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

Thank you to everyone who came to my presentation at the PRSA Social Media Summit at UW-Whitewater. It was a fun day with a lot of great speakers and attendees. I welcome your feedback on the presentation in the comments: What was most helpful? What could be better?

I’ve been looking for examples of great storytelling in social media. There aren’t an abundance, it seems. I’ve asked some other, more prominent social media junkies, who haven’t been able to come up with much, either. I can point to Tom Martin’s excellent Mardi Gras Twitter experiment. And Danny Brown pointed me to this great story about Smith Family Farm. Personally, I think pure brand storytelling is one of the most underutilized social strategies.

It’s just one form of storytelling, but why don’t more brands share photos, videos, anecdotes, lifestreams, to give us an inside glimpse of what makes them tick, their cultures, their values? What better way to make a personal connection? Maybe because their cultures aren’t as engaging as they could be in the first place? : )

Zappos does a great job of this, generally. Their storytelling reflects one of their core values: create fun and a little weirdness.

When I first started on Twitter I saw a photo that @zapposCEO shared of the coffee machine in one of their buldings that has been rigged to look like Rosie on the Jetsons. It made an impression: “Fun, intelligent brand.”

Last week, in doing some research for a presentation, I also came across this more recent video of a prank that employees there were playing on each other, involving dropping a bunch of ping pong balls on other employees’ heads. Funny, sort of. But stupid funny. It, too, made an impression: “Are they paying any attention to my order?”

So I did more digging and learned from a great post from ReadWriteWeb that the Zappos site aggregates the tweets from all of the Zappos employees on Twitter. As the post pointed out, there are no tweets that say “drunk”; however, at the time I first viewed the aggregation, the first tweet in the stream was something about how too much Jagermeister was going to make for a bad morning the next day. This, I believe,  definitely falls in the “TMI” category. But I also understand that it’s an isolated tweet, and that overall the stream sends a positive message. It’s more “real” because of the imperfections and the fact that its not scrubbed corporate clean. They also aggregate non-employees’ tweets about Zappos – positive and negative – which takes serious guts and I applaud.

I’m a big fan of leaning towards more transparency. I’m not suggesting that employees should be heavily “censored” or edited. But even if you let the silly pranks fly, wouldn’t it be OK to simply ask employees to not tweet about drinking? As far as social media policies go, “Don’t tweet about getting wasted” seems pretty lenient. What is “fun” and what is “stupid fun” is highly subjective. Jagermeister is…Jagermeister. Don’t you want to be seen as fun AND professional and trustworthy?

My point? This type of transparent storytelling, while a great strategy, walks a fine line between “fun” and “too much fun, not enough business.” Quite honestly, I’m usually the first one saying that people take themselves too seriously; but I do think Zappos could create stories that better reinforce their brand of great customer service. There’s a difference between storytelling and strategic storytelling. I’m excited to see what Zappos will do next now that Mullen is their agency.

Have you seen any great social storytelling? When do you think social storytelling goes too far? Where’s the line?

Photo credits: Rosie from DYN on Flickr.

Is the term “Social Business” relevant, or just more jargon? Geoff Livingston posed this question on Twitter recently and suggested I blog about it when evidently I was the only taker in favor of the term. I am a huge fan, and here’s why.

Social strategy can operate at different levels within an organization:

“Social media” strategy suggests that social plays a small, supporting role — just another media channel. This mentality is from whence where one-way “push” messaging and lame Twitter promotions are born.

“Social marketing” conveys that social has a more significant seat at the table — could impact product plans, pricing, distribution, not just promotion.

“Social business”, at the highest level, communicates “This is an organization that gives a damn. Social responsibility and social communication are at the heart of what we do.” This might not be exactly how others are defining it, but this is how I think it should be used.

Now, take three brands/companies, one functioning at each level. Which do you think is going to have the greatest success using social media channels? BINGO. The one that actually gives a damn.

Take Ben & Jerry’s as an example. Even though they are owned by Unilever, they have, in my opinion both as a consumer and as a marketer, retained their soul. Here’s a nice video interview of Walt Freese, the company’s Chief Euphoria officer, talking about how they have done so.

Instead of having one trite mission statement, the company has three – product, economic, and social – that ring true. This is their social mission: “To operate the company in a way that actively recognizes the central role that business plays in society by initiating innovative ways to improve the quality of life locally, nationally and internationally.”

So, when a true Social Business like Ben & Jerry’s launches a Social Marketing or Social Media effort – like changing the name of Chubby Hubby to Hubby Hubby in celebration of Vermont gay marriage (Mashable article on that here) what happens?

Magic. Because it’s strategic. It’s real. It’s talkable. It’s legitimately social, not faux or contrived social.

Best Buy’s Twelpforce is an example I have seen used to define “Social Business”. And while I think their Social Marketing programs like Blue Shirt Nation and Twelpforce are solid, I do not truly think of them as a Social Business. They are doing Social for Marketing purposes, not doing Business with a Social purpose. Likewise, Dell, Zappos, other organizations where social marketing runs through the veins and arteries of the organization, but social values don’t really lie at the heart of it.

The definition of social business – where the line is – is highly debatable. I’m still thinking that through for myself and would value your thoughts. But personally, I do not think whether or not Social Business matters is all that debatable.

Having fun and brand personality matter, too. Stop by Ben & Jerry’s website. There are an awful lot of brands out there that could learn a lot from this one, on many many levels.