Is Your Brand Socially Agile?

Andy White, Senior Manager of Social Media Marketing at M80 and creative genius behind Audi‘s social media strategy, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss the importance of brand trust in a social media team, the thought process behind the successful #WantAnR8 campaign, and how Audi’s social agility lets him get things done.
Read on for some of the highlights and tweetable moments, or listen to the full podcast.

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Tweetable Moments

“We have the keys to the kingdom. That’s the sole reason we’ve had so much success.” -@white (tweet this)

“Most brands are completely tone deaf, even if they’re on social media.” -@white (tweet this)

“Within 2.5 minutes of the lights going out in the Superdome, @Audi had the tweet out.” -@white (tweet this)

With Great Responsibility Comes Great Innovation

Andy describes the unique situation at Audi. He has been running their social media scene for a few years but has always done so as a contractor from social media agency M80. The arrangement has worked, he vouches, because his team was given full creative control. They have to receive approval to expand to new outlets, but otherwise Audi trusts the team to make all their own decisions. Early on, Audi decided they wanted to be a “challenger” brand to reach out to followers who might otherwise not follow a car brand – who might not even own a car – and engage with them alongside the Audi aficionados.

Andy was the engineer behind the world’s most successful Twitter campaign, which was centered around the hashtag #WantAnR8. The hashtag was actually originated by a consumer on Twitter, and Audi actually gave her the car for a weekend and filmed it, then ran a promotion on the hashtag.
Similarly, the team was able to give a car to the documentary film crew behind Follow Friday the Film so they could drive across country to make their movie. Audi was also the first brand to use a hashtag – #ProgressIs – during a Superbowl commercial, back in 2011.
All of these examples show the brand’s social agility. With a smart team running the campaigns and the trust of the company behind them, they’re able to achieve more than any brand who is micromanaging their social media outlets.

Holy Social! 

Zena brings a point to us this week from DoubleTree by Hilton. Vanessa Sain-Dieguez, Social Media Director at Hilton, recently said that Hilton responds to all customer inquiries on social channels within 15 minutes, no matter what time or day they happen. To many brands, this seems overwhelming, but with that kind of service level agreement, problems will be much fewer and far between. And considering 42% of consumers expect a response within the hour when they’re complaining on social media, it seems like more brands will need to tune up and take notice.

Social Media Stat of the Week: 800,000 of LinkedIn’s 1% tweeted their rank

At the end of 2012, LinkedIn sent emails to their users with the top 1%, 5%, and 10% viewed profiles. With more than 200 million members, their top 1% is 2 million members strong. Jeff brings us the statistic that approximately 800,000 of those 1%ers tweeted out their status after receiving the email, which is a 4% tweet through rate (distinct from a CTR).

The key for social media networks is to have an external means of re-engagement. Relying on engagement within the social network alone will allow it to atrophy. LinkedIn, with probably the most robust email re-engagement strategy to date, reminds users about the network and gives them reasons to come back and engage.

Social Pros Shoutout

Andy: When you think of governmental agencies that are doing good things in social, obviously immediately you go to NASA. Undoubtedly they’re doing great stuff like Foursquare check-ins on Mars, that sort of a thing. They get a ton of kudos.
A couple of agencies that good stuff in social are the USDA and the Department of Interior. They’ve made great strides in making those less sexy agencies very approachable. They’re doing this across multiple channels, day in, day out – really good grass roots social. I recommend checking those two guys out.
I have to give a shout-out as well to Pebble, the Kickstarter watch. They have a great Twitter account and they’re really doing a good job in keeping all of us who backed them sane as we’re waiting for the watch to be sent out. They’re giving us some titillation and some feedback and some love as we wait, which seems now to be a long period of time. That’s Pebble.
Jeff: Next week we will be joined by Michelle Wingate from American Family Insurance.
See you next week!