Simple communication strategies for a complicated world.
September 16th, 2009

30 Days To A Better Brand: Day 5 – Your best customer is your former foe

This entry is part 5 of 12 in the series 30 Days To A Better Brand

While numbers show the health of your business and ebrandgelists drive the core of your business, your former foe or convert should be your best friend. These people are THE most passionate when converted. They’re also the most passionate AGAINST your brand when ignored or mishandled.

The old truism ‘the customer is always right’ is even more important with so many online outlets for them to share their experience. Even if they aren’t technically right, they are right for feeling wronged. In order to rectify the situation you should:

  1. MONITOR: Monitor customer service channels and areas of congregation where your brand may be spoken about
  2. ASSESS: Assess whether or not the issue at hand must be addressed or will be taken care of by the community as well as your ebrandgelists
  3. ACKNOWLEDGE: If the situation warrants addressing first acknowledge their feelings and dissatisfaction.
  4. REASSURE: Let them know that you will create a customer profile & work with them to resolve the situation to the best of your company’s abilities and hopefully to their satisfaction
  5. GO BEYOND: Once adequately resolved go beyond their expectations of solving the problem, reward their patience and compensate them for their time
  6. CALL TO ACTION: After going past 100% give your new ebrandgelist an adequate call to action ie customer service survey, gentle reminder to tell others about their experience
  7. CONNECT: Ask them if you can send them a message on their preffered messaging system about how they can redeem any incentives given and connect with other people passionate about your products or services
  8. THANK THEM: Thank them for their time, let them know that you are there for them whenever they may need you.

The one thing people love MORE than being passionate about something is being passionate about something they once were completely anti-passionate about. People love to tell stories especially stories that are compelling and have a dramatic arc. Everyone loves to see the hero come from behind and win in the end. Be that hero.


For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


September 1st, 2009

Storming the social media castle: your customer is king

Social media has swung the pendulum back from traditional media’s focus solely on the brand as king. The peasants are fed up with their tyrranical ruler and demand to be heard. These followers and friends are storming the social media castle of web 2.0. They’re not standing for anything less than full court with the King of the land. What the King has to say depends on how long he’ll stay on his throne.

Today’s landscape is a volatile one at best with the economy in an upheaval, jobs in question, and general unsureness all across the land. People want to feel security from somewhere. This is when they look to what they love and trust: your brand.

The unsettled state of the world coupled with the proliferation of real-time social tools have now given the peasants their pitchforks and torches they need to be heard. The unsureness of your customer’s environment plus new technological tools to communicate directly faster equals the perfect storm.

Your customer today doesn’t just want instant access answers, they DEMAND it. With all of the old ways failing them each and every day, they are increasingly latching on to new ways of communicating, thinking and purchasing. You don’t tell them what to do, they tell you.

History is littered with the corpses of Kings who forgot what makes them Kings: their subjects. Without a kingdom you can not be a king. Likewise, without customers you will not have a product or brand to sell – you’ll just go out of business.

This is why your customer is king. That’s ALWAYS been a given. The only thing that’s changed is that now your customer has access to tools through social media to feel empowered to affect the change they’ve always wanted but have felt discouraged to do so.

Keeping this in consideration, I have a panel on Social Customer Relationship Management (sCRM) in the South by Southwest (SXSW) panelpicker that you can vote on. Brian Solis has been kind enough to collaborate with me in crafting this panel & gathering some of the top minds in this area , including himself.

Social CRM: Managing Conversations to Protect/Shape Brands

An in-depth discussion of how social media networks & tools like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs are important to brand customer relationship management. Who should be heading up these efforts, what rules they need to abide by and what companies are getting it right/wrong will be looked into. In the social Web, a brand’s perception reputation is in the hands of the new influencers – those customers, peers, and prospects who leverage social media to voice their views, opinions, and questions. It’s how you discover and engage in these discussions that determine the brand’s resonance.

  1. What is Social CRM and how is it different than CRM or CRM 2.0?
  2. Who owns the conversation? Who is responsible for sCRM if Social Media is cluttering the internal marketing landscape (PR, Marketing, Interactive)?
  3. How is the infrastructure of CRM adapting to incorporate the “now” or real-time web?
  4. What are the new roles required for sCRM?
  5. What are the advantages and disadvantages of offshoring vs. nearshoring?
  6. How does an organization justify the less costly form of inbound-focused customer service to outbound CRM and ORM?
  7. Is there value in engaging everyone on the social web?
  8. How can companies change and adapt internally to reduce the negative chatter, thus reducing required responses?
  9. How should a brand manage a crisis about them in social media?
  10. How much transparency does a brand need to have in social media in respect to government agency regulations?

For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


July 12th, 2009

Paid tweet or not paid tweet, that is the question

Twitter has gained widespread recognition from media outlets, celebrities and brands among others. There are certain brands that already have a well-known presence on Twitter like @WholeFoods@JetBlue , and @Starbucks. Now because of the exposure more brands find value in this “social network” but don’t know how to go about utilizing social media tools.

Some have resorted to buying Twitter followers. Some have enlisted Twitterers to get paid for their tweets with Magpie and Adjix. The latest to throw their hat in this ring is Ted Murphy and IZEA with @Spontwts.

@Spontwts is a program where you can signup to allow advertisers to pitch you offers for you to tweet. I learned about this from a tweet from @tedmurphy which said that a celebrity made $2,500 from a single sponsored tweet.

Danny Brown wrote up an article about this. He’s “neither here nor there on the topic as long as it’s handled properly.” I tend to agree with him. Promoting something is generally neutral. How it’s done is what sets it apart.

People generally are adverse to this because of Magpie. Magpie promoted itself in an invasive manner, Any message that doesn’t take your target audience into account can run afoul of them. No one wants to see a blatantly promotional ad for a service that has nothing to do with your or their interests. That’s where Magpie went wrong. This is where Spontwts can benefit.

People want relevance. As long as the advertisers you choose align with what you already consume and subscribe to there should be no problem. I personally promote Mountain Dew on Twitter (@mtn_dew) whenever it’s naturally possible. That’s the key: NATURALLY possible.

I enjoy Mountain Dew in my life & I share my experiences with the brand on Twitter often. I can guarantee you that some of my followers do NOT share my passion for Mountain Dew, yet they accpt it /enjoy it/  engage with me on it. Why? Because I have PASSION for it. Regardless of what it is, they see that I’m genuine about it and THAT is why it works.

Spontwts is about how you use it. If a user accepts any and all offers from advertisers the service becomes a firehose. ANYTHING is a nuisance when used that way. It’s all about timing, relevancy and precision.

The brands you subscribe to and promote become part of your brand. The more value you provide through sharing & helping the more people are willing to ‘buy’ what you are ‘selling’. Tip the balance too much one way, you become an annoying shill.

Curating their users, advertisers, and tweet frequency/volume will ultimately make or break their service. Some on Twitter go for quantity, others, quality. Only a select few go for quantity of quality.

A couple of items of note:

  • Sponsored Tweets only allows you to choose one category from a select sample: Business/Finance, Entertainment, Family, Food, General, Health, Marketing, Technology, Travel.
  • You can further specify what types of offers you want to receive by tagging your profile with up to 10 keywords.
  • Notification by e-mail or DM but not both.
  • Either you or the advertiser can write the tweet (not sure if you can change their writing after the fact).
  • There is a pre-set ‘Charge per tweet’ and ‘Charge per click’ that you can change, yet no formula is given to give you scope to gauge it on.
  • A ‘Content rating’ area is also available for you to rate your tweets (Everyone, Mature, Adults-only), although if you’re like me, tweets can be all over the board.

One clarification provided by IZEA:

Sponsored Tweets will not auto inject ads into your stream. Each tweet must be approved by you before it gets released. Our goal is to provide you with quality ads that you are comfortable with.

Some final thoughts:

Sponsored Tweets add #spon onto the end as to distinguish that it’s a sponsored tweet. IZEA is also working out some technical issues like sponsored tweet DMs being truncated, thus cutting off vital information from advertisers.

Overall I believe that Ted Murphy and IZEA is onto something here. When you are allowed to preselect your content for your intended audience the ultimate onus falls on  you as the selector. This is what sets apart a quality Twitter account from a spammy one and every shade of grey in between.

sponsored tweets

As I have used Twitterfeed to inject some of the best content I have preselected from the web, so will I try out Sponsored Tweets to see if the advertisers and quality are up to my followers’ standards. I have faith in the community that I have built to tell me if it works for them or not, and I in turn will process that information and act on it.

Trust is gained over time and destroyed in a moment. Be careful with it. It is best to use a scalpel not a machete when dealing with trust concerns and your brand.


For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


July 1st, 2009

Twitter is for friends not fiends

© dbking

© dbking

(Originally posted at Lisa Hickey’s The Hurricane Inside My Brain)

Gain 7 billionity followers! Make 80 trillionity by doing this!

We’re all concerned about being liked and being comfortable with money. These are two common insecurities that people prey on, especially much more so now in social media than ever. Thinking that way is the old wide fish-net push way of marketing. Here’s how Twitter can be maximized so you can get the most out of it, personally AND professionally.

Man in the mirror

Who do you want to surround yourself with in your life? How do you want to be viewed by others? These are questions that should be on your mind constantly, offline AND online.

The noise won’t stop

When you follow people on Twitter that don’t mean anything to your network (i.e. the other people you’ve connected with) what  you end up with is a group of tweets that are disconnected. The conversation is almost schizophrenic. No one knows each other. Your stream is rushing past you like class 5 rapids.

Hey now you’re a ROCKSTAR get your game on go play

Maybe you CAN keep up with 80 thousand followers with your magical desktop sorting application, but I doubt it. The way you’re keeping up with them is not really getting to know them. Most likely what you’re doing is scanning for information, retweeting interesting information, replying to some random interesting tweets & monitoring your @ mentions and DMs for people talking to you.

Social media is about community. I dare you to tell me how the above situation represents community. What it feels more like is a old switchboard telephone operator. Maybe this works for you. Congratulations. This doesn’t work for me anymore.

I’m popularrrr

Recently I had conversations with Connie Reece (@ConnieReece) and Lucretia Pruitt (@GeekMommy) about how there is no way any of us can properly keep up with such a huge group of people on Twitter. Connie recently resorted to making her Twitter profile private to slow down the follow/unfollow game that Twitter numbers gamers play. I have taken a slightly different approach.

Instead of just unfollowing people en masse I am unfollowing on a case by case basis according to pre-set guidelines I judge a twitter account to be suitable for connecting with. In laymens terms, if you suck you’re gone. I am also mostly following just those I’ve met offline first through my other social media friends. One RARE exception to that stipulation is if you follow me then engage me actively and I find your stream valuable. This is rare because most people don’t take the time to interact when they first add. This is the ‘hello my name is’ on Twitter.

Put me in coach I’m ready to play

Why am I telling you this? Not to showcase my follow numbers or ratio- because that alone doesn’t matter. Not to boast about unfollowing people because i’m so elite- because THAT is just ridiculous. No, it’s to show you insight into how you can get more out of your network.

Ever since I have started down this path I have seen more and more of my followers chatting with each other. Why? Most likely it could be because I go out to events that many of the same people frequent and we meet new people when they come to town thus growing our comm-unity. See that? Comm-unity, communication unity.

What’s the benefit of this? For one thing you get to see more than just broadcasted information from your friends. You get to see a whole other side of them when they speak to other people you know. This is when their personality truly comes out.

We all live in a yellow submarine

Twitter is for friends not fiendsI don’t want to be sold to, broadcasted at or have random irrelevant noise in my stream. My day and mind are noisy enough. I come online to be bolstered by community and friends when I can’t do so in my offline world. I also come online to further STRENGTHEN my offline relationships, as well as you should.

If you’re at this point, congratulations! Now you can take the next step by further tightening your network by going to your friends’ twitter pages and see who they are speaking to often that you aren’t following. Notice any repeating names. Follow them and introduce yourself by saying that you noticed they speak with X Y & Z and what you value about them. Talking about your common ground of friends does SO MUCH more for everyone- you, the person AND X Y & Z- than just saying that you’re looking forward to getting to know them. That’s trite and soulless.

I wanna hold your haaaaaaaaaand

Look at that. You’ve come to the end of the story. You can now start buying what your FRIENDS are selling. It’s much more fulfilling being able to help someone out that you care about then a random person you’re connected with. When you invest time and energy into someone you form a relationship. When this happens you create a ‘Trust Fund’ where both you and the other person either add or subtract trust from this mutual fund you have set up. Your Trust Fund grows so much more richer when you do business with those you trust greatly.

One last word, before I go..

Numbers DON’T matter, not because anti-numbers people say so. Numbers don’t matter because if there isn’t value and meaning behind them all they do is give a lovely facade of power that fools any fool. Any wise man knows that it’s the density not the breadth alone that counts. Water of the same volume spread out over a flat surface doesn’t have the same impact as water contained in a compact space. That being said, it’s not just quality, it’s also quantity of quality, so grow your real-ationships exponentially.

Cultivate your connections. Connect to people that mean something to you. Make those people mean much more to you. Introduce them into your circle to tighten relations more. Every person in my created @ChatPack and @MemeGirls groups do important things- or at least we think so. And that’s all that matters- that we do important things separately, connect and make great things together.

Perpetuate this ideal indefinitely. Your 20% will do and be your 80%. Nurture and grow your core group.

These are the people that will carry you to great heights.


For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


June 18th, 2009

Bing me. Google it. How Microsoft is more relevant than Google

On June 8th 2009 Microsoft took an unprecedented move in advertising their new search engine Bing. They subsidized all commercials on Hulu for a limited time period. In exchange for that they produced something akin to a telethon meets an infomercial- the Bing-a-thon. The Bing-a-thon is something that has never been done before online.

Microsoft is getting it right with the marketing of Bing. They understand that search should be easy. They understand that in order to learn about something it should be fun. People don’t want to be lectured. We want to be entertained. Disguise learning in entertainment and you have just created an educated consumer. Here’s what some of you took away from the Hulu Microsoft Bing-a-thon:

Some of you were:

Compelled

destroytoday The Bing a-thon is like a gruesome car accident. I keep wanting to look away, but can’t seem to close the window: http://bit.ly/zHpPT

RobLaughton is bing-a-thon really made by the one of the most powerful company in the world? It’s sooooo bad, yet strangely compelling……

latitude46 Bing-a-thon is simply terrible, but I just can’t look away. God help us all.

JaysonElliot Watching the live “bing-a-thon” on Hulu right now. I can’t tell if they’re attempting irony or not. It’s all too self-referential.

Informed

mariogvasquez watched the bing-a-thon on hulu.com. Sudeikis is funny Olivia was hot. Fred Wilard was awkward. Did learn some cool stuff about bing.com

aznsclboi Bing-a-thon over… I’m not sure I’m smarter for watching this… but eh, at least I know how to Bing now.

Repelled

johnyjuice OMG….wth #bing-a-thon that is time spent I WILL NEVER get back! Thank you #Google for not EVER doing that!

jbruin @AlexBurdz I’m really hoping that MS spent most of that 80/100 mil on ads cause bing-a-thon was an epic disaster

Interested

arturot the Bing-a-thon is awesome, haha so cheesy but actually very fun. I hope they make the entire event available later on.

bajanx What an idea by Microsoft having a Bing a Thon on such a recognized website like HULU. How much will this help popularize “THE BING”?

{The interesting thing to note here is that Microsoft made it easy to share the telecast in Facebook and Twitter AND the message that was shared was updated according to what was happening on the Bing-a-thon. Notice the same bit.ly link.}

Promoters

Radums I just made some dude eat like 40 cupcakes. Go to hulu and check out the Bing-a-thonhttp://bit.ly/avTj0

yotobari288 I just finished watching the Bing-a-thon with Olivia Munn, Jason Sudeikis, and Fred Willard. It’s running again on hulu http://bit.ly/avTj0

lakkineni Olivia Munn is live on hulu’s Bing-a-thon right now. Come watch it. You’re welcome. http://bit.ly/avTj0


{Of note here is that some found such value in the automated shared message that they reshared it. Some (myself) changed the message & left the automated link only to have others share that message as well.}

Sharers

SanjayJain369 RT @astanton: Fred Willard from Best in Show and Waiting for Guffman is on hulu’s Bing-a-thon right now. Come watch. http://bit.ly/avTj0

katriord RT @db It may not be ‘cool’ to like Microsoft but they get relevant marketing = Live Bing-a-thon http://bit.ly/avTj0

My conclusion? Microsoft made the right decision to market Bing the way they did. People were clearly informed. These are the people that are likely to use Bing over and over again. The people who were compelled (as well as the promoters/sharers) are likely to tell their friends of the funny cool thing they saw and interacted with. Bing has a funny name. It can make you think of Friends’ Chandler Bing or evoke a sound. The bottom line is this: Microsoft wanted to educate its consumers and brand Bing’s personality at the same time. Mission completed.

Only time will tell if people adopt Bing as their default search engine. Right now people have turned the proper noun ‘Google’ into a verb by saying ‘google it’. I can definitely see people adopting Bing in the verb sense. They may say ‘bing it’ if someone wants to know specific information about something or ‘bing’ as a verb may just eclipse ‘google’. Google may provide tons of search results but that’s also its downfall. Microsoft may not say Google in their ad but they might as well, as I’m sure many of you have felt the same frustration:


Microsoft’s differentiator? Their tagline: “It’s not just a search engine. It’s the first ever decision engine, from Microsoft.”

While Google is focusing on Wave, Microsoft is taking this chance to make search more relevant. Yes, many of us are excited for real-time email etc etc BUT frankly I’m more excited with relevant search. The internet has become our default for information. I’m hard-pressed to find anyone who actually uses encyclopedias and dictionaries in dead-tree format. I already have Twitter for real-time info as well as instant messages. E-mail and document editing are fast enough for me now.

Make your customer’s life easier in a timely and relevant way and you’ve won their hearts. I’m sure Google has something up their sleeve for semantic web but until that day you can just Bing me.




For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


May 29th, 2009

Why followfriday doesn’t get social media and it never will

Follow Friday is a plague on Twitter and social media. It’s a Trojan Horse. It’s a seemingly harmless interaction wrapped in niceties. Even giving in to it one bit is fueling the fire even more. You’re a part of the problem if you’re not a part of the solution. Here’s why those who participate in follow friday don’t get social media and never will.

Social media isn’t about sharing at all costs. It’s about sharing at the best cost. It’s about pull NOT push.

Let’s relate follow friday into offline terms. You’re at a party (I know, because social media is one big party) and someone walks in saying that everyone there MUST know Zoe, Duncan, Jack and Jane. Now that’s not exactly social is it? The person literally just disrupted the party to tell everyone who they SHOULD know. It doesn’t matter if you know the disrupter or not. What matters is that the disrupter decided that their opinion was worth more than yours. They didn’t think of you first.


Social media is about pull. Social media is about personalization. Social media is about those two things plus connections. Take out pull and personalization and you just have the old way of doing things- a connection based on me telling you what to do. When you act without thinking of others first you come up with a bunch of unintended consequences.

To those of you who are moving Follow Friday off of Twitter to other areas I have one word of advice to you: don’t. You are the worst type of person, the enabler. SOCIAL MEDIA ISN’T ABOUT YOU. Social media is about everyone else. Start thinking of them first, not yourself. Blanket recommendations are akin to stereotypes- you’re covering a large landscape and inadvertently encompassing those who shouldn’t be involved in the first place.

The only way to break the cycle of me me ME is to think about you you YOU. If you care about the person you are promoting enough then TRULY care about them. Shouting to the world why they’re great is a step in the right direction but it doesn’t go far enough or stay true to social media. Personalize it.

Others and I have resorted to avoiding Twitter altogether on Fridays. The noise is so loud it drowns out the actual useful signal. I schedule blog posts around Friday now. If I’m writing about someone else they tell me to post it any day BUT Friday. This is the law of unintended consequences. It won’t be long until Friday is a day without any substance- the social media equivalent to junk food. It tastes good but you get sick of too much of it.

Remember, this is a party. What’s more meaningful- Having someone you may or may not know well proceed to tell the whole party exactly why Zoe is amazing OR having someone you know well introduce you two to each other because they feel the both of you would be a great fit? See the difference?

Social networking is a whole different ball game. Wait, no it isn’t. If you wouldn’t dream of doing what you do online in an offline setting then don’t do it. If you still think it’s okay to shout how awesome people are at other people (no matter how in-depth you get) then maybe you shouldn’t be in social media. Social media is about them not you. It’s not your time to shine it’s their time to shine. Be useful and thoughtful in all your interactions by micro-personalizing them.

THINK how your actions will affect another person before you do them. When you think of the other person first then it leaves little room for misinterpretation. Don’t be ‘that guy’ at the party and ruin it for everyone. Be the AMAZING party host that introduces two guests to one another. I GUARANTEE people will be talking about YOU before long.


For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


May 19th, 2009

They need YOU. Great brands personalize.

What’s in a great brand?

You are.

Create Your Own




A bad brand pushes their products on you. A good brand sells their benefits to you.A great brand sells you to you.

  • A great brand shows you how you are integral to them.
  • A great brand personalizes your experience.
  • A great brand draws you in because you see yourself there.
  • A great brand compels you to share so your friends want to get involved.
  • A great brand knows that the most important thing to you is you.
  • A great brand is a great host.
  • A great host makes sure that each guest is the center of attention.

A great brand doesn’t tell you how you need them.

A great brand shows you how they need you.

damienterminated1damienterminated2damien-trekyourself-2

Terminate Yourself Trek Yourself

via Adam Cohen‘s blog A Thousand Cuts Is User Generated Content the New Campaign Standard?


For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


May 12th, 2009

Brand Your Uniqueness

copyprint

via loop_oh

Dan Miranda / @timecommander

“The original is always worth more than the copy.”

As the quote hung across the room of my classroom, my mind started to drift away from the statistics handout I was given. First, I thought about the social situations that occurred to me throughout the day.

Then I thought more about how it affected marketing, branding and life. By the time the class was out, I already had a new post formulated in my brain. Here is precisely what I thought during that time: Read the rest of this entry »

April 21st, 2009

How Your Brand Colors Affect Your Customer’s View of Your Business

© Anita Gould

© Anita Gould

The colors you associate with your brand are extremely important.

Even if someone isn’t aware of who you are or what you do, your brand’s essence is conveyed right away by what your colors tell them. Many different feelings are associated with individual colors. Picking the wrong color could turn a customer away before they have the chance to become one. Read the rest of this entry »


For branding and social media insights check out my Posterous.

Connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.


April 9th, 2009

Advertising is Dead. Long Live Advertising.

By Lisa Hickey  (@lisahickey)

© Arturo de Albornoz

© Arturo de Albornoz

There’s been lots of talk about the “death of advertising” and the increasing ineffectiveness of the media. There’s a tremendously well-researched, insightful and informative Bob Garfield post in Ad Age, with lots and lots of numbers supporting his version of “Apocalypse Now” for the ad industry. There’s no doubt that there’s agency layoffs, and client cutbacks and fear and uncertainty. So who am I to be the bearer of even an ounce of good news for the ad industry?

Read the rest of this entry »

This work is licensed under GPL - 2009 | Powered by Wordpress using the theme aav1