Social Media best practices


The writing's on the wall: An interview with Sharpie's Twitter Queen

Jun 2nd

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When I first learned that Sharpie pens had its own Twitter-er, I couldn’t believe it. How in the world could you spend your day writing 140-character statements about INK PENS?
I decided to “follow” SharpieSusan and see for myself. I’m hooked. The enthusiasm, authenticity and wit driving her stream of tweets is addictive!

A former newspaper reporter and PR counsel to Kraft, Honeywell, American Airlines and others, Susan Wassel now combines “traditional” with “new” as both PR and social media manager for Sharpie. This week, Susan and her company launched a new community website and social media strategy. Amid this chaos, she had time to talk to me about her social media job and challenges.

How did you become the Twitter Queen of Sharpie?

Like the rest of us, I was reading about the Twitter phenomenon and the opportunity it offered marketers to connect informally with their audiences. It also worked out that Twitter was a platform that seemed most successful when a “personality” was involved. Let’s just say Twitter and I were a match made in heaven. I was lucky that lots of passionate Sharpie users were already Tweeting away and welcomed me into the conversation.

Does your company participate in other social media channels? Which seem to work best for your brand and why??

We just officially launched Sharpie’s Facebook fan page and You Tube site. Both are part of a larger initiative to celebrate Sharpie’s passionate users and the amazing things they create with our product. Our community channels are all housed on this new community site, http://www.sharpieuncapped.com/, along with a Sharpie gallery, a how-to video section, a virtual product test drive app, and of course the Sharpie blog, which I edit and which was our very first foray into social media.?

How do you measure the effectiveness of your Twitter-based promotional dialogue?

To date, we’ve only looked at number of followers, not because we didn’t want to know more but because we didn’t have the resources in place to dig deeper. The launch of our new community website includes an analytics initiative led by our agency Draftfcb that will take a closer look at some of our social media properties and Sharpie’s share of voice overall in the social media sphere. While we’ll get some fairly immediate feedback, we’re looking at measurement over the course of 6 months to give us broader measure of Sharpie conversation over time.

Other than raising awareness for your brand, have there been other, unexpected benefits of your Twitter campaign?

Again, nothing quantitative yet but more anecdotal. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Twitterers in general love Sharpie. They often express how surprised and excited they are to see Sharpie on Twitter. Everybody seems to have a Sharpie story they want to share – whether it’s a favorite color or a great idea about how to use Sharpies — from the Sharpie dress one sculptor sent me to the giant Sharpie-shaped birthday cake a fan made for a friend. People send me Twitpics of Sharpies on their desks at work, in their backpacks at art school, in the hands of celebrities at rock concerts and Broadway performances. It really is an amazing thing to see so many people so passionate about a little ol’ marker!?????

How do you explain to mainstream management what you do and why you do it?

Mainstream management isn’t so mainstream any more. I think you’d have to be living in a cave to have missed the social media movement and the power it can wield over brands. While not all execs have it figured out, they know it’s big, they know it matters and they couldn’t be more supportive of efforts at Sharpie to open a dialogue with our consumers and find out how we can continue to make them happy.

Everyone knows you are blatantly promoting a product … yet you remain so authentic and endearing! What advice do you have for others learning to promote their products through social media channels?

Ah, this is where the magic comes in. This is the part you can’t buy at the store. I think that for the most part, the people today who have stepped up to the plate within corporations to commandeer social media are those with their own deep passion for the product. And it is that genuine passion that consumers connect with.?I use Sharpies, my family uses Sharpies, my friends, my relatives — who doesn’t use Sharpies? There’s just something about their shiny cigar-shaped barrels, the bold, brilliant colors, the bright and smooth way the ink lays down, that I love! Not a day goes by that I don’t use them to label one of my kids’ lunch bags or make a Christmas ornament with the cousins or create big loopy bubble letters on my daughter’s 8th?grade graduation poster. So I have lots to of real-life Sharpie fodder for my Tweets. And then of course I always get off on these talk tangents. There is a group of us addicted to NPR, another caught up in the Jon & Kate crisis. It’s not just all Sharpie all the time and I think that’s important too.

Photo credit Promo magazine
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Authenticity and the new world of "earned media"

May 18th

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“Being real” has always been a keystone of marketing and advertising, but in a digital world where impressions are fast and last forever, authenticity is more important than ever.
I recently engaged in a discussion with Michael Torano, President at Sevens Full (a consultant who works on digital out-of-home advertising), who had some great insights into becoming a successful participant in social media:
“The old adage “Content is King” also applies to social networking, social media and online community efforts for business. Advertising has historically been a one-way conversation as marketers “shout” their message in whatever medium reaches potential customers. Social media should be treated as “EARNED MEDIA” and is an opportunity to engage and participate in the conversation rather than direct it.
“For this reason, successful and efficient social media marketing tactics should be a participatory engagement with the sharing of information, tips, etc. relevant to your business. If your engeagement (updates, tweets, blog, etc.) is delivered as yet another “media channel” with a constant stream of offers, ads, coupons, etc. you’ll find that it is treated as advertising and “tuned out.” Who wants to “follow” an advertiser for commercials anyway?
“Regarding online communities and other social networking media, be prepared to surrender control of the conversation. You’ll have to take the bad with the good and respond to both. This provides an inexpensive, real-time opportunity to hear/read what your customers and prospective customers have to say about your product and/or service.
“Many firms utilize social media as an additional channel for customer service and FAQ support rather than marketing. There’s nothing wrong with adding a little “personality” (humor, daily activities, opinions, etc.) to the stream of updates. Most will consider it pleasant and even reply; this places a real person in your stream and invites even further engagement. Place a marketing message in your stream. Just be sure it’s surrounded by non-advertising related content to keep the dialogue going and to attract followers and community.”
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Corporate social media guidelines emerge

May 15th

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One of the hottest topics in social media right now is how to handle these rapidly emerging communications platforms in the context of a public company and corporate responsibility.
This is the Wild West of Internet communications and it’s getting wilder by the minute as people stream onto social media platforms and, inevitably figure out how to abuse it.
All communications, everywhere, all the time presents a nightmare scenario for corporate communications professionals. Where does the line cross between free speech and corporate responsibility? Between open community and terms of employment? How does a large company possibly monitor hundreds of thousands messages that may represent a permanent communication record?
In a recent article, I forecast that companies would have to provide strict guidelines and hierarchical lines of communication in this new era, just as it had in the old. Some readers disagreed, and the results remain to be seen, but in the last week, I’ve read about the first public revelations on internal guidelines that explicitly prohibit employees from engaging in online communications that could denigrate the reputation of the company. Some forbid employees from even revealing who they work for, in some social media situations.
Predictably, the first hard guidelines are coming from news organizations, where the lines between reporting and personal commentary cannot be blurred.
This week the Wall Street Journal posted ground rules for its employees on how to use Twitter and other social media platforms. The rules include:
  • Sharing your personal opinions, as well as expressing partisan political views, whether on Dow Jones sites or on the larger Web, could open us to criticism that we have biases and could make a reporter ineligible to cover topics in the future for Dow Jones.
  • Consult your editor before “connecting” to or “friending” any reporting contacts.
  • Let our coverage speak for itself, and don’t detail how an article was reported, written or edited.
  • Don’t disparage the work of colleagues or competitors.
  • Business and pleasure should not be mixed on services like Twitter … if you are in doubt about the appropriateness of a Tweet or posting, discuss it with your editor before sending.
The New York Times internal guidelines caution:
“… personal blogs and “tweets” represent you to the outside world just as much as an 800-word article does. If you have or are getting a Facebook page, leave blank the section that asks about your political views.”
“Anything you post online can and might be publicly disseminated, and can be twisted to be used against you by those who wish you or The Times ill.”
“Just remember that we are always under scrutiny by magnifying glass and that the possibilities of digital distortion are virtually unlimited, so always ask yourself, could this be deliberately misconstrued or misunderstood by somebody who wants to make me look bad?
And the BBC took a similar approach when it said its employees:
  • Should not engage in activities on the Internet which might bring the BBC into disrepute.
  • Should not post derogatory or offensive comments on the Internet.
  • Should be mindful of the information they disclose on social networking sites. Where they associate themselves with the Corporation (through providing work details or joining a BBC network) they should act in a manner which does not bring the BBC into disrepute.
  • Cannot indicate where they are employed on their personal blogs.

Companies are not democracies and they have the right to employ people who do not want to cause them harm. Although the media companies were among the first to deploy strict guidelines on personal use of social media, the desire to maintain an untarnished reputation is no less important for other companies and we certainly see this practice become prevalent.

Missing from any of these published policies i– consequences. How far will companies go to reach into the public domain of free speech to protect their reputations? And what about disgruntled employees who have an axe to grind against an employer? Another prediction: Companies will begin offering monetary pay-outs to employees they dismiss, with the legal condition that they engage in no public communication to disparage the company.

I think we will soon see the first examples of companies punshing employees who violate these guidelines, setting the stage for new court cases examining the rights to free speech and the role of social media in our world.

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