Without purpose, social media doesn’t do anything for your company.
Without value, it doesn’t do anything for your customers.

Many corporations believe that the social web is simply another place to broadcast messages and socialize. But in many cases, the people broadcasting those messages are the customers, not the marketing team. The social web is a place to listen and use customer input to improve experiences with your company in hopes that they start doing the marketing legwork for you.

The social web gives us the ability to turn great service into remarkable experiences.

Customer service is a form of brand currency that translates directly to loyalty, referrals and return customers.  Think about it first in the real world service environment. Maybe the waiter knows everything on the menu and handles rapid-fire questions on gluten content without a blink. Perhaps the travel agent finds a way to rebook your flight without a change fee, and keeps you laughing with jokes and commentary as she’s waiting for confirmations. In both instances, confidence, knowledge and humanity positively impact the customer experience and attitude toward those people and companies for which they work.

So how do these uniquely human transactions translate to the social web? A positive experience for a picky eater is priceless, so you can bet that there will be posts on Yelp and the Celiac forums about the staff that doesn’t roll their eyes when you ask if the flourless cake is really flourless.

The experience with the travel agent brings a new respect for her special skills versus a website to book travel. Her expertise and ability to deliver results may inspire status update that encourages coworkers to book complex, “failure is not an option” itineraries with this agent and save the easy vacation stuff for the online sites.

In both cases, the social web provides a channel to share and persuade based on personal experience. It also provides the company with a direct line to its most productive customers, the people who will go out and either recruit or scare away others.

When we work through the business objectives for a social media initiative, we stop thinking of service as something that takes place at a counter or in a call-center, but something that happens every time a potential customer has an interaction or experience with the brand or company.

But what about results?

Great question. Will social media measurably improve your customer service experience? The better question is, how will consistent positive customer service experiences support your overall business objectives?

Let’s say the goals are to improve account retention, increase participation in customer surveys, and create a quantified improvement in service levels. Social media acts as both a communication channel and a compass in this process. It helps you understand the environment in which you are working, and provides important information for correction when you get off course.

Monitoring software can let you know whether your customer service initiatives are resulting in positive and negative sentiment, and help you identify and talk to those customers who are amplifying those messages. In essence, social media not only enables improvement but it also is the tool by which you can test your success.

Creating a social service culture.

The first step is acceptance. Social media is evolving into critical component of corporate strategy. This requires executive teams to trust their employees a little bit more – giving them the opportunity to shine. It also requires a new trust in your customers – they are now the keepers of your brand’s message – empowered to share experiences and problems.

This doesn’t happen overnight, nor does it happen without planning, insight and a blueprint for success. And yes, when you take a trip to the Freeworld, that’s what we are going to help do – make and manage experiences on the social web that mean better business for you and better service for your customers. Will it be a straight shot? Nope. Will it revolutionize your organizational infrastructure? Not in a day. What we will do is help you understand where your opportunities are and how your employees and customers can help you seize them. Only question now is, are you ready?

The era of brand obsession may soon be over – for marketers that is.

It’s no longer within our power to force our idea of what the brand represents on the customer. Now, they decide what the brand means to them, whether it is worth their money, their loyalty and most importantly, whether they would risk their own credibility by recommending to a friend or colleague.

So that begs the question, what is the definition of a successful brand today?

Is it measured in revenue? Not if you’re one of the (successful) countless online applications that have yet to figure out a sustainable revenue model. Is it in the number of people using it? Perhaps. Some companies are looking for ways to measure the human response to interactions with their product. Does it make you happy? Does it make you feel self-confident? Does it reduce job-related stress?

To measure these emotions, we have to connect them to specific behaviors.

A non-profit, for instance, typically tries to raise awareness of an issue and influence the public to either donate time or money to help the organization address the cause. When we educate an audience about the lack of soap in refugee camps, are we making an emotional connection that compels the reader to act? Success will be defined not only by fulfilling the organizations mission, but also by its ability to make people care.

Corporations want to build enough trust for their product that the shopper will ultimately make a purchase, love it and either buy more or recommend it to a friend. No company aspires to be commoditized, so again, the key to success to create an emotional connection with the most awesome (productive, spendy, etc) customers, give them (multiple) great experiences and enlist them in the marketing strategy.

Here’s where the traditional marketer gets lost.

We used to create feature and benefit campaigns. Most of the time, however, these benefits reflected aspiration rather than reality. Some of us (a scant few I’m sure) have even been put in the position of touting the wonders of a product that doesn’t exist yet (vaporware). Those days are so over. The boulevard of broken dreams is littered with disparaging remarks about companies letting their customers down. This power shift deeply discounts the value of reactive public relations, letters from the CEO or apologetic calls from the account manager.

Back to the original question, what defines a successful brand today?

It’s certainly changing. Most of the people I know are spending their money with great care and purpose these days. Success belongs to those organizations that give their customers the opportunity to help improve and innovate alongside its leaders and employees. This isn’t earth shattering. It’s just a matter of listening for and acting on great ideas. Successful brands won’t have a status quo.

Happy Thanksgiving from Freeworld Media!

This year we have many reasons to give thanks – some challenges, some opportunities – all of which have prepared us to move into 2010 as a stronger team:

- We continue to grow and do great work in consumer marketing, social responsibility and social marketing strategies. Sometimes all at once.

- Our new digs at the King Plow Arts Center and to Quinn Hudson of The Hudson Group who immediately took us in when the roof at our old studio caved.

- The opportunity to work on water sustainability projects that directly improve the quality of life for people in developing nations.

- Having the opportunity to play with new technology every day, and the ability to create business value from something creative and new.

- Amazing clients who are both collaborators and partners as we push the limits of social and interactive marketing strategies.

We’re also very grateful for social networking. Has someone special inspired you this year? Send them a note, a tweet, a Facebook message or – hey – give them a call and let them know you’re happy to have them in your life. With all of the ways that we can communicate, why not?

Happy Thanksgiving Y’all!

The Coca-Cola Conversations blog launched a new “vintage” look to mark a new strategy and direction for the the world’s #1 brand.

http://www.coca-colaconversations.com

“From an economical perspective, innovation is a matter of life and death.  A company must innovate today if it wants to be in business tomorrow. For a company to succeed, it not only must be much better than its competitors, but it also must anticipate where its future competition will come from and what it will offer.

Today, business leaders are turning innovation into a major driver for better solutions, experiences, and sustainable business.  In fact, the most successful leaders apply innovation across every business process, from behavioral strategy and market research to financial, leadership, and business models.”

- from a fine line, by harmut esslinger.  used totally without permission

Recently, I had the opportunity to meet the very impressive President of frog design at the TED Global Conference.  The mission of frog is to “create and bring to market meaningful products, services, and experiences” to some of the worlds biggest brands. They do this by understanding “the culture of technology and the design of business.”

Since then, I’ve been reading “a fine line” from Harmut Esslinger. He’s the creative visionary and founder of frog design that has spent forty years building the world’s most recognizable brands.  In this book, he talks about how companies can achieve better business through better design and about the very real challenges facing businesses in the new global economy.

“As a realistic optimist, I believe in a better future.”

Esslinger shows how business leaders and designers can work together using creative strategies to build a more profitable and sustainable future.  The book talks about how he evolved frog design from an industrial design shop to a global innovation powerhouse.

Here are some rapid fire soundbites from Harmut…

In talking to the firm’s leadership, it is clear that frog’s corporate culture is their first priority.  The key to their creative process is that by creating a positive work environment, they enable their talent to create innovative ideas for their clients.   This think-tank atmosphere gives great minds a place to incubate big ideas and leads to successful services and products.

The Creative Corporate Mind

“The fourth level of design, is made up for highly creative, strategic thinkers who are fluent in convergent technologies, social and ecological needs, and business.  The mission that all busines leaders should adopt for their organizations’ design efforts — is to create physical and virtual objects that are inspirational in the usefulness, beauty and social/environmental responsibility, which at the same time supporting business’s strategic goals.

This mission forces the foundation for any organization’s creative strategy and drives its tacticial implementation.  For business leaders pursuing and innovation-driven business model, strategic designers are essential partners.”

Their unique way of re-thinking complex business problems from a design perspective breaks the mold of traditional creative agencies.   To create success in business, the big thinkers should be brought together with business specialists that are able to implement and sell those big ideas.

“As designers, we are uniquely qualified to feel and see opportunities that might be invisible to our more “rational” professional partners.  And the business leaders we partner with may be attuned to exciting opportunities that haven’t even crossed our minds.”

- from a fine line, by harmut esslinger.  used totally without permission

How are you going to stay ahead of the competition?

In the new economy, change is expected and should be encouraged.  If you’re a business leader, think about what you are doing to improve your brand and ask yourself these questions:

- Do you value safety over innovation?

- What will your business do differently to remain competitive?

- What systemic changes will you make to keep your top talent performing at their peak?

Stay ahead of your competition by continually defining your brand as an innovator in the field. The key to relevance in a fast moving economy is to put innovation at the core of your business, which enables your entire organization to adapt, anticipate and act.

The past few years, Freeworld Media has helped our clients build successful blogs. Even as new social media platforms are introduced, the blog still holds it own as a great marketing tool.

I recently stumbled across this video clip at Creative Musings that features influential marketers, Seth Godin and Tom Peters, sharing their thoughts about blogging.

Yong Fook has put together a nice deck about how to measure Social Media ROI.  For accurate measurement, you must define clear goals and decide what the success metrics will look like.

Razorfish recently created a formula to measure the social health of your brand called “Social Influence Measurement” or SIM (if you’re short on time). Their report, called “Fluent” is presented as a big flash file and I suggest downloading the PDF, which is easier to read.

The report wisely begins with the explanation that your brand is not what you say it is – it’s what your customers say it is. As a brand manager, it’s critical to keep an eye on what is being said about your company, your product, and your brand so that you can respond appropriately to the online conversations.

The SIM Score measures two things:

• The total share of consumer conversations your brand has online
• The degree to which consumers like or dislike your brand when they talk to each other about
you online — consumer sentiment

There is a lot of good information in these 58 pages. A couple of big ideas that you should definitely understand is how “Top-down branding will become increasingly impotent” and “Influencers drive brand affinity.” There are also lots of picture pages – so keep turning those flash pages

Here’s how the SIM score works:

1. Calculate the number of positive, negative, and neutral conversations happening for your brand
2. Use the formula (Positive + Neutral – Negative conversations) / Total brand conversations
3. Calculate the number of positive, negative, and neutral conversations happening for your industry
4. Use the formula (Positive + Neutral – Negative conversations) / Total industry conversations
5. Your SIM score is the result of dividing lines 2/4. Ta-dah!

Check out what’s being said on Twitter about SIM Score.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.”

~Albert Einstein

The summer of 2009 will go down as a game-changer. Keep your eyes and ears open, my friends.

be good,
Sean

Social media is ubiquitous in American culture, but how is this trend reflected in the Hispanic market? Research has shown that Internet access, personal behavior, and culture all determine the likelihood of individual participation in social media. The first two categories can be studied with clear demographics, technographics, and data. When it comes to rich and diverse Hispanic culture, however, there are nuances that need to be taken into account for each initiative.

Can I bum a straw?
If you are reaching out to a Hispanic audience, the first factor to consider is language. Every dialect (some countries have many) has unique slang and colloquialisms. In Colombia, pitillo is “straw”, but translates to “cigarette” in Spain. When marketing to the general Hispanic market, Business Spanish is the standard used by multi-national corporations and translators because it is void of slang and regional nuances to reach the broadest audience.

Niche markets within the Hispanic market.
In contrast to the general Hispanic market, social media allows marketers to target specific nationalities withing the Hispanic community when appropriate. Let’s say there is a soccer game between Mexico and the U.S. teams and you want to promote your services while the city’s enormous Mexican population is energized about the game. In this case, you can safely approach them with a nationalized marketing message that is more colloquial. Such niche messaging would give you more credibility, helping better connect with the fans.

The bilingual generation gap.
Communispace, a company that specializes in private, online communities, recently released research about Hispanic engagement in social networks. The study reports that they are very active in online forums, contributing almost six posts a week, more than similar English-language communities. Second-generation Hispanics are less likely to participate in Spanish-only forums, perhaps feeling more comfortable in bilingual or English environments. These Hispanic-Americans typically are better at speaking Spanish than writing it therefore your communication strategy should be tuned to such cultural insights.