The single most important element of your social media program is making your company worthy of discussion. We don’t tweet meh. We don’t upload blah to Facebook. We use social media to express feelings that are at the opposing poles of fascination and frustration. So why do so many companies toe the line of average, [...]
Is Content Marketing a Necessity For Your Brand?
Content Marketing – Give Them Something to Talk About If customers and prospects are already chattering about your brand on the social Web, your social media initiative can focus primarily on becoming an authentic part of those existing conversations. If someone throws you a surprise party, you just need to show up – you don’t [...]
Social Media is About People, Not Logos
How will you be human? The people of your company are far more compelling than the company itself. Why they work for the company. Their dedication. Their interests outside of work. All of these provide “personality hooks” for your brand, and combined with a regular focus on your customers’ humanity, they are foundational elements of [...]
Spike Jones – The Twitter 20 Interview on Word of Mouth Marketing
Marketing is about campaigns. Word of Mouth is about movements. So says Spike Jones, Firestarter at Brains on Fire, the Greenville, South Carolina agency that has been lauded in a shopping cart full of articles and books. A director of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), Spike has an incredibly clear picture of how [...]
My Mom Thinks Chris Brogan Plays Hockey
I saw my mom the other day. She’s a pretty hip lady for 64. She was a high school teacher for about 30 years, and was always a student fave. Stylish. Knew the music. Knew the scene. Thought Patrick Swayze was hot. Now, in her semi-retirement, she’s the editor for an online-only newspaper. She takes [...]
The Paradox of Social Media Control
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 [...]
Presto! How Social Media Makes Bad News Good
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 [...]
Scott Monty – The Twitter 20 Twinterview about Social Media at Ford
Live from Marketing Profs Digital Mixer 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 [...]
Announcing Twitter 20 – Interviews on Twitter
Starting Soon. Follow @jaybaer and @jaffejuice to see Questions and Answers. I’m happy to announce a new Convince and Convert initiative – Twitter 20. On a regular basis, I’ll be interviewing social media and digital marketing luminaries on Twitter and posting the interviews here for review, comment, and posterity. 140 character questions (x20). 140 character [...]
Why Twitter Is the Anchor of the Social Media Team
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 [...]
