing to evolve based on what they learn?

Can social media tip the scales and turn talk into action?



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25 August 2008

Fancy term. Really (really) basic ideas.

If the term "social media" freaks you (or your boss or your clients) out and causes consternation in the conference room, consider this. It's a fancy term that describes the tools we use to do something that's been around in business since the dawn of time: get more customers and keep them happy.

Let's scrap the tools for a minute - forget the "What" part of social media and suspend your notions of Twitter or Facebook or blogs or podcasts.

This actually seems so utterly fundamental that part of me hesitates to write this as if everyone's going to say "well duh, Amber." But I keep seeing folks scrutinizing social media as if it were this revolutionary, alien concept in business that has no bearing on what they're used to. And when it comes to the technology specifically, that may be the case. These are the means, but not the end game. In practice, all social media does is facilitate a few good tenets of a customer-oriented business like:

Saying Hello
A good part of smart business is finding new ways to say hello to people who are not yet your customers, ideally by carefully locating them somewhere they gather most, and starting a conversation about something interesting. (Note I did not say finding your customers and immediately starting off by selling something.). And of course, greeting your regular customers in a friendly way, wherever you see them.

Being Available
Before someone does business with you, they may have questions they want to ask about who you are and what you do. They may want to see the people behind the business, get to know and trust you. And once they're your customer, they'll look to you to be accessible, responsive, and personable when they interact with you. Because as we've all heard a dozen and forty times, people do business with other people they like.

Being Accountable
Every business screws up eventually. The more you learn about exactly how and where you've screwed up - including from people who would never tell you directly, but who might tell their friends instead - the better your chances of fixing issues when they happen (if not before). Apologizing, taking responsibility for the mistake, and offering a remedy builds trust and credibility. And a little sense of humor never hurts.

Solving Problems
You're in business because something you make or do makes life or business easier for someone else. Your contributions are more valuable if you can hear the subtleties of those problems in order to better your product or service. And if you hear new problems to solve, that's even better. One suggestion box is good. A few hundred (thousand?) - with built in ways to respond quickly and easily and provide valuable ongoing information to your customers? Better.

Saying Thank You
So much easier when you have people actively listening, and widespread mechanisms for communicating with them.

The real question we ought to be asking ourselves, folks, is not what social media is going to do differently for us. It's how we're going to use a host of new, more amplified, and more ubiquitous tools to do what we ought already be doing, but better.

photo by helico

21 August 2008

Social Media Powers Better Advertising

One of my issues with advertising has always been that, as a consumer (not an ad expert), I feel like so much advertising misses the mark. It's not personal. It's not relevant. It's often flashy or gimmicky or shocking for the sake of it, but rarely does it help me better understand a brand or build a relationship with it. My good friend and marketing smart guy posted recently about advertising that sucks, and I posted about an ad from the ASPCA that I think totally misses the mark.

I watch the Super Bowl commercials each year like everyone else, but have to be honest that I rarely remember the brands themselves that were part of the remarkable spots. And as much as I love the Budweiser Clydesdales, I'm still not going to buy their beer.

To me, advertising should be about creating awareness for a company, product, service or idea in a way that really connects with people. In human terms. And demonstrates how the brand embodies those ideas. People develop brand loyalty because it does something for them in a way nothing else can, or because they feel a personal affinity for the company/product/service for a particular reason.

And I don't find any of those things in a jingle, a stunt, sophmoric humor, or flashy weird graphics that are meant to be bizarre or avant garde but have no material connection to the brand itself. And I see lots and lots of ads that do so many of those things. The ads themselves may be interesting or "remarkable" but that doesn't translate to the brand. Am I missing something?

And I know we use Dell as an example a lot, but that's really because they're doing so many things right, like their ReGeneration project. They've asked a question: What does green mean to you? And as part of their project, they launched a contest on Facebook where they asked folks to submit artwork that spoke to their feelings about being green. I'm actually a bit behind here - the campaign is several months old now - but it has sticking power in my head because of how open Dell was to letting the community determine the direction for their project.

The cool part to me is that Dell did something that's one of the pillars of social media in my mind: They let their community create their advertising for them. They took some of the artwork and created ads around them. No fancy agencies, no "crafted messages", no gimmicks or in-your-face corporate speak. A sample is below.

Dell realized that their customers could and do build up their brand as well or better than they can. Jeremiah Owyang has a good breakdown of the campaign here.



So are you leveraging what your customers and fans are doing on behalf of your brand? How do you think companies can better embrace the brand assets that their customers might be creating for them? Do you think advertising is as misguided as I do, and if so, why hasn't it changed? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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19 August 2008

Contemplating the Social Media Plunge

When I asked around about the reasons why companies hesitate to get involved with social media - whether misconceptions or legitimate concerns - it sparked some great discussion.

By far, the overwhelming consensus was that social media makes companies far more transparent than they're used to being. Dave Murr and Matthew T. Grant on Twitter and Sonny Gill on Plurk all said that companies are uncomfortable not completely controlling the brand message anymore. Of course, the message we're delivering loud and clear is that customers are the ones driving much of your brand messaging anyway, with or without you (and they started doing it the minute they became your customers). Frank Martin says that the practice of some traditional media - press releases, advertising messages - being company-controlled gives companies the illusion that they should be able to control all of their marketing. In a digital age, that's nearly impossible.

Putting time and money toward something that doesn't have hard ROI attached.
Beth Harte and Laura Pritchard agree that many companies want to see a hard, direct line between efforts and sales leads. So far, metrics for social media are soft and indirect, and tend to be reflected instead through measurements in other areas - website traffic, customer satisfaction levels, strength of relationships with customers and prospects. How do you think these effects compare to other cultivation efforts - like customer appreciation events, golf outings, or other business development activities?

Taking communication outside the communication department. Companies may have a hard time trusting their non-communications trained employees to do and say the right thing without intense supervision. The trick is that customer service reps are talking to customers about product issues, your accounting team is discussing the slow decision processes with their vendors, your product managers are talking about disagreement about the new widget design. Employees aren't following the script in their everyday business interactions, anyway, and giving them a chance to communicate more openly on behalf of the company can bring to light new insights.

Thinking that social media is an all-or-nothing proposition. Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester has a great post today about how scare tactics are causing some companies to steer clear of social media. The reality is that social media isn't an overnight sea change, nor is it a silver bullet. It's one (important) part of a comprehensive, and well thought out communication strategy for any business.

Being faced with questions they don't have answers to. Tara Whittle mentioned this one and I was glad she did. Sometimes, online customers will ask questions or point out issues that don't have immediate resolutions. In these cases, I think it's less the immediate solution to the problem, but how the company handles it that matters. Do they have the confidence to answer "We're not sure! But we're going to find out, and here's how we'll let you know when we do." That can build trust and credibility.

Committing the resources to do it right. Social media done comprehensively takes an investment of time, capital, and human resources. As I've posted before, engaging in social media can be a part of anyone's job. Listening alone takes effort - GM alone has at least 10 staff people dedicated to monitoring their brand on the web. As Sonny says, monitoring social media has become an extesion of brand mangement. And once you've heard what's being said, responding and doing something of value with the feedback you receive requires new thinking and sometimes, new ways of doing things. And, as another savvy plurker pointed out, some companies might even think that
shifting their position and messaging in response to feedback can make them seem weak. I'd venture to say that evolving your messaging to respond to your community does quite the opposite, but would welcome your take on this too!

It's just new. Frank points out that it may not be fear so much as that many companies simply aren't early adopters, and he's right. Kellye Crane points out that much like websites once were the unproven tool, some companies are waiting to see just how other companies are making use of social media and how they in turn can leverage it for their specific business. And some may be comfortable with the status quo, thinking that "if it ain't broke...". The more that bellwether companies like Dell, Starbucks, Ford, Beam Global, Southwest Airlines and more blaze the trail, the more likely others are to see the value for themselves, too.

So how about you? Is your company venturing into the waters of social media, and what are your concerns? Are you the champion for social media, and how are you addressing these concerns with your clients or management? Please share in the comments!

Photo by danflo
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14 August 2008

On Women and the Internet

This morning, the New York Times ran an article about women online, this time in the Technology section about advertising on women's sites.

I thought the article was well done, and I'm glad that it was placed where it was. (BTW - I get the whole logistics about the siloed section placements in the mainstream papers. We've been over this, so please let's not revisit that quagmire. I still think it's a crappy system. But that's not what this post is about.)

The article had a very balanced tone, was very business focused, and featured objective writing about the appeal of female-centric websites for advertisers wanting to reach this influential audience. Statistics and studies abound - see just a few results from Forrester here - about the influence and buying power of women in markets both online and off.

I do think there's tremendous value in segmenting gender demographics for marketing and branding purposes, because let's face it - men and women are different. And statistically speaking, we skew our interests toward certain things. Marketing and advertising have spent many, many millions of dollars on gender-focused campaigns for this very reason. And as far as social media goes, advertising dollars are shifting online, and in large part to women-centric sites.

The discussion on Plurk this morning, however, shifted gears a bit, and we started talking about women and the internet in general. How do they use it? Are the largest volume of them really using sites dedicated to fashion, food, or entertainment?

To wit: this question from my social media-savvy friend Deb from I Can't Keep Up:

Why not show how women participate online in other ways? I really struggle over this issue. I would rather see more evidence of women using the internet intellectually, professionally, and even for their sport. So maybe I just want to see something on women's participation in non-gender based sites. Then we would have an idea of women's impact overall.

This report from Pew talks about how women are more likely to use the internet to foster their human connections with others. The popular blog Lip-Sticking talks about marketing to women online - and covers topics as diverse as entrepreneurship in Afghanistan, health and fitness, real estate, and technology (and yes, there are plenty of posts about fashion, family, and other traditionally female topics).

Personally, I don't frequent sites that are female-focused exclusively. I prefer to get my information from all across the web, and my tastes are probably not "traditionally" female. But oddly, I talk to a LOT of women who have similar interests to mine, and eschew destinations focused on lighter fare like fashion or celebrities. (For the record, I wholeheartedly endorse the work of bloggers like Dooce. 850,000 people read her blog - including me on occasion - which means she is unequivocably providing fun and at times irreverent content that people love. Great stuff, and the essence of building a community online.)

So, the big questions:

Am I just swimming in a fishbowl of other non-traditional women? Are we predisposed to dismiss "women's" sites simply because they're not our cup of tea, and are we missing something as a result? Are we too sensitive about the idea that women like to talk fashion, celebrities, and sex?

Does the impact of women online who don't target their activities based on their gender matter to the future of the internet and social media?

The statistics don't lie, and the women's sites abound and thrive (which I think is great, for the women who DO want that content). Advertisers are spending their money there, and presumably they're seeing returns for their efforts. But according to the NYT article, advertisers just aren't seeing the value in reaching women on sites that focus on more serious topics like politics or business. Why is this?

How is the internet going to adapt to and connect with women that aren't in that traditionally female niche? Should it?

Are they reaching us already, in more mainstream ways? Are we in the minority, and is it merely a numbers game? Do we just not respond to advertising in the same way, and why should they care about us?

Would love to hear your thoughts and insights. I know I'll be chewing on this one for a while!

photo by Valerie Renee
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12 August 2008

The Plurk Brain Trust

Today, I was stumped.

I was suffering from writers block for the blog. It happens. So, I threw out a Plurk to my friends asking about what they'd like to see here.

The discussion that ensued was a rapid-fire, but deep well of information and inspiration.

My very public thanks to friends Deb Robison, Sonny Gill, Te-Ge Bramhall, Justin Whitaker, Mack Collier, Eddie Soto, Donna Tocci, Naomi Meredith, Connie Bensen, Mao de Mao, Amie Gillingham. You guys - along with all of my connections on Twitter, Plurk, and everywhere else - are the very definition of community.

So, stay tuned for a new post series I'm researching on internal social networks. Seems more and more companies are exploring them, and I'd like to focus in closer on some of the advantages, challenges, and questions that these create. I think building communities and connections within companies can be as important as doing it outside, and I'm excited to see what I learn. Look forward to sharing with all of you, and as always, thanks for reading.

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11 August 2008

Are your social networks too scattered?


On Plurk, my friend Kellye Crane pointed me to a social map that Brian Solis of PR 2.0 did for his online presence - both the places where he maintains a presence, and those where he's simply in touch or aware. Check out his post about it here.

So naturally, it got my gears turning. Since social media is so much of what I do and breathe every day, I'm pondering where the perfect fulcrum is to balance having a social presence with being so completely decentralized that you can't give any one community it's due. Brian says:

The truth is that we are embracing new tools because they’re are either intriguing and fascinating to us and/or because those within our social graph are also adopting them to stay connected and participate in online conversations.

We are responsible for the decentralization of our content and our attention.

Some individuals are using things like FriendFeed to aggregate all of their sites and try to stay abreast of them all. Personally, that removes the unique elements of each community and seems to make participating more about me than contributing to the community, which kind of goes against my grain. And I don't see companies making use of FriendFeed to connect with individuals (please let me know if you know otherwise, I'd certainly be interested!).

Then there are tools like Ping.fm that help you post a singular update to many networks. But again, this takes away some of the interaction quality to me because, in my case, it wouldn't be as natural to hang around and participate in the (hopefully) ensuing conversation.

I haven't yet participated actively on YouTube, StumbleUpon, or Mixx even though I have a presence in those places, if nothing else to understand what they're about in basic terms. Obviously, I've barely scratched the surface. And I haven't even touched many other sites at all - ooVoo or Qik or Utterz. In some cases, I avoid something that seems like a new-but-not-distinctly-different iteration of something I already use with success, like Twitter or LinkedIn.

Shift gears away from my personal experience, and put it in business perspective. Where are my potential clients online? Where are your business' potential customers and clients? How are they using these tools, or are they? Is this all a fishbowl, and are we swimming around just running into the same people in different places?

My savvy and always insightful friend Connie Reece put it this way:
Amber, yes the "right" networks are the ones that will be most profitable for your business, and that will be where your customers are.
Takes a lot of research and careful consideration to find exactly what those are, sure. But to me, this is a critical aspect of making social media strategy a viable, effective part of your overall communications plans. Many of these networks are most familar to the early adopters, or people who focus on this space for a living. But is this where the critical mass of customers is?

Taking the time to understand your customers and how they're using the web to engage with businesses cannot be underestimated. Not every social site or network is going to be right for every business. And participating in one or two at a really engaged, invested level is much more important than having a face everywhere but a personality nowhere. It's also important to recognize that just because I enjoy participating in a social community, it doesn't mean that I'm connecting with a business audience of potential customers. They may be somewhere else entirely.

So what say you? How do you draw the line, and what criteria do you use to make sure your investments of time and effort in social media are paying off? Do you have different criteria for your personal involvement and that of your business? I'd love to hear about your approach.

image by jurvetson
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07 August 2008

ASPCA: Marketing For a Cause Gone Awful

I'm a huge animal lover. I have two rescue dogs, two rescue cats, and would probably have a houseful if only I had acreage.

But I cannot watch the ASPCA commercial that's been on the air now for several months. (I'm embedding it below, but I warn you that it's hard to watch, and might be near impossible if you're an animal lover. I had to stop it playing on YouTube just so I could copy the link. If you're sensitive, might just skip it and take my word for it.)



It's been running on the Food Network, which is a favorite TV destination of mine. This whole thing is awful to me for two big reasons.

1) Food Network is losing a viewer on a regular basis, because every time the commercial comes on, I switch channels. And often I forget to switch back. This morning, I've switched three times in the last hour, and I now will not go back for fear of running into this spot again.

2) The ASPCA has gone past the line of sympathy and empathy, and crossed into anguish. If I can't watch the commercial because of how distressing it is, I'm not going to be compelled to stay tuned and give. It's causing the opposite reaction - complete avoidance, despair, helplessness. That's not what they're after I'm sure. And I've heard from literally dozens of people who won't watch the commercial either. Are they giving?

Tugging at heartstrings might have it's place in advertising, marketing, fundraising - emotional appeal is a cornerstone of strong messaging, and I understand the motivation. But I think there's a line. I'd be much more likely to get online and give if I saw a spot full of success stories - happy animals moving on to bigger and better lives after being rescued by the ASPCA. Instead, I'm afraid to head to their site lest I be bombarded with horrific images of mistreated animals all over again.

I *know* what the ASPCA does - I'm not ignorant of the mistreatment of animals, it's harsh reality, and the great strides the ASPCA is making to combat it. But seeing it in all of its brutal reality isn't making me more likely to get closer to their organization.

So what do you think? Is this spot too extreme for you, or do you think this is just the right message? Are you motivated to give, or to change the channel?
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Blogs from the Social Media Fishbowl

A few days ago, I was asking around on Twitter and Plurk about social media people's must-read blogs. After a good influx of responses and requests to share, here we go! I'm happy that while some of these are old favorites, a few were new to me. And of course this is not an exhaustive list and isn't meant to be definitive; these simply represent the 25 that were mentioned most often (most more than once).

Some focus on PR, some on marketing, some on a blend of everything. Please add yours in the comments, too.



1. The Buzz Bin by Geoff Livingston

2. Chaos Scenario by Cam Beck, John Herrington and Paul Herring

3. Church of the Customer Blog by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba

4. ChrisBrogan.com

5. Communication Overtones by Kami Huyse

6. Conversation Agent by Valeria Maltoni

7. Diva Marketing Blog by Toby Bloomberg

8. Every Dot Connects (multiple authors)

9. For Immediate Release by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson

10. Influential Marketing Blog by Rohit Bhargava

11. Logic+Emotion by David Armano

12. Marketing Profs Daily Fix (multiple authors)

13. Mashable (multiple authors)

14. /Message by Stowe Boyd

15. Micropersuasion by Steve Rubel

16. Online Marketing Blog by Lee Odden

17. PR Squared by Todd Defren

18. PR 2.0 by Brian Solis

19. Read Write Web (multiple authors)

20. Social Media Explorer by Jason Falls

21. The Social Media Marketing Blog by Scott Monty

22. Social Media Today (multiple authors)

23. Techipedia by Tamar Weinberg

24. The Viral Garden by Mack Collier

25. Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang

Like I said, I could easily extend this into a list of 100+, so please share in the comments what blogs are can't-miss for you!


Image by Mike Licht



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04 August 2008

25 Reasons Social Media Can (Should?) Be Anyone's Job

Social Media is still a new thing to many people and companies, so I’m thinking optimistically - even aspirationally - here. There are most certainly companies that are ahead of the curve with the way they’re allowing social media to be an undercurrent of many aspects of their business. Here, 25 ways that social media can apply to lots of different job descriptions, no matter what you’re in business to do. Add yours, too, in the comments!

Marketing and PR
This is the obvious category, of course, since these are the folks responsible for crafting, managing, and communicating the company’s messaging to customers and prospects. It’s often (but not always) the “home” for social media in a company. Here, social media can:
  • Help you understand if your customers are online, and if they are, what sites and tools they use most.
  • Provide insights into your own company culture and highlight your business’ comfort level with social media tools.
  • Give the company a human face through online discourse, highlighting the people behind the brand and the hearts and minds that drive it.
  • Let you hear how your community – instead of the company – defines the brand. Messaging in their language is more likely to stick.
  • Give you human insight into market dynamics, instead of relying on only structured reports or surveys. Take the “pulse” of your community, from their perspective.
  • Hear how your competitors are perceived online, too, to identify additional ways to differentiate your brand from theirs.

Sales and Business Development
In sales, finding and solving problems is the key to success, and good listening skills are essential. In the world of social media, business development pros can:
  • Locate prospects that might be self-identifying elsewhere on the web without making themselves readily apparent to the business.
  • Listen to the words your customers use to describe you, for better or worse. They might write your sales pitch for you.
  • Maintain relationships with customers before and after the sale by continuing to connect with them online.
  • Again, competitive analysis and insights about how and where your competitors are reaching the prospects that you might be looking for.
  • Identify trends and niche markets that you might not yet be tapping.
  • Hear how your prospects and clients are articulating their needs and pain points so your future presentations and proposals can address them directly.
  • Open more channels for communication – different tools and sites – and provide opportunities for dialogue that are more comfortable for customers.

Customer/Client Services
Customer service can be a never-ending, demanding job but it’s absolutely a make-or-break piece of any business. So, how can customer and client service pros tap into social media?
  • Identify product or service issues that are being talked about online first. Believe it or not, some people don’t come straight to the company with their issues.
  • Say thank you to clients and customers in their own space.
  • Solve minor issues on the spot (even in other peoples’ online territory, like their website or a community forum) and demonstrate that you’re listening. Be the conduit back to the company to resolve more complex issues, faster.
  • Build trust by developing and maintaining relationships with customers during a critical time – in between sales.
  • Serve as the outward-facing voice of the company to build its’ community and provide a direct line of communication back to you.
  • Actively ask for feedback from your customers about their recent experiences with you, and what would have made it better. Doing it live and online turns it into a living, breathing dialogue instead of just another static survey.
Product or Brand Managers
Even though product or brand managers aren’t always directly customer facing, social media can still play a key intelligence role. By listening, your product and brand teams can:
  • Identify quality issues in competitor’s products for a leg up in product improvements.
  • Hear customer’s “wish lists” that they’re posting on the web for products you may not have, or enhancements to the ones you do.
  • Work with customer support teams to develop comprehensive responses to product or service issues in real-time.
  • Help develop a useful FAQ for customers and clients based on common issues communicated on the web. Instead of relying on third party forums, make your company site the destination for information.
  • Gather anecdotal evidence of innovative ways that customers might be using your products (that could be very different than what you intended!). Great example: Ikea Hacker.
  • Create product tutorials that directly address the feedback and issues you might hear from users online. (Best part: go where they are and introduce them directly.)

I didn’t break out executive ranks above because I’m thinking there’s an executive role in every category (?). But as several people pointed out to me, executive buy in is critical. Otherwise, the big gold mine of information gathered via social media won’t be worth a fig. Somewhere, someone has to do something with the insights and use them to move forward.

Seems as though that might be the biggest challenge of all: what to do when you know the information is valuable but there are disconnects? Executives might delegate without being invested in the results. Managers might not be empowered to act. Production folks might not have all the information they need to understand why that information is important in the first place. Perhaps another post for another time. I’d love your thoughts on this one!

Thanks to Geoff Livingston, Frank Martin, Gianandrea Facchini and Sonny Gill and all of my fantastic fellow marketing/social media mavens for their great input on this post! You all teach and inspire me daily.

What do you think, folks? Help me round out the list with your ideas, and let’s share these with our colleagues, clients, teams.

cool image by Ralph Bijker