How to Derive Inspiration from an Active Fan Base

Jessica Gioglio, Public Relations and Social Media Manager at Dunkin’ Donuts, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss Dunkin’s army of brand advocates, whether frequency of using a brand contributes to brand loyalty, and what the social media staffing looks like at a company as socially active as Dunkin’ Donuts.
Read on for some of the highlights and tweetable moments, or listen to the full podcast.

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Tweetable Moments

“Our mantra in social media is: We don’t own our social channels; our fans do.” -@savvybostonian (tweet this)

“If melted cheese is important to someone, then it’s important to us.” -@savvybostonian (tweet this)

Listening to Find Inspiration

Jessica starts right in talking about how Dunkin’ Donuts makes it a policy to listen first, then talk. Seeing how fans interact on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram lets her team take a real temperature on Dunkin’s brand advocates. “They put together content almost better than we can,” she says. “So we really strive to take inspiration from them.”
Jay wonders if it’s a coincidence that the brands people use daily – Coca Cola, Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonalds – tend to inspire the most fervent fan bases online. Jeff agrees, pointing out that each time someone patronizes a company, it gives them the opportunity to interact with the brand.
Dunkin’ rewards its hardcore fans: offering free sandwich upgrades, releasing menu update news on Twitter in advance, and even featuring their Facebook “Fan of the Week” on a Times Square billboard.
With such a large company that has customers interacting all the time, both in person and through social channels, Jessica says that Dunkin’s customer service team is integral to the strategy. “They’re the unsung heroes of our social media team,” she says.

Social Media Stat of the Week: 37% of PC users have migrated to mobile

This week’s stats speaks to the multi-device universe we are living in today: 27% of tablet owners say they are using their PC less to acces the internet, and 37% are saying they have migrated various uses of their PC to mobile devices (both phones and tablets). For social media marketers, the questions of “when are your fans online? when are they most social?” are changing.

Jay urges that this is a question not of mobile but of mobility. Increasingly, people are consuming content out-of-home, not sitting down in front of their computer. “That changes the very nature of the kind of information that you publish as a brand,” he says, “and the kind of content that you put out there.” The next question is: how does this change strategy?

Social Pros Shoutout

Jessica: The first person I’m going to give a shout out to is Ekaterina Walter, from Intel. I’m sure you guys know her. I’m going to give her a shout out, and not just because she gave me a shout out in her podcast, but because she really deserves one. She’s phenomenal. She’s one of the smartest people I know in the social media world.
She just published her book, Think Like Zuck. It’s an amazing book and a great read. That and the great work that she does with Intel – which I think is definitely worth following whether you’re a B2B or a B2C company, simply because they really make the story more than themselves.
Also, on a timely note, it’s actually New York Fashion Week right now. Someone I would encourage you guys to take a look at is Aliza Licht, who runs the DKNY Twitter account, and they actually have a DKNY PR Girl Tumblr Page, which is actually pretty hysterical.
She’s the Senior Vice President of Communications, and sometimes PR people get a little flack for being on social media. Well, she is very real, very down to earth, and really shows you both sides of what it’s like to work in the fashion industry. My favorite feature on her Tumblr blog are actually the show requests that she anonymously blogs. She protects the guilty, but they’re really fun and it just goes to show: real, honest content can really engage your audience.
See you next week!