It worked for Zappos. It probably won’t work for you.
Jan 24th
Zappos* is a successful company with a well-publicized, aggressive employee use of social media. In fact, it may be the most famous social media model in all of blogdom. They have 13 blogs, 50,000 videos and their employees tweet like rabbits in heat. It’s worked for them and it’s a wonderful case study. I get it. But it’s probably the wrong model for most companies.
And here’s the point where the waves of Zappo-sniffing social media purists come crashing down on me. So be it. This is dangerous stuff.
It is relatively safe to blog and tweet about shoes. But in many companies, the risk of an all-employee social media free love policy will far outweigh the benefits. For many important companies all it will take is one Twitter-induced SEC violation, a leak of vital competitive information, or a national defense breach, and the hammer will come down on the use of social media forever. Policies are usually made to deal with the lowest common denominator.
Is this a leadership issue? Not necessarily. There are irresponsible people everywhere. There are disgruntled employees even in the best-managed companies. Where corruption can occur it will occur. Welcome to the human race.
So what’s the answer?
Under the following conditions, the Zappos model might be ideal:
- Company culture supports employee engagement
- Company leadership understands the model
- Customer base is active on the social web in a meaningful way
- Benefits outweigh risk of security breach
If just one of these conditions are not met, the free love policy cannot work.
That’s not to say that social media won’t work in some form with almost any company if there is appropriate training, role clarity, effective policy and boundaries. But you have to fit the tactics to the strategy — and the culture — just like any initiative.
A marketing leader has to make effective decisions based on what IS, not on what you WISH for. You can’t “will” a social media effort to work in your company just because it worked in the Zappos corporate culture.
For an excellent and thorough perspective on the need for effective and appropriate corporate social media policies, I recommend Kent Huffman’s recent post on the subject.
OK, your turn. Let ‘er rip!
*If you are unfamiliar with the Zappos social media model, Jeff Bullas has written wonderful case studies on this company:
Stop hiding behind “snarky”
Jan 21st
One of my pet peeves is this whole “snarky” thing.
I often see people excuse away their unprofessional on-line behavior by saying “Well, I was just being snarky.”
Since when is it acceptable to be rude, sarcastic and dismissive to other well-meaning, professional people? We probably wouldn’t act that way in a face-to-face interaction but somehow in the bizarro world of the social web, it’s OK as long as you call it snarky. Inexplicably, it’s usually the more experienced bloggers who hide behind this position, and seem to be proud of it. They wallow in their snark.
Gratefully, {grow} has usually been a snark-free zone. The folks in this community take accountability for their thoughts and words and don’t hide behind euphemisms. Thank you.
As for those who mask cynicism and cruelty behind snark, grow up. Be accountable. Be a leader. Set an example.
Whew. That felt good. : )
Addendum: The day after I wrote this post, I saw this quote from American entertainer Conan O’Brien, commenting on his emotional exit from the Tonight Show: ”I hate cynicism. It’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”
8,000 Twitter followers. Now what?
Jan 20th
Something amazing has happened. I have nearly 8,000 Twitter followers in eight months. How does somebody maintain a meaningful presence on Twitter with a crowd like that? I’m a work in progress, but here’s what’s going on with me. Maybe it will help you too!
First, after I block out the creeps, I consider it an honor to have somebody follow me. Sure, they still might be trying to spam me, but my underlying assumption is that a new follower has genuine interest in me and I generally follow them back. I want to treat anybody who follows me with respect. My intent is to connect with you if you sincerely want to connect with me.
The wave of noise
Obviously there is no way to have a meaningful dialogue with 8,000 — or even 1,000 — people. It is a wave of noise. As my followers grew, I realized that I was simply not going to be “engaged” with most of them.
The compromise is, I try to stay engaged in a meaningful way with anybody who makes an attempt to connect with me through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or (gasp) the real world. I manage this through Seesmic (or Tweetdeck, take your pick). I have segregated lists of people who connect with me and I try to watch their activity and support them as much as possible. If you make an effort to engage with me, I’ll put you on one of these lists so I can hopefully get to know you and engage. I truly want to help and support people in my audience any way I can, whether it is tweeting, reading your blog, or having a chat about a problem.
Everybody’s equal
In my Twitter World, even though you may be one out of 8,000, everybody has an equal chance at dialogue. I generally follow back — now it’s up to you! I also make an attempt to engage in some way with new followers, especially if I see something in their profile that indicates a common interest. In general, if people connect to me, we stay connected.
I also maintain a Seesmic list of the folks I consider to be thought-leaders from a wide range of disciplines. Learning from these great thinkers and having access to them is one of the best benefits of Twitter, in my opinion.
I have not used public Twitter lists for two reasons. First, I don’t see an advantage over the lists I’ve already built on Seesmic. Second, I don’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings. If I had a list of “B2B thought leaders” and one of my followers wasn’t on it, it could hurt their feelings. As I said, bottom line this is about respecting people. I know there is a real person behind that little picture and you are amazing in your own way.
What’s next?
This strategy seems to be working for the time being. Can I maintain relevance with an audience of 10,000 or 20,000? I’m sure I’ll have to adjust and I’ll probably have a new post to write you at that point!
In the mean time, I would appreciate your feedback. What issues do you face with your growing list of followers? What ideas do you have that can help me do a better job staying connected with you?
Twitter Tip: Geo-tagging. What is it, how to do it, and for God’s sake, “Why?”
Jan 19th
I wanted to write a post on the ability to “geotag” on Twitter but my friend Frank Podlaha is so much smarter than me and gratefully he contributed this guest post:
What the hell is it?
Twitter Geo-tagging is simply attaching your exact location to an individual tweet. Not only does a tweet contain its message, it also contains the name of the person who sent it, when it was sent, etc. That’s obvious. Recently, Twitter has allowed additional attributes to be tacked on each tweet, specifically your latitude and longitude coordinates of the tweet’s location.
Your Earthly coordinates are your “geo-tag.” It’s a very specific point on a map, ex: 35.9550,-83.9249 (paste that into Google Maps). To use geo-tagging on Twitter takes a few steps. First, the feature must be turned on for each Twitter account under the “settings” menu. It is turned off by default. Second, the geo-tag can only be attached to a tweet by third-party Twitter applications. The main Twitter website does not attached a geotag. Mobile phone applicationsare the most likely to attach geotags. Ubertwitter is a mobile app with this feature. And once a tweet is geo-tagged, you will need an application that can display this map point. Tweetdeck, a popular Twitter desktop interface application, has this feature (look for the tiny yellow pushpin icon under certain tweets).
Why in the world would I want to do that?
“So let’s get this straight. I turn on the geo-tagging feature on my Twitter account. I’m in the coffee shop and send a tweet from my phone that I’m laughing about a girl in a purple blouse that has a long piece of toilet paper stuck to her shoe. She reads that tweet, sees the geotag for that coffee shop, figures out she’s in a purple blouse, finds me sitting in the corner, and whammo – I get hot coffee thrown at me. What are you insane? This is the craziest feature I ever heard of.”
Yup, that’s what it can do in all its creepiness. But let’s stop for a second. Twitter is a public broadcasting system, really. And a public message is so much more relevant when you know who, what, when, AND where. Does it help to tell your friends which restaurant you’re in (like in the game @FourSquare)? Sure, sounds like fun. Could a travel tweeting app help you find the next gas station with clean bathrooms? That would be nice. Could I brag in a tweet about robbing a bank and the police track me down? Yes, you dumbass.
The business of geo-tagging
The business possibilities for geo-tagging go well beyond individuals spouting nonsense. Twitter is that public messaging system, remember? Many use Twitter for actual communications, oh my God. There are numerous websites and applications that search specific cities to find local tweets. These tweets are often displayed as content on their websites. A tweet that is geo-tagged to that location will appear in that search. In this way, tweets can be broadcasted to a small region. Ah-hah, the light bulbs should be going off. Take a look at the tweets from @LocalChirps with a geo-tag-ready client (like Tweetdeck). Each message contains a different geo-tag specific to the message in the tweet. One of these tweets may end up in a search for that specific city. It’s like sending banner ads directly to a targeted audience.
How about a trucking company tweeting status and location of your package? How about a restaurant giving away a free dessert for the next person who tweets from within their store? I could go on, but Mark asked to keep this post under 600 words. Now it’s your turn, what ideas can you think of for geo-tagging?
Frank Podlaha is a brilliant technologist, an inspirational entrepreneur and creator of LocalChirps.com
Welcome to {grow}
You’re in marketing for one reason: Grow.
Grow your company, reputation, customers, impact, profits. Grow yourself. This is a community that will help. It will stretch your mind, connect you to fascinating people, and provide some fun along the way. I am so glad you’re here.
-Mark SchaeferFollow Mark
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