Archive: February 2012

In honor of the release of “Wrecking Ball” from Bruce Springsteen and the East Street Band, here is a reprint of an article I wrote in early 2010 …

(For maximum appreciation, play the instrumental beginning of The E Street Shuffle (live) and picture Bruce Springsteen in his raspy voice narrating telling the story. Go ahead; show some imagination, you can do it.)

You know it was right about 1975, I think so, on a day, a day just like this. Me and my buds were just hanging out doin’ nothing, but having the time of our lives. This cat Paul’s older brother was emphatic about this new and upcoming rocker, Bruce Springsteen. Somehow my friends, the Hoven Road Gang (not a real gang, just some of us wild and innocent kids doing the shuffle), got the message before the rest of the world caught on to this phenomenon. The influence of a cool, older brother – this had its merits.

A few months later the world would learn of the magic, the alluring simple charisma of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. On Oct 27, 1975 Bruce made the cover of Time and Newsweek. (See a good story – “The Hype Hits The Fan: Springsteen on Time and Newsweek 10/27/75”) Time and Newsweek, not bad for generating some attention in music circles and way beyond.

If there was soundtrack of my childhood it would have to be Bruce and the ESB. When I hear Bruce do old time classics, I still get emotional for the nostalgic influence he had on my life “Growin’ Up.” But it is not this influence that I want to address here. What does this have to do with social media … one hell of a lot…

Let’s go back to the older brother – that is “word of mouth” marketing at its best. Paul’s brother was an influencer. He had the power to move a crowd in a direction. This is exactly what brands would love … having an advocate as their spokesperson doing promotion for them in a grass roots play. But there is a key element you must not forget – value. There is no doubt the brand (Bruce Springsteen) delivers value to his existing and potential audience. Bruce released unprecedented value – both his recorded musical genius and engaging presence live doing 4 hour plus shows back then.

While word of mouth is one form of influence, clearly nailing the front page of Time and Newsweek was a paramount. Just think of the awareness this generated to an untapped audience. This was a pole vault launch for Bruce. No, he did not set out to have something go mega-viral. He was just doing what he knew best and perfected his “product” with maximum value. You should not set out to make something viral. Most people that start with this objective fail. You deliver the best and maybe it goes viral.

Influence is an old marketing concept, but as applicable today as ever. In today’s social media world you can increase awareness by having a strategy that accomplishes exactly what I learned in 1975. Both the grass roots effort and the mega-ness of what Bruce accomplished by being on the cover of Time and Newsweek. As an example, I look at what Tony Hsieh (Zappos’ CEO) is doing with his soon to be released book, “Delivering Happiness.” He is giving away a free copy of the book to those that agree to write about the book in their blog. I applied and received 2 copies of the book in the email. I am reading the book now (love it) and I will blog about it shortly. This is a social media grass roots effort.

In those days, Time and Newsweek were much more influential then current times. Today, social media has a number of powerful crowd sourcing channels. What kind of exposure do you think you get when your piece hits the front page of Digg? What do you think is the outcome of getting a mention in a Mashable article? In a social context things like these along with YouTube and other channels are the equivalent to Time and Newsweek in their hey-day. And the Internet makes these channels potentially more powerful because of viral possibilities.

Comments and reviews appear everywhere. What do you think the ramifications and positive or negatives on yelp are.

So here are my suggestions:

1) Build or deliver something great – you must start there.
2) Do NOT look to have a viral strategy, BUT
3) Do look at the social outlets where your target audience is at.
4) Plan valued content, not selling collateral.
5) Deliver relevant, helpful content at the social outlets where your target audience exists.
6) Plan incentives to make advocates do the marketing for you. (Does not always need to be a give-away. Sometimes simple recognition works.)
7) Look at social media as a way to connect with your potential audience and build relationships with them. (DON’T SELL.)

In wrapping up, I guess there is just one thing left to do … In the words of the impresario and rock concert promoter, Bill Graham, “Thank you very much for coming. Would you welcome please, the chairman of the board, the great one, Bruce Springsteen:”

Check out some vintage Bruce and ESB (one of my favorites) at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HsogaUcw28M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WbM_N1xAJ5E

Enjoy!
Social Steve

This past week, a colleague asked me if I could help out her friend with some social media advice for her legal business. The first questioned that was asked was, “How should I use Facebook?”

In other instances, people ask me about social media use for brands. They want to know what they might accomplish, what they should expect, or what that they should aim for.

Let’s start out with a simple premise … use social media to establish yourself or your brand as a leader … a thought leader on a particular subject, the brand leader in a specific vertical industry, a leader for selected target audience. Would you want to accomplish anything less?

What does it mean to be a leader? I think if you research this question you will find countless answers. About ten years ago, I was part of a marketing leadership team in a big corporation. This leadership group was made up of a number of up and comers in the corporation. The group was formed as part of a succession planning for key positions within the corporation. At one of our sessions, we had our chairman come speak about leadership. He asked all of us, “What does it mean to be a leader?” There were some basic definitions answered as well as profound and esoteric answers. After everyone was finished, the chairman simply stated “a leader is someone that people want to follow.” This was his exact answer.

“A leader is someone people want to follow.” Follow someone … isn’t this something that has direct meaning in a social media context and yet this was the statement a good five years before anyone even heard of the term social media. And now we have new meaning of what a follower is with the emergence and adoption of social media. There are a handful of reasons why someone gets a following in social media. The follower gets an incentives, gets valuable information, feels like they are in the know, is entertained, and others. Some of these reasons demonstrate leadership. Even if the reason was not due to leadership, it takes leadership to keep a follower engaged.

So now think about the relationship followers and leadership. If we marry these two concepts of following and leadership, I think we are on the path of social media success. Here are the 3 steps of accomplishing leadership with social media:

1. Produce content to reinforce your subject matter expertise. Before you even start with social media, you must think content. What are you going to produce to help your target audience? What peaks their interest and makes them want to come back to your page and get more information? What is it that you need to produce that makes the target audience say, “They get it” in reference to you or your brand? Consider this your pre-work before you ever start any social media endeavor. Not only will you need to have a number of content pieces prepared from the start, but you will need a constant periodic flow to reinforce that “you get it.”

2. Identify where your target audience goes to seek information relevant to your brand category. You cannot build “the field of dreams.” You need to identify where your target audience goes to learn and discuss topics and issues relevant to what you or your brand offer. Your social media plight starts there, not on your Facebook page or other social assets you manage.

3. Apply the A-Path of social media. A number of years ago, I defined the social media A-Path. Since that time, I have written a number of articles that reference the A-Path. I explicitly use this approach in the social media practice I lead at MediaWhiz. The A-Path is core to social media. It describes how to build relationships via social media. Attention > Attraction > Affinity > Audience > Advocacy.

Do not sell yourself short. Seek to establish and maintain ultimate leadership. Continually prove and reinforce this leadership by producing appropriate content. Don’t wait for your audience to find you. Go out and find them and engage with them where they already exist. Then work on building a relationship. A connection strong enough to warrant asking them to visit your digital assets. And then over time, a relationship strong enough that your audience becomes your source for marketing as they provide word of mouth referrals for your brand.

This is how you capture leadership with social media. Are you ready?

Make It Happen!
Social Steve

The (successful) marketing landscape is changing because the consumer and their behavior are changing. No longer does a person see a commercial on television, in print, or hear one on the radio and act. Intrusion marketing has seen its day.

Now the STDs that I am talking about are likely not the ones that first came to your mind. I am talking about Social, Timing, and Data. Let me put it to you this way. Remember the commercial for Trident gum that stated “4 out of 5 dentists recommend Trident for their patients that chew gum?” What if a brand could plant in your mind, “4 out of 5 of my friends prefer ?” Which is more compelling? Which is more worthy of having influence on your purchase decision?

Point number 2 … what if you were shopping in a store and you received a promotion that was based on your shopping history. The example I love to give is as follows … Say you were shopping at the Gap. You get a text message (or promo delivered by an app) that offers you 20% off of underwear. Now that offer will either make you happy or weird you out – simply based on purchase history. Do you buy underwear at the Gap? Totally relevant store promotion if you have purchased underwear there, and on the flipside, the promotion might give you the shivers if you never thought of the Gap as a place to purchase underwear.

So the new marketing landscape is a combination of getting referrals and word of mouth marketing from your trusted network, and getting timely, relevant information based on accurate and well interpreted data. STDs – social, timely, and data. Let’s work STDs in reverse order.

First data … companies need to collect important data such as customer preferences and purchase history. Most people have strong and understandable privacy concerns. But it is up to each company to prove to their target audience that they are going to use customer data in a fashion that is protective and beneficial to their customers. There is a point where brands can build the reputation of “you provide the right feedback and information to us and we will make it worth your while.” Collect data in a non-corporate way and explain your brand’s use. Don’t put this use information in “Terms and Conditions” that no one bothers to read. As you collect information (including purchases) give immediate feedback on how the data will and will not be used and reinforce that customer data is protected and not shared.

Once you start to collect appropriate, relevant information, you are now in the position to provide individualized, timely information and promotions. This helps to make your consumer feel like they are the brand focused customer. Not some speck in a mass of marketing advertisement. This will help to further the relationship between your brand and your audience. I cannot emphasize enough how important this aspect is to the new marketing landscape. Timeliness and relevance spawn brand action and brand action should be the marketing objective.

We’ve addressed “data” and “timely” … now on to “social.” As you provide timely relevant information, keep the conversation going. Stay social. It will build a deeper relationship with your audience. Identify your power users, participants, and communicators. Build one-to-one conversations and relationships with them. This is the start to acquiring advocates and strengthening your word of mouth marketing.

When you put social, timely, and data (STDs) all together, you will find that 4 out of 5 friends recommend your brand not only to those that ask, but unprompted in forums, platforms and networks. And that is the power of STDs in the new marketing landscape. Don’t be afraid of STDs. Embrace them.

Make It Happen!
Social Steve

With regards to social media, most of what we read (and I have written about) relates to marketing. Yes, social media is a powerful and important piece of the marketing mix. But social media is also a paramount customer service and support channel. And I believe, that for the most part, there continues to be significant failure of customer service social media.

Have you ever been on a brand Facebook page and noticed that it is primarily used for people to b*tch and moan about the brand? I think this is most prevalent for cable companies, mobile phone operators’ pages, but it is certainly not limited there. Why is such a public platform used for complaints and sticking up the virtual middle finger? The answer is simple and two-fold.

First, recognize that customers are frustrated. They see social media as a place to raise the stakes for resolution or a place to say “I give up on and everyone should know why.”

Second, it is your fault … the brand owner. You modify the behavior of your audience to say, “I deal with you here. If you are writing something on my Facebook page, I am certainly going to do something here.” Worst off, you might not reply at all giving the troubled customer a place to unleash their anger.

You do not want a prime marketing channel that should be used for positive product/service reinforcement and good-spirited engagement with your audience to be the same place people tell you everything that is wrong with what you do.

So how do you keep Facebook and other social channels from being the b*tch funnel? To start with, you must be committed to customer service and expeditious issue resolution. If this is missing you can not cover up disregard the customer and social media platforms will continue to be a place where unhappy customers magnify your customer service shortcomings. Assuming that you are committed to customer service, define another platform to serve as your frontline place to handle customer support issues. A place to report issues, find service updates and information and get help from your customer service department as well as other people with the same product. When you get complaints and issues on your Facebook page simply reply, “We are very sorry to hear about your problem. We are committed to resolving your issue immediately. Please contact us at ___ as we will do everything we can to satisfy your needs.” … or something of that nature. Most importantly, make sure you stand behind your words.

What I am recommending is that most of your existing social media channels NOT be used for customer service issues, but rather you have one portal that is used for product/service resolution that is labeled and branded specifically for customer service. I am also recommending that social media be used for customer service and support in other ways. Specifically, use social media to:

- Listen to what customers are saying. Continually monitor your brand name and keywords of your product group or vertical industry to make sure you best understand needs, wants, motivations, and values of your target segments.
- Proactively engage with prospects and customers. Have conversations. Build relationships. View social media as an opportunity to convince your target segments of your commitment and expertise to the vertical you serve.
- Share customer feedback and ways that customers’ input has shaped your offering. Reinforce that you are listening AND executing as a result of valuable customer input.
- And by all means, make sure all your conversations and responses are done with complete empathy for your audience, but at the same time fully defend your brand.

Social media customer service and support really comes down to being proactive versus reactive. You need to be proactive in listening across the entire social space. Take what you hear and learn to reshape your product roadmap and offering. Make sure your connection and conversations are continuous because customer value morphs and evolves as a function of a changing consumer and competitive products/services. Stay on top and proactively build added value into your offering and enrich the entire customer experience.

With regards to customer issues and resolutions, which is reactive in nature, work to move these issues out of your existing social media marketing platforms. This is not going to happen over night. But with continued commitment to customer service and directing issue resolution to an alternative portal, you can change the tide.

Know your social media dos and don’ts.

Make It Happen!
Social Steve

No hidden agenda. One of the primary objectives of social media is to produce advocacy and word of mouth marketing such that real customers promote your product/service to their family, friends, and colleagues. There is no denying the power of having “trusted agents’ stand behind a brand. Are you more likely to value a recommendation of a friend telling you where to go for a great latte or are you more likely to believe the neon sign on the diner window, “World’s Best Coffee” (as Will Farrell did in the movie Elf)?So it is no surprise that the use of reviews plays a strong role in marketing and customers’ buying decisions. As a brand, you want to give people incentive to take action and write a review on your behalf. The question is, how far can you go before your practices and tactics are considered unethical?

This past week there was an article in the New York Times, “For $2 a Star, an Online Retailer Gets 5-Star Product Reviews.” In that article, Bing Liu, a computer science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, stated “More people are depending on reviews for what to buy and where to go, so the incentives for faking are getting bigger.” And Mary K. Engle, the Federal Trade Commission’s associate director for advertising practices said that “Advertising disguised as editorial is an old problem, but it’s now presenting itself in different ways … We’re very concerned.”

Yes – bogus and deceitful reviews are immoral, unethical and downright wrong. But there is nothing wrong with giving your customers an incentive to post a review so long as you are not manipulating what they say. You want to know how a brand can drive a positive review. Pretty simple. Deliver an awesome product or service. This is the most important factor for success and likely to produce winning reviews. And if you are really doing that why not put some incentive in place? Let me give you two real scenarios…

A number of years ago, I headed up a mainframe product line. We sold high-end computers (7 figure price tag) to corporate enterprises. A B2B play. When it came to final negotiations, the client would always beat us up on price. As they would whittle us down, the final agreement was usually, “OK, we’ll give you x% discount if you agree to do a press release with us.” In other words, the final price was agreed to with the addition of advocacy. The client would agree to state something like “we selected ___ because of their stellar product.”

My second example highlights a word of mouth play by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. Now we all know that Zappos is the poster child for customer support. This is because Tony has the greatest appreciation for customer interfacing to the benefit of both the customer and his brand. When Tony released his book, “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose” he offered the book for free to anyone that had an active blog, some traffic to their site, and were willing to write a review. No influence on what they said about the book, just a gentlemen’s agreement to write a review. (You can read my review at “Delivering Happiness – The Key to a Great Company.”)

So why shouldn’t a company offer their customer a discount or rebate to write a review after purchase? It is going a step too far if you ask them to write something specifically, but a simple request to write their objective review makes much sense.

In a world where buyers are looking for input and according to Hubspot, people are 71% likely to purchase when referred by social media, “marketing reviews” is a win-win for the consumer and the brand (assuming the brand really has something compelling and valuable to offer). This should turn into regular concept and regular practice.

So I have no problem working with brands to put in place a strategy that is aimed at production of product/service reviews and increasing word of mouth marketing. Any reason why you would not do the same?

Make It Happen!
Social Steve