My first video blog. Apologies for the audio quality. I’ll work on that for next time. Comments most welcomed on this first effort. Thanks as always,
j
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Featuring Jason Falls, the head of social media at branding agency Doe-Anderson, author of the Social Media Explorer blog, and all-around social media nice guy genius. Jason submitted himself to the rigors of the Twitter 20 interview (20 questions live on Twitter) on November 14, 2008. Excellent questions and comments from viewers throughout, too. Thanks to everyone who participated.
(photo by Shashi Bellamkonda)
1. @jaybaer: How do you describe your role at Doe-Anderson (branding agency in Louisville)?
2. @jaybaer: How does your social media department intersect and interact with other parts of the agency?
3. @jaybaer: You’ve expanded the team over time. What do you look for in a social media professional? Conversation ability? Tech skills?
4. @jaybaer:(? from @geekmommy) Louisville doesn’t leap to mind re: social media/tech hotbeds. Easier or harder doing in from there?
5. @jaybaer: What type of reporting and metrics do you focus on with your social media programs? Do you sync with interactive analytics?
6. @jaybaer: Lots of discussion around where social media belongs. PR, marketing, customer service, etc. What’s your opinion?
7. @jaybaer: Some say “listening” is an agency function, but “engaging” needs to be done by the client. Can the agency be the voice in SM?
8. @jaybaer: What do you say to clients that are afraid of really communicating via SM, and ONLY want to listen? How do you conquer fear?
9. @jaybaer: What’s missing then from most corporate social media programs you see today? What makes you say d’oh!
10. @jaybaer: I hear you there re: lack of strategy. Conversely, what’s the most overrated aspect of SM today?
11. @jaybaer: Do you advocate distinctly different outreach methodologies for bloggers and traditional journalists?
12. @jaybaer: Very interesting. You’re saying treat journalists like bloggers, not the other way around? Relevant, focused pitching, etc.?
13. @jaybaer: Best examples of programs you’re really proud of? http://www.thestuffinside.com is legendary work. Others?
14. @jaybaer: Were you a bourbon guy before coming to Doe-Anderson and Kentucky, or is that just an occupationally-acquired taste?
15. @jaybaer: A toast to you, sir. How did you gravitate from sports communications to PR and social media at an agency?
16. @jaybaer: How does the agency world compare to client side marketing (or university side in your case)? Resources? Pace? Juggling?
17. @jaybaer: You did a lot of work in the education arena previously. What do you see from .edu in SM? How can they do it right?
18. @jaybaer: You mentioned your kids (2 for me as well). Social media take a ton of time - often unpaid. How do you balance it all?
19. @jaybaer: Can you tell us a bit about http://www.twit2fit.com your social media wellness community?
20. @jaybaer: Last one. What’s your summary 140 character advice for social media success?
As discussed recently in “Why Are We So Scared of Our Customers?” and “Presto, How Social Media Makes Bad News Good” I’m seeing the fear of negativity preventing more companies from embracing social media.
The typical social media objection is that if the company has a conversation with consumers in a public forum, the company will be forced to respond to inadequacies, and doing so will just make it worse. Consequently, many large brands are now engaged in social media “listening” campaigns, but not engaging with consumers directly.
Of course, listening is better than ignoring, but actually getting involved with your customers online doesn’t 
give you less control, it gives you MORE control. If you give customers a legitimate, easy-to-use mechanism for interacting with you and amongst themselves, a large component of the feedback about you is likely to end up within that mechanism. And then you can do something about it.
Consider Comcast. What is a better circumstance for the company, listening but not engaging while customers post videos like this (which you’ve probably seen since the original has been viewed 1.35 million+ times on YouTube), or engaging and actually encouraging customer feedback and complaint via Twitter (@comcastcares)? (read bottom up for killer customer service on Twitter from Frank Eliason at Comcast)
Dell has a Project RED application on Facebook. Within the forums, there are several consumer complaints about Project RED and how much it actually helps Africa, versus being a craven marketing ploy. While Dell itself doesn’t appear to be engaging in the dialog, it is facilitating the conversation (with other consumers defending Dell vociferously).
And because all of this is happening on an official Dell production, they have MORE control over it than if it was happening on a blog or some other Facebook page. They could comment officially. They could take down the forums. They could reach out privately to negative commenters.
If this conversation was taking place on some other blog, Dell’s options would be greatly curtailed.
Creating a mechanism for customer feedback using social media is the post-modern equivalent of the suggestion box. Brands that don’t do it because they don’t want to loose control don’t understand that facilitation provides control, it doesn’t eliminate it.
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In corporate conference rooms, a major complaint about social media is that it forces companies to get involved with dissatisfied customers in a public forum.
The historic imperative has been to ignore complaints publicly, and deal with them privately via form letters and an occasional telephone call from a customer service representative.
The rule of thumb has been that you never engage directly with a brand critic, because it adds credibility and weight to their arguments if the company acknowledges them.
If You Don’t Put Your Head in the Sand, You’ll Never Get Any in Your EyesThis ostrich tactic is absolutely the wrong way to handle criticism in a wired world. Ignoring the problem just makes it worse, as citizen bloggers will ramp up the outrage if their concerns aren’t addressed.
Instead of looking at social media as being forced to “handle” a “negative”, brands should view it as an opportunity to improve, grow and thrive. It’s the ultimate canary in the coal mine. If your company has legitimate problems with its operations (and most customer complaints have at least a kernel (and usually a cob) of truth), social media is the greatest opportunity of all time.
By listening, you not only learn what those problems are (with no focus group expense, by the way) but by responding to issues authentically and sympathetically (Zappos, Dell, Comcast et al), you can actually gain more customers than are lost because of the original problem.
And this isn’t just a big company scenario. If you run a restaurant and your weekday lunch-time chef is much worse than your weekend dinner-time chef, it’s entirely possible that a blogger or podcaster (like me via Hottie & The Fatso) will complain about it eventually. As a restaurant owner, wouldn’t you want to know that? You not only learn a critical piece of information about your own organization, but it gives you the chance to set your restaurant apart. A simple blog comment like this would do the trick:
“Wow. Really interesting to hear your perspective on our lunch vs. dinner quality differences. We of course strive for consistently great experiences at all times, and I’ll be auditing our lunch and dinner service immediately to get us back on track. Many thanks for your observation. We hope you’ll join us again for lunch soon and give us another chance.”
It’s about listening to your customers and humanizing your company. And once you commit to it, every piece of “bad news” you discover through social media gives you a chance to make it good.
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Scott Monty, the head of social media for Ford, participated in a Twitter 20 interview on October 23 and answered a wide range of questions about social media at big companies, and his ideas for the future of conversation marketing.
Scott and myself and 248 other lucky folks were in Scottsdale for the Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer.
1. @jaybaer: How do you describe your role at Ford?
2. @jaybaer: This is a new role within Ford? How did they handle social media before you arrived?
3. @jaybaer: A lot of talk at this #mpdm conference about setting social media objectives. Do you have one for Ford, or several?
4. @jaybaer: Auto is a many layered business. How do dealers view your work? Are they aware? Can and do they do their own social media?
5. @jaybaer: Interesting point about CRM. Do you feel social media is more an acquisition tactic or retention and brand loyalty tactic?
6. @jaybaer: Ford is of course a large company. How does that help or hinder your social media efforts? It sounds like they’ve given you a lot of rope
Good news: I’m the sole appointed expert. Bad news: I’m only one person and I’m in constant demand.7. @jaybaer: The company has a lot of agencies and other marketing programs. Do you actively coordinate the social media efforts with them?
8. @jaybaer: You were at Crayon, a social media strategy firm previously. Differences in the in-house and out-of-house SM process?
9. @jaybaer: What social media programs/plans are you rolling out for Ford that have you excited (other than free Ford Flex rides at #mpdm)?
Wide-reaching Twitter strategy; http://www.the2010mustang.com; bloggers at Media Drive Day10. @jaybaer: In terms of your Twitter strategy, is it de-centralized? Several people, several accounts? How do you staff it?
11. @jaybaer: There’s talk about companies cutting SM budgets because it’s “experimental”. How do you balance SM and today’s auto climate?
12. @jaybaer: Some say (including here at #mpdm) “Sure he can do it, he’s at Ford. I’m a small biz, I don’t even know the 1st step.” What is step 1?
13. @jaybaer: In today’s #mpdm luncheon @garyvee talked a lot about passion. Why are you passionate about social media?
14. @jaybaer: I agree that SM is the future of marketing, but when will that future arrive? Still people not online, much less Soc Media.
15. @jaybaer: Are you more of a Ford Flex guy or a 2010 Mustang guy? What else do you have coming out?
16. @jaybaer: Your travel schedule is onerous. Is that helping or hurting your social media outreach efforts? Wi-Fi in the new Mustang!
17. @jaybaer: You apparently have a Sherlock Holmes blog?http://bakerstreetblog.com Can you elaborate on that please?
18. @jaybaer: It’s Elementary. You also have a co-blog with@cc_chapman on diners and dives (@diners). Recommended diners or go-to items?
19. @jaybaer: I imagine it’s been a bit of a whirlwind since you started at Ford (3+ months). What’s been most gratifying to-date?
20. @jaybaer: The rules are still being written. What bugs you? If you could outlaw one component of social media, what would it be?
Since the advent of the printing press, professional opinions have helped shape our own. From Hearst to Murdoch, from Cronkite to Brokaw. Huge companies that employ thousands of trained journalists have helped us understand what’s good and bad, and whom to embrace or fear.
Not for long. This is not a flesh wound. The Internet killed old media, it’s just not dead yet.
That innocuous and ugly first banner ad on Hotwired.com spawned an information and interaction demon that it swallowing up media as we know it.
The proliferation of free online content via Web site, email newsletter, and RSS feed has become the hemlock for media companies. Newspaper ad sales dropped 14% in Q1 2008 alone. A 200+ year institution with a 14% drop in a quarter. Amazing.
Every newspaper in the country (and most magazines and TV stations) have reduced their news staff considerably. This of course results in decaying journalism: more wire copy, fluff features, less investigation, etc.
Decaying journalism reduces readers, subscriptions, and ad revenue even further. It’s a vicious cycle that cannot be stopped. You don’t have any money so you lay off reporters, so your newspaper starts to suck, so people cancel their subscriptions, forcing you to lay off even more reporters. Yikes.
“Serious” journalism as we know it will be gone with the possible exception of subsidized news outlets and egghead journals.
Because there won’t be any budget to do any meaningful reporting, “news” will even more be a collection of personalities, each “spinning” a tiny scrap of information and making their living micro-casting their shtick to a highly-targeted audience. This “Perez Hilton Effect” will make news cursory, instant, and increasingly salacious as pro bloggers fight for page views using overly dramatic headlines.
There’s been a lot of chatter about the role of PR in a new media world dominated by consumer generated content. I believe PR is actually more critical under those conditions. This explosion in news outlets will make it even more difficult for companies and organizations to communicate at any scale without PR help. Is your in-house corporate marketing team going to do outreach to 350 blogs? Maybe, but not likely.
Plus, a single corporate misstep will go viral instantly, making online crisis management through social media and video response a huge service opportunity for public relations professionals.
This of course will require PR types to manage relationships with many “prosumer” news outlets, and even if they don’t engage in social media and conversation marketing per se, they’ll need to be technologically adept and highly trained. Instead of using Bacon’s and Profnet to build a media list, they’ll use Radian6, Twingly, PitchEngine or whatever the semantic Web brings next.
As a news consumer, I mourn the death of old media. I loved reading stuff made from trees, and I appreciated (as a former journalism major) the role of the media in keeping our society informed and orderly.
But the genie is out of the bottle. And for PR firms, the murder of old media isn’t a threat, it’s an opportunity.
You may have heard of social media. There’s been a bit of news about it recently. However, a lot of people making that news have created expectations and beliefs about social media that aren’t true.
1. Social Media is Inexpensive
False. As Charlene Li said recently, social media trades media cost for labor cost. Done correctly, social media - even a simple reputation monitoring program - is a time intensive proposition that requires daily vigilance.
2. Social Media is Fast
False. Social media is by definition slow. Done correctly, social media is about developing meaningful relationships with customers and prospective customers in their natural habitat. That’s not a “wave the magic wand” scenario. You have to create content, be part of many communities, and proceed incrementally. Many successful social media programs take months (or even more than a year) to really germinate.
3. Social Media is “Viral Marketing”
False, in the same way that a square is also a rectangle, but a rectangle isn’t a square. Can a social media program go viral? Absolutely. But if you’re engaged in a social media program in an effort to go “viral” you’re not really engaged in social media at all. You’re engaged in an advertising and marketing campaign that uses the Web as its distribution platform.
4. Social Media results can’t be measured
False. Especially in comparison to many other communication programs like traditional PR, TV advertising, outdoor advertising and others, social media actually offers pretty solid metrics. Many social media software packages (great ebook analysis of them here) can provide highly detailed reports on the impact of social media programs. Can those results be tied back directly to sales, and therefore ROI? Probably not yet, but other than search and email (and maybe banners) where CAN you do that?
5. Social Media is optional
It doesn’t matter what the demographics of your customers are. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. Your customers and prospects are talking about you online. Your company needs to be part of that conversation. Today. Online is where many people do their talking, so that’s where you need to be. If barber shops were still driving consumer sentiment, I’d be writing this post about barber shop marketing. Be where your customers are.
6. Social media is hard
False. It’s not hard, it’s complicated. And that’s only because of the alphabet soup of social networks, lifestreams, sharing sites, etc. Social media is not about Facebook or MySpace or Flickr or Twitter or blogs or YouTube. It’s about having a strategy for making your company or organization more like a person and less like a machine. It’s about humanization.
If your customers and prospects feel like your company is more human and actually cares about them, they’ll want to be part of it. That’s the brand engagement holy grail that we’re all seeking. Too often, the humanization part gets overlooked in an effort to create a “user-generated video contest widget that we’ll launch on Facebook with support from Ustream.” Whatever. Use technology to be yourself, and don’t overthink it.
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Because of its simplicity and immediacy, Twitter enables brands to win the 1:1 battle with customers and potential customers in ways that even other social media constructs cannot. The density of Eureka! moments on Twitter is quite high, and if brands use it right, it’s the ultimate weapon for turning lemons into lemonade.
Let’s examine two recent personal examples:
Recently, I was a speaker at the ExactTarget Connections conference in Indianapolis. Like all good digital marketing geeks, I was monitoring the Twitter conversation by setting up a search for “#ET08″ (the official conference hashtag) and “Exacttarget” on my Twitellator Pro iphone app. (this can also be done using http://search.twitter.com).
I come across the tweet below from Andrew Eklund, CEO of Ciceron, a Web marketing firm in Minneapolis.
Note that this conference had sold out at 1,200 attendees. A possibly soon to be disappointed Mr. Eklund was headed to the hotel from the airport. However, Dawn DeVirgilio runs the @ExactTarget Twitter account and was also monitoring conference tweets.
She rushed to the registration desk, signed up Mr. Eklund for the conference, and had a name badge and complete registration package ready and waiting by the time he made it to the hotel 15 minutes after his initial tweet.
That’s the power of Twitter-driven customer service.
Social media is all about timeliness. I have an RSS feed of any tweets that mention my name or company name. Apparently, folks at the National Hockey League are doing the same thing.
My recent post about the NHL’s new ad campaign and its missing social media and digital marketing ingredients was answered almost immediately by Mike DiLorenzo, the Director of Corporate Communications for the league:
I then had a very interesting series of email exchanges with Mr. DiLorenzo about the NHL and its future social media plans. Fantastic! Talk about listening and responding with an authentic voice. To think that an NHL executive found my post through Twitter, acknowledged its merit, and then talked to me about it within 18 hours is simply extraordinary.
I’ve spoken at a ton of conferences lately, and while I’ve been absolutely blessed with on-time airline travel, I’ve been bedeviled by a series of crappy hotel rooms. The nadir may have been the Westin in Indianapolis, where I must have had the worst room on the property. I sent out this missive via Twitter:
No response whatsoever from the hotel or Westin corporate. Given that nothing incites passion like travel, you’d think social media monitoring would be a MUST for a company like Westin. Evidently not.
I’m no Chris Brogan, Joseph Jaffe, or Jason Falls (yet), but I do have ~475 followers on Twitter (and a 92 on Twitter Grader). That’s 475 people (in theory) that saw me bitch about the Westin in Indianapolis (including at least 15 people who were staying at the same hotel). Can I determine the precise consequences for Westin as a result? No, but I don’t think it’ll help them. And I won’t be back.
You know what would be lovely? Getting my blog posts in your email>>
Sphere: Related ContentAs part of my panel on social media at the Worldcom PR conference in Montreal recently (see post below), I created these “7 Deadly Sins of Social Media.”
Are you willing to admit your sins in the comments?
Actively listening to what’s being said about your brand is at the core of social media.
Social media is a NOW environment, not a “we’re working on the December issue in July” industry.
If it takes you too long to react, the opportunity can vanish.
Companies have to empower their agencies to facilitate social media conversations. Agencies have to empower their employees to handle social media on behalf of clients.
If you’re afraid, you’re not in the game.
Social media users – especially social network members – are cagey. They can smell b.s. three clicks away.
Resist the temptation to create your own reviews and other falsehoods. It doesn’t work.
The whole point of social media is for people to let other people know what’s good and righteous.
If you refuse to link to other sites or don’t create and distribute good content, etc. you are not being a good social media citizen – and it will get noticed.
Think of social media as its own world with its own rules.
Don’t try to “social media-ize” your existing marketing and message. It doesn’t work.
Much of the social media’s appeal is based on humor and satire.
If you or your company can’t handle getting made fun of on occasion, you may want to rethink your social media plans.
Did you know I train agencies on Internet marketing?>>
Get my blog posts in your email>>
Why aren’t you following me on Twitter?>>
Sphere: Related ContentJust finished moderating a rousing panel discussion in Montreal at the Worldcom Americas conference. (Worldcom is the world’s largest collective of independent PR firms) Joined by Mike Corak from Off Madison Ave, Stefan Pollack from the Pollack PR Marketing Group, and Diego Biasi from Business Press (all the way from Milan), we addressed an invigorated group of PR firm principals.
Lots of great questions about the nuts and bolts of social media.
That was the intention of our presentation, to focus on the specifics, not just the usual “social media is important” pabulum.
Comments on the presentation most welcome.
View or download here via Slideshare:
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