Come to BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media on April 7 in Cincinnati to hear Dell, Duke Energy, Procter & Gamble, Hilton Worldwide, AT&T, Tyson Foods, Graco, and General Mills share case studies in corporate social media.
You’ll learn how to get started, get past roadblocks, and make your social media program phenomenal — and you’ll see some brilliant presentations like this one from BlogWell San Diego:
Scott McIlnay’s big idea: Social media isn’t just for brand-to-consumer conversations.
Scott’s case study covered how Navy officials collaborate on social media, how they’re fostering conversations among moms of Navy kids, and how they use basic guidelines while building formal policies.
Some great business blogging advice (and life advice) from Christopher Burgess of Cisco:
You Are Responsible: There are no do-overs. There is an adage, “Once posted, forever toasted,” which serves to highlight the reality that your information, data and content will be available to one and all, seemingly forever, and it is guaranteed to revisit you sometime in the future.
Abide by the Rules: Individuals are accountable for their actions. This is a basic tenet of public discourse and elucidation. Don’t share your company’s confidential data. Don’t speak about clients.
Be Mindful: Your opinion may not align perfectly with those of others. Indeed the opinion of others may be diametrically opposed to your point of view. Be mindful and allow the difference to occur. This difference is your opportunity for dialogue, and dialogue is the avenue to understanding.
Be Respectful: Treat others with respect in your responses and interactions. Sarcasm is seldom appreciated by the target of your clever wordplay and is easily misunderstood. Be direct and engaging. An individual has taken the time to share his or her thoughts. Listening to one’s customers and partners is the best way to gain insight into your successes and those occasions when opportunities for improvement manifest themselves.
Be Yourself: Use your own voice. Don’t use a stilted or artificial approach. Decide early on whether you will be engaging with the corporate hat firmly and squarely on your head or if your voice will be yours alone. If the former, allow yourself to express your personal thoughts, but always keep them in context, as you are associating what you say with your corporate brand. If the latter, provide full disclosure when you mention your employer, so that all can understand your personal perspective.
Be Honest. Nothing loses credibility faster than a mishmash of factoids or flat-out dishonesty in place of a direct statement. Honesty isn’t a suggestion, it is a requisite.
Add Value: Above all, bring value to the table. No one is interested in a rehash of old information or methodologies. Bring your voice, perspective and solutions forward, and do so in a way that the audience can understand the value you bring to the table.
I’m excited to announce that my companies, GasPedal and the Social Media Business Council, will be opening up an Austin office and I’ll be moving down there this summer.
Our Chicago office remains home base. All of our awesome people are still here. Kurt Vanderah is stepping into the role of General Manager for the Chicago office (congrats, Kurt!). We’ll be a two-office company, hiring and expanding in both locations.
Why?
Austin is booming and it’s a great town for small business.
The social media/startup scene is very hot there and we want to share in that energy.
I’ve been in big cities for the last 20 years, but I grew up in Milwaukee and want to raise the kids the way I grew up.
Better BBQ. (Sorry, Chicago.)
We’ll be hiring all sorts of folks (in both cities), especially social-media-savvy salespeople and community managers, a COO, and the world’s greatest executive admin. It’s a little early, but feel free to contact me and tell your friends.
P.S. Anyone want to trade houses? 60614 for 78731?
We train a waiter for 3 weeks before they can deliver food.
We hire world-class experts to handle corporate communications and speak to the press.
We teach our customer service reps everything about the product and company before they can talk to a single customer.
Just because undergrads use Facebook a bunch does not make them good representatives for your company. Just because teenagers talk on the phone a lot does not qualify them to run your call center.
Your social media representatives are the new face of your company. Put your best people on it and train them well.
It was only 3 years ago that we were talking about the Lands’ End famous no-questions-asked return policies. They were the one brand that symbolized amazing customer service.
Lands’ End would take anything back. You could wear a bikini to a paintball convention and return it because it was stained and didn’t provide good protection. Occasionally you’d pay postage, but that was it.
Now we talk about Zappos. Constantly. Same offer, same friendliness. Much, much more brand awareness.
Why aren’t we talking about Lands’ End any more? Not much has changed on their end. My theories:
Zappos upped the game. Unlimited returns with free shipping is remarkable. Paying for shipping is no longer good enough.
They aren’t part of the conversation. Lands’ End has completely missed the social media revolution. No twitter, no blog — nobody talking about them.
Word of mouth is missing. There is not a single “tell a friend” or “share this” link on their site. If you don’t ask for referrals, you don’t get them.
Lessons: If you don’t ask for word of mouth, you don’t get it. If you don’t join the conversation, you get ignored. If there is nothing for fans to link to, they’ll link to someone else.
This makes me sad. I hate to see a beloved brand fade away because they forgot why people love them. But if you ignore the fans who love you, they’re going to fall in love with someone else.
Come to BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media on November 10 — hosted by Newell Rubbermaid — where you’ll hear Coca-Cola, UPS, SunGard, Orange Business Services, ConAgra Foods, Turner Broadcasting System, Newell Rubbermaid, and The Home Depot share case studies on how to create a fantastic social media program.
You’ll learn how to get started, get past roadblocks, and make your social media program phenomenal — and you’ll see some brilliant presentations like this one from BlogWell Minneapolis:
Heather Oldani’s & Steve Wilson’s big idea: “Use multiple teams to collaborate on and own social media.”
Heather and Steve share how at McDonald’s, no single department owns social media and instead multiple teams collaborate on it, how the national brand had to claim ownership of social media to manage what was becoming a flood of microsites, Twitter accounts, and Facebook pages in local markets, and how they’re seeing exciting results from their internal social media communities.
Watch Pepsi's Bonin Bough and Joshua Karpf sharing their blogger relations efforts, live from BlogHer Chicago:
They share great stories of bloggers' commitment to this community, and some common sense advice on making connections: "We're not here to show product. We're here to enhance people's experience of the event. If you're doing a service for the [...]
{Here's a re-post of my latest for the Huffington Post.}
Your high school reunion.
Your best friend's new baby.
Your sister's birthday party.
You'll never see those pictures because you're in the military and the Department of Defense wants to turn off Facebook and Twitter for our troops according to a great story by Noah Shachtman in Wired.
If [...]
Watch this video from Ad Age where BlogHer's Elisa Page talks about the importance of ethics around paid blogging.
As Elisa says, "the mere disclosure that a blogger is accepting money to include product mentions in a post is not enough to solve the problem."
BlogHer's principles of separating advertising and editorial are right on.
I was thrilled to be a part of SmartBrief’s panel discussion last week, “How to Create a Viral Marketing Success,” featuring Stacey Kane of California Tortilla, Brendan Hart of National Geographic, and Stephanie Miller of Return Path — and moderated by Guy Kawasaki.
We covered a bunch of topics, including how California Tortilla reaches 100,000 [...]
Come to BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media on April 7 in Cincinnati to hear Dell, Duke Energy, Procter & Gamble, Hilton Worldwide, AT&T, Tyson Foods, Graco, and General Mills share case studies in corporate social media.
Clorox: Using gaming strategies to grow community
BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media
