Be Your Brand

by Regan Hillyer

  Action Items:

  1. If you’re a one-person operation or a very small business, write down five things you could say that would seem authentic or that sound like marketing-speak to a customer. Then write five examples of how you could say the same messages in a more authentic way on Facebook.

  2. If you are part of a large organization, create a plan for how to represent yourself authentically. Recognize that authenticity won’t be easy but that it’s essential. Meet with key stakeholders and management at your organization to determine how you can make communication more authentic across all channels, especially on social networks.

  3. If you already have a social media policy, examine it carefully to ensure that it encourages authentic communication, and tweak it if it doesn’t. If you don’t yet have a social media policy, draft one now.

  4. If multiple people are responding on Twitter on behalf of your organization, have them sign tweets with their name or initials

  BUILDING TRUST: TRANSPARENCY IS NO LONGER NEGOTIABLE

  Traditional marketers have worked for years at shaping people’s opinions about brands and organizations using advertising and other linear marketing tactics. Marketers may be tempted to stretch the truth on social networks in order to achieve similar objectives, I can’t stress this point any stronger: You must be as honest and transparent as possible when using social media. Honesty and transparency build a direct relationship between you and the customer, and any deviation from these values can erode brand trust forever. In an age when it’s virtually impossible to hide the truth, don’t bother trying. If you’re not ready to face the facts about your products or organization and share them with consumers, don’t join the conversation yet. Once you’re committed to creating a presence in social media outlets, there’s no going back, and you really have no choice but to embrace transparency. If it seems intuitive to you to be honest, that’s terrific. But too many marketers have employed dishonest tactics in trying to reach the consumer, losing sight of the simple importance of telling the truth. With the advent of social media, consumers expect transparency from companies and organizations more than ever before.

  JUST LIKE DATING: THE MORE OPEN YOU ARE, THE BETTER

  Anyone who has ever dated knows that openness and honesty factors in establishing a relationship. When one person has trouble opening up to the other, the potential relationship is threatened—wouldn’t you think someone had something to hide if they were not completely candid with you? The same situation applies to your company: if you have nothing to hide, only positive outcomes will result from increased transparency. If a date completely opened up to you the first time you went out and shared her innermost secrets in the spirit of transparency, however, it would probably be uncomfortable and similarly, as a company, just because you’re supposed to be transparent doesn’t mean you have to share trade secrets, profit margins, or insider information with all of your customers. A lot of that information would be off-putting, even to the most curious customer. In general, though, when you share insights into your company’s values and culture and encourage an honest discussion of the decisions you’ve made, customers will trust feeling closer to you and want to strengthen their relationships with you. Just like in dating. Being transparent doesn’t mean you have to share everything about your organization, but the more honest insight you provide, the better.

  Ask a lot of questions! People responsible for social media at organizations often lament, “Nobody’s responding to our posts on Facebook and Twitter.” Especially if you don’t have a large organization with many thousands of fans, receiving responses to, or comments on, your content can be challenging. To combat this issue, start with the basics. Consider whether you would be more likely to respond to a question or a statement in a conversation.

  WHAT IS THE MARKETING VALUE OF QUESTIONS?

  Put on your consumer caps and think about what companies say to you across marketing channels and how it makes you feel. Advertisers have always sought to make an emotional connection with their customers. Consider what better builds an emotional connection: when advertisers tell you about their companies or when they ask you your opinions about them? Asking questions creates marketing value in these four ways: 1. Helping you guide the social media conversation without appearing forceful 2. Allowing you to become consumer-centric marketers rather than brand-centered marketers 3. Demonstrating that you value openness, honesty, and feedback (three values customers and prospects universally hold in high regard) 4. Showing that you care about what your customers have to say. Questions build an emotional connection between you and the consumer, and they generate conversations about your customers’ pain points, problems, and needs. As customers have discussions with each other, and with you, you’ll gain mindshare, increasing the likelihood that they’ll turn to you for your products and services when needed.

  WHAT IS THE INSIGHT VALUE OF QUESTIONS?

  Questions on social networks lead to conversations that clearly have marketing value. But even if they didn’t have such value, the insight you can glean alone from them is immense. Companies’ research and development departments, commonly known as R&D, routinely spend many thousands or even millions of dollars on programs, such as focus groups, surveys, and customer marketing research, to gain insight into their customers or prospects. Yet, once you’ve built up a following Facebook, Twitter or both, you can tap into these communities on a regular basis without spending a dime! These online networks are living proof!

  There are such things as living, breathing focus groups. You can ask your community questions about attitudes, their opinions, their knowledge of competitors, and an infinite number of other topics. Try asking simple questions such as the following to start: “What can we do better?” “What was your best and worst experience with us?” “What do you think of our recent advertisement?” Eventually you can also cut or limit the traditional focus group and research activity you do offline, saving money and providing you with a direct, real-time audience whose responses to your questions are almost instant. In an age of growing transparency, asking questions publicly to gather insight is best. But what if you want to gather insights privately? Even in that case, you can create a private survey online and then solicit people to participate through your social communities. And when you solicit people, in order to generate a better response rate, ask a question! “Who’d like to participate in a survey about us?” will yield a response more often than “Click better here to participate in a survey about us” every time. Remember, asking questions has a natural tendency to elicit answers.

  Action Items:

  1. Write down a list of the topics of conversation your customers typically talk about. Remember, when you brainstorm, write about topics that have something to do with your brand or organization, and also some that have nothing to do with your brand. What do your customers like to talk about? What can they have a spirited discussion about?

  2. Based upon the topics your customers discuss, write a list of questions you could ask them publicly on Facebook or Twitter to stimulate interesting discussion.

  3. What questions could you ask your fans to glean insight into what they want from you and how you could do a better job serving your customers? If your organization has done marketing research, surveying, or focus group testing in the past, consider how you might translate some of that work to a social media landscape.

  4. Do you have any projects that might be well served by crowd sourcing? Determine whether you have any upcoming design updates, new products or packaging, or other opportunities you could ask your customers and fans to help you with publicly.

  GETTING YOUR MESSAGE OUT THERE, CONSISTENTLY!

  Creating and sharing valuable content will provide you with a great reputation and return but only over time and through consistent effort and commitment.

  Now articles are no longer solely written and shared by professional services firms. Now every company and brand can post articles they have written i
n-house or found to their blogs and Facebook pages. They can tweet and re-tweet valuable information throughout their entire community simultaneously. You are essentially able to publish any amount of valuable information with the click of a button that has the potential to be seen by millions of users. Venture capitalist Fred Wilson and many others have said that links are the economy of the social Web. Once you are connected through such links, your audience grows exponentially. Writing and sharing great articles can provide your community with valuable information, no matter what you’re responsible for marketing. If it’s a food product or restaurant, you can share great recipes. If you’re marketing a clothing brand, you can share articles about the latest fashions. If it’s a hotel or airline, you can share articles about travel tips. The most important thing is to think about your target audience and provide articles they will find valuable. What would you find useful if you were on the receiving end of a status update? What would you like to see from your company? Keep in mind, no matter what your organization sells, you’re not selling that here. Instead, you’re selling your expertise. You’re selling your reputation. You’re selling your credibility. And, of course, you’re not actually trading this content directly for something in return: you’re giving it away. But is it worth it to a thought leader in whatever space you’re in? Is it worth it if in the future you never have to sell anything because people consider you the top expert in your niche, and they come to you to buy your product or service before searching elsewhere?

  For consumer brands, you might want to create a fun game to play, a comic that makes people laugh, or a free mobile or Facebook application, all of which can provide entertainment and practical value. Be warned, however, that the cost of developing your own online game or application can be huge and therefore is riskier than writing a quick article. Another way to provide valuable content is through videos. You may find it easier to create 60 to 120 second long videos talking about how to do things yourself, top-five tips, or any other content you might have traditionally written in an online post or article. For many, filming videos is easier than writing, and videos also have the added benefit of better showcasing your organization’s personality than the written word might be able to. Here are a few quick guidelines for creating video content: 1. Use a flip cam. There’s usually no reason to waste money on more expensive equipment. 2. Keep it short and sweet. People’s attention spans online are short—no longer than two minutes. 3. Share the videos everywhere. Share on YouTube and Facebook and consider using a service such as Tube Mogul which allows you to share your videos on dozens of different platforms. 4. Have fun with it. This shows in your final product. (It also shows if the person on camera is uncomfortable or anxious). No matter what medium you decide to use, content and value can be as simple or complex as you want. The main criterion however, is that you deliver something useful to your customers or communities and truly ask for nothing in return.

  Action Items:

  1. Brainstorm and write down all the ways in which you can provide value to your target audience without focusing on marketing yourself or selling your company to them at all. What will help your customers get the most information, entertainment, functionality, or a combination of these?

  2. Write down the format or formats your organization is most capable of using to provide your audience with valuable content on the internet. Will it be through blog articles you write, videos you create, or a game or application? Or will you comb the Web looking for interesting and useful content based around a particular set of topics and share your findings?

  3. Create several pieces of content in which you think your customers would find valuable. Before you share the content on Facebook or another social network, share it with a friend or two to test it. Do they find it worthwhile? Equally important, do they see it as an advertisement for your organization?

  4. Determine whether your organization may be a fit for Groupon-like model of deeply discounting a product or service, with a guarantee of increased sales through group offers. It’s not for everyone but can be a way to provide value to customers while insuring a profitable return for your company.

  STORIES BRING YOUR COMPANY TO LIFE

  When you hear the story of how a company was born or one about the impact an organization has had on a customer’s life or about the unique experience of a group’s staff member or partner, you feel an emotional connection with that company. Social media, especially blogs and online video, allows you to share your stories with your customers, prospects, and the world, further building powerful connections. In the past, storytelling to the masses was expensive and could only be accomplished through television advertising or a public relations executive pitching a major newspaper. Now, storytelling is free, or near-free, through social media. Said attorney, entrepreneur, and blogger Matt Weiss, “People love hearing stories. It goes back to primitive tribal times when we used to sit around the campfire.” With social media, consumers are in full control the whole time. If you’re not captivating, you can lose them at any time. I use storytelling as vehicle to get people to pay attention and then keep paying attention. Your company has at least one story to tell. Ask the following questions to generate some ideas: How did your company get started? How did you survive the toughest of times? Who are some of the key customers you’ve had? What kinds of funny or interesting things have happened to customers or staff over the years? Has your company or its staff had some moments in the past which would now make incredible stories? What charitable organizations does your company support? Stories humanize brands and make them talk-able, both online and offline. Stories can be told with text but are often best told through pictures and videos. They can be told by customers, employees, or management— they just need to be authentic.

  HOW YOU STARTED

  No matter how large your company is today, when it started, it was just your founder or founders with a dream and a plan. Every organization has humble beginnings, and by reminding people of this, you connect with your customers and keep them from considering your group as faceless, a giant or too corporate. You can spend millions of advertising dollars to buy television commercials to tell the story of how you got started or produce gorgeous full-color brochures and mail them out to the world. Or you can tell this story online, using your website, blog, or any social channels, for little to no cost.

  BUILD WORD OF MOUTH INTO YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

  The most effective way of inspiring your customers to tell others about you is to have buzz-worthy, talk-able products and services in the first place. These products or features are the types that truly make you go, “Wow!” as a customer or, in their very nature, create passionate users. Take Facebook itself, for instance. It has grown from several hundred users to several hundred million users in just five years, not because of any clever marketing whatsoever but simply because it has built amazing products that people love and continue to spread the word about it.

  SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT JUST MARKETING

  Social media leveraging is not just marketing or public relations. There is no way to successfully use social media as an organization if you simply silo it to marketing or advertising. In order to optimize the results from your social media use, you have to integrate understanding and practice across a diverse group of functions and departments in your organization. Of course social media provides outlets for marketing, public relations, and advertising, but it also involves customer service, customer relationship management, sales, operations, human resources, and research and development.

  This type of teamwork, across different roles and departments, is what made the experience so satisfying for you, not the social media. Yet everyone you came into contact with had to understand Facebook and be social media-fluent in order for that to actually function, unlike my team’s experience with Macy’s. If you have a very small operation, you’re used to handling many tasks on your own. But assuming you’re part of a larger organization, let’s review various departmen
ts and consider how each one might integrate and encourage social media in order to optimize the customer experience at every corner. Advertising: Include social media links and value propositions to customers in all paid linear media. For example, television, radio, print, e-mail, websites, and direct mail should all include social media links, text-to-connect opportunities, or both. The advertising may also handle social network ads themselves, a growing part of most budgets. Marketing: Determine, create, execute, and measure promotions, contests, giveaways, and other marketing programs and content to be run on Facebook and other social networks. Marketing is where social media typically lives right now, even though it should have a home in each department.

  Public relations: Listen to customer comments on works and blogs and respond in a swift manner. The social network’s most influential bloggers and other key customers reach out to them to pitch them on participating in programs and customer service. Listen to customer complaints and reach across social networks and respond. Encourage customers to reach out via traditional channels to share on their feedback publicly on social networks. Operations: Create and implement social media policy. Ensure that all staff are fluent in understanding company social media inks and practices and that signage, receipts, and any other customer touch points include opportunities to interact and share. Sales: Listen carefully to prospects online as well as major potential partners and distributors. Leverage listening to create best- value propositions. Use LinkedIn and individual Facebook profiles to meet and engage prospects.