In our real lives, we pay close attention to the amount of time and effort we spend managing relationships. We spend most of our time engaging with and communicating with those who add the most value to our daily lives. The same should be true when creating and managing relationships in social media and your brand. Take a look at Refollow.
By logging in securely through your current Twitter account -- Refollow has a robust interface which helps you discover, manage, and protect your social circle. Core features such as a mass follow, unfollow, block, grouping by relationships and sorting users by importance are highlighted just to name a few. @MissBeckala’s recent post gives a great step-by-step guide to all Refollow’s capabilities.
Refollow allows you to focus on what is most important to your brand on twitter by building organic, sustainable and progressive relationships that add value to the conversations that surround you and your brand.
This year I’ve had the good fortune of helping several large brands understand how to comport themselves within the social web. Time and time again I find myself using the analogy of a ‘cocktail party’ as a tool to bring these smart folks up the learning curve. I didn’t come up with this analogy, but I’m finding myself using a few ‘sub-analogies’ that I think hit home some important points for brands. Here are a few…
Do your profiles, i.e. Linked in, Twitter, Facebook, have the same branded experience? If not, you’re showing up to the cocktail party with multiple personalities. How confusing.
Did you set up a profile, start talking, then stop? Hmmm, it might be tricky to succeed at a cocktail party when you don’t talk or listen. What’s more awkward is that everyone thought you could hear and speak just moments ago. [USAirways Example]
Is your language formal, legal approved, mechanical? Great, who brought the stiff to the event?
Do you have affiliates or unsanctioned profile pages? It’s always hard when twins or triplets show up at a party – which one’s which? So confusing. [Adidas Example]
A few books occupy space on my desk at any one time. Each has its own angle, and I reference them all consistently for insights, intel, and facts.
One in particular, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, is one that received a lot of repeat visits over the past year. This book isn’t much of a secret – it resides on Amazon’s Best Business and Investing Books of 2008 [http://bit.ly/AWgzS]. I like it because it lays out a smart, systematic framework for putting together a Social Media plan. It outlines the four key components of a social media plan; they are People, Objectives, Strategy and Technology; or, the acronym POST. While extremely popular, I’m starting to wonder if business people actually read the book, for real.
Excerpt from page 68: “After having decided on the people, objectives and strategy, you can move on to pick the technologies...” For the record, Bernoff and Li already italicized the word ‘after.’ I think you know where I’m going with this. In case you don’t, allow me to make a statement based on my observations: too many companies are joining social media tools as another broadcasting medium with no real strategy in tow.
Here is what we are seeing now all to often… brand X has a nice website and the CEO of Brand X wants the VP of Marketing of Brand X to “harness social media” -- whatever that means. So, VP of Marketing of Brand X tells the Marketing Manager of Brand X to set-up a Twitter profile and Facebook fan page. Brand X adds a section to their homepage called ‘Join the Conversation’ and links folks to their respective social media profiles. The Marketing Manager logs into the accounts daily and tells everyone what he or she thinks we want to hear about Brand X.
Mark Stevens had a book published in 2003 called Your Marketing Sucks. I think Brand X is what he had in mind.
OK, since I beat that horse to death, twice. Let me leave you with a positive example of how it’s done. Sony is about to launch a social media campaign called DigiDads. It’s a very cool way to get influential, dad bloggers to interact with Sony’s products on a human level. Smart. Check out a video teaser to the campaign below and here’s a link to The DigiDads Project on Sony’s site [http://bit.ly/OGK4N]:
Jeffrey Sass and Chris Brogan, among others, are leading this highly interactive, fun campaign (Incidentally, Chris Brogans book, Trust Agents, will be added to the desktop arsenal upon completion this week). Whether they knew it or not, it looks like someone spent some time thinking about the first three elements in POST. Nicely done.
A while back, I came across an article entitled the Top Ten Branded Social Media Nightmares by @roncallari [http://bit.ly/Puzeh]. I actually felt bad for a few of the brands. In particular, Dominos, whose reputation was scuffed by two rogue employees, one of which was featured on the Today’s Show wiping his keester with a sponge in the kitchen. Yum.
Does this mean I would never-ever go to Domino’s again? Um, no. I’ve been around the block enough to know that these are not the only two rogue employees that work in food service. Yes, the association with brand may take a temporary hit, but I’m smart enough to know that this could be a complete deviation from the fabric of their brand and their organization.
On the other hand, I was tickled to see Dave Carroll’s YouTube music video United Breaks Guitars. This is a MUST watch. It’s creative, smart, and the song itself is quite catchy—I walked around my home whistling it off-and-on for an entire afternoon. Here it is:
Now let me explain why I relished every brand-damaging second of that video. In spring 2006, I departed Burlington, VT on—you guessed it—United Airlines. Final destination: Salt Lake City. To make a long story short, let me outline my travel itinerary: Burlington then O’Hare then Salt Lake (Park City) for three days then back to Burlington via Chicago. Contrast that with the unplanned itinerary of my bag (compliments of United Airlines): Burlington then Dulles then Denver then Honolulu (that is not a typo) then-who-the-hell-knows-where for three days then back to Burlington. Needless to say, the folks at the conference recognized me on day two and three since I had on the exact same clothes. Like Dave Carroll, I spent hours on call after call weaving through the fabric of United’s disorganization.
Here’s the funny part! On day two of the conference, I was politely explaining to just about everyone I met why I was wearing the same attire from the previous day, one executive jumped in with a similar story. It went something like this:
“The last time I checked in with United on my way to Los Angeles, I asked United if they could send one of my bags to Chicago and one to Denver! The ticket counter lady looked at me puzzled, and replied, ‘Sir, we can’t do that!’--- I responded without missing a beat ‘Why not, you did it last time!?”
So here’s my message. If your company sucks, you will be exposed. Period. The social web has busted down the one-way messages that many lousy companies have hidden behind for ages. It’s the people who are in control now, the game will never be the same. Hooray, let’s celebrate!
You just walked into a cocktail party. People are noticing how you dress, how you talk, and how you listen. What are you drinking? Are you funny? Do you lie? Are you boring? Is your story compelling? Are you just talking and not listening? Are you listening with nothing remarkable to share? Do you care who your audience is? Who are your friends?
You are a brand in today’s world; you are now human. Welcome to the party…
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 12:13PM 