Social Strategy & Design Integration @C2GPS: ...

On Friday June 18, I had the great pleasure of copresenting a workshop on the topic of social strategy and design integration with Cindi Thomas of Translator, aka @deziner, for @C2GPS. Pretty much any time you’re in a room with Cindi, you are guaranteed to a) laugh your a$$ off b) learn something c) realize you need to rethink something d) all of the above. (The correct answer is D.)

So I wanted to take this opportunity to recap what I learned.

Cindi spoke about how:

-Integration is not about creating the same thing in different media channels, just in a different flavor; instead, it is about understanding the unique roles and expectations of each channel.

-Integration is not about “bolting on” social to digital experience, marketing or PR. Instead, create a digital experience, marketing program or PR effort that is inherently social.

-Design for digital/social is more alchemy than science. There is no checklist or recipe for success. We can suggest ingredients but not exact amounts.

As for me, I talked about the Joy of Strategy and how:

-It has evolved past the two-dimensional thinking of features, functional benefits, and emotional benefits to the much more three-dimensional world of stories, utilities and people.

-It is more about creating caring, conversation and (media) coverage than it is about the mythical “one thing” about the brand of yore.

-Planning requires a much higher degree of openess and flexibility than it used to. No more annual planning – we are constantly planning and adapting strategy to the opportunities of the moment.

It was a great group, and a great time. Oddly, though, on a gorgeous Friday afternoon in June, no one wanted to stay and chat about the Joys of Social Media Measurement. Go figure. Maybe next time.

Thanks to the fantastic @ericaconway and the whole @C2GPS crew. If you aren’t familiar with them, check them out here. The GPS stands for Graphics and Productivity Solutions. These folks know how to find great people who can get ‘er done, and they know how to train. They make a mean jello shot too from what I hear.

Here are the slides. If you’re reading this on an Apple mobile device you can see them here on Slideshare mobile.

Please add your two cents in the comments or let Cindi and I know if we can be of help.

iPad App Review: DashFour Foursquare Client...

I came across the DashFour app (version 1.3) from Project Zebra while searching the app store for Foursquare for iPad, which unbeknownst to me at the time does not yet exist. I was immediately excited by the promise: “A map-based, bigscreen foursquare client. Get the most out of foursquare and see your friends in a whole new way. Easily view what’s around you, see your badges, your mayorships and your friends.” Being a highly visual person, and one that has become rather bored with Foursquare, I thought being able to visualize the goings-on might make it more interesting and fun. Unfortunately, the app just has too many bugs and missed opportunities for useful features to be something that I would recommend to you. The Project Zebra developers have said on Twitter that they are open to input, so I’m holding out hope that they might make it better.

Here’s what the basic mapping functionality looks like (you can also choose satellite maps or a hybrid.)

Overall I think GPS is very poorly integrated into the app. It automatically maps you to your last check in instead of your current iPad location, which is a drawback particularly for use while traveling. If you want to see what foursquare venues are around you, and select “show me my current iPad location”, nine times out of ten, it will be wrong in my experience. The above screen shot is actually my trying to map to my home, which is several miles from this location. Obviously, if the maps are inaccurate, the app is pretty much useless.

In addition, with so many venues around a given location, it’s often difficult to impossible to sort through all the little pins to get to what you are looking for. It would be great if instead of just pins they were the little icons that indicate what type of venue, and if there was a filter for what type of venue you are looking for. Say I am traveling, and looking for a “foursquare popular” restaurant; right now, I am not going to find it with this app, and that could be one of it’s biggest utilities IMHO.

DashFour does live up to its promise to easily view your badges, mayorships and friends. In fact, the “show me my friends checkins” feature is probably the best right now (you can zoom in and out to visualize where all of your friends are checked in):

I could see this being a useful feature for the Foursquare-active business owner. In fact, once they get the “consumer” UI/functionality fixed, another big opportunity would be to consider features from business owners’ point of view and integrate the type of business dashboard that is relatively new to Foursquare itself. More information on that here, from Mashable.

I really do think this app it built on a great concept, but the execution needs some serious help. Please add your two cents here – what features would you like to see in a product like this?

Social Marketing Doesn’t Have to Be Complica...

How many businesses are still freaking out about social media because it’s so complex? Yes, there are a lot of moving pieces and parts, and a lot of shiny objects to sift through. Yes, some “advanced” social marketing efforts can be quite complex. But today I experienced a business that is jumping in to social marketing in a poetically simple way. This case in point: Coa restaurant in Milwaukee’s upscale Bayshore Town Center shopping mall.

I was a fan long before they “got into social media.” I tweeted about every experience there enthusiastically. For a while, it went more or less unanswered, which was OK, I said what I said because I meant it and expected nothing in return. Then I went to a Cinco de Mayo party there this year, and had the pleasure of meeting owner Marc Bianchini and new “social media guy” Sam Sova.

Sam and Marc know they have some loyal fans, and they also get something even more important than that: the best way to get people talking about you is to offer an extraordinary experience. So they invited 10 of us, plus guests, to come sample their brunch menu and give them our feedback. And of course, nearly everyone at the table was tweeting about their favorite dishes (and the ones they liked less). I recommend the Chilaquiles for some spicy Mexican comfort food, and the breakfast burrito if you’re into spicy chorizo.

I have set up social “ambassador” programs for clients before; I’ve never really been a brand ambassador myself. (I would have been for Specialized Bikes, had they not ignored my enthusiastic tweeting, but that’s a different story.) And Coa’s effort isn’t what I would classify as a “formal” ambassador program. But whether they intended to or not, today, they turned me from merely a fan into something of a self-appointed ambassador. The food is always great at Coa. That’s not what changed. The service is always solid. That’s not what changed. What changed? The incredibly simple act of making a customer feel truly appreciated and “special”.

What are you doing in your business to make your customers into fans and your fans into ambassadors? Or, what could you be doing? If you’re not sure also drop a note below and we’ll get you some ideas.

Five Killer Applications for Twitter...

Someone DMed (direct messaged) me on Twitter the other day and said, “Wow. You really really love social media.” Yesindeedlydo. And out of all the tools I use, I love Twitter by far the most. Which often perplexes colleagues, friends, and family who say they just don’t “get” Twitter. So while I am sure lots of people have blogged about why they love Twitter, I am hoping that by sharing a few of the concrete things that I have actually done with Twitter lately, it might help a few folks who are still standing at the other side of the chasm get over it.

1. Getting a Gig. I got my job through someone I met on Twitter, albeit somewhat indirectly. This was written up on Mashable and on MarketingJobWire.com. In a nutshell, all I did was get active on Twitter and a chain of events unfolded that made me a partner in an agency and gave me one of the biggest, coolest challenges of my career.

2. Conversely, I use Twitter for Recruitment. I chuckle quietly to myself when I get calls from sales reps from job sites that want me to buy recruitment ads, because I generally don’t need them, and they don’t understand why. Twitter is why. I am not at all likely to hire anyone who is not active on Twitter and several other social tools.

3. Q&A. Two days ago, I was in a meeting, and needed an insider point of view on a Greek word from a Greek person. I tweeted “I need a Greek person. A really, really Greek person.” and with in seconds @spoon had hooked me up with the fabulously helpful @im_X1 and my question was answered. Also personal Q&A, which I use much more rarely to avoid being annoying. But yesterday, when I was standing in Nordstrom and having trouble deciding between two pairs of new shoes, I tweeted a photo and again, within a couple of minutes, had several “second opinions” that confirmed my decision. Sometimes, when you don’t have a friend with you, or the “right” friend for the task at hand, Twitter is like having hundreds or thousands of friends in your pocket. If you’re in the “I don’t need Twitter, I have Facebook” camp, like one friend who shall go unnamed, the feedback and interaction you will get on Twitter is much more real time and instantaneous than Facebook, which is the main reason it is my first love; I am all about instant gratification.

4. For “little people” bloggers like me (not that I am, you know, a dwarf. What I mean to say is that I am extremely minor in the world of blogging), Twitter is a primary blog traffic feeder. Sure, if I spent more time blogging and more time on SEO, I might be able to eventually rank high for certain relatively obscure search terms. In the mean time, Twitter is really the only decent way for me to point the three or so people who read my blog here on a regular basis. Granted, if you’re not yet digging Twitter, there is a high likelihood that you don’t dig blogging, either. But, once you “get” the Twitter, anything is possible ; )

5. Twitter chats. There is a Twitter hashtag chat for everything from Agriculture to Young Nonprofit Professionals. There is a list here. It’s a truly great way to immerse yourself in whatever topic you are trying to learn more about.I try to do Sunday night #blogchat whenever possible, hosted by the inimitable @mackcollier, and I never fail to walk away with some great ideas and great new people to follow. And this and conference attendance are the main ways that I get new followers, too. If you want more information about how to participate in a Twitter hashtag chat, I can help you set that up.

There are lots of other things that you can do with Twitter. What other “killer apps” do you use Twitter for? Help me beef up the list for those who have not yet experienced the wild bounty that is Twitter.

There is also a great new book that just came out called TwitterWorks written by some of Milwaukee’s finest Twitterpreneurs. If you want to learn more about Twitter, I recommend it highly.

P.S. This post is dedicated to @markfairbanks, who really loves lists.

One Week Later, Still Ungeeked....

Is it really possible to summarize three days in a room with >100 brilliant minds in a short post? Um, no. But the #ungeeked conference was such a phenomenal experience, I have to say something. I can’t possibly do every presenter justice here, but just hit a few highlights. There are many more that should be mentioned here, had I had the foresight and the time to blog each day of the show. If you’re not mentioned here it doesn’t mean I don’t think you rocked. Also, I’ll come back and link to these presentations once I have the links, hopefully tomorrow.

My good friends @TranslatorXD did a stellar job setting the stage with a rousing talk about user experience. “They (users) don’t want a window. They want a view.” is now being touted as one of the memorable sound bites of the conference. Translator then went on to create a truly engaging experience for all of us at the first night after party, with Pokemon-style social media trading cards of and for each attendee and a Twitter-team-based game. It goes to show you what happens when you take the filters off and free your thinking, as they have.

Joe Sorge @AJBombers was one of my very favorite presenters, with his truly unplugged, one-slide, straight-from-the-heart talk. Would have liked to have seen more of that, overall. Finn Digital’s @billfinn nailed it the same way – with notes from his Moleskine notebook and a super-smart product called BoothTag that he quietly “sold” by creating utility, not by giving a pimpy sales presentation.

I did not know of @kellyolexa before this conference, but was so glad I dragged my tired butt out of bed to see her at 7AM on day two. Fiery, funny, and just plain nice, Kelly was part of the Ford Fiesta movement. She fascinated me. I definitely recommend you check her out.

We love Chris Brogan. I love Chris Brogan. I would love to have seen Chris Brogan unplug the Powerpoint and do some improv/Q&A as was the intent of the conference.

What does one say about @jwillie? I’ve never seen anyone turn a presentation into a drinking game before; we were supposed to drink every time he said “Sharepoint”. And while it made for a hilarious and engaging show, I would also like to have walked away having learned something about Sharepoint.

I’m such a dork that one of the biggest highlights for me personally was the presentation from @bhalligan from Hubspot. It truly was like a giant mental inbound marketing-gasm. Hubspot must be a little busy, since I’ve requested a demo of their analytics package, oh a week ago now, and received no response.

But no one – NO ONE- can touch Sally Hogshead as an engaging, FASCINATING presenter. Holy. Crap. Sally has done the hard, crazy-smart work and real research (3-and-a-half years’ worth) to create content that goes way beyond the usual retreads and “check out this shit I made up about X”. Her new book, Fascinate, about seven triggers to Fascinate people, is a must-read, and I am in awe of her as a creative force. After her presentation I seriously was so mind-blown that I wanted to go lock myself in a quiet room for a week and just think. Extremely inspiring.

Honestly, the biggest benefit by far is just feeling so much closer to you, my amazing community since the conference. There’s really no substitute for spending real face time with people; I wish I could have done more of that, but Mom duties called loudly at night, and that’s job #1 for me. Nonetheless, I got to spend time with the hysterically brilliant @SaraSantiago, and get to know @raffel and @angeloakley, and finally meet @thebrandbuilder, among the many others of you who I’m lucky to know.

I have learned – am learning – so much from all of you, every single day, and I thank you for that.

One thing we all seemed to agree on was this: major, major kudos and congratulations to @thatwoman_soho for making this all happen.

What were highlights for you? Or if you weren’t there, what would you like to learn more about?

The Role of Social Media in Market Research: My Tw...

I’ve attended a few of the local AMA lunches in the past, and to be brutally honest, have often ended up feeling that I wasted time by attending the programs, other than the fact that I get to network with some great folks. Yesterday, I decided to give it another chance, and consider membership. Unfortunately, I have to say that it was no exception, and if I join, it will be mainly for the discount on the #ungeeked conference and because of some of the other people who are members, not for the programming.

The program was a panel discussion on the role of social media in market research. And the panelists surely have a lot to offer; this is not intended as a slight on them in any way. John Hink, manager of competitive intel at Fiserv shared some great tools on which I had not been focused: Pipl, Glassdoor, Addictomatic. Roger Phelps from Phelps Research shared how his firm uses LinkedIn as a global executive database to recruit research participants. And Brian Hutchinson from the UW System procurement office uses social media to get intel on possible vendors and talked about cross-platform listening tools like One Riot and Connecta. All very good, very helpful people.

What was missing, though, was the healthy debate I had hoped for on the bigger picture of how social media has impacted market research. The extension of the frequently-seen online discussion of whether Twitter has killed the focus group. Any discussion on the role of social media in a broader B2C context. I think anyone who came to this meeting to get a solid overview of the issues left with an unrealistically limited view.

Oh, and did I mention there was no one introducing the panel, on the panel, or moderating the panel, of the female persuasion? I thought we had moved beyond the days of the boys club, but perhaps I was wrong. A prominent local researcher mentioned to me after the event that he had recommended me for the panel. Was I not chosen because a) I am not that involved in the organization. Fair, in a way, but don’t we want outside perspectives? b) I don’t have a penis c) I have a big mouth d) other?

Now, I’ve said before I am not the smartest person in the room, and no doubt this event was no exception. There were many very, very smart people in the room. But I actually have a fair amount to add on this topic. The aforementioned researcher and I had a great conversation after the event regarding cross-demographic consumer willingness to comment on anything and everything, down to the smallest detail, and the growing dynamic of expectation of immediate brand response. We talked about how for one of my consumer retail clients, I used social media, specifically Twitter search not to supplant traditional research but as proof that it was needed. I think I would have been able to add value, and help answer some of the questions that were asked about broader applications.

I’m not saying that I, personally, am the holy grail or the answer. What I am saying is that I surely hope that the Milwaukee AMA will consider incorporating a broader range of perspectives into their programming, and I know that I am not alone in that hope. Five middle-aged white guys in similar jobs is just not representative of the Milwaukee marketing community.

I say this with all due respect to the good people who volunteer to put these programs together. As a speaker, I know how hard it is to find the “perfect match” of speakers to a topic; it’s impossible to please everyone in the room. I wish I could volunteer to help with programming myself, but that’s just not realistic for me right now. So, to the programming volunteers, thank you for your efforts.

What do you hope for the AMA? How has your experience of it been different from (or the same as) mine?

Inspiring Social Media Stories from Nonprofits...

Yeah so I started this new gig 6 months ago, big one, overseeing account management and digital strategy at a 42-year-old agency named Meyer & Wallis. And I’ve had my hands too full to blog, except the occasional random posterous. So while I routinely preach to clients about the importance of posting regularly, here I am, six months later. And you know what? Sometimes, that’s just life. As I explained as my last post pre-hiatus, if it comes down to an hour to blog or an hour a day with my kid, there is no contest.

But now. I really have “the bug” to find a way to find the time. I gave a three-hour social media workshop last week for a bunch of folks from United Way chapters from 10 states. And the preparation for that gig, and the great stories I shared about social orgs like National Breast Cancer Foundation (who were kind enough to talk to me on the phone), Wildlife Direct (a-mazing story!), Girl Effect (a perennial favorite), and Charity Water (beautiful content production), really got me inspired again about the power of social. Here’s the preso. I welcome your comments either here or on slideshare.

What’s the most inspiring social story you’ve heard lately?

Zappos handles even astroturfing with style...

Yeah, I know. Like Zappos needs any more social love, right? But, I have to tell you how well they handled this whole astroturfing thing. This post could also be titled “three simple steps for how to handle a mistake flawlessly.”

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about Zappos’ social storytelling and how sometimes, I think it goes too far. An employee at Zappos posted a comment on the blog about how great the service is, not disclosing that he or she is an employee, and then failed to respond to my three e-mail inquiries on the topic. So, I wrote this post about brands behaving badly and pretending to be happy customers, without disclosing that it was a Zappos thing, because I wanted to see how they handled it first.

After consulting with yet another person much smarter than I, @edwardboches, I decided to message @zappos about this, not really expecting much, given the less-than-rockstar ranking of my blog. But lo and behold, Tony Hsieh, the uber-CEO himself, responded within a day or two asking me to e-mail him the details, which I did. He looked into it right away and confirmed that the comment came from behind the Zappos firewall. He apologized, and promised to remind everyone that astroturfing is decidedly uncool. I was satisfied. Then day or two later, I got this comment on the blog:

Dear Sue,

My name is Rob Siefker and I’m the Sr. Manager for the Customer Loyalty Team (CLT) at Zappos. Thanks for writing your post, although I’m sorry someone from our team wouldn’t be transparent or forthcoming with their response to your original blog. I doubt the intent of our employee was to be misleading, but unfortunately it came across that way. I wouldn’t claim that we’re perfect, but it’s part of our culture to strive for customer service excellence. In this case, we didn’t put our best foot forward.

I’m thankful for your blog because it is a learning opportunity for us. We certainly don’t condone “astroturfing”. It’s the opposite of what we want to accomplish as a company. We’re going to remind everyone at Zappos about how important our interactions with people are to our service culture and brand. We’ll use this as an example, and hopefully it will resonate.

Thanks for your temperance and transparency. Your experience will help us be better in the future, and we appreciate that.

All the best,
Rob

This is instructive in many ways. 1) Rob says those magic little words: “I’m sorry.” right out of the gate, and admits that it was a mistake. 2) He tells us what corrective action he is going to take. 3) He comes across as very sincere, authentic, whatever you want to call it. He’s very human, not corporate. In my book, Rob could be the master of blogger relations with these three simple steps.

So, at this point, I am ultra-impressed, and ready to head to Zappos.com, even before two more very cool Zappos employees chimed in.

Nicely played, Zappos. I have come to believe that you really are “Powered by Service.”

Brand Behaving Badly: Stop Pretending To Be a Happ...

Recently I wrote a post about a social brand, and someone from corporate left a comment on the post trying to prove me wrong by pretending to be a happy customer of that brand, rather than an employee. For a brand that has spent a ton of time, energy and resources on building its brand and social cred, this is really, really, very, very bad, dirty brand behavior. In a word: Grrrrr.

If there’s anyone reading this that doesn’t understand why this is bad behavior, which I doubt, it is simply the antithesis of being a good social citizen. The opposite of transparent, a blatant misrepresentation. To a brand that goes to great lengths to differentiate on good brand behavior – how well it treats its customers – this is a very good way to very quickly kill trust. In all honesty, I was considering becoming a customer, and I don’t think I can do so now, even though I recognize this is one individual of many.

I have sent multiple e-mails to this individual, to no avail. I could out this person, possibly getting him reprimanded or fired, and possibly damaging the reputation of the brand. Thanks to a consultation with the more-cool-headed @augieray, and @danamlewis and @philgerb, I have opted to continue pursuing other channels of conversation to stop this behavior before trying to draw a lot of attention to this individual/brand.

Perhaps, if you add your voices to mine in the comments, I can send a link and a message to this individual and convince them to stop. Thanks for your help.

P.S. if you are wondering what the heck the photo is, that would be Astroturf. This poor practice is called Astroturfing, and I find it amusing that I didn’t even know that until it happened here. Ha. Sometimes I wonder what planet I live on.

P.P.S. a little tip for any astroturfers or would-be astroturfers out there. When you comment, we can see the IP address so we know that it came from your corporate .com

Dear Subaru storytelling campaign...

Saw this ad in Cooking Light yesterday and I dig that it is using customer stories to spread the love. I’m awaiting confirmation but I believe the campaign comes from Carmichael Lynch, an agency I was with for 5 years in the late 90s. Their philosophy was – and is – “Speak to the core and let others listen in.” Meaning they were enthusiast marketers before social enthusiast marketing was cool.

Whoever executed the campaign, I’ve got a few questions, though. Why is “Dear Subaru” buried in the corporate website, not promoted on the home page (say, in place of the Free Outback Detergent promo)? It’s great advertising IMHO, but why rely on that to get people there when you’ve probably got tons of prospects hitting your home page? Why isn’t the campaign integrated into your Facebook page? Your fans obviously love you, but what better place to capture more stories and/or refer them to “Dear Subaru”? Why, on the “Dear Subaru” page, can we only see the three stories that you have controlled for advertising purposes? Have there been other submissions? Are people participating? The page isn’t social/transparent for us users to really FEEL the love.

Awesome idea. And I think it’s pretty new, so maybe it will get there. But it feels like a digital campaign executed by an advertising agency.