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The Technology Power List for October

The Power List for Tech

Welcome to The Technology Power List for October! This will be the first update of the Power List for the Technology industry. You can view September’s Tech Power List here.

Why have a Power List for the Tech space? Because I wanted to highlight workers that are doing a great job of leveraging social media to connect with customers, partners and clients. It’s damn hard to work in the tech space and still carve out time to create engaging content for social media. I am hopeful that by putting a spotlight on a few of the tech all-stars, it will make their jobs a little easier.

If you want to view all the candidates for the Tech Power List, follow this list on Twitter. If you work in the tech space and would like to be considered for the Power List, then follow me on Twitter and reply to me and ask to be included.  Please state clearly in your profile bio what company you work for in tech, and your position. And the Power List isn’t limited to just big brands, startups and smaller tech companies are just fine.

Sponsorship options are now available for The Power List for Technology! If you want to sponsor this month’s list, click here for prices and info on sponsorship levels.

So enough yakkin’, let’s get to the Tech Power List for October!

The Top 10 will be ranked 1-10. There will be a number after their name in parentheses that shows the change in their score this month versus last.

I am SO excited for this list because we have some new entries!!! It’s so exciting to see people entering the Power List. Now those of you that will see your scores and/or rank drop, keep in mind that it’s likely due to there simply being a larger pool of candidates this time versus last month.

The Technology Power List for October:

1 – Pat Gelsinger, CEO at Intel, Power List Score – 91 (+1). Pat hits it out of the park, once again. High volume of tweets, good mix of reposts with original content as well. Mostly focused on Intel, but a few personal tweets around scripture mixed in as well.  Bravo. And it’s highly unusual to see the CEO at a major brand being this active on Twitter, and curating, creating and sharing such good content. Well done, Mr. Gelsinger, you continue to set the pace for the Technology Power List!

2 – Sergio Raguso, Regulation Manager @ Siemens, Power List Score – 86. (+6) So last month, the take on Sergio’s profile that he was prolific as a tweeter, but I wanted to see a bit of content with his personal take on the work he does, or even life in general. His frequency of content is still off the charts, but in September he’s started mixing in some tweets with more personal content, and that’s much appreciated. A nice 6-point jump in score for Sergio this month.

3 – Greg Joswiak, SVP of Marketing at Apple, Power List Score – 85. (-1) A solid month for Greg, even with a ton of big news coming out of Apple that could have kept him busy and off Twitter. Nice output of content, and he’s still solidly in the mix as one of the leaders in the Tech Power List.

4 – Sushail Kakar, Developer Relations @ Livepeer, Power List Score – 84 (-). Sushail’s content is so geeky and nerdy, I just love it! High volume of content, good mix, notice he gets very good engagement on his content, he’s focused on techy work that developers and even tech hobbyists can relate to. Great job, Sushail!

5 – Lauren Cooney, VP Java Cloud Services, Oracle, Power List Score – 80 (+3). So Lauren’s profile is the first one on the list that has a lot of personal content, even moreso than tweets about the work she does at Oracle. But that’s ok, because she does tweet semi-regularly about her work. And her volume is off the charts, and that’s why her score jumps 3 points this month, looking forward to what comes this month.

6 – Stella Low, Chief of Corporate Affairs and Communications @ HP, Power List Score – 79. New entry alert! Congrats to Stella who joins the Tech Power List at #6. Good volume, nice mix of content focused on HP, but also sprinkles in some personal content and her original takes on the industry and work she does. Nice, welcome aboard!

7 – Krithika Muthukumar, VP of Marketing @ OpenAI, Power List Score – 78. Another new entry, congrats Krithika! And wow, cool job title! Krithika was suggested by multiple people and she has a pretty good Twitter profile.  Solid volume of content, focused on her work and the AI/Tech space. As with most of the others on this list, as her volume increases, her score can only go up. Welcome aboard!

8 – Maria Poveromo, SVP and Chief Communications Officer @ Cisco, Power List Score – 77 (+5). So the analysis for last month was that I loved Maria’s content, I just wanted to see more of it. She increased her tweeting a bit in Sept, and her score jumped as a result. Awesome! Let’s hope this is the start of a trend so we can see her score soon hit 80.

9 – Jennifer Davis, Corporate Affairs @ Dell, Power List Score – 76 (-). So Jennifer and Maria had about the same advice last month, loved both of their content, just wanted to see more of it. Still the same, love Jennifer’s content, hope she can pull herself away from doing amazing work at Dell to send out a few more tweets.

10 – Chloe Jones, Gaming Brand Manager @ Lenovo, Power List Score – 73. YAS! I am sooo happy to see Chloe on the Power List this month. I wanted to put her on the list last month, but I just couldn’t justify it then, because she had only posted a few times this year, at the time. But since last month’s Power List, she has tweeted several times, so she earned her way onto this month’s Power List. I love her content and I’m such a fan of the gaming and eSports space. Chloe please keep tweeting at the same rate as you did in September! I love your content and want to see you keep rising on the Power List!

 

So THREE new entries in this month’s Tech Power List! Congrats again to Chloe, Stella and Krithika! And overall, the scores were mostly up, which is great to see. This group as a whole definitely feels like it’s improved over last month, let’s hope we can continue to see growth in November’s Power List.

 

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Amazon’s $4B Investment in Anthropic, Twitter Making a Profit, Gen Z’s Social Media Habits

Happy Monday, y’all! Welcome to October, probably my favorite month of the year, at least from a weather perspective. It’s starting out hot, but by Halloween the days and nights will be crisp and clear, I can’t wait! While we wait, let’s stay busy and immersed in a few stories from the business/marketing/web3 worlds:

 

As I’ve said before, Claude is my favorite AI tool. Well it’s parent company, Anthropic, just announced a massive $4B investment from Amazon. This makes sense, as Amazon would no doubt love to leverage the technology behind Claude to help with production recommendations, summarizing user reviews, etc.

 

So Twitter/X CEO Linda Yaccarino recently gave us an update on the platform’s performance. She claims that 90% of its Top 100 advertisers have returned to Twitter/X, and that the platform is on pace to return to profitability sometime early next year. When Elon announced Yaccarino as new CEO, I speculated that the main driver for this move was the sense that Yaccarino could coax advertisers to return to Twitter, and it seems that’s working. I’m still very much worried about the future of the platform, as Elon keeps hinting that he wants to take Twitter/X to a completely paid platform, meaning all users would have to pay a fee to use the platform.

 

How are Gen Zers (born approximately 1996-2010) using social media?  To watch videos…and some other stuff. If you want to create content that connects with teens and twentysomethings, it needs to be video first, at least that’s the findings we see below:

 

So that’s it for this edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute! What do we have on tap for the rest of the week here? Tomorrow, we will have the FIRST update to a Power List, as the October Power List for Technology will be revealed (Spoiler alert: We have THREE new entries!). And on Thursday there will be a new post up on restaurant marketing.

I hope you all have a wonderfully productive week!

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How to Protect and Enhance Your Tourism Destination’s Online Reputation

tourism reputation management

Online reviews from current and former travelers are vital to forming your destination’s online reputation. For instance, travelers use their mobile devices 83% of the time to research a trip before booking. What others are saying about your destination or attraction matters to travelers, so your tourism reputation management strategy should be given serious consideration.

This comprehensive guide explores proven strategies travel marketers should employ to actively monitor, manage and build their online reputation and credibility.

Conduct Sentiment Research Across Sites

In the introduction I mentioned that 83% of travelers are doing trip research on their mobile phones. You also have to consider how much research travelers are doing at home on their laptops as well. The point is, travelers will be doing a LOT of online research, and your destination or attraction must actively monitor the information that travelers will be reviewing, so you can manage your online reputation appropriately. Here’s some tactics to keep in mind:

  • Monitor review sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp, Google Travel, and Facebook for location-specific mentions. When a traveler begins researching a potential trip, review sites will be one of the first stops they make. You must be aware of what is being said about your location online, so you can build out a proper tourism reputation management strategy.
  • Conduct social listening across platforms to analyze trends in perceptions, issues and reactions. This applies to mentions of your destination as well as competing attractions or locations. Figure out what’s working for you, and what’s working for others, and adjust your tourism reputation management efforts accordingly.
  • Survey recent guests to see what they liked and disliked about their stay. Pro tip: Follow up personally with 4-star reviews and ask these guests what could have been done differently to earn a 5-star review.
  • Audit star ratings, attributes and keywords frequently cited to identify strengths and weaknesses. Don’t focus solely on complaints, often guests will appreciate a feature of their stay that you may not be focusing your attention on. When guests are telling you that something is working, put a spotlight on it!

Being aware of what travelers like and dislike about your destination or attraction gives you the information you need to improve the guest experience.

Optimize First Party Review Generation

Focus on generating increased reviews from guests and visitors. Also focus on generating more positive reviews internally and via third party sites by:

  • Email guests to encourage reviews. As part of the survey, ask guests to tell you at what point in their trip were they the most satisfied, for instance at the beginning, middle or end. Once you have identified the point during a stay where the average guest is the most satisfied with their trip, send an email asking for a review. Send a followup email 2-3 days after the stay ends reminding the guest to fill out your survey, if they haven’t already.
  • On-site signage with QR codes to easily leave a review before departing. Track survey results of the most popular locations at your destination or attraction and place signage with survey reminders in these location. The idea is you want to give your guests a reminder to fill out a survey when they are most satisfied with their stay. Also make sure the signage encourages reviews on third party sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor and Google Reviews.
  • Offering incentives like loyalty points, discounts or free amenities to motivate contribution. By tying incentives to reviews from loyalty program members, you are encouraging your most satisfied guests to leave reviews, which is exactly what you want, especially on third party sites.
  • Sharing positive feedback publicly to build social proof. Digital signage on-site can show guest reviews and social media posts from satisfied visitors. This also models the type of behavior you want current guests to exhibit, so include a call-to-action with signage encouraging guests to create and share their own feedback on their own social media accounts.

First party platforms allow you to highlight strengths through UGC.

Respond Skillfully to Negative Reviews

Negative feedback is inevitable. How you respond to negative feedback is even more important than the criticism itself. Here’s some tips to keep in mind:

  • Respond professionally and calmly to critical reviews. Never get defensive, remember that your tone and energy will greatly dictate any future interactions with this guest as well as others.
  • Empathize with their dissatisfaction and if a legitimate error was made, offer to make it right. Do NOT apologize for an error until you have confirmed that the error actually happened.  Believe it or not, sometimes the customer IS wrong. It’s fine to apologize for their feelings when you first interact with the dissatisfied guest, but you should not apologize for something unless you know it happened.
  • Let the guest know that you have considered their feedback, and clearly communicate what steps will be taken to address. This is vitally important if the interaction is happening in public such as via tweets or comments on a social platform. By letting the guest know that you are taking steps to address their complaints, it communicates to that guest and any potential guests viewing the interaction that you take complaints seriously.  This communicates respect for the guest and it can help diffuse the situation.
  • Consider inviting unhappy reviewers back as guests to change perceptions. This also communicates that you want to ‘make it right’ and that you want to prove to the guest that you have acted on their feedback in an effort to improve the situation.
  • For unfounded claims or ‘fake reviews’, tactfully present facts or contact platform admins. Do NOT argue with a guest who has presented misinformation, it may not have been intentional. Politely correct the misinformation, and invite the guest to contact you directly (and more importantly privately) in order to address their concerns.

BONUS: Your Complete Guide to Responding to Angry Customers Online

If criticism is handled correctly, you can often convert an angry guest into a passionate fan.

Promote Positive UGC Broadly

Regardless of the industry you are in, your best salespeople are your happy customers/guests/visitors. As we’ve already discussed, travelers will consult reviews and feedback left by other travelers before committing to a trip. So you want to do all you can to promote positive content created by your happy guests and visitors. Here’s some tactics you can use:

  • Spotlight UGC in ads and across your digital touchpoints. Focus on sites that you know travelers will likely be using when researching an upcoming trip.
  • Re-share guest content to your social accounts when permitted. UGC builds trust with fellow travelers.
  • Aggregate video and visual content for compilation promotional reels. Pro Tip: Monitor social channels and if you find guests sharing content during their visit, contact them and ask if you can use their content. Offer perks such as loyalty points or room upgrades.
  • Publish curated guest galleries on your website highlighting stellar experiences.

User content highlights your best salespeople: Your happy guests.

Continuously Improve based on Insights

Use ratings, attributes and feedback to guide ongoing enhancements:

  • Identify recurring themes in complaints so they can be addressed systemically. Likewise, uncover recurring themes that are viewed positively by guests and develop a plan to leverage them.
  • Develop improvement plans for locations or services suffering repeated low ratings. Track problems and collect feedback from guests on desired improvements. Make changes as possible, and then communicate to guests that improvements have been made, based on visitor feedback. This communicates to guests that you will act on their feedback.
  • Look at highly rated competitors to identify gaps in the visitor experience.
  • Align guest satisfaction with desired brand associations through data analysis.

Proactively managing your reputation leads to higher visitor satisfaction, and loyalty.

Today’s travelers heavily factor reviews into travel plans. By embracing authentic engagement, responding quickly to guest feedback, and continuously improving, tourism brands can turn even critics into vocal advocates over time.

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The Restaurant Power List for September

The Restaurant Power List

Welcome to The Restaurant Power List for September! This is my list of the Power accounts on Twitter for the restaurant/fast food/dining space. The Power List will be updated once a month.

Sponsorship options are now available for The Restaurant Power List! If you want to sponsor this month’s list, click here for prices and info on sponsorship levels.

If you want to be eligible for The Power List, do this:

1 – Follow me on Twitter. Make sure you have your position and the technology company you work for listed in your profile.

2 – If you want to nominate someone else to be on the Power List, tweet me their username on Twitter and I will be happy to check them out.

 

Here’s where you can find all the candidates for The Restaurant Power List. If you’re on that list, you are eligible for the Power List.

The Power List will rank the Top 10 Power users on Twitter. That number may expand past a Top 10 as the candidate pool becomes larger.  In fact I hope it does.

How is the Power List ranked?  How do I get to be #1?

I’ve been working with corporate teams to help them leverage Twitter as a communications tool for about 15 years now. So a lot of the Power List rankings is simply based on my experience working with people in a corporate setting and understanding what works and what doesn’t.

In short, there are two main consideration buckets I have when I rank the Power List:

1 – Posting frequency. I need to see enough content on your Twitter feed to see that you are making an effort to use Twitter to communicate with others. You don’t have to tweet every day, but if your last tweet is from December of 2022, you won’t be on the Power List.

2 – Original content. What I mean by that is I want to see content that’s written in your own unique voice. I get that working in a corporate environment comes with certain ‘challenges’ in regards to the tone and voice of your content. But that doesn’t mean that you should simply use your Twitter feed to repost your company’s press releases. Go behind the scenes, give us a sense of what your daily work day is like. One of the thoughts I should have when reading your Twitter feed is ‘Wow, that looks like a cool job, I wouldn’t mind working there!’

 

Before I get to the first Power List for the Restaurant industry, I wanted to share some general takeaways on what I learned from spending a LOT of time the past few weeks looking at Twitter profiles in the space:

1 – I mentioned above that one of the main criteria I look at when ranking profiles for The Power List is I want to see is ‘original’ content. What I mean by that is I want to see your unique perspective on the work you do. I think this is some of the most engaging and compelling content that someone working in a corporate environment can create. Up until this list, I really struggled to find candidates for the Power List that did a great job of creating content that communicates to me that they love their jobs. But the top 2 profiles on The Restaurant Power List knocked that ball out of the park.

2 – It was rough finding solid candidates for this Power List. Almost as brutal as it was for the Retail Power List. It’s not that good candidates aren’t out there, it’s just that a lot of them have left Twitter for LinkedIn. Same thing I saw in the Technology industry. So far, the Tourism space is the only industry of the four Power Lists where most of the candidates are as active on Twitter as they are on LinkedIn.

3 – I think there is a ton of potential for workers in the Restaurant industry to have fun with their social media accounts. The top accounts on the Power List are tapping into that potential and it’s clear they are having a blast with their jobs. That reflects positively on them AND the brands they work for. The sooner brands in ALL industries understand this, the sooner they can begin to leverage the content that their workers create on social as a recruiting tool. Because that’s what it becomes. Simply reading the tweets from the members of The Restaurant Power List, I now have a slightly better opinion of McDonald’s and Aunty Anne’s as a result.

 

The Restaurant Power List for September:

1 – Guillaume Huin, Head of Social Media @ McDonald’s, Power List Score – 93. Guillaume’s profile is a near perfect fusion of company and ‘original’ content. Most of his content is focused on his employer, McDonalds, but none of it feels like I’m reading a press release. Anything but! He makes his work seem fun, and that makes the McDonalds brand more relatable and likeable. If you are working in a corporate environment and want to learn how to create content about your employer and work that is ALSO interesting, study Guillaume’s content, because he’s giving you the blueprint. Well done, indeed (round of applause from the crowd).

2 – Bari Tippett, Social Media @ Auntie Anne’s, Power List Score – 90. You just have to enjoy reading Bari’s tweets. She leans more on the personal side than professional in her tweets, but her takes are always interesting. Like Guillaume, she makes her employer Auntie Anne seem like a fun brand to work for. She is great at building her personal brand, and that reflects positively on her employer. More companies need to be willing to embrace employers who I great at building their personal brand, as Bari is. Another very solid entry in the Power List.

3 – Gregg Majewski, CEO of Craveworthy Brands, Power List Score – 86. I kept bumping Gregg’s profile higher up the Power List the more I reviewed it. On my first initial pass of the candidates, Gregg was around 5th or 6th place. But the more I reviewed his profile and compared him to others on the list, I had to keep moving him up. Now Bari and Guillaume are very comfortable sharing their own personal opinions on their work, and not all workers (or their employers) are as willing to do the same. I get that. For those workers, look at what Gregg does with his content. Almost all of his content is focused on his brands, but he typically includes enough of an individual take on the content to make it more interesting, He will usually share a ‘here’s why I think this is interesting’ take on any content he shares. Which is much appreciated, and this is a great example of how a CEO can create compelling content on Twitter.

4 – Carl Loredo, Global CMO @ Wendy’s, Power List Score – 85. Carl has a solid profile. Good frequency, almost all of his content is focused on his employer, which is what you would expect from a Global CMO. I would like to see more content related strictly to Wendy’s marketing efforts, Carl is in a unique position where he could speak to this area. I think more content that pulls back the curtain and gives us insights into Wendy’s campaign development would be gold, and could push his profile toward a Power List score of 90 or higher.

5 – Tariq Hassan, CMO @ McDonalds, Power List Score – 83. A very solid profile, Tariq allows his character and personality to flow in his tweets in a way that’s very rare for the C-Suite on Twitter. His posting frequency is a bit on the low side, otherwise his score would be about 5 points higher.

6 – Meredith Almond, Social @ Jimmy John’s, Power List Score – 80. I went back and forth on where to rank Meredith’s profile. She has really good frequency of content, yet 75% of that content is personal, with the rest being a mix of content about Jimmy John’s, and her thoughts on working in social media. Still, just 25% of her content being about her work means she’s posting more often about her work than some who are tweeting about their work 100% of the time. If that makes sense, and it probably doesn’t. I think if Meredith could give us a bit more content about the social campaigns that Jimmy John’s is executing, it would really lift her profile.

7 – Brett Hammit, Data Scientist @ Yum! Brands, Power List Score – 73. Of all the profiles on all 4 Power Lists, I may have struggled the most on where to rank Brett’s profile. First, his content frequency is adequate, although it’s much better than some of the participants on this and past Power Lists. It could definitely improve. But none of his content is directly focused on his employer. Normally, that would be an automatic dis qualifier. Yet the majority of his content IS focused on data and data science. Which is his field. So I think if Brett would increase his frequency of posting AND have that content be around ‘Here’s how we are using data science at Yum! Brands’, even at a 30,000 foot level, his profile would really take off.

8 – Ali Beemer, Communications Manager @ Darden Restaurants, Power List Score – 72. We see a big drop off in the number of tweets for the final 3 members of the Power List. Ali doesn’t tweet very often, if she could get in a habit in tweeting even every couple of weeks, with at least half focusing on her work at Darden, it would greatly increase her score.

9 – Helen Mackey, SVP Marketing, Darden Restaurants, Power List Score – 71. As with Ali, she needs to tweet more. Hope to see more content, and hopefully focused on her work in marketing at Darden.

10 – Clay Johnson CTDO – Yum! Brands, Power List Score – 70. Very low activity from Clay’s account. Just from reading his brief bio on Twitter you can see that he has a wealth of work and life history to pull from to create amazing content. I hope he can start to do just that, his score would really take off if he did.

 

So that’s it for the first Restaurant Power List! A fairly top-heavy group, but the ones at the top are pretty amazing. Please follow the people that made this list, you can click on their name and it will take you to their Twitter profile so you can follow them. If you would like to nominate yourself or a peer for inclusion in The Toursm Power List, please follow me on Twitter, and make sure you have your position and the company you work for clearly listed in your Twitter profile. That’s it! All candidates for the Power List are on this list.

Would you like to sponsor The Power List for Restaurants? Here’s information on available options as well as prices.

So now that we have our first batch of Power Lists done for the Technology, Retail, Tourism and Restaurant industries, let’s do an extra Top 5 of ALL the lists:

1 – Kathryn Shea Duncan – 94 (Tourism)

2 – Guillaume Huin – 93 (Restaurants)

3 – Leisha Elliott – 93 (Tourism)

4 – Lou Dubois – 92 (Retail)

5 – Jim Hagen – 91 (Tourism)

 

Well done by all! Please remember to follow all the members of each list and leave a comment if there’s someone in ALL of these four industries who I should be considering for The Power List.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Another Elon Misstep, Instagram Still the King of Influencer Marketing, YouTube Adds AI Tools for Creators

Happy Monday, y’all! It’s the first official full week of Fall! My favorite time of the year! I hope you are ready to have a productive week, here’s a few stories that caught my eye over the last week:

 

I started to spin this story into its own post, and probably will at some point soon. Elon is floating the idea of charging ALL Twitter users a fee to use his platform. This is the first time in my 16+ years of using Twitter that I am seriously considering if it is time to leave the platform. Working on the Power Lists for Technology, Retail and Tourism (with Restaurants debuting on Weds) has been an eye-opener. I had always heard peers claim that there was a mass exodus of professionals from Twitter when Elon took over, but I just assumed that was overblown. It’s not, at least not in the four industries above.  Pros from technology, retail, tourism, and restaurant are absolutely more active right now on LinkedIn than they are on Twitter. In reviewing hundreds of Twitter accounts over the last month, I lost count on how many pros hadn’t tweeted in 2023, who were active on LinkedIn. I’ve been hearing ‘Is Twitter dying?’ for at least the last 10-12 years. This is the first time I think it’s a legitimate question to ask.

 

Companies working with influencers are still spending more marketing dollars on Instagram than anywhere else. Perhaps it’s simply a desire to be contrarian, but I’m wondering if there’s an opportunity for a certain brand to partner with the right influencer and create some momentum on Snapchat? Sometimes it pays to go in the opposite direction of the herd.

 

Social media platforms continue to integrate AI as a way to aid creators. LinkedIn has done it, Elon is working on an AI alternative to ChatGPT that will no doubt be integrated into Twitter/X, and now YouTube is doing the same. I think we will eventually see a time very soon where video platforms like YouTube will allow you to create a video on the fly from a simple prompt, using AI. An additional app YouTube announced is YouTube Create, which is a standalone app that is geared toward mobile creators, giving them simple editing tools to use on the fly. I actually think it will be a big hit with smaller YouTube creators.

 

So that’s it for this week’s edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute. On Thursday, I will have a new post on tourism marketing. But tomorrow the debut edition of The Restaurant Power List will launch, so be sure to check back here to see who ends up #1! Hope you have an amazing week!

 

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The Tourism Power List for September

Welcome to The Tourism Power List for September! This is my list of the Power accounts on Twitter for the tourism industry. The Power List will be updated once a month.

Sponsorship options are now available for The Tourism Power List! If you want to sponsor this month’s list, click here for prices and info on sponsorship levels.

There’s two main reasons why I decided to do The Power List:

1 – I wanted to help give exposure to people who are doing a good job of using Twitter in a corporate environment. It’s damn hard to build a following and even any semblance of traction on social media for an account while also doing your core job functions. I wanted to build out The Power List as a platform to help give more exposure to others, and make it just a little easier for them to build a following and engagement around their content.

2 – I wanted to highlight the best use of Twitter, and use that as a way to show others how to improve their own use of Twitter. The Power List will become a way to showcase the best of the best, and also show all of us how to learn from the best of the best and improve our own efforts.

 

If you want to be eligible for The Power List, do this:

1 – Follow me on Twitter. Make sure you have your position and the technology company you work for listed in your profile.

2 – If you want to nominate someone else to be on the Power List, tweet me their username on Twitter and I will be happy to check them out.

 

Here’s where you can find all the candidates for The Tourism Power List. If you’re on that list, you are eligible for the Power List.

The Power List will rank the Top 10 Power users on Twitter. That number may expand past a Top 10 as the candidate pool becomes larger.  In fact I hope it does.

How is the Power List ranked?  How do I get to be #1?

I’ve been working with corporate teams to help them leverage Twitter as a communications tool for about 15 years now. So a lot of the Power List rankings is simply based on my experience working with people in a corporate setting and understanding what works and what doesn’t.

In short, there are two main consideration buckets I have when I rank the Power List:

1 – Posting frequency. I need to see enough content on your Twitter feed to see that you are making an effort to use Twitter to communicate with others. You don’t have to tweet every day, but if your last tweet is from December of 2022, you won’t be on the Power List.

2 – Original content. What I mean by that is I want to see content that’s written in your own unique voice. I get that working in a corporate environment comes with certain ‘challenges’ in regards to the tone and voice of your content. But that doesn’t mean that you should simply use your Twitter feed to repost your company’s press releases. Go behind the scenes, give us a sense of what your daily work day is like. One of the thoughts I should have when reading your Twitter feed is ‘Wow, that looks like a cool job, I wouldn’t mind working there!’

 

Before I get to the first Power List for the Tourism/Hospitality sector, I wanted to share some general takeaways on what I learned from spending a LOT of time the past few weeks looking at Twitter profiles in the space.

1 – This is the Power List I was most looking forward to. I have such fondness for the tourism space, I love how passionate the people in this space are for the work they do. I also have always loved how travel allows us all to create lifetime memories. Travel and experiences is the ONE thing you actually CAN spend money on, that buys you happiness. As proven by science.

2 – The list of candidates for The Tourism Power List is easily the strongest of any industry I’ve looked at so far. As a result, you’re going to see higher scores for this group, and deservedly so. This group is outstanding.

3 – With a few noticeable exceptions, this group is just as active on Twitter as it is on LinkedIn. I’ve spoken at many tourism and Governor’s conferences over the years, and I did see a few of my tourism contacts were no longer active on Twitter. But many of them still are.

 

The Tourism Power List for September:

1 – Kathryn Shea Duncan, Sr Director of Social Media, Lake Charles CVB, Power List Score – 94. So Kathryn started her current position via promotion last month. To say that she has hit the ground running is an understatement. I think she’s left more tweets in the last week than I have this year. And what’s amazing is, it’s all good content! Kathryn has an insane mix of content that she shares: Podcast episodes, articles, videos, images, her own personal accounts of events. All related to the Lake Charles area of Louisiana. She does an amazing job of leveraging Twitter as a channel to promote the Lake Charles area.  Which is exactly what she should be doing. Just an amazing job, Kathryn. Her score of 94 gives her the highest score of any Power List member, and I’m grading her too low if anything. Kathryn has shared an insane amount of content over the last week or so, I will be curious to see if she can keep up this pace.  If she can continue to share content at her current rate and continue share GOOD content at her current rate, her score will soon top 95, and may even flirt with 100.

2 – Leisha Elliott, Executive Director, Marion Co, WV CVB, Power List Score – 93. Leisha’s account is amazing. I honestly had to go back and forth between ranking Leisha first or second. Her volume of content isn’t as off the charts as Kathryn’s is, but Leisha has been tweeting every day or two consistently for the entire year. And it’s wonderful content, she makes you want to visit Marion County, WV immediately. A job very well, done, Leisha!

3 – Jim Hagen, Sec of Tourism for South Dakota, Power List Score – 91. Jim has another solid Twitter account.  Excellent frequency, excellent diversity of content, all positioned to make you want to visit South Dakota. And Jim, I love the updates on the Crazy Horse Memorial! I would like to see a few more updates with your own personal take or advice on the news and information you are sharing about the Mount Rushmore state. But that’s a minor quibble.

4 – Kyle Edmiston, President/CEO of Lake Charles CVB, Power List Score – 89. Kyle’s account sees a noticeable drop in frequency versus the Top 3 spots.  But Kyle still tweets on a very regular basis. However, Kyle does one thing with his tweets that I really don’t see anyone else on this list doing as well:  He is sharing his own personal opinions on the tourism content he is sharing AND he is sharing content about his team at the Lake Charles CVB, which I love. And he’s Kathryn’s boss, so that speaks to her performance as Director of SM for the Lake Charles CVB as well! Nice job Kyle!

5 – Diana Plazas,CSMO Caribbean & Latin America at Marriott International, Power List Score – 83. The frequency for Diana is lower than the Top 4, but she still consistently posts content on Twitter. It’s a bit different because Diana is posting content associated with Marriott, it’s properties and events and destinations that the hotel partners with. I enjoy Diana’s content, I do think she will need to post a bit more often to stay competitive with this group.  That’s not really a knock on her, it’s more a compliment to how well this group is doing.

6 – Kim Sabow, President and CEO, Arizona Lodging and Tourism Assoc, Power List Score – 81. So I struggled a bit with where to rank Kim’s profile. Her content is focused on what’s happening in the state of Arizona, but mostly at the governmental level. She has some very unique content in that she covers events that she’s participating in as an attendee and speaker, as well as interviews and interactions she and her assoc has with key politicians in her state. Her Twitter feed is a bit heavy on PR content at times, but it’s unique enough to stand out, even from this group.

7 – Adriana Cruz, Executive Director, Texas Economic Development & Tourism, Office of Gov Greg Abbott, Power List Score – 80. Adriana has another profile that I struggled a bit with how to rank it. She has solid frequency and decent content that is almost completely focused on economic development news in Texas, as well as coverage of what Texas Gov Greg Abbott is up to. I would like to see a little more content devoted to actual tourism in Texas.

8 – Becky Nave, Director of Destination Development at Virginia Tourism Corp, Power List Score – 74. A big drop in frequency in the last 3 spots. If Becky could up her content output and make that content be focused on travel in the Bristol, VA area and surrounding, it would greatly help her score.

9 – Robin Bloom, Director of Content, Philadelphia CVB, Power List Score – 73.   Robin has decent content, I would just like to see a lot more.  She has posted a bit more over the last month, so hopefully this is the start of a positive trend.

10 – Edie Emery, Sr Director of Publicity, Nashville CVB, Power List Score – 71. Edie shares good content, just not very often. If she could post at least weekly about events happening in and around Nashville, her score would likely jump 10 points or more.

 

So there’s the first Tourism Power List, and I must say, it’s a damn fine group.  Next week I’ll debut the Restaurant Power List, but so far, my tourism and travel pros are in a class by themselves.

Please follow the people that made this list, you can click on their name and it will take you to their Twitter profile so you can follow them. If you would like to nominate yourself or a peer for inclusion in The Toursm Power List, please follow me on Twitter, and make sure you have your position and the company you work for clearly listed in your Twitter profile. That’s it! All candidates for the Power List are on this list.

Would you like to sponsor The Power List for Retail? Here’s information on available options as well as prices.

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Unlock Sales Growth Through Social Sharing: The Retail Marketing Playbook

social sharing retail

Driving recommendations and organic social sharing has become imperative for forward-thinking retail marketers. Over 14% of retail sales were online in 2022, representing over one trillion in total sales. That’s a massive market that’s only growing every year. Your retail company can greatly accelerate its growth by giving your more passionate customers the tools they need to share content about your brand quickly and easily.

This article will explore 6 proven tactics to facilitate digital and social sharing that accelerates awareness, consideration, and sales.

Conduct Social Listening Research

It’s vital that you understand the online conversations happening around and about your retail brand. Here’s a few important considerations:

  • Monitoring social conversations for motivators like unique products, quality, brand affinity and customer service. Both positive and negative brand mentions should be escalated to the appropriate team and given a response ASAP. Don’t simply react to negative comments and ignore positive ones. Just as negative comments need a quick response, so do positive comments from customers. The quicker your brand can respond appropriately to a positive account, the more likely that customer is to create MORE positive content around and about your brand.
  • Tracking patterns in sharing by geography, demographics and other factors. Look for trends that indicate customer behavior. Once you’ve identified behavior patterns, it will become even easier to respond quickly and appropriately to customer feedback.
  • Identifying brand advocates and influencers driving significant word-of-mouth. These are your MVP customers. They are the customers who are consistently driving positive word of mouth, and you want to create and build a relationship with them. We’ll talk more about how to do this throughout this article.

These insights inform a targeted approach to activating consumers.

Incentivize Customers with Loyalty Program Perks

Loyalty programs present a prime mechanism to directly motivate social sharing and recommendations. Here’s some mechanisms to keep in mind:

  • Award points or discounts for shares, UGC, tags, and reviews. Prioritize which behavior is most beneficial to your brand and structure your customer incentives to encourage that outcome.
  • Develop tiered rewards based on volume and authenticity of advocacy. Structure rewards so the best rewards are given to customers for engaging in the behavior that’s most beneficial to your brand.
  • Recognize top brand ambassadors and evangelists through VIP badges and perks. I’ve talked before about rewarding the behavior you want to encourage. Identify your best advocates and loyalty participants, and put the spotlight on them. Think of it as modeling to your other customers what the ideal behavior is that you want them to engage in.
  • Promote social sharing pathways and benefits clearly across program touchpoints. Focus on encouraging social sharing via the channels that are most beneficial to your brand.

Leveraging loyalty initiatives turns customers into promoters and salespeople for your brand.

Launch User-Generated Content Campaigns

User-generated visuals like product photos or videos, store experience captures, and creative use cases provide customers the opportunity to sell your brand directly. Prompt UGC creation through:

  • Branded hashtags – Encourage customers to tag posts with your campaign hashtag. This helps with monitoring and attribution to track ROI.
  • Integration in on-site experiences – Provide signs, props and tools to make sharing in-store fun. Place prompts in high traffic areas and around products that are driving organic excitement and attention.
  • Contests – Build UGC volume through prize incentives tied to creative challenges. Lean on your existing loyalty program for implementation and ideas.
  • Spotlights – Repurpose compelling user content across your social channels when permissions allow. Use the most effective UGC to not only drive awareness but to also serve as an example for other customers of the type of UGC you would like to see them create as well.

UGC activates customers while expanding your original content library.

Simplify Social Sharing

The easier you make sharing, the more it will be embraced. Best practices include:

  • Add social sharing buttons prominently on product pages, blog articles, in-store and across all platforms. Make sure that sharing buttons are attached to the content that you want to see shared. Low-hanging fruit should always be taken advantage of.
  • Give customers examples of content they could create, such as example tweets or posts. This helps simplify the content creation process for customers.
  • Develop shortlinks, custom URLs and QR codes to make links highly shareable and trackable. This gives you a better sense of what content from which customers is generating more or less traction.

Seamless social functionality entices more participation.

Partner With Micro-Influencers

Work with real customers with engaged niche followings rather than celebrities. Micro influencers have smaller followings, but typically are far more engaged with their networks. Ideal alliances:

  • Offer free product and insider access in return for organic promotion to their networks. Never overlook the value of special access. True fans of your brand will see the value in getting special access that the average customer does not have. For example, bring customers on-site to engage directly with key executives involved in product marketing, design and rollout. Fans will see this access as a true perk, and view it as compensation.
  • Develop exclusive collaborations and products with unique codes for them to share. Whenever possible, always make sure every piece of content that every influencer you work with creates has tracking attached to it. Unique codes are perfect to attribute shares and traction to a specific influencer.
  • Seek advocates who genuinely know and love your brand over one-off sponsors. Multi-touch relationships amplify impact. If an influencer already loves your brand, they will likely already be working to help you build your brand via their content creation. On the other hand, if an influencer has no affinity toward your brand, then that influencer will be working to build their personal brand, not your company’s brand.

When followers view an influencer as a peer, their advocacy drives action. Micro-influencers have a smaller following, but that allows them to have tighter connections with that smaller following. They reach fewer people, but they can more easily have an impact on each individual person as a result.

Analyze and Continuously Optimize Social Sharing Among Your Retail Customers

A data-driven approach ensures social activation delivers measurable impact. Track:

  • Share of voice vs competitors on digital and social channels. Compare and contrast your results versus those of other companies in your space. Identify what’s working for the competition, then determine WHY it’s working, and decide if you can apply the same or similar principles to improve your own efforts.
  • Web referral traffic, account creation and sales derived from shares. It’s vital to know which channels and which customers/influencers are driving shares and ultimately sales. Address laggards as well as your best performers. Identify what’s working and attempt to replicate those results across all channels and shares.
  • UGC content engagement rates and user sentiment. Track content creation volume as well as engagement rates and response rate. Track the types of engagement and prioritize the types of response that are most desired.
  • If sharing incentives lead to a boost in participation rates among customers. Track which incentives lead to changes in behavior that are beneficial to your bramd.

Continuous optimization and creativity sustains momentum as tactics mature.

Activate Advocates Authentically

Channel the influence of delighted customers and brand advocates through innovation and ingenuity. A comprehensive plan to encourage social sharing will lead to customers driving online word of mouth, and sales. Prioritizing one high-potential tactic builds foundation for a scalable sharing ecosystem.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Gen Z Loves AI, Top 5 Industries For Digital Ads, Research on Social Media ROI

Happy Monday, y’all! I hope you are ready for a productive week.  Saturday is the first day of Fall! Fall is my favorite time of the year, I love it! Here’s a few business/marketing stories that caught my eye over the last week.

 

Not surprisingly, youngsters are more likely to use AI tools, and become proficient using them. A recent survey by SalesForce found that 49% of respondents have used generative AI tools, with 70% of Gen Z using them. The article also notes that 68% of Baby Boomers and Gen X have not used AI tools.  Apparently anyone born prior to 1981 is automatically ‘old’ now.

 

Five industries will see above average growth in digital ad spending in 2023. They are, in order; Travel, Retail, Healthcare, Automotive, Entertainment. I suppose all those make sense in one way or another, maybe automotive is the hardest to rationalize.  But the others I can see. Speaking of travel, the first Tourism Power List will debut this week, more on that at the end of the post.

 

Sprout Social has released its latest report on the state of social media marketing. From the takeaways that Sprout Social has shared, it seems like many marketers are still struggling to accurately measure the business impact of social media, which is amazing to say in 2023. It was interesting that the study found that 81% of respondents can already see that AI is making a positive impact on their work, but that makes sense from a content creation perspective.

 

So that’s it for this week’s edition of the Monday Marketing Minute. So tomorrow, I have a new post up on retail marketing, and on Wednesday, I will publish the debut edition of the Tourism Power List. I’m so pumped for that as the tourism space is probably my favorite to work in.  If you want to get a sneak peek at the Tourism Power List candidates, here they are.

I hope you have a wonderful week, enjoy the Fall weather!

 

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The Retail Power List for September

Welcome to The Retail Power List for September! This is my list of the Power accounts on Twitter for the retail industry. The Power List will be updated once a month.

Sponsorship options are now available for The Power List for Retail! If you want to sponsor this month’s list, click here for prices and info on sponsorship levels.

There’s two main reasons why I decided to do The Power List:

1 – I wanted to help give exposure to people who are doing a good job of using Twitter in a corporate environment. It’s damn hard to build a following and even any semblance of traction on social media for an account while also doing your core job functions. I wanted to build out The Power List as a platform to help give more exposure to others, and make it just a little easier for them to build a following and engagement around their content.

2 – I wanted to highlight the best use of Twitter, and use that as a way to show others how to improve their own use of Twitter. The Power List will become a way to showcase the best of the best, and also show all of us how to learn from the best of the best and improve our own efforts.

 

If you want to be eligible for The Power List, do this:

1 – Follow me on Twitter. Make sure you have your position and the technology company you work for listed in your profile.

2 – If you want to nominate someone else to be on the Power List, tweet me their username on Twitter and I will be happy to check them out.

 

Here’s where you can find all the candidates for the Power List for Retail. If you’re on that list, you are eligible for the Power List.

The Power List will rank the Top 10 Power users on Twitter. That number may expand past a Top 10 as the candidate pool becomes larger.  In fact I hope it does.

How is the Power List ranked?  How do I get to be #1?

I’ve been working with corporate teams to help them leverage Twitter as a communications tool for about 15 years now. So a lot of the Power List rankings is simply based on my experience working with people in a corporate setting and understanding what works and what doesn’t.

In short, there are two main consideration buckets I have when I rank the Power List:

1 – Posting frequency. I need to see enough content on your Twitter feed to see that you are making an effort to use Twitter to communicate with others. You don’t have to tweet every day, but if your last tweet is from December of 2022, you won’t be on the Power List.

2 – Original content. What I mean by that is I want to see content that’s written in your own unique voice. I get that working in a corporate environment comes with certain ‘challenges’ in regards to the tone and voice of your content. But that doesn’t mean that you should simply use your Twitter feed to repost your company’s press releases. Go behind the scenes, give us a sense of what your daily work day is like. One of the thoughts I should have when reading your Twitter feed is ‘Wow, that looks like a cool job, I wouldn’t mind working there!’

 

Before I get to the first Power List for the Retail sector, I wanted to share some general takeaways on what I learned from spending a LOT of time the past few weeks looking at Twitter profiles in the space.

1 – As with the Power List for Technology, I noticed a LOT of retail pros have left Twitter over the last few years. One of the rules I had for inclusion in the Power List is that you must have left at least one tweet in the year 2023. That rule zapped a LOT of candidates. I lost count on how many retail accounts I saw with a last tweet in December of 2022.

2 – Pros in the retail industry love LinkedIn. I saw so many candidates that weren’t on Twitter, but were on LinkedIn.

3 – Much smaller candidate pool for the Retail Power List than Technology.  I’ve already started working on the Power List for Tourism for next week, and its much easier to find candidates for it as well. Finding candidates for the Retail list was simply brutal at times. Please nominate yourself or a peer if you work in corporate retail!

 

The Retail Power List for September:

1 – Lou Dubois, Senior Director, Content and Creative – The Home Depot, Power List Score – 92. Lou is #1 with the highest score so far on any Power List. Lou is very active, and his profile has a good mix of personal and professional content. Well done indeed.

2 – William White, CMO at WalMart, Power List Score – 85. Purely looking at posting frequency, William probably has the best profile I’ve seen so far on any Power List. He’s averaging a new tweet every 5-7 days like clockwork. The only slight downside I saw is his content is 100% corporate and focused on WalMart. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I think if he wove in a few ‘behind the scenes’ types videos of what a ‘Day in the Life’ of a WalMart CMO or employee is like, I think that content would really help round out his profile. Nonetheless, he has a really good profile.

3 – Hal Lawton, CEO of Tractor Supply, Power List Score – 83. Hal has a pretty solid profile. Decent frequency, a lot of reposts and pointing toward content others have created that tell the Tractor Supply story.

4 – Emmalee Smith, Social Media Manager at Kroger, Power List Score – 79. So I struggled a bit with where to rank Emmalee’s profile. She’s fairly active, but her content is far more personal than focused on Kroger. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. She does have some interesting thoughts on working in corporate social media that I think a lot of people in the space can relate to.

5 – Sumit Singh, CEO of Chewy.com, Power List Score – 75. So from this point forward, all profiles left on this edition of the Retail Power List will have some serious frequency issues to address. Sumit’s last tweet is May 4th, and up till that point he was doing a pretty good job with his profile. Hopefully he will return to the same frequency he had earlier this year, and his score will rise considerably if he does.

6 – E. Blake Jackson, Global Communications, WalMart, Power List Score – 74. I struggled a bit with where to rank Blake’s profile on this list. His frequency is not bad, especially for this list. Almost all of his content is personal, there’s very little about his employer. I think if he upped his frequency about 20% and had that additional content be focused on WalMart and some behind-the-scenes info, that his profile would really take off.

7 – Keith Daily, Group VP Corporate Affairs, Kroger, Power List Score – 73. Keith is sharing decent content, just not much of it.  Only a few tweets so far in 2023. I checked and he’s far more active sharing content on LinkedIn, I think if he could post some of that content as well on Twitter, it would help build his following there as well.

8 – Dan Bartlett, EVP of Corporate Affairs, WalMart, Power List Score – 72. Very little content from Dan, it is updating us on what’s happening at WalMart, which is nice. But I would like to see more.

9 – Keegan Shoutz, PR, Best Buy, Power List Score – 71. Very little content so far in 2023. I hope that changes.

10 – Tony Lemma, Regional VP, The Home Depot, Power List Score – 70. Same thing, very little content in 2023.

 

One final note: Notice that 3 of the members of The Power List are from WalMart. I looked at almost every major website for a company in the retail industry over the last couple of weeks. WalMart was the only one I found that clearly listed the social media accounts for each member of its executive team.

So that’s the first Power List for Retail! Please follow the people that made this list, you can click on their name and it will take you to their Twitter profile so you can follow them. If you would like to nominate yourself or a peer for inclusion in The Power List for Retail, please follow me on Twitter, and make sure you have your position and the company you work for clearly listed in your Twitter profile. That’s it! All candidates for the Power List are on this list.

Would you like to sponsor The Power List for Retail? Here’s information on available options as well as prices.

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Igniting Organic Advocacy: The Tech Brand Growth Accelerator

online reviews technology industryYour best salesforce is your happy customers. I’ve build a business on this reality, I wrote a best-selling book on the process. No one does a better job of marketing your technology brand and driving revenue that leads to real bottom-line growth than you most passionate customers.

This article explores six proven strategies technology leaders can leverage to encourage online reviews, referrals, and vibrant community engagement across the user lifecycle.

Conduct Comprehensive Sentiment Research

A granular understanding of current user perceptions, frustrations and delights is crucial. Approaches may involve:

  • Journey mapping key touchpoints and interactions to reveal pain points and moments of value. This should apply to standard customer journey mapping to track the purchase process, but also include loyalty mapping. You need to identify potential pain points and bottlenecks in both journeys, at the same time.
  • Conduct surveys and interviews to gather direct feedback from users. Surveys are vital, given that feedback collected is accurately assessed and improvements applied as a result. Surveys of customers as well as members of your loyalty or brand ambassador programs should be done as these are different customers and both groups can provide valuable feedback.
  • Social listening across forums and platforms to analyze patterns in sentiment. Don’t focus simply on social media channels. Today’s technology consumer is frequenting message boards and forums to do product research. Make sure you monitor all online chatter around and about your brand, regardless of where it happens.
  • Review analysis to uncover systemic issues affecting satisfaction as well as product strengths to highlight. Look for trends across all feedback collected, regardless of the source. Examining all feedback will reveal consistent positive and negative traits and brand associations. These can be addressed in the case of problems, and amplified if they are positive.

Armed with rich insights, you can develop targeted advocacy initiatives addressing user needs and amplifying customer advocacy.

Incentivize Authentic Reviews

Reviews directly from users provide credible organic advocacy that fuels growth. But review generation requires motive. Consider:

  • Follow up on support tickets or onboarding by asking for a review and direct link for ease. Make a special attempt to solicit reviews from any user that communicates a positive experience or association with your tech brand.
  • Offer perks like free months of service for leaving detailed positive reviews. However, these can also be used as a reward for an existing online review. For instance, if you identify a blog post that promotes your brand or product, reach out to the blogger and say thank you, and offer them a perk such as a discount or swag as a reward. Remember that rewarding existing behavior is more powerful in creating advocacy than incentivizing new behavior.
  • Develop reviewer leaderboards and recognition for top advocates. One of the keys I always stress to clients is ‘reward the behavior that you want to encourage’. If you want more online reviews for your technology brand, then look for ways to reward customers for engaging in that behavior. Leaderboards are a great way to spotlight your best advocates, and it makes them feel like the rock stars that they are.
  • Highlight customer feedback on your site, and also highlight how that feedback was implemented at your company. This is incredibly powerful as it communicates to customers that you take their feedback seriously, and you act on it. This encourages customers to leave MORE feedback once they see that you take their feedback seriously enough to act on it.

It’s a marketing reality: We trust our fellow customers more than we trust brands. Do all you can to encourage your happy customers to sing your praises, and spotlight them when they do.

Launch a Referral/Affiliate Program

Referrals are a great way to attract new customers and reward your current advocates for behavior they are already engaging in. Formalize advocacy through:

  • Create referral landing pages that highlight the value proposition and call to action. This helps increase referral conversions, which helps both your brand and your customers who are driving referrals.
  • Tiered rewards for referrers based on conversion rates, from discounts to premium services. These can also be integrated with your customer loyalty program to amplify the perks that members receive from participating.
  • Promotion of the program through email, in-product, social media, and community channels. If your tech brand has a community forum, highlight your referral program there, as forum participants are a great pool to draw from for your referral program.
  • Streamlined sharing tools such as custom referral links and social share buttons. Give your customers the tools they need to more easily drive referrals, and track their progress doing so.
  • Leader boards spotlighting top member advocates and referrers. Reward the behavior you want to encourage. Spotlighting top referrers encourages them to increase referrals and the recognition they receive prompts others to engage in the same behavior.

Leverage affiliates to expand reach beyond your owned channels.

Encourage User-Generated Content

User content like tutorials, use cases, and product demonstrations serve as compelling proof of value. Encourage UGC by:

  • Identifying key customer success stories to request content development support around. Work with your customer support team to identify tickets that could serve as the basis for a positive case study.
  • Making it simple for users to contribute content through built-in creation and submission tools. Have your content marketing team work with users to take their submissions and craft compelling stories that highlight the user and their positive experience with your tech brand.
  • Promoting contributed content across your social channels when approved. Make sure that your promotion content is spoken in the voice of your customer as often as possible.
  • Spotlighting user content creators through badges, rewards, and campaigns. It’s a broken record, but reward the behavior you want to encourage.

UGC reaches buyers with authentic peer perspectives that resonates with customers in a world where we trust ourselves more than we do brands.

Build Vibrant User Community Interaction

One of the best ways to accelerate customer advocacy is to create ways for your happy customers to engage directly with each other. Ways to foster community include:

  • Hosting active user forums for knowledge sharing and feature discussions. User forums and message boards are vital to success for tech companies, they serve as a way for user to do product research, to self-diagnose problems, and simply connect with others who share a common interest.
  • Facilitating user groups organized by interest, experience level, geography or use cases. As you begin to build an online community, you can further segment that group to better connect users with their peers. An additional perk of this approach is that more experienced users can become candidates for moderator duties in your community. This can make the task of community management easier for your brand, but it also makes the community more likely to participate if ‘one of their own’ is involved in overseeing the direction of the forum.
  • Supporting meetups, events, and virtual community hangouts enabling users to connect. In-person meetups among your happy customers are wonderful ways to build advocacy. For example, here’s a recap of a customer meetup event I helped coordinate for Dell.
  • Engaging power users with early access privileges or advisory council roles. This is another perk that can be tied into your loyalty program. Early access is a great way to provide a low-cost perk to customers that drives appreciation, engagement and positive reviews, all at a low cost.

Relationships between users amplifies loyalty, retention, and advocacy for your brand.

Track and Optimize Initiatives

A data-driven approach ensures advocacy efforts deliver measurable impact. Key metrics span:

  • Review volume, ratings, product sentiment and category benchmarking. Determine what are the common traits associated with reviews, such as sites used, content of the reviews, what prompted a review, etc. By analyzing reviews you can determine trends and how to encourage more positive online reviews.
  • Referral traffic and account creation driven by links. Custom links should be given to all referral participants so the number of referrals they create can easily be tracked by them, and your brand. Each participant in your referral program should have their own unique link.
  • UGC contribution growth and user engagement rates. Track your most frequent contributors and reward their behavior to encourage more submissions. Collect feedback on what UGC is driving engagement, and share that feedback with contributors so they can improve their own UGC efforts.
  • Renewal, retention, and frequency metrics within advocate groups. Identify potential bottlenecks to review and content creation. Study your most successful contributors, and find ways to distill their success down into easily shared bits that can help other contributors improve their own efforts.

Continual optimization and injection of creativity sustains momentum over time.

Turn Customers into Confident Advocates

With user trust in brands declining, transparently earned advocacy provides a competitive edge. By championing customers first, technology leaders can build communities and spur authentic referrals that fuel sustainable growth. Remember, technology users trust fellow users more than your brand when it comes to product communications. Accept this fact and lean into UGC and online reviews from your users.

What’s your biggest obstacle to unlocking advocates? Identifying friction points? Incentivizing reviews? Enabling UGC contribution? Prioritize progress on one front then build from there.

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