More and more companies are meeting the sexy social media scene with open & loving arms, and rightfully so. Social media is an easy way for brands to distribute content, openly engage an audience and showcase their charming personality.
This SES New York 2009 session will take a look at a few companies on top of their game and the social media tools they use to pimp their brand.
- Moderator:
Erin Brenner, Associate Editor, ClickZ
- Speaker:
Dave Evans, VP, Digital Voodoo
Hollis Thomases, Founder, WebAdvantage.net
Harry J. Gold, CEO, Overdrive Interactive
Dave Evans
How social media works and how it ties into search:
What to do
– Actively measure and listen to
Web & social analytics, create dashboards for basic understanding, pipeline metrics
– Know your objectives and audience
There are very different audiences and objectives for each business. it’s important to distinguish each and align them correctly. Figure out what engagement is worth to you.
– Practice integration
The fundamentals of social media are the fundamentals of traditional marketing.
– Manage your touchpoints
Integration of your social media assets is critical.
– Be honest
Transparancy is best practice.
Managing Conversations
– It’s the product experience that makes this work. Operation issues are where it all starts. Is the store clean? Is the staff knowledgeable, managed well and product in stock? These are not marketing issues but areas that directly effect the perception of the brand.
Touch points
– It’s important to reach out and give great customer experience. Show the personality of your brand through the things you do.
Leverage your Blog
– your identity
– your content
– XFN (tell search engines how the page that you’re coming from relates to the destination page)
There is a distinct need to wrap everything together and have discoverable content. Many people set up twitter, facebook, linkedin but no blog. The blog can provide a great hub of content for your audience.
Don’t spam
– Inevitably you will get caught. Can’t fake your way through SM. You need to be absolutely transparant, focus on product, listen to customers and build a powerful platform to drive your brand and shape it.
Hollis Thomases
Twitter
Why use twitter for building your brand?
-3rd largest social network after
If your audience is there, you need to be there too
– Most users access via mobile – instanteous communication
Finding a Twitter strategy that works for you
– There’s no cookie cutter unilateral approach
– Everybody is a potential listener
– You’re creating public domain info all the time
Decide who will represent the company?
– Community manager? Outsource? Cadre of individuals? CEO?
Get your brand right
– Need to figure out the best strategy
Single – twitter strategy
Multi – twitter strategy
Enterprise – twitter strategy (dozens – hundreds)
Single
Whole Foods
– Using profile to Twit about – informative fresh information, asking for feedback, excellent customer service, customers suggest new locations, good job of pushing people to facebook their Facebook page.
Multi
Comcast
– Major news coverage
– Have reputation of bad customer service – trying to turn it around on twitter.
– Reputation management tool
Enterprise
Zappos
– CEOÂ behind @zappos, but over 430 zappos employees who twitter!
– They allow employees to break out of the box and interact with audience
– Integrate it well on site
– Twitter hub – twitter.zappos.com
Twitter Horror Story
Exxon
@exxonmobilcorp
- Third party hijacked Exxon brand and began interacting with community on their behalf
– Exxon was commended for their openness and responsiveness
– Exxon then had to admit, the helpful representative was not associated with the brand
Twitter Tools
Tweetsscan – alerts for mentions of your brand or related keywords
twollow.ocm – auto follow people that mention your brand
twitterless.com – recieve notices of individuals who unfollow you
Twitter search
– Useful to identify a targeted audience
The Do’s
– Initiate discussion around your brand
– Actively listen
– Keep it positive – this is rep managemet
– Respond in timely fashion
The Don’ts
– Don’t toot your own horn too much
– Don’t bombard with links, introduce them in a meaningful fasion
– Don’t disrespect the community
– Avoid auto-direct messages – you look lazy
– Don’t be a broken record
Harry J. Gold
Social media is about socializing and creating the platform and channel that will live on for the life of the brand. Through this platform you make life long genuine brand connections.
Social media is about…
– Embedding your brand
– Share interesting things about your brand
– Bringing functionality from brand website to a place where people are already engaged in
– Making friends and communicating with them in a meaninful way
– Measureing the impact on your business
Social media can be overwhelming
– Key: leverage components that apply to you
Everything is interconnected: brands must weave their social web (flickr, youtube, facebook, flickr, blog)
– Integrate social media assets  into your blog
– You can track this easily with analytics and determine where people are coming from
Build your social network
– Set up your channel content and use profiles to drive traffic to the content channels
– Promote profiles to blogs
– Blogs will drive traffic and members to the profiles
Deploy all inclusive process
– Cascading process over events that touch all components of platform
