Adopting a Piggly Wiggly View of Social Media
Aug 9th
By {grow} Community Member Lou Hoffman
Companies understand the intellectual argument for embracing the digital world. Prospects, job candidates and other target audiences increasingly conduct due diligence on the Net before making decisions.
That’s the easy part. Most marketing execs get this and the need to come up the digital curve.
But expertise by itself isn’t the game changer.
Mark hit the nail on the head in a recent post: “… social media success is not going to be a function of marketing vision or budget. It’s going to rely on radical organizational transformation.”
Amen.
But this transformation goes deeper than org charts, training and replacing the Friday jelly donuts. I think the game changer lies in companies changing from a mentality of centralized control to one that cultivates a distributed approach of digital actions.
Getting Past the Fright
This is a scary proposition. I can hear the lament echoing in the corporate corridors:
“It’s tough enough that our comms team is deploying social media that generates real conversations, dialogue we can’t always anticipate and with people we don’t always know. And now you expect us to proactively put these tools in the hands of amateurs. Borrowing from Match Box 20, you might not be crazy, but you’re certainly unwell.”
The shift away from a command and control model always causes heartburn.
When the Piggly Wiggly invented the self-serve grocery store, the common wisdom was that customers would steal them blind. The idea of picking your own groceries from the shelves instead of ordering from a single counter was viewed as totally radical in the day.
As it turned out, people lived up to the trust.
Last year we went through the exercise of helping a client CMO sell the idea of a hybrid decentralized model – select employees from all functions across the company would be trained and guided in social media – to the rest of the executive management team. The CEO put the kibosh on the proposal. His rationale – as a public company, they carefully scripted what they’re going to say during each quarterly earnings call and the last thing they needed was some guy in procurement tanking the stock price with an off-hand tweet.
Being a glass-is-half-full type, I told the CMO this is a good start. At least your CEO knows what a tweet is.
Here’s the part the CEO hasn’t figured out.
It Comes Down to Trust
If Piggly Wiggly can trust customers, you can trust your employees. With the right training and guidance, their use of social media will become a net positive and expand the company’s digital footprint.
A few companies have the right spirit.
My favorite example of an organization willing to give up control in exchange for the multiplier effect of social media is the Department of Defense. In fact, the DoD established a SlideShare platform to support the rank and file on topics ranging from how to tweet to tips and tools for YouTube.
Look, I don’t pretend to have all the answers on how a company can harness the collective power of its employees in deploying social media.
But I do know this. If companies don’t start rethinking their centralized mindset, trusting their employees and trying new things, the answers will never come.
Lou Hoffman spearheads a global communications consultancy and writes about storytelling through a business prism at Ishmael’s Corner. You can follow him on Twitter @LouHoffman.
Straight Talk on Social Media Gurus
Mar 15th
By Stanford Smith, Contributing {grow} Columnist
I love experts.
These folks have invested their own time and money learning something so I don’t have to. All I need to do is read their blog and get valuable insights for free (or at a fraction of the true cost). Some of these experts have become “huge” in their respective niches benefiting from years of consistent work and reaching critical mass.
I tip my hat to them. I never disparage someone for working hard and taking risks.
My problem is with you. Specifically, I think you are learning the wrong lessons from social media luminaries. Instead of carefully evaluating the advice you are getting, you are leaning too much on their experience. I’m afraid that your over-reliance on the gurus might be causing more harm than good.
Here are three common “crutches” that tend to mess up “expert groupies”:
Thinking That “They Are Just Like Me!”
Most social media experts haven’t been “just like you” for years now. They have huge email lists, social followings and a steady income from products and services. They have benefitted from years of experimentation. Although they may do similar things that you do, they are doing it with superior resources and expertise.
What this means: Realize that you are going to have to learn new lessons and make new mistakes. You can’t compare your experience to the A-listers. The best you can do is relate to them as fellow travelers on the same road.
Different Times – Different Strategies
I learned early on that starting a blog in 2010 was a lot different from starting one in 2006. According to Nielsen, in 2006 there were approximately 34 million blogs, by the end of 2011 this number ballooned to over 174 million blogs. Getting attention and attracting readers is exponentially harder today.
What this means: Be careful when a guru says that everyone starts out with nothing. While that may be true, the first person to offer ice cream on a hot day does a hell of a lot better than the 100th guy. You have to find, vet, and deploy techniques that match today’s market not yesterday’s.
Case Studies and Best Practices
I hate case studies. They distort reality and offer false hope. Simply because some other company saw great results doesn’t mean that they have created the only path to success. In fact, blindly implementing someone else’s strategy can have devastating effects. While case studies and best practices can help upper management get their head around a platform or technology, they shouldn’t be used as blueprints.
What this means: Don’t unfollow all of your Twitter followers. Don’t abandon your blog to dedicate 100% of your time on Google+. Don’t think that collecting social data like Dell will lead to Dell’s results. Instead, experiment daily with your own product and customers. You have to be your own case study.
How to Pick the Right Role Models:
I put my role models into two buckets: 1) Foxhole Cohorts and 2) Ivory Tower Generals.
The Foxhole Cohorts are wrestling with the exact same challenges that I face everyday. They are building an audience, growing their lists, and hustling like hell to get new customers, leads, and readers. Foxhole Cohorts are vigilant and are quick to warn me of danger.
Ivory Tower Generals won their stripes by successfully fighting yesterday’s wars. They are wise and offer amazing perspective. However these folks haven’t been in a back-alley knife fight in quite some time. Although they tell me to blog less, promote less on Twitter, and “be epic,” I smile and talk it over with my foxhole cohorts first.
(Quick warning: Ivory Tower Generals will often come down to the battlefield to show everyone that they still have “the stuff.” Learn all you can from them when they do. But remember that they have huge resources and ready-made fans waiting for their new ventures. You don’t.)
I’m Not Mad At Ya
I have a sharp pen so I might sound that I’m being tough on the “experts.” That is not my intention. My goal is to be tough on you. I want you to be sure that you are learning the right lessons. 80% of your tools will come from YOUR experience. Make sure you pick the right role models for the other 20%
Talk to me. Who are your “Foxhole Cohorts?”
Contributing Columnist Stanford Smith obsesses about how to get passionate people’s blogs noticed and promoted at Pushing Social, except when he’s chasing large mouth bass!
Supercharge your social media strategy by getting back to basics
Feb 15th
By Stanford Smith, Contributing {grow} Columnist
It starts as an uneasy feeling when you look at your social media stats.
Poring through the numbers you realize that traffic to your blog is stuck at average barely moving 10% in any direction. Your Twitter following is methodically growing by 2-3 spam bots a day. The only way to juice your Facebook following is by paying .50 a fan.
Instead of being the hot social media leader, it seems you’ve become the caretaker of a stagnant community like the corner bar 10 years past its glory years.
What Happened?
Frankly, the social media intelligentsia failed you. Tough words I know but hear me out. First social media as a quasi-discipline is still very young. Although we are working hard at it, many strategies are barely out of the testing stage. Add the rush to crown the latest tool or tactic as a game changer and you’ve got a confused hodgepodge of “so-so” advice.
In an effort to standardize the fundamentals much of the social media advice has settled into a familiar rut.
Once interesting (even pivotal) techniques like picking the right audience, write “epic” posts, answer comments, build an email list are old hat. Everyone has followed the same blog, Facebook, Twitter guide book and ended up with variations on the mean.
Sadly you can visit blogs for hours without seeing a truly breakthrough strategy. Since we are all using the same tools and techniques we are arriving at the same irritating and disheartening performance plateau together.
If we are going to jumpstart our efforts and push past the plateau we need to go back to a different set of basics.
The 3Cs
Kenichi Ohmae, known as Mr. Strategy, spent 20 years at McKinsey, the management consulting titan, honing his craft. His most notable achievement was the creation of the 3Cs — a deceptively simple framework for businesses to achieve a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
It so happens that it’s a nifty tool for building a kick-ass social media strategy too.
The 3Cs are Customer, Company, and Competition. Focusing on what makes you special in each of these areas is the secret sauce.
Let’s give it the 3C’s on a spin through your social strategy:
Customer:
All readers aren’t created equal. Some readers need to hear your perspective and learn your product’s benefit more than others. Segmenting your readers into specific sub-groups with specific needs uncovers opportunities for building deeper levels of relevancy and rapport.
Social media strategies miss the mark when the business builds content from product features rather than customer needs. Review your content and platforms and ask “who are we talking to?” “Will this audience feel that this information and relationship is built specifically for them?”
Company:
Your audience is searching for what makes you and your business unique. They don’t care about your sanitized PR boilerplate. They want to know the story behind your founding, products, and people. Your readers are looking for evidence that you aren’t the faceless 1% that doesn’t care about the other 99%.
It’s your job to find the drama, the unexpected stories, the customer “aha’s” that drive every great company and nestle them into your Facebook posts, Pinterest Pins, and blog posts.
Competition:
There’s an insidious practice in business called “benchmarking.” It works like this, you go out and evaluate your competitor’s social activities. After some discussion, you copy them. You match their Facebook presence, you tweet as much as they do, you deposit the prerequisite number of blog posts. Basically, benchmarking paints you into the same mediocre corner as your competition.
Do this instead, look for the needs your competition ignores. Focus your time and resources on one platform rather than mimicking the crowd. Pick topics that reinforces your strengths and attracts readers from your competitors.
Your Turn
I don’t have a magic bullet WordPress plugin or shiny new platform for you. A quick Google search will give you all the tricks you’ll ever need. Instead, focus on the core strategic choices that matter.
Here’s the microphone, can you use the 3C’s to jumpstart your social media strategy?
Contributing Columnist Stanford Smith obsesses about how to get passionate people’s blogs noticed and promoted at Pushing Social, except when he’s chasing large mouth bass!
Learning From Big Social Media Blunders
Jan 18th
By Stanford Smith, Contributing {grow} Columnist
Advertising Age just published its Book of Ten’s issue. In it they chronicle this year’s Top 10 Social Media Blunders. The list is entertaining and disheartening. Entertaining because of the shenanigans and plain idiotic social media mistakes committed by some very smart people. Disheartening because nervous businesses considering social media may unduly focus on the blunders and ignore the benefits.
Today, I’ll take a moment to speculate “why” the blunders happened and how businesses can learn from their less fortunate brethren’s mistakes.
Dropping the “F” Bomb
The Blunder: New Media Strategies employee mistakenly skewers Detroit drivers from the @ChryslerAutos twitter account. Although the tweet was caught and deleted within minutes, the damage to a career and a high-prestige social media account was done. New Media Strategies fired the employee and Chrysler Fired New Media Strategies.
Why It Happened: The scuttlebutt is that this employee managed his personal and client accounts with the same Twitter management tool. A small lapse in attention easily took his personal tweet and broadcasted it to the world.
Suggestion:
Set a firm policy that personal tweeting should not happen from a company sponsored and administered tool like Hootsuite. Since a mis-tweet could be dire, companies should also consider restricting tweeting from company computers.
Kenneth Cole and the Arab Spring
The Blunder: Kenneth Cole jumped on the Arab Spring news story with a less than elegant tweet:
“Millions are in uproar in #Cairo, Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online”
Why It Happened: Creativity got in the way of common sense. Politics, religion, and um… revolution are incendiary topic that should be handled with care.
Suggestion:
The same conversation rules that work at the bar and family dinners should be applied here. Provocative advertising can get you attention but ultimately it can backfire. Since the risk is often disproportionate to the benefit, it’s better to dig a little deeper for a social play that has more legs and less risk.
Qantas and #QantasLuxury
The Blunder: Bad luck and horrible timing led to the launch of Twitter Contest that asked followers to detail their dream luxury in flight experience. The problem was that the day before union talks had broken down and customers were still upset about a fleet shutdown that disrupted travel plans for thousands.
Why It Happened:
Operations, Customer Service, Marketing, and Social Media weren’t talking. A open-eyed review of social sentiment and actual conversations would have given the social team a heads-up that they were poking a hornet’s nest.
Suggestion:
Invest in a social media monitoring tool that gives real-time and accurate reports on what your community is saying about your brand. Any major social initiative should have a go, no-go, checkoff that polls customer service and operation.
A Face Full of Tomato Sauce
The Blunder: The folks at Ragu stepped in it when they tried to joke about dads lack of kitchen expertise. Ragu’s mistake was creating a video with moms spouting off about their kitchen-illiterate husbands. Not-funny and the Dads blogged en-masse about Ragu’s faux-pas.
Why It Happened: The problem is that Ragu missed a growing movement of dads who are kitchen, diaper, laundry, and bed-time story ninjas. The social web is packed with these interest and lifestyle based interest groups. A simple search would have uncovered the CC Chapman’s of the world and averted the PR misstep.
Suggestion:
Use social networks to monitor the pulse of your customers. A simple poll on Facebook can offer clues to how a marketing campaign, new product launch or price change could be perceived. Which leads to…
Netflix and Qwikster
The Blunder: Netflix decided to raise its prices without talking to their customers first. Next they confused everyone by spinning off their DVD rental into another brand, Qwikster, but failed to secure the Twitter username @Qwikster. The Twitter handle was scooped up by a loser who had a talent for bashing Netflix. The cost of this particular blunder was 800,000 lost subscribers or $192 million in $20/month subscriber fees.
Why It Happened:
Netflix is a savvy online player. On this one they forgot that they had an open channel to poll their most fanatic subscribers. Simply asking them how they would react to the changes would have revealed the gaping holes in their strategy. Ignoring these people created a firestorm that couldn’t be contained.
Suggestion:
Remember that “dialogue” is a competitive weapon. Facebook, Twitter are free to use and incredibly valuable for gathering opinons and soliciting support for company initiatives. It’s a good idea to add “social focus groups” to the traditional customer research done before the roll-out of any new product or service.
5 More Examples
Advertising Age did a terrific job at compiling and profiling these blunders. Read 5 more here.
I’m curious about your perspective on what went wrong with Quantas, Ragu, Netflix, Kenneth Cole, and New Media Strategies. Talk to me in the comments below.
Contributing Columnist Stanford Smith obsesses about how to get passionate people’s blogs noticed and promoted at Pushing Social, except when he’s chasing large mouth bass!
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