MackCollier.com

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Five Ways Companies Can Leverage Twitter Chats

There are well over 500 Twitter chats right now (here’s a list of almost 600 of them).  These chats cover literally every topic under the sun, and represent a wonderful chance for companies to not only learn more about their customers, but to better connect with them.  Here’s some ideas for how they can get started:

1 – Lurk N Learn.  This is my affectionate term for when people don’t actively participate in Twitter chats, but instead watch the conversation happening.  This is a great way to learn more about how the chat works, as well as learn from the conversation happening.  Companies can do this to glean insights about their space and themselves, but seeing the conversation being created by others.

2 – Actively participate in Twitter chats.  As I always say, participating in a conversation changes that conversation.  Often, after people have lurked on a chat for a while, they will stick their toes in the water and start participating.  Companies can benefit from this by getting direct feedback from current and potential customers.  For example, if you are in the fast food industry and you see a Twitter chat devoted to healthy eating, participating in that chat could be a chance for you to educate participants on some of the ‘healthier’ options your chain has added recently to its menu.  This would also be a chance for customers to chime in and give you feedback on these items.

3 – Sponsor an existing Twitter chat.  This is a good option especially if the company is considering starting its own Twitter chat.  Since I moderate #Blogchat, I am constantly talking to other Twitter chat hosts about the sponsorship issue, and many of them are getting interest from companies.  If executed correctly, the sponsorship can pay big dividends for the company.  I think the best way to handle the sponsorship is to leverage it as a way for the company to create value for the regular participants.  Maybe that could be something as simple as awarding a few gift cards at the end of the chat, but the last thing you want is for the company to use the sponsorship as a chance to promote itself excessively during the chat.  That makes both the sponsor and the chat organizer look bad.

If positioned properly, the sponsor can make the conversation in the Twitter chat it is sponsoring better AND help establish itself as a leader in its space.  If your company would like to talk to me about sponsoring #Blogchat, please do email me.  If you see another chat you’d like to sponsor, contact that chat’s organizer as I’m sure they’d love to talk to you.

4 – Use Promoted Tweets with an existing Twitter Chat.  Here’s an example of what this looks like, as Toyota did this with #Blogchat:

Obviously, I’m not a big fan of this approach for a couple of reasons.  First, it’s a nuisance for most of the chat participants.  For example when #Blogchat starts, we are discussing a particular blogging topic.  We aren’t discussing the cool techno-wizardry that Toyota has up its sleeve.  So this promoted tweet is a total disconnect and it makes Toyota look clueless.  And the more savvy Twitter users know that with Tweetdeck all they have to do is mark the tweet as Read and then filter the column for read tweets, and its gone anyway.

Second, a sponsorship of the actual chat would be a much better fit for Toyota.  I’m not sure how Twitter charges for promoted tweets like this (I believe it’s still PPC), but most individual Twitter chats can be sponsored for $1,000 or less, cost really depends on the size of the chat and its popularity.  By working with that chat host on a sponsorship, the company can find one that not only gives them ‘more bang for their buck’, but that also creates value for the participants of the chat.  Which makes the sponsor look a lot smarter than this does.

But again, I run a chat and want sponsors of that chat, so it’s possible I am a bit biased against this approach.

5 – Start your own Twitter chat!  While it’s not easy, starting a Twitter chat is a great way to not only get feedback from current and potential customers, but it helps establish your expertise and thought leadership in your space.  I would suggest that companies go through at least the first two steps above before they jump in the water and start their own Twitter chat.  It is a LONG process, and like starting a blog, it takes a while to build a following.  But if you can commit to it, a Twitter chat could pay big dividends for your company.  If you want to go this route, here’s a post I wrote on 10 Steps to Creating a Successful Twitter Chat.

 

So there’s some ideas for how your company can leverage a Twitter chat.  Above all, please remember that people love Twitter chats because it gives them a chance to learn from each other.  That’s why we are so incredibly devoted to them.  When thinking about how you could be involved in a Twitter chat, remember that it’s best to check your marketer’s hat at the door, and don’t view Twitter chats as a chance to promote yourself, but rather as a chance to learn more about your industry, and the people that are and could be your customers!

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The Problem With Experts…

Shortly after I started #Blogchat I decided to adopt a ‘no experts allowed’ policy.  I did this because when someone is identified as an expert, it’s the same as saying everyone else is NOT.  Which also implies that their opinion isn’t as valuable as the ‘expert’s’.  So if the ‘expert’ is talking, everyone else needs to shut-up and listen.

The problem with this thinking is that:

1 – Most people in this space that are deemed to be ‘experts’ are not.  We hand out that label way too generously.

2 – More participation by a community means more learning in that community.  That’s shutdown if we put an ‘expert’ in the middle of the ring and hang on their every tweet.

This graph from Kathy Sierra perfectly illustrates this point.  If we only listen to the experts in a community, then there’s no role for anyone to play if they aren’t a newbie or expert, other than that of lurker.  #Blogchat works because everyone feels comfortable (I hope!) asking questions.  The ‘no experts allowed’ rule hopefully puts those users in the middle at ease, and prompts them to be more active and ask and answer more questions.

Because that’s how we learn from each other.  If we only let the people we deem to be the ‘experts’ answer our questions, then we only get the ‘expert’s’ view of the world.  This is a big problem in the ‘social media space’ because I think we often hand out the ‘expert’ label too quickly, and we tend to stop communicating in the presence of an ‘expert’ too quickly as well.

The problem with experts…is really a problem with the rest of us.

If you want your community to thrive, find a way to get everyone involved.  Because people will stay with a community and become active in it if they feel they are invested in it and appreciated.  By default, I am often viewed as the ‘expert’ in #Blogchat.  This often leads to a lot of questions from newbie and intermediate members.  But I try to flip it around and after I have answered their question, I ask them the same question.  Now THEY are the expert educating ME.  That not only increases my learning, but it increases their investment in this community, because they know they are contributing to its value.

If you are attempting to build a community, via a Twitter chat or something else, think about how you can encourage everyone to ask and ANSWER more questions.  And if you need some more ideas, check out Kathy’s wonderful post on getting your user community more involved at all levels.

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The Value of Creating a Customer-Centric Social Media Strategy

I have good news and bad news for you when it comes to your Social Media Strategy:

The Bad News – Social Media, in general, doesn’t function very well as a marketing and sales channel.

The Good News – Social Media is a great way to make things happen indirectly.

The problem that many companies have with their Social Media efforts is that they are trying to turn these personal communication tools into marketing channels, instead of understanding and accepting how their customers actually use these tools.

The companies that typically understand how their customers use these tools and craft their Social Media strategy accordingly, tend to have better results.

Here’s a couple of examples:

Orabrush – The company wanted to leverage YouTube as a channel to raise awareness for its tongue-cleaner.  Now as anyone that’s spent 5 minutes on the video-sharing site knows, videos that are short and funny are wildly popular.  So that’s exactly the type of videos that the company created:

http://youtu.be/SVvFD5JFnP4

“To my knowledge, there have been few, if any, products to go from no sales, online or offline, to full nationwide distribution by using YouTube videos in just two years,” said Jeff Davis, CEO of Orabrush.

Orabrush’s YouTube videos have over 46 million combined views.  So the company’s strategy of creating the type of content that YouTube users want, has been wildly successful.

X-Box – The brand discovered that a lot of X-Box customers were taking to Twitter to complain about their problems with games and the console.  So Microsoft created a full team of X-Box people to provide customer support for their customers that have issues with the console.  The benefit to the company is it deflects calls from its call center, which is a cost-savings for the brand.  But it happened because Microsoft was smart enough to understand how X-Box customers were using Twitter, and work with that behavior, not against it.

So how does this affect your Social Media Strategy? 

Let’s go back to the Orabrush example.  Orabrush wanted to use social media and digital content to sell its tongue cleaner.  Here’s two ways they could have used YouTube to raise awareness of its products:

1 – Orabrush could have created short videos that demonstrate how to use the product.  Perhaps a 30-45 second video showing someone using the tongue cleaner, then a link to the company’s website to buy the product.

2 – Orabrush could have created short videos that use humor to sell the NEED for the product.

The second approach is in line with what YouTube’s users expect from the content there.  They aren’t going to YouTube to watch videos of a man scraping his tongue with a plastic utensil.  They are there to watch short videos that make them laugh.  Orabrush gave them that, and in the context of those videos ALSO explained what their product does, and the need for it.

A second example, what if you owned a business that sells lawncare products? 

Let’s say you are wanting to use a blog to sell your products directly, and to also raise awareness for your local store as it competes against national chains like Lowes and Home Depot.  One thing you could do is turn your blog into ‘brochureware’, basically making it an online circular.

Or, you could focus your blog on giving your customers content that helps them have a more beautiful lawn.  Here’s some post ideas:

10 Steps to Having a Healthier Lawn by Memorial Day

Here’s How You Can Get Rid of Weeds in Your Lawn Without Damaging Your Grass

5 Common Pests That Can Wreck Havoc on Your Lawn and How to Get Rid of Them

The great thing about posts like this is that they not only provide value for your customers, but they also help establish your business’ expertise in lawn care.  Which means these posts will not only do well in Google searches (because they solve specific problems customers are having), but they will also make it easier for customers to trust you, because you are teaching them how to take better care of your lawn.

So when you are crafting your Social Media and Content Strategy, think about how you can make your efforts customer-centric.  Don’t try to force direct sales, but instead think about how you can create valuable content for your customers that will LEAD to sales.

 

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Come Join #Blogchat Tonight for OPEN MIC and Our 3rd Anniversary!

The first #Blogchat was held on March 22nd, 2009, so tonight’s OPEN MIC #Blogchat will also be our 3rd Anniversary!  Many people have asked how #Blogchat came to be, and that link explains a lot of the origin.  Additionally, the inspiration for #Blogchat came from something called Plurkshops that were started on Plurk in 2008.

But beyond that, I’ve always held a belief that most people are smarter than they give themselves credit for.  The core underpinning I wanted for #Blogchat was to create an environment where the discussion was created by the many, instead of the few.  This is why #Blogchat has a strict ‘no experts allowed’ policy.  The message is that everyone’s opinion has value, and they should feel comfortable sharing their thoughts.  Because that’s how we all learn.

Thanks to everyone that has participated in #Blogchat over the last 3 years.  I appreciate and love each and every one of you, and thank you for helping to create what I biasedly feel is the best chat on Twitter.  Your dedication to growing the conversation every Sunday night is inspiring, and I’m looking forward to expanding the #Blogchat brand in 2012, and look for some announcements soon on how that will happen.

See you tonight at 8pm Central for OPEN MIC!

PS: New to #Blogchat?  Here’s what it’s all about!

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Here’s What I Believe…

…that companies need to stop focusing on the tools, and start focusing on the connections that the tools help facilitate.  It’s not about understanding Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, it’s about understanding customer behavior.  Anyone that tries to tell you differently is selling something.

…that companies will get the biggest benefit from emerging digital technologies if they work within the framework of the customer’s existing behavior.  Figure out why you customers are spending their time with these channels and tools, then you can figure out how to connect with them in a way that creates value for them.

…that participating in a conversation changes that conversation.  Don’t like the conversation happening around your brand?  Then start participating in that conversation, and change it.

…that buzzwords are a hurdle to understanding.  Speak in as simple terms as possible to explain your ideas.  If you use too many buzzwords and jargon you risk limiting understanding of your message.  Or worse, you may convince me that YOU don’t understand the concepts you are discussing.

…that customers don’t want to be mouthpieces for brands.  Stop viewing Social Media as a ‘new and exciting way to let customers tell our story!’  Your customers have their own stories to tell via Social Media, and they are far more interesting than yours.

…that Twitter isn’t a Social Media Strategy, it’s a Social Media tactic.  Tactics are what you use to accomplish a strategy.

…that Steve Knox was right, victory in marketing doesn’t happen when you sell something, but when you cultivate advocates for your brand.

…that customers deserve more than companies are giving them.  They deserve brands that understand them and embrace them and give them a reason to fall madly in love with them.

…that Marketing is ultimately a tax that brands pay for not speaking in the voice of their customers.  Understand your customers, speak in their voice, and you’ll win their loyalty and money.

…that we need fewer conversations.  Brands have two distinct conversations happening around them, the internal conversation they have about themselves, and the external one their customers are having.  The further apart these conversations are, the more trouble the brand is in.  The more aligned the conversations are, the stronger the brand.  Hugh was right.

…that the customer’s ability to smell bullshit is greater than your ability to sell it.  So please stop.

…that companies need to stop selling the product, and start selling the benefit.  Make your communications customer-centric.  Think about WHY I would buy your product and how I would use it, and you just might convince me that I need it.

…that companies need to stop worry about ‘acquiring’ new customers, and focus on delighting their existing ones.  New customers cost 6-7 times more to acquire versus retaining an existing customer, while fans spend more than the average customer, and refer business equal to almost half what they spend.  Yet marketers everywhere want ‘new’ customers, even at the expense of their existing ones.  This is madness.

…that Rockstars have figured out that they’ll get new customers tomorrow from delighting their existing fans, today.  And they won’t pay a penny in ‘acquisition’ fees.  I’m amazed that more brands aren’t learning from this approach.

…that if you believe in your customers, they will believe in you.  Stop treating them like anonymous numbers, they are real people living real lives every day.  Just like you.

…that brands need to stop putting the spotlight on themselves.  Put the spotlight on the people that make your brand amazing; Your customers and employees.

…that customers are more connected and empowered than ever before.  So are the brands that embrace them.

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How Do We Create a Fan-Centric Company?

Brand advocates, fans, brand advocacy

Last year, my friend Liz Strauss challenged me to think about how companies could better connect with their fans, and vice-versa.  I wanted to think about how this process would actually take place inside a company.  How would a company identify and connect with its brand advocates?  How would it create and continue a connection with that group?  How would it facilitate a flow of communication from the company to its advocates, and vice-versa?  How would it act on that information internally, and who would handle it?

Some of these same questions have been rolled up into the thought-process of what a ‘Social Business’ could be and we talked about it yesterday, although not in the detail I was hoping for.  But last year when I started trying to wrap my head around what this framework could look like, I realized with the events I would be speaking at and attending in 2011, I would have plenty of opportunities to talk to some pretty big brands and companies about how they are connecting with their fans.

So that’s what I did.  At almost every stop in 2011, I made it a point to set up meetings to talk with companies about how they were connecting with their brand advocates.  We’re talking VERY large companies, and usually the people I talked to were CEOs or CMOs.  After probably a dozens or so interviews in 2011 with big companies about how they were systematically connecting with their brand advocates, I came up with this answer:

They weren’t.  The closest would probably be Dell’s DellCAP program (Disclosure – I had a very limited role in helping Dell flesh out some of the initial ideas behind it and executing them), which I obviously think is a fabulous program, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say it’s solely based on connecting with Dell’s brand advocates.  All the companies I talked to saw the importance of its brand advocates, and several were doing things like monitoring for positive brand mentions and responding, or maybe highlighting fans on a Facebook page, but for the most part there wasn’t a formal process in place where the company regularly connected with its advocates.  Several expressed to me an interest in taking that next step, but they wanted to know what that process would look like.  This is why I kept harping on the need for more detail around ‘Social Business’ for the same reason in yesterday’s post.

But perhaps the biggest roadblock to companies adopting a formal process for connecting with their fans is they don’t understand who they are.  My friends at Brains on Fire call this figuring out the identity of your advocates, but I think of it as asking ‘What’s the heartbeat of your fans?’  Whats the one thing that binds them together in a love of your brand?  Even at the DellCAP reunion last year, at one point I was talking to a Dell exec and we were looking at the attendees and going around the room and we realized that they all loved Dell, but for very different reasons.  Some loved the product, some loved the people, some loved the service.  But they were different people.  You had the hard-core gamer that professionally competes in contests over here with his Alienware laptop, and the mom who writes a blog on tech for other moms over here.

Yet understanding who your fans are and why they love you is a step that cannot be overlooked and skipped.  I honestly think this is why Brains on Fire is so successful because they invest the time and energy for their clients in helping them understand who their fans are and what their identity/heartbeat is.  We all love the Fiskars/Fiskateers case study, but remember that it was made possible by Brains on Fire doing a LOT of research and figuring out how Fiskars’ customers were using its product, and realizing that a passionate scrapbooking community existed that loved the brand.  Without investing that time and energy in research, the resulting movement wouldn’t have happened.

I’ll wrap this post up now cause I see it’s starting to resemble a thesis, and we haven’t even gotten into what the formal process would/could look like.  I’ll dig into that in the next post on this topic.

But for now, if your company wants to really connect with its fans, make the starting point understanding who they are.  What’s their heartbeat?  What’s the ONE thing that unites them in a love of your brand?  To put this in music terms to help you understand, Lady Gaga doesn’t have fans, she has Little Monsters.  The Grateful Dead has Dead Heads.  You need to find that one thing, because that’s their passion point.  And in doing your research to better understand your fans, don’t rely solely on online research.  Look for ways to get feedback from your fans in an offline setting.  If you only hear from your fans that are online, you are getting an incomplete view of who they are and why they love you.

What are some examples of brands that you think do a great job of connecting with their fans?  Which ones do you think have found the heartbeat of their advocates?

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Subscribe to My Social Media Marketing Newsletter!

Social Media Marketing Newsletter

Starting next Wednesday, I’ll be running a weekly newsletter in addition to (almost) daily posts here.  The content focus will be slightly different, however.

Here, I cover Social Media primarily, but a blend of content that can benefit the individual, as well as those that are using Social Media for their company.  But this newsletter will be aimed solely at marketers and anyone using Social Media within their company or organization.  Each week the newsletter will feature original content that’s designed to do 3 things:

1 – Help you solve an existing Social Media Marketing issue you are having.  One week we might talk about building a better blogger outreach program, the next look at getting a better handle on our blog’s analytics to increase leads.  A case study here and there will be examined.

2 – Give you tips and advice for improving your day-to-day tasks and routines as well as managing your workflow.

3 – Keep you up-to-date on where I will be speaking/appearing, and giving you information on how we can work together.

I cannot stress this enough, the content in this newsletter will be original content.  Some of it may eventually make its way here to the blog, but it won’t be that often.

So if you’re working for a company or organization that wants to learn more about how to better use Social Media to connect with your customers and/or activate your brand advocates, please do subscribe to my newletter by filling out the quick form below.  You’ll input your email address then be sent an email to confirm your subscription.

Thank you so much, see you next Wednesday!


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We Need to Stop Marketing ‘Social Business’ If We Want to Start Selling It

social business, blueprint

You ever get the feeling you need to just drop a topic?  I am completely there when it comes to  ‘Social Business’.  Even to the point that I’m pretty sure I’ve started pissing off friends and people I respect in this space.

To set the record straight, I like what I think is the generally accepted definition of a ‘Social Business’.  Most all definitions seem to be build around the need for an increased flow of information.  External information from the customer being utilized and distributed internally so smarter business decisions can be made, and more communication from the company back to the customer.  I am a HUGE believer in the benefits that businesses will gain as a result, and I’ve been blogging about these concepts here for a while now.

But the majority of the discussion around the concept of a ‘Social Business’ has frustrated me for a while now, and I couldn’t quite place my finger on why exactly.  Then it hit me: This doesn’t feel like a discussion, it feels like marketing.  Almost every time I read a post/article about Social Business, I feel like I am reading a brochure at a car dealership.

A far more interesting discussion in my mind is to talk about exactly how a business would transition to becoming a ‘social business’.  Let’s talk about the specifics:

What happens internally?  Do we need to hire new people for newly-created positions?  If so, which ones, and what would their roles be?  How will we better connect with our customers?  Do we need to create a new infrastructure to better facilitate the flow of information internally about our customers?  And what information do we need to distribute and which departments need to get what?  Then how do we create a way to get information back to our customers?  Do we create an internal and external committee to facilitate that information flow in both directions?  How many people do we need to staff for that?

Those are the type of discussions I want to see, because I think we need more blueprints and fewer brochures if we want to speed business adoption of this process.  And granted, there’s obviously no ‘one size fits all’ solution, but we should at least have plenty of scenarios in place where we can determine more definite numbers based on a given business reality.

I think at this point the discussion is still a bit vague around Social Business because we are ‘selling’ a concept that’s not often seen ‘in the wild’.  But I think if we want to speed adoption of the concept, we need to move the discussion away from wordy definitions and more toward actual business realities.  Even if it means we need to at some point add ‘I think’ to our explanations cause we don’t have real-world examples of what our ideas being executed would look like.

And to be fair, we are seeing bits and pieces of what the larger picture could look like.  A community ideation site here, an internal socnet for employees there, a brand ambassador program in the corner, but we really don’t seem to have a view of what the whole picture could look like for an organization.

We need that.  Or at the very least we need a discussion around what it looks like.  And if we aren’t sure what it looks like, then we definitely need to have that discussion.

One of the things I loved about the blogosphere when I first joined it in 2005 was that many of us adopted a habit of asking ‘what if?’ when it came to our discussions about how companies could utilize and benefit from social media.  We threw stuff against the wall, some of it stuck, some of it didn’t.  But we all learned in the process.  We helped each other flesh out the concepts of how businesses could utilize social media, and even some of the concepts that have now been rolled into the idea of what a ‘Social Business’ is.

But I think we skipped the ‘what if?’ stage with Social Business.  It’s like we adopted our own definitions for what the concept is, then immediately started trying to sell it to companies.  Literally.

If we want to speed up understanding and adoption of the concept of a Social Business, I think we need to back up a bit and stop selling the concept, and start debating it more.  We need to stop saying ‘here’s what it is’, and instead say ‘here’s what I *think* it could look like’.

And to clear the air:  I keep railing about this topic because I believe in the concept of a ‘Social Business’.  Granted, I’m not crazy about the label, but I like the thinking.  If I didn’t, if I thought this was all bullshit soaked in snake oil, I wouldn’t waste my time.

I think we need to elevate the conversation and dialogue around the concept.  And I think in this case, we can start by offering fewer definitions for what a Social Business is, and instead more discussion of how we recognize one when we see one.  Fewer buzzwords, and more questions.

Understanding speeds adoption, and understanding comes from asking questions you don’t know the answers to.  I don’t know what the exact framework for a Social Business is.  I know what the definitions say it is at 30,000 feet, but I want to know what it looks like on the ground, in practice.  So do the companies that are being sold the concept.

What do you think a Social Business would look like?  If your company was going to start today on the road to becoming a Social Business, what changes would need to happen?

 

UPDATE: As long-time readers know, I am pretty obsessive about my blog’s stats.  ‘Social Business’ isn’t a topic I write about often, in fact this is only the 2nd post I’ve ever written about it, the 1st coming a month ago.  In the last month, search engines have sent 6,617 visitors to this blog, and 3 of them have looking for information on ‘Social Business’.

Pic via Flickr User Will Scullin

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Social Media Gives Companies a New and Exciting Way to Make the Same Boring Marketing Mistakes

There’s a scene in the movie Liar Liar where the movie’s main character (a lawyer played by Jim Carrey who’s been ‘cursed’ with an inability to tell a lie) is given the phone by his secretary and told that one of his clients has “knocked over another ATM, this time at knife-point.  He needs your legal advice.”

Carrey’s character grabs the phone and offers this advice: Stop breaking the law, ASSHOLE!

Recently I saw this quote from an emarketer article: “Marketers are abuzz over “Big Data” for its promise to deliver a more complete understanding of each customer, who can then be targeted with advertising tailored exactly to the individual.”

And this quote from P&G’s Head of Global Marketing on finding the ROI of Social Media: “What will revolutionize the industry, what we’re working on an industry basis, is to define EGRPs [electronic gross rating point, a measure of audience reach]. You can look at what an impression from Google, or Facebook or Twitter is actually worth.”

This is the exact problem with how 99% of companies are using and viewing Social Media: As a new channel to more effectively market to its customers.

Are you serious?

Let’s take a step back and remember what Social Media is: Tools that allow us to create and exchange digital content.  The vast majority of us use Social Media as personal communication tools.

Companies, do you not realize the significance of this?  For decades, you’ve been struggling with how to better understand your customers.  The problem has always been, how do you really know what customers think about you, your products, and who they are?  What they want, etc.  The only options available to you were highly inefficient.  Surveys, focus-groups, and other forms of feedback.  At best it can give you a small sampling of your customer base, but connecting with individual customers just doesn’t scale.

Yet with Social Media, suddenly you DO have a way to better understand your customers.  Because all the interactions they were having before in an offline setting (where you had almost no access to them) have moved online.  Now you can see what your customers are saying to each other, and about you and your products!  What’s better, you now have a way to directly connect with them and they with you!

And your key takeaway from this fundamental change in how we humans connect with each other is that you see this as a great opportunity to turn your customers into digital marketing channels?!?

Companies if you want to be successful at utilizing Social Media, here’s the most important lesson I can give you: Learn how your customers are using Social Media and for what reasons, and then work within that framework.

Recall Sunday’s post on X-Box’s Twitter account hitting 1,000,000 tweets.  X-Box was smart enough to realize that its customers are on Twitter, and complaining about the problems they are having with the console.  So instead of trying to leverage Twitter as a channel to shoot them marketing messages, the brand instead leverages Twitter as a channel to provide individualized customer service.  The customer benefits from getting personalized attention and help with their problems.  The brand benefits by deflecting calls away from its CS call centers.

This is what we call in the real-world a ‘win-win’.  But it happened because X-Box saw how their customers were using Twitter, then worked with that behavior, not against it.

Would it be awesome if your customers put aside how they want to use Social Media and instead agreed to let you use them to broadcast your marketing messages via their Social Media accounts?  Of course it would.  Right after you teach your pet unicorn how to pee rainbows, you can get to work on that.

For now, we live in a world where we ALL act in our own best interests.  That’s just as true for your customers as it is for you the company.  If you can use Social Media as a way to provide value to your customers, then you will be acting in THEIR best interests.

And you’ll get their business.  Try it and see.  Oh and if you need some social media training to get started, call me.

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Case Study: How Fed-Ex Responded to a Customer’s Viral Video…With Its Own Video

It really is the doomsday scenario for a big brand, in this case, Fed-Ex.  One customer has a horrible experience with a delivery.  A computer monitor is ‘delivered’ when the Fed-Ex driver casually tosses the monitor over the customer’s gate.

Even though the customer was at home.

And the front door was wide open.

And the customer filmed the delivery.

And yes, he posted it on YouTube.

The video has been viewed over 8 million times by now, and was seen on numerous TV stations and shows.  Now if this was your company, how would you respond?  Would you respond?

To its credit, Fed-Ex responded 2 days later with its own video.

Here’s what I love about the video and the post on Fed-Ex’s blog:

1 – Fed-Ex admitted the problem and apologized for it immediately in the video.

2 – Fed-Ex detailed what was done to correct this problem.

3 – Fed-Ex detailed what will happen moving forward.

4 – Fed-Ex responded to the customer video with its own video.  Using the same tool as its customer.

 

Now, the original customer video and Fed-Ex’s response has been dissected on many other blogs in the last 3 months.  But I wanted to focus on the comments this post has generated.  A big reason why many companies do NOT want to use social media to make a response such as what Fed-Ex did here is because they are scared to death that it will simply draw attention to the company and make them a lightning-rod for detractors.

So far, Fed-Ex’s apology post has 181 comments, almost 120 comments more than the 2nd most commented-on post.

Here’s what I thought was interesting about the comments (and I read every freaking one to get these stats):

57% of the comments were positive.

25% of the comments were neutral.

But only 18% of the comments on this post were negative.

Does that surprise you?  It shouldn’t.  As often happens when a company responds appropriately in a crisis situation, Fed-Ex galvanized its employees and brand advocates with this post.  Remember that The Red Cross had a similar episode this time last year with its ‘rogue tweet’ about #gettingslizzard, and the organization’s timely and appropriate response rallied its brand advocates and actually sparked a rise in blood donations.

There is a very salient lesson here for companies about using social media: Participating in a conversation changes that conversation.  By creating a video response to the customer video, apologizing, and detailing exactly how the problem would be fixed, Fed-Ex changed the conversation that was currently happening around its brand.  Prior to this video, the conversation around the brand was decidedly negative and dominated by the customer’s video, because Fed-Ex hadn’t responded.

When they did, the conversation changed.  The company’s response was fast and appropriate, and that not only changed the opinion of the company from some observers, but it also served as motivation for customers and employees to come to defense of the brand.

Always remember this:  Social Media backlashes aren’t created by the initial trigger event (such as the customer’s video above), they are created by HOW the company responds.