Integrated Brand » social media

Facebook: the social media brand to beat in 2010
December 31st, 2009

In the onslaught of social media throughout 2009, one brand stands out more than others because of the social revolution it continues to propel–Facebook. From giving people a place to share their lives or connect with long lost friends and family to giving brands new ways to connect one on one with their customers, Facebook has continued to evolve with the many ways users are using it.

It has embodied the spirit of social media in constant transformation and innovation based on listening. While some can argue its usability or the efficacy of its design, Facebook has listened to these arguments and continues to improve the experience–upgrading its interface ongoingly, adding new features monthly, and making its data more usable for marketers and casual users alike.

And, with its steady growth of users (over 350 million as of this month) and stable retention rates, it has beat out Twitter and MySpace for audience share. My prediction: in the shake out to come in 2010, we will see a very clear distinction between Facebook and Twitter. Facebook will continue to evolve and deepen its relationships with all of its users, as well as become an invaluable data source for brand managers and marketers, while Twitter will solidify its position with companies and thought leaders by providing a valuable public relations and communications channel.

Anybody want to wager?

–Jen Travis

Google Sidewiki = pressure to create a great online experience
December 7th, 2009

Screenshot from Google Sidewiki

If you weren’t too worried about your website and how it reflected your brand, there is an even bigger reason for you to start worrying, at least a little bit: Google Sidewiki. This new application from Google allows users to comment on your site and share their thoughts on their favorite social media sites. Don’t fear, however, as there are some great business use cases that demonstrate use of it to start conversations and allow your users to co-create content for your site.

What would you like people to say about your website (now that they can more publicly)?

–Jen Travis

Managing the dark side of social media
November 25th, 2009

A colleague of mine has a great printing company—having worked with many printers, they are the best of them all at customer service and helping people figure out the best way forward with their printing needs. So imagine a scenario when they made a mistake, and thought they had resolved the issue to the clients’ satisfaction, only to find out that the disgruntled client used every social media venue, from reviews on Dex and Google Maps to Yelp, to flame and rant.

This is the dark side of social media: the ability to really hurt a good company. So what are the best practices when your reputation is under attack?

First, listen. My friend, Kevin Sullivan of CCS Printing, said:

“I had no idea these reviews were on Google (maps) and being seen by hundreds of customers a month until I did a search yesterday and saw the low star rating. So we’ve probably been losing some opportunities for 90 days due to our lack of inspection on reviews online. So, multiple morals to the story; First, take care of problems promptly (very promptly), second, inspect your brand online everywhere all the time, and third, have a plan in place to drive positive reviews from your willing and happy customers. The vocal minority often seem to outshout the happy majority. Happy customers don’t feel a need to take the time to say good things. But they might if they were asked nicely. One unhappy customer can assume multiple online personalities and trash your brand if they are vindictive enough.”

Kevin went on these sites and explained the situation in a reasonable and transparent way, a good response to a negative event.

So, if you’ve used CCS and had a great experience, take a couple of minutes online to say so. And keep listening to what the market is saying—and respond when you need to.

-Lynn Parker

Got social media? Have a plan.
November 24th, 2009

If you’ve come to accept that social media isn’t going away and have started to use it to build your brand online–great. But, as you probably already know, it can be a time suck. It can feel unproductive. It can feel like it is all for naught, and therefore be frustrating.

However, if you start with a plan–an overall strategy that ties what you are doing to business goals and objectives–you can both measure the effectiveness of what you are doing AND focus on spending time on the things that get you farthest towards your goals. And, don’t forget to have a policy so that everyone in your company knows what is appropriate and what isn’t.

To recap: start with a plan, try it out, measure and adjust. Sound familiar?

–Jen Travis

A Story of Personal Triumph from the Facebook Frontier
November 12th, 2009

bachelorette auction

I’m a member of BEAN, a scrappy young professional network constantly innovating new ways to make a positive difference in the community. We donate our time and effort to engage an often fickle demographic, 25-35 year olds, and as any thrifty club or nonprofit can relate, it’s often a challenge to get the dollar bills flowing.

This year, we learned about a local nonprofit called Roses and Rosemary that supplies medication to HIV-positive orphans in Africa and decided to support their cause. With absolutely no budget, we focused our efforts on a fun event—a bachelor/bachelorette auction. Yes, we put ourselves on the auction block for a good cause and only used the web (because it’s free!) to spread the word.

The results?

We sold out 200 tickets within the first 20 minutes of opening the door and ended up raising $16,000. Not too shabby for $0 in marketing, no fancy ads, no press release—just a group of kids with a fun idea, some excitement and a lap top.

Here were our tactics, which can be easily mimicked by any nonprofit:

Created a Facebook event and sent out invites.
We each posted the event to our personal profiles periodically and talked it up. (To do this: A. Click the “share” link on the event page. B. Write a comment. C. Click the “share” button)
Created fan pages for each bachelor/ette. See our example.
Created a landing page with bios to generate excitement.
Sent out reminder messages to people who accepted the Facebook event invitation.
Posted on other free websites such as IloveSeattle.org, Craigslist, and Twitter.

Kudos to the TGAL committee, Roses and Rosemary and everyone who played a part!

–Bianca Abate

Follow me on Twitter

http://pandora.votigo.com/poster/

A Cool Tip from Levi’s
October 14th, 2009

Levi’s is teaming up with Pandora.com to sponsor an annual interactive poster contest to support youth music education for a cash prize.

They’ve got: co-branding, social media, and a philanthropic cause… the perfect recipe for community engagement.

-Bianca Abate

Culture drives brand communities
September 10th, 2009

Companies have internal cultures that either have the capacity to support their use of social media or they don’t. What they need to realize is that to build brand communities that support their business goals, they must look at how they develop the strategic direction for the organization and the cultural fluency with their people to support a multi-directional dialog among customers, employees, and other stakeholders. David Armano points out that it is a people issue not just a technology issue.

We couldn’t agree more. Becoming, what we call, a social brand is the lifeboat for this sea change in communication that the web enabled. We will be talking more about social branding in subsequent posts, but briefly, it means building a shared promise among all your constituents (bringing together how your employees, customers, partners and stakeholders value the brand) so they can influence and shape the brand community in a way that provides value to all. People are key to this, and the way your culture is shaped is key to success in this new paradigm.

–Jen Travis

More survey questions answered: It’s never too early to start a conversation
September 1st, 2009

Here are a couple of questions posed by takers of the online brand survey:

Would having an online forum at this stage of our development (early-stage startup) provide any value add for users visiting our website?

We are just starting to push our new solution. What should we be talking about to start building a community?

The sooner you engage customers, the better. If you can engage prospects—even more better. Value add will occur if you referee an honest dialog about your product/solution—which includes incorporating feedback into product development and customer service, and calling that out via online communications. When customers experience that their opinions and needs result in actions, they experience you as a full participant in their community. This tends to make them stick with you—and tell others about you in their online and offline travels.

That said, how do you start building that community? Community-building online is as much about where as it is about what. Here’s a good, high-level article on the subject: http://mashable.com/2009/08/25/whole-foods/. It doesn’t matter how big or small your organization is, the key is to focus in on where your audience hangs out and add value to those conversations (whether it’s commenting on someone else’s blog or starting a Facebook page for your business). You can’t control a brand community but you can help shape it by delivering something of value to its members.

Anyone out there have some additional suggestions? Please comment.

And, we’re closing the survey at noon Wednesday, 9/2—so if you want to get your two cents in and have a chance to win that Flip video camera, take a few minutes to complete the quiz (scroll down a couple of entries and you’ll see the whole thing).

Beth Woolley