Boosting sales via social media

Delaware-based Dogfish Head has a recipe for success both in the kettle and in the marketplace. According to Nielsen Co., the brewery spent a mere $2,000 on traditional media in 2008, and nothing in 2009. So what are they doing?

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Become involved (and strategic) with social media.

Fear is a terrible thing. Especially when it causes healthcare systems to back away from using a potentially powerful communications tool. When it comes to using social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter, healthcare systems tend to fall into two categories. The first suffers from significant fear regarding negative feedback that may come from using such tools. This group also struggles with how much time it will take to make this a successful venture. The second group is “gung-ho” and jump into the pool before they check to make sure it’s been filled with water.  This group tends to throw every possible press release, article and “approved” message they can find onto their social media channels, only to realize  they’ve created a one-way conversation.

There is a better way. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you care to watch them...24/7?

Remember the premise of what was arguably the grandaddy of all reality TV shows? “This is the true story... of seven strangers... picked to live in a house...work together and have their lives taped... to find out what happens... when people stop being polite... and start getting real...The Real World.”

New web reality series If I Can Dream (from American Idol creator Simon Fuller), which launched on Tuesday, March 2, takes that premise even further. It follows five aspiring artists live 24/7 on ificandream.com and in a weekly recap on Hulu. Read the rest of this entry »

Even Barbie uses social media.

The 50-plus doll was once limited to traditionally “feminine” career choices such as ballerina, model, teacher or nurse. As times changed and women threw off their shackles (did Barbie ever even have a bra to burn?), her options expanded: paratrooper, paleontologist, pilot and even President of the United States.

Now, for the first time ever, loyal Barbie fans were asked to help her choose her 125th career for the “I Can Be” doll series by voting on the following: architect, computer engineer, environmentalist, news anchor or surgeon. Twitter followers and fans on Facebook voted for News Anchor Barbie — she’ll be available this fall. The social media campaign was such a success that fans insisted on choosing Barbie’s 126th career, computer engineer, coming in winter. Read the rest of this entry »

My goal: be a better blogger.

So I am beginning to get it—this whole social media thing. I threatened to quit Facebook earlier this year…but didn’t. It’s still too intriguing to me. And yes, it is fun to connect with old friends and business associates…even some distant relatives have touched base.

So here is my commitment to myself and my company and many acquaintances—I will become a better (meaning simply a more involved and more active) blogger in 2010. Alright, this is my promise to all of you…I’ll start thinking about why you read blogs and what’s important to you. Why did you stop here? Curious about the agency? Our work? Our clients? Our staff? Or are you really that interested in me? I doubt that it’s all about me. My posts will be about what would interest you…not just what interests me. And hopefully that keeps you coming back to read new content.

Domino's - an example of social media success

If you missed the first part, check it out here.

Now for the good: a coworker in our PR department had an experience in which FedEx missed a next-day delivery. She decided to voice her frustration by tweeting, “FedEx really expletive deleted on me today.” Within 30 minutes, she got a retweet from FedexAl asking if he could help. This small effort from FedEx customer service immediately turned her from disgruntled to impressed.

An even better example would be Domino’s Pizza. Read the rest of this entry »

Sears - an example of social media failure.

Everyone seems to be buzzing about Social Networks and how to take advantage of them for marketing purposes. It is a great opportunity for companies to join a conversation that’s already taking place rather than trying to start a new one. As with any conversation, you have to listen. Imagine walking into a crowded party and just starting to talk about things that interest you without bothering to figure out the current topic of the conversation. How would people react?

Here is my step-by-step guide to getting into the social networking fray.

1. Plan: Before getting involved, ask yourself, “What are my business goals and how do I plan on measuring them?” Only then can you develop a plan to make social media a part of that success.
2. Listen: Begin monitoring the current conversations to find out if people are talking about you and what they’re saying.
3. Evaluate: Is there a prevailing positive or negative tone to the existing conversations?
4. Engage: Social networks can be a great opportunity for customer service, as you’ll see in the examples below.
5. Promote: The final—I repeat, final—step of playing in the social network sandbox is promotion of your goods or services. Once you are a part of the conversation, then you can start changing its direction. Read the rest of this entry »

Applying strategy is critical to social media success.

99 ways to use Twitter?

There are plenty of articles on the Internet that outline the 17 ways to use Twitter or the 32 ways to use Facebook. If your approach to social media has been to start with these types of articles, you may be focusing too quickly on tactics without an appropriate social media strategy. Tactics without a strategy are particularly bad because they often end up being ineffective, hard to measure and mask real opportunities a more strategic version of the tactic may provide.

Because social media tools are so accessible and seemingly easy to use, a planning/strategy phase is often skipped, perhaps also in part because the realm of social media seems so complex. Because there is no clear place to begin, there is a tendency to start with tactics, a fatal mistake.

How to approach the problem

One technique for approaching a problem that seems complex is to break it down into a series of simpler problems. This is a great approach when it comes to the social media landscape. Instead of looking at a list of 50 ways to use Twitter, it makes more sense to look at a smaller list of ways to use social media in general. Read the rest of this entry »

Soon, you can search within your circle of friends.

We can get overwhelmed sifting through blogs and online discussions. That’s why we turn to our social circle for recommendations. But our friends also have several social network accounts and each one has a lot of information. So how do we keep track of it all?

Don’t fret, fellow social butterflies: Google is developing Social Search. It enables users to add their networking profiles to a Google account and see search results filtered and prioritized based on their circle of friends. This means that we can turn to our social circle first when filtering results on the web. For instance, if I wanted to research restaurants in my area, results from my trusted social circle would appear more prominently in my search.

Click here for an overview of Google Social Search.

Putting social networking to work...literally.

Yammer is a simple way for employees to connect and share by posting messages. As more employees participate, it becomes a corporate social network, discussion board and knowledge base. Yammer is like a combination of Facebook and Twitter. Your company can create a profile that mimics the look of Facebook: picture, wall posts/messages, an information page, etc. Your company also has a “network.” And the Yammer is protected, permitting only people from your company to join by requiring your company’s domain (@yourcompany.com). The homepage resembles Twitter — members of your company can post messages about what they’re working on or post questions to coworkers.

But what happens when employees start spending more and more time chatting on Yammer? Will it be a time-waster? Or a morale-booster? Only time will tell.