From The Rooftops

Social Media as a Factor of Branding

Everything new is old again.

Sometimes it seems that many social media “gurus” spend their time convincing companies that the web 2.0 world is entirely new and that the entire rulebook needs to be thrown out in favor of … well… more consultation from social media gurus. I don’t think this is necessarily so. To be sure, the internet and social media have forever changed the ways in which we interact with one another, brands and information itself. But I think it’s overstating the case to assert that nothing will ever be the same. Many things are the same, how we interact with them is different. People valuing an organization with integrity? The same. Customers appreciating a brand that goes out of its way to take care of them? The same. Individuals trying to find ways to share and learn more about the products they care about? The same.

For a great glimpse into the way the internet has changed things, I’d highly recommend reading The Long Tail by Chris Anderson (editor of Wired) and Wikinomics by Don Tapscott—these books do a great job of discussing how things have changed, while demonstrating that much of the values and interests (saving money, connecting with people, sharing information, etc.) that have been revolutionized by the internet are not new in and of themselves. Existing business leaders need to learn about these changes, but they can rest assured that brand-based thinking and authenticity are at least as valuable in the digital age as they have ever been.

This was on display as I recently had the pleasure of leading a seminar for the Sustainable Business Network of Portland on marketing and social media. It was a refreshing opportunity to go beyond the usual “Social Media 101” and take a deeper dive into tools, implementation and a couple case studies. I wanted to further the level of discourse concerning the use of social media among local businesses, without making it seem overly complex or foreign. Many of the attendees have been successful business owners for longer than I’ve been able to drive a car; they have marketing savvy and, as SBNP members, are deeply committed to local commerce—they’ve been around for a long time and they have a great story of authenticity to share. None of those things need to change, their brand-thinking just needs to be adapted to a new model of social interaction and information flow.

So many business leaders feel threatened by the social web and it’s all for naught. Businesses have always had to be mindful of where they advertise their product and how—of what people think about them and why. You need to understand your brand, your customer and how and where they interact. My seminar attendees seemed to resonate with the message that these same considerations still apply, it’s just that some of the answers have changed. To put it another way, as long as you ‘let the brand drive’ your marketing considerations, you will still be fine navigating the modern business landscape; it’s just that some of the destinations and travel partners are more fast-paced, democratic and diverse. Instead of an in-person opportunity for a few friendly sentences with your favorite patrons you might be conversing with hashtags and blog comments, but the basics of branding and a concern for your customer still remain— some things never go out of fashion.

- Caleb

PRIME Messaging: Exchange

This is part six of an ongoing series of developing thoughts on the intersection of authentic messaging and sustainability. In part one I introduce the concept of greenwash-fighting marketing that follows 5 “PRIME” principles: Participation, Rigor, Intentionality, Mutuality and Exchange. In part two I elaborate on the concept of participation. In part three I gush about rigor and how strong, verifiable sustainability information is one of the surest antidotes to greenwashing. In part four I discuss intentionality in terms of expressing an organization’s true sustainability aims: how to do it well and why it’s sometimes more important to be honest than good. In part five I consider the role of mutuality as a valuable step in moving authentic sustainability messaging externally, into the public realm. Please join me now as I look at exchange as a means of understanding how and why an increasingly empowered (and digitally connected) base of customers and supporters plays to the strengths of authentic brands. As always, comments are appreciated and encouraged.

Exchange

Sustainability claims: Are accompanied with an invitation to talk more about the company’s “walking of their sustainable talk” [Exchange]

Companies with authentic sustainability messaging have a huge advantage over greenwashers: as a customer presses deeper for more information they are presented with an increasingly compelling story. Because they have something to hide, inauthentic marketers will press for the opposite effect: deflect queries and obstruct deeper conversations as much as possible; many people are quite savvy to this behavior and don’t seem to appreciate it very much. To be sure, this is an unenviable position; perhaps this was possible back before consumers possessed the means of horizontal interaction, but those days are gone. Much of the public is quite skeptical about sustainability claims (and for good reason); the better equipped you are to demonstrate your chops, the better (and more differentiated) you are. This is exchange: the last (and perhaps most rewarding) step in the PRIME marketing process. You’ve set the foundation (participation), backed it up with integrity and depth (rigor, intentionality), talked about it accurately (intentionality), supported it with partners (mutuality) and have now successfully piqued the curiosity of the market. Relax and enjoy the ride: you’re doing good work and people want to talk with you about it.

How to go about this? It will, of course, depend upon your brand, goals, customer, etc., but there are some general principles and tools that are useful for most any organization. At its core, exchange is about being willing and able to talk with your customers, but even before that it’s about listening to them. Understanding what your customers want to know is not only invaluable for matters of business intelligence and strategy; it means that, if done properly, your responses will be received as being on-message, appropriate and meaningful.

This exchange between you and your customers (and your customers among themselves) is a great opportunity to share a fuller story of why you do what you do. Indeed, Simon Sinek, suggests you start with “why” because it is in the “why” that we can inspire people. Ever on-message, Start With Why is the title of his book and the theme of his TEDx talk.

Sinek offers a valuable means of connecting these dots with people because you’re making the connection together and in terms that are mutually significant. In his TEDx talk he suggests inverting the process of engaging people. Instead of spending all your time speaking about features and benefits (“what”) or value proposition (“how”), he observes that there is deep value when we talk about why we do what we do (“why”). It’s an invitation to share a deep, emotional connection that really gets to the heart of your reason for being in business. This invitation is ideally suited to the PRIME principle of exchange because it plays to your strengths: rigor, openness, passion and authenticity.

It has been said that “advertising is the price of being boring,” you have successfully demonstrated that you’re not boring because people are actively seeking you out. They want to talk with you about …well, YOU. Similar to Sinek’s proposition of starting with “why,” Scott likes to put this in terms of three key factors: who you are, what you stand for and why you matter. Your goal now is to listen to these individuals and be prepared to share these things (among others) with them regarding their favorite issues: an exchange of meaning, sincerity and value.

Thanks again,
- Caleb

Making Value: Brands and Social Media

Lately I’ve had several organizations seeking out help with their “social media strategy.” As I spend more and more time explaining these things I’ve started to initiate the process by asking a series of questions: who is your customer? who is your brand? where do they meet? why?

Ultimately this hinges upon one observation: we seek out and sustain connections in the social web in order to create value. This is an oft-stated thesis, but an important one nonetheless. My goal today is to briefly introduce how and why this is and how it relates to brands.

a glimpse at life in the Clif Bar breakroom

In the brand strategy world we often encourage a client to “let the brand drive the decision process.” This brand-based thinking is also very useful in the social media world. If your brand makes rubber gaskets for industrial widgets it’s probably more important that you have a solid blog (and Twitter account) that enables you to discuss industry trends/topics related to your customers and their up- and downstream needs than for you to have a Foursquare mayorship incentive or a Facebook page with giveaways. If your washer brand is based upon integrity, quality, service and price and your customers are industrial widget makers, then you’ll probably want to use your social web presence to enhance their experience of you and your brand: respond promptly to customer input, share behind the scenes content that enhances your brand and its story. Use it as a means of differentiation: put up that funny photo of the time the account manager’s dog got into the breakroom leftovers. Have your senior product designer put up a technical blog post that shares R&D information about how and why the new line of washers is superior to the competition. Post a write-up of the company’s Relay For Life team. Don’t try to get Justin Bieber to tweet about your product. The supply chain manager mightn’t care if you have a Facebook “like” button on your homepage, but you might build a closer connection with them if they come across the Relay For Life post and see that there are people behind the email addresses with which they interact. Whatever you do, make sure it’s valuable: simultaneously in service to the brand and the customer’s needs.

Seeing as it’s the social web, there is even more potential for socially-oriented brands. If you have a brand that cultivates supporters, this is a great way to solidify that relationship and turn them into evangelists. Again, this is done by utilizing your social media efforts to be valuable. Give them a behind-the-scenes peek at the brand they love. Save them time and money. Share content they care about. Give them something exclusive that rewards them for reaching out to your brand. Be fun. The tricky part is understanding how customer needs and expectations interface with the brand. There is no ready solution to this challenge—no “app for that”—only active listening and earnest interaction. That being said, the process is moved along greatly if you make sure to “let the brand drive the decision.” As someone who loves consumer insights and digital ethnography, I speak from experience when I say that there is MUCH that can be learned about your business by working with the people who evangelize it. They are, after all, the very reason you do what you do. They love what you stand for—the way you make them feel—talk with them about it. Find out what more can be done.

There are several factors that you must keep in mind when constructing a social media strategy. A few important ones:

• Objectives – what is your desired outcome? (and don’t just say “more money!”) More brand impressions? A 10% increase in sales of product X over the next 60 days? More followers on Twitter? More blog comments? Improved clickthrough from the point of first contact to the product page? More positive ratings on Yelp? The first mistake that brands make is to step into the social web without a coherent strategy and set of desired outcomes. Make a strategic plan and work from there. Revisit it frequently. Make mistakes, own up to them, learn, improve.
• Available resources—Be honest with yourself: do you have 5 hours a week to do all the requisite legwork to keep a sustained and engaging presence online? 10 hours? 1 hour? Your social media strategy is better served by 2 hours of precise, effective and well-aligned efforts than 5 disoriented hours of standing in front of a “firehose” of digital information. Many organizations are tempted to hand it all off to a “Social Media Intern,” but I’ve always encouraged a reexamination of this. Would you leave an intern in charge of your press releases, customer service calls, sales generation, media relations, copywriting and branding? Of course not. The social web calls for strategic thinking and execution. Invite all the appropriate parties to the table for strategic planning and work from there. If you have an intern and you think you need to spend 20 hours/week executing this plan, you need to involve them in the whole process. Find someone who has what it takes to be a director-of-social-media-in-training and groom them for the big time. If you treat the social efforts as being that thing that the intern does between getting the mail and replacing the coffee filter, you’re going to get what you paid for.
• Creativity—One of the things that I love about the social web is how much room there is for innovation. It’s wide open, folks; you can do more than just self-promote and give away swag—take this as an opportunity to refine and demonstrate your brand promise and identity. A couple examples of interesting (though not necessarily recommended) initiatives:
  • Skittles changed the front page of their website to simply display any and all tweets that had “Skittles” in the title. …with interesting results.
  • Air New Zealand asked trivia questions about New Zealand and got over 4,000,000 organic brand impressions.
  • Jimmy Choo’s exclusive and high-end Foursquare treasure hunt encouraged fans to seek out destinations that were a part of the fashion scene.

OMG, I'm FAMOUS!

These campaigns all come back to that recurring theme of value as a factor of branding. Skittles, who for so long encouraged us to do the impossible act of tasting rainbows, opened their front door and enabled us to do the impossible: instantly find ourselves on the front page of Skittles.com. Jimmy Choo offered a way for high-end customers who care about fashion to use their smartphones to more readily hone their visibility on that very scene, all by virtue of being encouraged to interact with a brand that thrives in the space.

You can see how this value-building process is delicate: it would make little sense for an elite, niche brand like Jimmy Choo to open up their front page to a Twitter search, and Skittles would be tremendously off-brand if they were to send you on a treasure hunt among fancy shops selling $200 T-shirts. A brand must first understand their customer and how their customer wants to interact, then brainstorm–come up with a fun, surprising and meaningful way to make that happen. Try it. Don’t worry about figuring out if you’re doing it right; you’ll know because they’ll tell you.

- Caleb

Checking Out the New Foursquare Checkin

Foursquare, the popular social location (SoLo) app (or, as they describe themselves “[…] your favorite, er, mobile + social + friend finder + social city guide + nightlife game thing.”) has just turned one year old. While their growth has been astronomical, there have been some fundamental growing pains that we’ve all seen on the horizon for some time. [note: if you’re not familiar with Foursquare, I’d encourage you to read up here]

While there is much to be said about the way PleaseRobMe pithily encapsulated the privacy and safety issues surrounding the broadcasting of one’s location, I’d like to think out loud about a different issue that has been an elephant in the room that we’ve all been checking into: cheating (or, as Foursquare charitably puts it, “armchair mayors”).

I think it’s safe to say that one of the main reasons that Foursquare has taken off in the social location space is the way that they have made a very clever and fun social game out of the act of the checkin. (to be sure, Gowalla is still very much a player and I’ll be interested to see how the two services [and any other entrants] come to adapt to—and shape—the market and the realm of possibilities in this category) When I first introduce people to the rules and dynamics of Foursquare I often hear the inevitable question: So what’s to stop you from checking in somewhere you haven’t actually been? To which the usual response is: “…but why would you do that? If the basic idea is to let your friends know where you are and where you’ve been, what would be the point of sharing a location that you’re not actually occupying?” The next observation, of course, is to acknowledge that, as Foursquare gains popularity and adoption by businesses, the incentive to fudge one’s location history will become increasingly tempting.

Two of the more common incentives that businesses have come to extend revolve around either discounts every time you show the cashier that you checked in, or a freebie of some sort for the person who is the mayor. While ‘armchair checkins’ won’t mean much to the former category, it can certainly be an issue with the latter. Indeed, the more a mayorship is worth, the greater the likelihood that people will start to feel the temptation to overstate their attendance. In other words, we’ve known that this is a longstanding concern and, as the number of participants increase, the more competitive and contested the whole thing will become.

The problem with Foursquare’s current solution (explained here) is that it’s quite dependent upon two interrelated things that are far from dependable: the accuracy of your phone’s GPS system (or the Foursquare team’s “tricks” for non-GPS phones) and the likelihood that the person who first created the location was standing near the same place as you when you checked in.

I find myself wondering how well this will work for something like a baseball stadium—the same venue might occupy several city blocks—Foursquare will need to come up with a clever solution to this issue. Venue creation is necessarily a product of crowdsourcing, so it’s hard to have a definitive notion of the true extent of a venue’s dimensions. Perhaps they can attribute greater ‘locational leniency’ to venues racking up major checkins?

What about the average coffee shop? I’ve long thought that, as checkins become increasingly contested, venues might start utilizing a checkin code—a short sequence of numbers or letters that, like a changing wi-fi password, is given to you by the cashier when you buy your coffee. It makes cheating a lot harder and, since the Foursquare user is already sure to be stopping by the cashier for their order and the wi-fi password, they’re not put too far out of their way in the process.

Consider the alternative:—just the other day I was chatting with a guy who, while standing at the front door of a coffee shop, had his checkin flagged as being a cheat. He was frustrated not only at the prospect of being deprived of the checkin points (and the potential to close-in on the existing mayor), but was also peeved at the accusation of being dishonest. The experience left such a bad taste in his mouth that he’s since stopped using the app. (note: they do have a cheater code error form for such instances, but I don’t expect many people to go out of their way to fill out a survey every time Foursquare accuses them of cheating).

What I find myself wondering is how this will impact Foursquare’s rate of adoption (and attrition). Because it now requires users to be more precise with their game participation (no more checkins ex post facto) I can see two things happening: frustrated at the increased barrier to participation, some users, disheartened at the loss of points and increased attentiveness required by the new developments, find themselves reducing their investment and ultimately quitting; the committed users who ‘played by the rules’ all along begin to gain more mayorships and rank on the leaderboard as the “armchair mayors” drop like flies.

It will ultimately be a positive development for Foursquare if these two developments come to pass, but only if the company feels it has the momentum to stay ahead of Gowalla, Loopt, Yelp and any other entrants on the horizon. Or, to put it another way, if the SoLo market has, thus far, only seen early adopters (read: more tech-savvy, more willing to deal with UX issues), we can expect that the incoming early majority users might be less amenable to such issues and Foursquare had better get it figured out well—and quickly.  It is a precarious endeavor to advocate integrity without sacrificing liberty and enjoyment (indeed, if Foursquare gets it right, they’re likely to have a few politicians [not to mention developers] knocking on their door, asking how it was done), but if they’ve demonstrated anything, the folks at Foursquare have shown that they’re a team of smart, creative and innovative folks—in other words, precisely the sort of people one would expect to do it right.

What are your thoughts? Am I overstating the significance of these moves? What about the varying sizes of venues–how can Foursquare distinguish between large and small venues (if it even needs to)? How about a checkin code–will that be too much to expect of a Foursquare user? I’d love to hear from you, so hit the comments!

- Caleb

How to use Social Media to build a small business brand

I had an interesting conversation this evening with Lisa Peyton, the founder of the Thoroughly Modern Marketing blog, about how to use social media marketing to build your brand as a small business. In a nutshell, this is what I told her:

1. Keep it real.
2. Keep it relevant.
3. Keep it meaningful.

But to expand, here’s what I was thinking:

Keep it real. By that I mean, be YOURSELF. Don’t be all corporate or attempt to be overly professional in your posts on social media channels like twitter, facebook or LinkedIn. Be human. People want to engage with people, not with these false identities known as businesses. If you’re a small business, customers probably like the people that make your business work. Embrace your people and their unique personalities. Yes, that means occasionally tweeting about what you had for lunch, but see points 2 and 3 for more on that!

Keep it relevant. To the extent possible, stay within your sweet spot. Tweet about things that you know. If your business sells shoes, find compelling and unique content about shoes and share it. This can establish category expertise and ensure that your audience looks to you for the latest relevant information on shoes. The point here is to establish yourself or your brand as a voice in the category.

Keep it meaningful. Relevance only gets you so far if you’re not adding insightful points of view to the content. Relevance might get you ‘followed’ or ‘friended’, meaning gets you contacted. Stand out from the crowd by connecting the dots for people. Teach, share, and add value. Retweeting, for example, can be relevant. Overlaying a point of view can create meaning, as can engaging in REAL dialogue in these channels. If I look at your brand and see that you’re blasting one-way messages without much interaction, you’re not creating meaning.

-Scott

Inspiring Evangelism or: How I Learned to Ignore the Social Media Experts

There is truly one thing that can guarantee your success in this new socially connected world (and it’s the same thing that guaranteed success back before there were “friends” to collect or tweets to twoot): Being so damn good at what you do that your customers want to climb the nearest mountain and sing your praises to the world.

So I ask you, are you inspiring evangelism?

Apple, like other great brands, clearly inspires evangelism.

If you’ve been in business for a year or more, I bet you are. At least some of the time. I bet every now and then you hit the ball out of the park. Out of the bloody stadium. But I bet you could do it more consistently. And I bet you could remove some barriers to make the sharing of those experiences easier. For when you truly do connect in this way, your customers will want to sing your praises. On twitter. On facebook. On flickr. Wherever they are. And you should be there to celebrate/evaluate/communicate with them. But for the right reasons: To grow the health and vitality of your relationship with them. To learn from them. To realize when you’ve swung and missed. And to capture and revel in the shared experience of doing something really well.

-Scott

Seeing Red From the Green Police

Sunday night provided us with one of the great American spectator/armchair quarterbacking events: the Super Bowl advertisements. While there are plenty of folks commenting on this year’s crop as a whole, I have been exceptionally interested in one particular ad (and the fallout and discussion that has ensued). Here at From The Rooftops we are, as you’ve noticed, deeply passionate about authentic claims, sustainability and marketing. It should come as no surprise, then, that, right after the Audi Green Police ad [if you've not seen the commercial, I encourage you to watch it, as the rest of this post won't make as much sense without it] aired I received an impassioned text from Scott, asking if I’d seen it. While much post-Super Bowl revelry took place in the streets and bars, I took to my laptop and wound up spending much of the evening surveying the reception paid to the Green Police ad.

And what a reception it has received! Some proclaimed it as validation of the green movement while other responded that it’s no laughing matter and will be the new reality in an eco-fascist future. Others made the easy observation that, perhaps as much as anything, Audi was trying to be vague yet provocative so as to stoke the fire of conversation that we have witnessed in the following few days.

Before I weigh in too heavily, I’d like, for diversity’s sake, to call out some of the types of responses I’ve seen out there so far:

This is yet another reminder that the ‘green’ movement is a harbinger of a new age of fascism

“Is this what Al Gore’s presidency would look like?” — New York Times (comment)

“Audi’s bottom-line corporate message is that the Green State is here to stay and that capitulating to it — and capitalizing on it, as Audi has — is the path to survival. It’s no laughing matter, really.” — Michelle Malkin

Oh, great, now it’s going to be even harder for us to be taken seriously

“Ugh, Middle America just took another unneeded step away from feeling that sustainability is cool, easy, and normal.” — Triple Pundit (a generally great resource in the susbiz arena)

Climate Progress

It’s okay, it’s a positive ad. Right? Right, guys?

Grist (another green resource with which I will sometimes disagree but highly recommend)

the Facebook status messages of many friends

OMG, did you really just make an indirect allusion to the Ordnungspolizei?!

“The implications of Audi’s choice of name for their campaign could be huge, especially since Audi is a German company. The first question is obvious – didn’t anyone at Audi’s PR or advertising arm/agency do any research?” — Danny Brown

“It is simply astounding that a German company would play against such a framing, making oblique references to a Nazi police unit and providing what many will see as a broadside against environmentalism as somehow fascist in nature.” — Daily Kos

It’s an ad. It got people talking about the brand. Ergo, the ad worked. Sorta.

“So what was the intent of the commercial? To get people talking about Audi, of course. And by that standard, it was a success. Did it make me want to buy one? No, but it did make me want to get a copy of Cheap Trick’s greatest hits.” — Blog of New Orleans

For our purposes here, I am less concerned with debating the merits of these various claims in order to reach a decisive position regarding the intentions of the Audi marketing team (they can speak for themselves here). Indeed, I think it’s orthogonal to the most important consideration: regardless of the intention of the ad team, how does the reception of this advertisement inform our understanding of authentic claims (in this case, concerning the characteristics of “green”).

I think it speaks volumes that, in the Wall Street Journal’s Super Bowl 2010 Best and Worst Ads, the Audi Green Police advertisement has, at least thus far, won the vote for Best Ad …and for Worst Ad. (as of 6:37pm on Thursday night: 2/11/10: 12.7% for Best and 16.8% Worst) It could be a Dickens story: “It was the best of ads, it was the worst of ads….” A tale of one advertisement being folded into multiple–and, seemingly, conflicting–narratives. I think that this, as much as anything, is the lasting legacy of the Audi commercial: we, as a message-receiving (and -filtering) body, have become hypersensitive to green claims–and for different (but often interrelated) reasons. So much is this the case that the intended audience (Green consumers) can’t decide whether to laugh or cry, and their antagonists (just do a Google search about this ad, you’ll find them) can’t decide whether to laugh or grab their torches and pitchforks. Seriously, if you’ve got the time, I encourage you to read the comments section of ANY of the links I’ve shared in this post–they are interesting, angering, funny, disconcerting, and, above all, illuminating studies in the post-Inconvenient Truth, mid-Tea Party green marketing landscape.

With regard to claims surrounding sustainability, agitation has started to encroach upon levity and message-makers (and, in the social web, we’re all message-makers) must tread very carefully, as our messages (and, apparently, footage of pollution-detecting[?] anteaters, even) are cast outward, and not projected into a blank-slate vacuum of doe-eyed but otherwise agreeable and passive viewers. Rather, modern messages are not projected at all–they are shared horizontally, from mouth to mouth and Twitter account to Twitter account. Whether intentional (or even desirable), or not, they are living, breathing invitations to participation. And participate we will: dissecting, sharing, commenting, remixing, and yes, flaming, our ways to a co-opted narrative, conforming with our evolving expression of how these claims speak to us. Especially when we start speaking back.

– Caleb

What do you think? Has Audi hurt their green messaging by putting their would-be customers on the defensive? Is all the extra attention worth it, regardless? What about their reference to the Green Police? They seem to have sincerely wanted to make sure that it was okay with the Jewish community, should they have changed the name to the “Eco Police”? (the Cheap Trick song would have been harder to tie in, whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is for you to decide!)  What does this mean for our ability to “laugh at ourselves” in the sustainability sphere? Is Audi even “one of us,” with making a name for themselves as green when their centerpiece is a (repackaged) diesel car?