There is an under-appreciated difference between a story and an idea.
A story is captivating and
memorable. It entertains and often stays with you for longer than you thought
it would. An idea, in contrast, is a spark. It happens in a moment and then
it’s gone. And if you missed it or if you never acted on it … then you lose it.
Recently I’ve been to several
storytelling events. One gathered together a dozen innovators to share their
stories on human behavior. Another curated every form of storytelling you could
imagine – from stop motion Vine video creators to street opera singers. Each
offered an amazing collection of stories that entertained and inspired. And I
remember those stories.
Today I have been moderating an
event filled with ideas instead of stories. The Corporate Social Media Summit
in San Francisco (#CSMSF) is the second edition of a popular series from the
Useful Social Media team that includes a flagship New York event, the West
Coast edition today, and a European edition next month. In listening to more
than a dozen brands sharing their experiences with social media – there were
several ideas that emerged which got people talking. Here are just a few of
those ideas:
1. DEFLECTION ISN'T ENGAGEMENT
As more brands turn to tools like
Twitter for customer service – one of the increasingly common strategies is to
“escalate” issues to the call center. What this actually means is that brands
immediately engage with customers who share a question via Twitter by telling
them to call the 1800 number to speak to a customer service person. As Adobe
Director of Strategy and Business Development Jeff Feldman shared in the
opening keynote session, this type of deflection isn't optimal. Instead, brands
that aspire to provide great service need to answer questions in the channel
they are asked (unless you truly need to access their private information, of
course).
2. B2B IS BETTER
THAN B2C FOR SOCIAL
Thanks to the visibility of
efforts from leading brands like Coke and Oreo’s, it is easy to focus attention
on the role that social media has taken in helping major consumer brands to
create lots of buzz and some engagement. Instead, Dell’s Global Director of
Social Media Richard Margetic pointed out that social media is actually better
for B2B brands because they tend to be far more about relationships than B2C
brands. As a proof point, he noted that more than 9,000 of Dell’s employees
have gone through social media training and are allowed to represent the brand
in their engagements online.
3. SOCIAL GRATITUDE
IS POWERFUL
It is no secret that people
passionately share stories and images of pets online. So when Kat Smith, PETCO
Director of Social Media and Commerce took the stage to talk about how social
media could engage pet owners – the opportunity was pretty obvious. Still, the
big question was how a brand in the popular pet category could engage with
these passionate pet owners in a way that wouldn’t just try to upsell them more
supplies and materials. One great strategy Kat shared in her presentation was
the power of offering validation to customers. Simply by having the brand like
customer’s Instagram photos, for example, PETCO could offer tangible proof that
it was listening and engaged in its community. And this one act caused intense
consumer gratitude … which then led to engagement and conversation.
4. SOLVE UNIQUE
PROBLEMS
As often as we hear about social
media offering yet another channel for brands to interact and solve customer
challenges, there may be situations that social media or social customer care
is uniquely positioned to solve. One example that Kimarie Matthews, Wells Fargo
Vice President of Social Web shared was of a customer tweeting about there
being trash outside of an ATM machine. This is exactly the sort of thing that
no one would ever call into a 1800 number and wait on hold in order to report.
Yet thanks to this tweet, the brand was able to respond both to the customer as
well as respond by actually correcting the problem and cleaning up the trash!
5. TREAT EVERYONE
LIKE AN INFLUENCER
In a highly entertaining
presentation about the state of the travel industry, disruption, handlebar
moustaches (for Movember!) and being Canadian – Flight Centre Global Social
Media Leader Gregg Tilston shared a powerful story about the nature of
influence. Using the example of how you might be influenced differently to
attend a food related event whether you hear about it from the newspaper versus
a restaurant versus a chef versus your best friend … he noted that the most
influential source among those is probably your best friend. That is also the
source among those listed with the least ACTUAL influence when it comes to
potential reach and size of their network. So who is truly influential? His
ultimate conclusion: “Treat everyone as if they have a Klout score of 80.”
6. SOCIAL CAN FORCE
CONVERGENCE
Telling the story of how the
Clorox brand thinks about social media, Helen Lee shared how increasing
conversation online inspired far more convergence and collaboration among all
of the more traditional silos of the marketing organization – from advertising
to PR to in-store promotions. One interesting conclusion her presentation
raised was to turn one of the most often cited challenges about social media
into perhaps its greatest opportunity. As brands struggle to align efforts
among multiple teams and divisions, the crossover potential of social media may
become the driving force to actually help make it happen.
7. FOCUS ON THE
AUDIENCE YOU HAVE
As audiences shift and the
attention paid to social media platforms evolve, segmenting an audience is a
consistent challenge. One of the downsides of this challenge, as Ammiel Kamon
from Kontera noted, is that sometimes brands can get romanced or misled into
focusing on creating content and messages for the audiences they want instead
of the ones they have. The key is to remain connected to the audience you have
today and grow that organically rather than dreaming of a nonexistent audience
you wish you had instead.
8. AVOID OVERENGAGEMENT
What if greater engagement wasn’t
the ultimate goal that every brand should aim for? As Charles Schwab VP of
Owned Media, Content & Client Marketing Helen Loh shared, “money is
important, but sometimes people don’t want to engage with it day in and day
out.” As great as the temptation may be for any brand to think that customers
always want a brand interaction, the reality is that most of the time they
probably don’t. Understanding customer journies and engaging customers at the
right moments along that path is more important, according to Loh – and
something that really allows the promise of content to connect with social
media.
9. DON’T MEASURE
SOCIAL MEDIA, MEASURE INITIATIVES
In an interesting caution against
taking data from a unique effort and overestimating its ability to define the
entire value of social – Thomson Reuters Senior Director of Social Strategy Jen
McClure shared that the real key to understanding the power of your efforts is
to separate out what the results are truly telling you about what went right
and wrong, and how to apply those learnings effectively.
10. FIND
OPPORTUNITIES TO DELIGHT
Southwest Airlines has built a
reputation around having a personality, and as Senior Communications Specialist
Christi McNeill shared – this extends to creating opportunities for staff to
build on the strong culture to delight customers with service. KLM Manager of
Social Media Karlijn Vogel-Meijers also shared several new initiatives that KLM
is pursuing which have the potential to truly drive the airline industry
forwards. Already launched is a unique feature on Twitter that allows anyone to
see the average response time for KLM to get back to you on a tweet you send
directly (on average, it is 23 minutes). In addition, a soon to be launched idea
she previewed at the conference was a new program called Wanna gives which will
allow consumers to pay for a surprise gift to be delivered to a friend or loved
one in flight.
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