Category

Communications

Sep 10
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Three Ways Social Media Really CAN Help.

By Communications, Corporate Strategy, Marketing, Social Media

I just finished a really terrific interview with Ted Hissey, SVP and Director of Innovation, Consumer Planning and Global Marketing Services for Brown-Forman Co., marketer of brands such as Jack Daniel’s, Southern Comfort, Korbel, Chambord and Finlandia. Yum. Read it here.

In this interview Ted discusses how social media has really enhanced the way they both learn from and then re-target customers across a wide range of demographics. It’s really worth the read. I took three really good things from it that I think we can all agree are pretty excellent ways to justify and empower social media use in our own companies.

Social media brings some scale to word-of-mouth. If your brand is one that relies on recommendations and satisfied customers sharing your products with others, social tools can really help you empower those customers to do it. Hissey says “Word-of-mouth has always been critical in driving awareness of new and existing brands,” and social tools allow customers to reach many more influencers with a single post.

Most social media vehicles are very targetable. When marketing alcohol (like many other CPGs), marketers can encounter a broad range of customer demographics that respond to different marketing triggers. Social media platforms can allow messages to be targeted by location, age, interests, networks, job, anything. This makes each marketing effort that much more efficient.

You can’t be boring or typical. If you’re going to bother tapping into  a social network of consumers, you have to make your messages worth their effort.  As Hissey says, “if it’s just something boring that people can get anywhere, you’re wasting your time.” If you get someone’s attention and wow them, they will spread that word.

So what’s stopping you from realizing these benefits and addressing these opportunities?

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Sep 04
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If You’re Going to Use LinkedIn, USE IT!

By Communications

We’re in business development mode today, and that means researching potential partners and clients to assess the opportunities we might have to help each other. One of the steps in this process is to look at the company via LinkedIn–who works there, what positions are filled, what content they share, what open positions they are advertising, what their company profile looks like. After all, there are a gazillion benefits to using LinkedIn as a company now that social marketing and social search have gone mainstream. The network has grown over 45% in the past year, and has over 150 million users! Many of those are entrepreneurs who embrace social tools as a method of connecting to new opportunities.

So why, why why would you set up a LinkedIn account and then PRIVATIZE it so potential connections can’t reach you? Maybe you don’t want the “spam” emails, or you’d rather do the finding and viewing of profiles and opportunities, thank you very much. But if you’re going to bother building a profile on this network, it is disingenuous to expect access to information on others that you’re not willing to share yourself. People are looking for ways to connect because they want to grow their businesses, and presumably you want to do the same. Sure, you’ll want to make sure the profile is set up so your time is not being wasted, but setting it to private sends a message that you’re not that interested in connecting, not really.

Is that the message you want to be sending to potential customers, clients, partners, or recruits?

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Aug 27
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Transparency and Authenticity: Beware the Business Buzzwords if You’re Lacking Commitment

By Communications

I majored in English with a concentration in Writing in college. I’ve taken dozens of writing courses, in school and out. A frequent piece of advice from writing teachers is to “show, not tell.”

One word that keeps repeating on corporate websites, in core values, in missions and credos is “transparency.” It worries me, a bit, that we’ve come to a place, culturally where we, as businesses have to announce our transparency to the universe. “We don’t lie!” we think we have to say, “we share all our information openly!” or “we hold ourselves accountable for our actions!”

Most of the time, sadly, transparency is something corporations aspire to — they want to be very open, but it doesn’t always make good business sense to share everything, all the time.

What I think companies are striving toward, truly, is something a bit less unwieldy: authenticity.

Much like individuals struggling with the balance between private and personal, I think companies battle the same war. I often speak about the difference between being personal as a professional, particularly in online interaction, without ever sharing what’s private. I think companies have the right to have information that’s private as well. But it has certainly been demonstrated that companies that respond with authenticity and human empathy and consideration form stronger bonds with customers and, all in all, are more successful.

When writing about your company think about the differences; are you really transparent? Are you willing to make that commitment? Or is what you are, really, authentic?

Aug 17
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What Stonewall Jackson Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America Should Do Now

By Communications, Crisis Communications, Social Media

Yesterday, Rusty published a post about the Boy Scouts of America’s use of Facebook and a particular interaction that occurred on the Stonewall Jackson Area Council’s Facebook page.  The post, and the organization’s use of Facebook (as represented by the council) was a topic of discussion on Charlottesville — Right Now! with Coy Barefoot later that evening. You can listen to the audio of that broadcast here.

I don’t want to belabor the discussion about the inappropriate use of Facebook — i.e. deleting comments an organization disagrees with — rather focus on what we recommend the Council and, indeed, any organization finding themselves in a hotbed online do in this kind of situation.

  1. Establish a comment policy for the organization. State your intentions to delete comments that are defamatory, obscene or irrelevant (SPAM, for example). Post the policy anywhere online discussion could take place (a blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
  2. Train a spokesperson or team of spokespeople to handle criticism — or, indeed, any interaction online. They should understand the language used to describe the organization and it’s position/philosophies, or whom to contact internally to answer questions they cannot.
  3. Prepare for the worst: especially if you represent an organization that has any controversy associated with it (I’m not sure ANY organization is entirely immune to this.) Have the tough conversations about what your process will be in responding to critics, handling and correcting misinformation and dealing with issues online — and off!
  4. Don’t automate. Progressive Insurance is taking a lot of flack this week for being “robotic” and inhuman in the face of a crisis.  The lesson here is to treat your community with compassion and authenticity.

The online world is a brutal place to step out of line — thinking — as the Stonewall Jackson Area Council did — that Facebook isn’t the appropriate venue for discussion doesn’t mean the discussion won’t continue on that platform. Organizations cannot control the message; they can, however, control how they react to it.

Jul 23
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Communications Done Right

By Communications, Marketing

With all the negative news in the press lately–from the travesty that is U.S. politics to the tragedy that is Aurora, CO and the subsequent NRA dustup, sometimes it’s nice to see communications used in a classy, nice but effective way.

Such is the case of Patrick Wensink, who commissioned a cover for his book, Broken Piano For President, that ended up looking a lot like a Jack Daniels label. As you might expect (although apparently Patrick didn’t), the brand police over at Jack Daniels got involved. And as you might also expect, typically these things can become, well, contentious and directive.

Not so this time. They sent him and extremely polite, understanding, and pleasant letter for once, which you can read about here. It’s the kind of cooperative tone that makes us proud to be in the communications business, rather than being embarrassed by the likes of Ryan Holiday, the lying jerk and “media manipulator.” The letter is non-threatening, helpful, understanding, and amazingly effective. Someone was channeling Dale Carnegie, a practice well worth resurrecting, don’t you think?