It has been months since we have put a post on our blog. Not because we didn’t have anything to SHARE or celebrate as there is plenty of that, but rather because the demands of prioritizing as we continue to grow as a company – became our main focus.

As mentioned over the last year, I joined the millions of adults who faced the “unplanned” reality of a parent facing significant illness and the change to their lives and mine was monumental.

I think we all believe we can do it all and when reality hits you – sometimes we need to rethink “what doing it all means“. For me it has meant being the best daughter I could be first. Second it meant helping our clients understand, create and implement social/digital strategy and tactics to meet their business objectives and establish meaningful relationships with their customers.

Some may perceive this absence – to be a lack of savvy or klout for us as a business or a company. Others may have thought we dropped out of the game. Neither could be further from the truth! Marketing guru Scott Stratten often tweets on Twitter as @unmarketing -  the idea that one is better to post nothing on a blog, then to post something that is not of value.

What is amazing about substance – is that we began this blog in November 2008. That was almost 4 years ago and right out of the gate I began writing about social media and digital strategy. At that time, all the clients I visited were curious to listen to what I had to say – but none of them were ready to take the chance and test it out. The information over that span of time shared on our blog and website is now relevant and used by many companies and businesses to meet their objectives and establish honest and true relationships with their customers. Funny, that it is now a mandate for all businesses to be engaging social media as a marketing strategy – for success!

From that perspective, the content, opinions, ideas and many examples from the many posts over an almost four year period are well worth the read! We encourage you to look back and see what we had to say then and see how that information matches up to your goals and needs now.

As the summer comes to a close – we look forward to once again becoming engaged and active by continuing to lead the way with ideas, opinions and new styles of engaging and encouraging you – to leverage social media and digital channels to meet your business objectives.

Thanks always for all your support!

Best Nicole

Search in the world of technology is the main driver and source of revenue for all of us looking to build our visibility online. “As a marketing strategy, SEO is used to increase a site’s relevance. The SEO recognizes how search organics work and what people are searching for. It also initiates efforts to include unique content to a site to ensure that its content is easily indexed by search engine robots, making it more appealing to users.”

As this year winds down it is important to reflect and see what the past year’s successes, failures, tragedy’s and challenges were- in order to help plan and build enthusiasm, goals and growth for the year ahead. I came across this video via Google Zeitgeist 2010 that provides you with a great overview of the top searches in 2010 around the globe. Great way to get the juices flowing as we all plan to search on in 2011.

2010 in Review

Re-live top events and moments from 2010 from around the globe through search, images, and video.

Enjoy!

Best Nicole

Our guest for this week is Blair Currie.  Blair is a global agency leader – who has run creative, media and digital agencies. He has just returned to Canada – after being in Asia for 20 years and is  working with us at BCAD Group on a number of projects. Blair’s topic echo’s many posts we have written in the past and a philosophy we stand behind – which is total communications marketing and communication plans that include digital tools – using all forms of media to build a story and message that supports a brand and it’s community!

We thank Blair for being our first guest blogger and look forward to having him post again for us in the months to come!

Best Nicole

Video didn’t kill the radio star

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m growing tired of marketing soothsayers talking about the death of this or that medium. Part of it is that I’m more of an “inclusive” versus “exclusive” guy – using the word “and” much more than “or”. But a larger part is that I think we’re being fed too much hype about new media.  For me, it’s not “digital or TV” but “digital and TV”.  And sometimes it will be “digital TV”.

Digital and television play different roles in creating value to exchange for peoples’ hard-to-get attention.  Consider the last time you remembered a banner ad?  (They are difficult to remember.) Or consider when a television commercial caused you to immediately jump in the car to buy the product? (Some infomercials can do this.) These two media have relative strengths and weaknesses, and we really should be talking about how synergy can be created by using both, versus turning them against each other to compete for scarce marketing resources.

To better understand and deal with the current “Media battleground” we can turn to history – which tends to repeat itself when it comes to warfare and technology.

Once a disruptive product or media innovation is introduced, it is quickly adopted by pioneers and “early adopters”, crosses a proverbial chasm to the mass audience, and moves on to nearly 100% penetration. The interesting fact is that this progression doesn’t generally eliminate the existing rivals – as video killing the radio star; rather, new technology and media tend to shake up the landscape, and force existing media players to reposition themselves into more defined and defendable spaces.

Source: The New York Times.

Looking at the “1960’s” in the chart above, TV took over the role of “the family’s gathering place”, from radio. Radio did not die but found new roles to play – as a source of background or ambient music, or the most popular in-car medium.  Now television, magazines and newspapers are all facing similar issues with the rise of the internet and the accelerated growth of social media.  It’s a familiar pattern that can teach us how to deal with changes and allocate resources in today’s changing media landscape.

Like most disruptive technologies, a new medium can create great advantages for those who adopt it early in the game.  But more often than not, new media comes with a disproportionate share of hype.  The true and lasting value of the innovation follows later – sometimes many years later, in the shape of Gartner’s “Hype cycle” below – great expectations at the beginning yielding to sustainable growth and maturity only in time:

Source: Gartner

Media advisors need to strike the balance of seeing the potential that the new media will bring in terms of immediate returns, while keeping an eye on the future.  It’s quite comforting to draw upon historical comparisons to help strike this balance – keeping in mind that innovations spread more quickly today.

In closing, technology and media do not play in a “zero sum game” because attention spans are not fixed. Multitasking can increase a 24 hour day, just as filtering out a message can decrease it.  And digital will no more kill the 30 second television spot in the years to come, than video killed the radio star in days gone by.  But digital will help redefine the role of television – which is actually a good subject for another blog.

This mindset from my perspective – is sure to provide you with a way to connect not only your target market – but also connect all of the social networks that you participate. You can  ensure that you include all of the different types of communicators in a way that is authentic and true to them. I came across an article today that talks about a bakery business, that has done just that. They have connected several of the social networks they participate – so that they include everyone – where they  most like to reside. Clever. The article comes from a blog Marketingsherpa and is written by Adam T Sutton. The company Panna Dolce is located in Chicago, Ill. For all you dessert lovers out there, they specialize in macaroons!

The results are pretty impressive. They say that “The team estimates 35% of ecommerce sales come from referral traffic from social networks. That number jumped to about 50% during Valentine’s Day. Also, the team’s work is earning them valuable business contacts.”

If you think about it – it really comes back to the basics. Some people love to text or email. Others like to communicate via social networks and then there are those like me – that still like to pick up the phone. I know myself I tend to try and communicate with people in the way they like to engage – for ease of connection and relationship building too. Many businesses have yet to grasp this multi pronged approach. How many ways are you engaging with your customers?

Best Nicole

When working in social media, many marketers stick to a few areas, such as Facebook, Twitter and blogging. Justin Greis, Owner, Panna Dolce, chose a broader approach.

The Chicago-based French maracron, cookie and brownie bakery relaunched in December 2009 after perfecting their macron recipe for five years. Now, they have a blog and also work in Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, Flickr, YouTube and other networks.

“We don’t discriminate,” says Greis. “We found there are different types of people who connect through different types of networks, and the more we’re connected and linked up through a central hub, which ends up being our blog and our ecommerce site, the better.”

Amazingly, Panna Dolce’s three-member team is able to keep content fresh in all these networks while maintaining their business. They do so, in part, by connecting as many accounts as possible, so a blog post becomes a tweet, a video becomes a Facebook update, and so on.

“We haven’t seen a lot of interaction on our blogs. But when you link your blog to Facebook, when you like it to Twitter, when you link it to YouTube and Vimeo, you connect with people the way they want to be connected to — and that is absolutely essential.”

The team also generates content by partnering with and writing about relevant sites, as well as covering their own:
o Charity work
o New flavor launches
o Events attended
o Press mentions

The team’s website, powered by Volusion, enables shoppers to share links to their product pages, further increasing their content on the  networks.

All this work is paying off. The team estimates 35% of ecommerce sales come from referral traffic from social networks. That number jumped to about 50% during Valentine’s Day. Also, the team’s work is earning them valuable business contacts.

“We’ve had several offers from big retail department stores that are tasting our products right now to see if they want to pick them up. We’ve had a lot of interest from bigger boutique grocery stores…All of those contacts were made through [online social networks].”

I think that many miss that huge part. That brand evangelism stems from the relationship you build with a person, product, service or company. That relationship can only be grown one step at a time. We say in our strategic planning proposals – that you need to crawl, walk run. A hard thing to do for most of us (yes me especially), as we want to dash off and win the race – leaving dust behind – as we stretch for the trophy. Sometimes your heart has to lead you first  – and in that simple and honest gesture – in many cases you  find – that it leads you where you may of intended to go – with no intention being used as the motivation to get there.

Think there may be something to that Santa Math – definitely worth the consideration. Let me know how it works.

Enjoy Seth’s article! I sure did.

Best Nicole

Walk up to the falafel stand and hand the guy $3. He hands you a falafel, no onions.

This for that.

Something for something.

The time between surrendering the money and getting the sandwich is tiny. You gave him something, you got something. It’s simple.

Now, stretch it out a bit. You order dinner in a restaurant. They treat you nicely, the room is beautiful, you enjoy the evening, then you pay the bill. This, pause, pause, pause, that.

Go to law school. Pay a lot of money. Spend a lot of time. Be taught a bunch of things you don’t particularly want to know, things you probably don’t need. Get a degree with a modicum of scarcity. Pay for a bar review course. Pass the bar. Then you get a job that pays a lot of money.

This, then a multi-year pause, then, in return, that for the next forty years. We call it return on investment.

Online, though, I’m not sure the math is so obvious. You don’t write a blog to get gigs. You don’t help people out in a forum to build a freelance business. Sure, that might happen, but that’s not why you do it. If you are busy calculating quid pro quo, that means your heart isn’t in it, and the math won’t work out anyway.

Online, the something, the quid, the this, doesn’t cost cash. It takes heart and energy and caring, which are scarce but renewable resources. As a result, many people are able to spend them without seeking anything external in return. Even better, the act of generosity, of giving without expectation, makes it easier to do art, to create work that matters on its own.

I think it’s more like Santa math. Santa flies around the world, giving stuff away, and for what? He earns gratitude, trust and friendship, that’s what. Sure, one day he might decide to license his image or try to sell you something. But right here, right now, gratitude, trust and friendship are plenty. Especially if you enjoy doing what you’re doing. Quid, no quo.

It got me thinking – as my response was immediately that social media is not akin to one product or style of business, but rather the idea of finding ways to communicate and engage your target market by connecting with them, them connecting with you and of course with each other – as members of a community who all have the same interests and goals. I think that this all relates back to understanding a target markets social computing behavior. This behavior is not referenced by a product or a brand – but rather by the way they choose to communicate, share and access information. It is your job to understand what it is that you want from this engagement as a business and then understand who it is that you want to engage – learn how they will best want to engage with you and then proceed with that strategy in a way that will involve them in a mutually beneficial relationship of sharing.

One of the great things I learned about the many years in the fashion business was – that understanding that consumer behavior can be vital and varied for different target markets. Their response to your designs, colors, fabrics and price points can be directly pointed to how well you listened to what it is that they wanted, needed and liked. That strategic planning and understanding of your target customer was part of the strategic DNA of each season’s line planning – long before social media or computers (when I first began (lol))! When you got it right – they kept coming back and the re-orders were unstoppable and when you didn’t listen – the repeated reductions of your product still didn’t move off the floor.

While thinking about this topic of pigeon holing the product – instead of understanding that social media is about networking, community, engagement, sharing and extending your reach – to a vast network or as Seth Godin, coined “a tribe of people” who all have shared goals and interests – has more to do with the format that you choose to engage – then what the product may be. I found an article from last year at Mashable.com written by Samir Balwani that features 10 of the smartest brands leveraging social media. Blendtec, Burger King, Starbucks, Sun Micro Systems, IBM, Zappos, Comcast, Ford, Graco and Dell – all using different tools to target very different customers with very different products and services.

As Samir says in his summation “Lesson: Social media isn’t all about ROI, but it is possible. Creating cross-platform strategies can lead to the most success, especially when your demographic is already Internet and technologically savvy.”

Best Nicole

As we battle a global recession, corporations are looking for new ways to sell their products and engage their consumers. Many have turned to the Internet, with Social Media in particular, to market their goods. Let’s take a look at 10 companies that have done a phenomenal job of taking advantage of social media platforms.

1. Blendtec Blends it on YouTube

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Blendtec leveraged YouTube’s subscriber base and tried something fun and original. The campaign was a success and continues to entertain and sell.

Lesson: Social media marketing doesn’t always need to cost a lot of money. Creating funny, original video and leveraging an already large user base can be used to increase sales.

2. Burger King and the Sacrifice Facebook Application

Sadly, the application was shut down as quickly as it started by Facebook, citing privacy concerns. Regardless, the application was beautifully built and the idea was perfect. Burger King built in the ability to share it, the incentive to use it, and added just enough humor to make the campaign a hit.

Lesson: Successful and viral campaigns don’t just test out social media, they jump in it. Pushing the envelope can create the buzz that makes your campaign memorable.

3. Starbucks Asks for Your Advice

The site allows users to submit suggestions to be voted on by Starbucks consumers, and the most popular suggestions are highlighted and reviewed. Starbucks then took it a step further and added an “Ideas in Action” blog that gives updates to users on the status of changes suggested.

By empowering their exceptionally web savvy consumer, Starbucks strengthens their campaign to add a personal touch to coffee.

Lesson: Thinking of ways to build your company are great, but directly asking your consumers what they want, is better. Acting on that information and doing it publicly is key to the success of this campaign.

Starbucks has also embraced Twitter, you can see their stream at @Starbucks.

4. Sun Microsystems and the CEO Blog

It’s not the number of hits that make his blog a social media success, but the openness on it. Positive and negative comments are allowed, and even the most inane are approved. Transparency from the highest position in a company trickles down and increases trust from consumers.

Lesson: Social media is a culture of transparency and honesty that must be embraced, leading by example is one of the best ways to introduce it to a company. Few things are better than a CEO that blogs or uses twitter.

Sun Microsystems also has a network of blogs, friends on Facebook (), friends on Twitter, and their own Twitter account as well.

5. IBM With Lots of Blogs

IBM capitalizes on the intelligence of their employees to give consumers insight into what happens behind the scenes. By giving the industry experts they’ve hired a voice, IBM is able to highlight the people behind their products. Users get to see how IBM operates, and are given a direct connection with IBM employees.

Lesson: Having a CEO that blogs is great, but increase the number of blogs and you increase the number of connections. Leveraging your employees to write about what they love conveys the corporate dedication to the industry.

You can also find IBM on Twitter giving updates on events from their calendar.

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6. Zappos on Twitter

The idea of micro-blogging and the sense of exceptional customer service is ingrained in the corporate culture. Most Zappos employees have an active account, and the Zappos site has a page that aggregates all the streams.

The reason why Zappos stands out on Twitter is because of their ability to bring the company to life. The Zappos CEO has lent his personality to the company brand, a personality that is friendly, helpful, funny, and trustworthy. They use Twitter to highlight interesting facts, and to talk to their consumers. Talking to Zappos is like talking to a friend that happens to sell shoes.

Lesson: Take a CEO that twitters, add in a great personality and you have a recipe for social success. Ingraining social media into the culture of a corporation means that every consumer interaction is personal.

Zappos also does a great job of using their blog and Facebook to engage their avid fanbase.

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7. Comcast on Twitter too

Comcast has found a way to offer exceptional customer service to their consumers, but the thing that really makes them stand out is how well they monitor discontent. Complain about Comcast and you can bet you’ll hear from @comcastcares to see if they can help.

Lesson: Being active on Twitter is great but tracking and seeing who’s mentioning you, is the next step. Social media allows for the possibility of great customer service, and with it, better brand loyalty.

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8. Ford and Social Media PR

The basic story is that there was an internal gaffe where Ford’s legal department sent out cease and desist letters to forum owners using Ford trademarks. Obviously the story was twisted and changed, and in the end people were outraged.

What makes this a success story for social media is that Scott Monty (Ford’s community manager) was quick to find out what happened and let us know the true story. Not only that, but as things were being fixed and a compromise was ironed out, the public was informed every step of the way.

Although we don’t know if social media has shown a direct return on investment for Ford, the public relations fiasco it helped avert (think Motrin) should help make the case for more funding for social media.

Lesson: Social media can be used to inform consumers in real-time of how a corporation is reacting to events that affect the customer. Transparency in the process and access to constant information can help stop a negative story from going viral.

9. Graco Uses Pictures on Flickr

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Flickr isn’t the center of their campaign, but they promote it heavily with the Graco blog which also creates an incentive for others to submit pictures. The photographs help highlight the people behind Graco and the consumers using their products.

Graco takes their strategy one step further by introducing offline marketing in the form of community gatherings. The pictures from these meet-ups are posted to the Flickr page, further humanizing the community around the product.

Lesson: Social media doesn’t have to exist wholly online. Blending offline marketing with online efforts can build a community around a brand.

Graco has a blog and leverages Lindsay Lebresco (the corporate blogger for Graco) to be active on Twitter.

10. Dell Doing it Everywhere

Dell is also one of the few companies to publicly state that they created a return on investment from Twitter. Apparently, Dell’s social media efforts help create “$1 million in revenue“.

Lesson: Social media isn’t all about ROI, but it is possible. Creating cross-platform strategies can lead to the most success, especially when your demographic is already Internet and technologically savvy.

Mashable.com posted an article by Chris Allison, today called the “4 Ways to Effectively Use Social Media as a Catalyst“. His article speaks about 4 ways to which you can begin to look at the big picture and begin to put together some thoughts and ideas about how you are going to use social media, in the context of your brand and marketing goals, to maximize results.

Like I said ya gotta have a plan! This article should help you gain some perspective as to where you might want to get started.

Best Nicole

As social media marketing becomes more widely practiced, the questions of the day are less frequently focused on the benefits of social media and more often focused on its implementation. Justifying social media to superiors is no longer the marketer’s biggest challenge.

Instead, marketers are being challenged not on the potential benefits, of which there is ample evidence, but rather on how to get those benefits. Where to start?

Social Media as a Catalyst

When putting together a puzzle, it helps to take a look at the big picture on the front of the box. Likewise, when putting together a social media strategy it’s necessary to zoom out a little and examine how social media will fit into the context of your other business activities. Below are four pieces of the puzzle that brands can mesh with social media to maximize results.

1. Cause Marketing

The socialization of the web has made it evident that brands that want to succeed online must feel and act like humans, not like desperate, distant corporations. Accordingly, some social media marketers have taken on the role of teaching brands how to be human: don’t say stupid things, don’t feed the trolls, and don’t dominate the conversation – pretty fundamental stuff that somehow got lost during the incorporation process.

However, guidelines for not screwing up aren’t enough for brands to really benefit from social media. Until you bring something interesting to the table — something that inspires passion, laughter, or curiosity — nobody will care if you have a Twitter() account.

One of the most effective, simple ways to get people to care about what you’re doing is to do something worth caring about: get behind a cause. Brands have been benefiting from cause marketing for a long time, but the catalytic nature of social media has brought three additional benefits to the cause marketing table:

1. Access to increased publicity
2. The ability to be a vocal activist instead of a silent philanthropist by joining conversations
3. The ability to bring customers into the support process

Pepsi is one of the best examples of a brand that has recently seized the opportunity to leverage a mix of social media and cause marketing. Their Refresh Everything project incorporates votes from users to decide where Pepsi will donate their funds as well as a variety of other simple social media features: single sign-on, a Facebook() Fan Page, and a blog.

By involving users with a voting process, Pepsi has effectively done three things. First, instead of just doing good themselves, they’ve helped their customers do good, which helps establish a very positive brand association. They have also created a situation that will compel users to share with their friends (in order to accrue votes for the cause of their choice). Finally, they have built a feedback mechanism that will ensure the causes they support are also the most popular among their customers (which is great PR).

Brands can benefit greatly from integrating social media with cause marketing, and they can learn a lot about how to get started from the tactics that Pepsi has used.

Disclosure: Pepsi sponsored Mashable’s() NextUp NYC: The Future Journalist event.

2. The Offline World

Isolating the impact of social media to the web is an easy mistake to make. It seems natural enough to meet online goals with online activity, but the tangible world of physical objects, locations, and events can often provide a compelling medium to drive fans to engage with you online, or vice versa, you can use your social media efforts to drive activity to guerrilla marketing events like Red Bull’s stash, or simply to brick and mortar stores.

Integrating your social media efforts with real products, store locations, or activities is an important way to acknowledge that you care about the complete customer experience, and that you’re not just in the social media space because it’s popular.

Some of the most successful campaigns, such as Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice, have been focused on driving the purchase of offline products. Similarly, customer support profiles like Comcast Cares would be much less successful if they didn’t have the power to influence real offline change by working with customer support representatives that can help customers on location.

On the surface, social media may look like a simple set of social networks that people use to communicate, but when marketers look deeper they find that it presents a whole new venue for empowering all of their existing services, online as well as off.

3. Media Coverage

Though citizen journalism and user generated content have proven to be extremely powerful (Iran’s() election crisis, Barack Obama’s massive online get out the vote efforts, etc.), it is important to remember that brands can still benefit enormously from traditional media coverage.

When it comes to social media, or any marketing for that matter, brands must find ways to leverage all of their assets in the same direction. Just like the offline world can easily be used for online gain, so too can traditional media be leveraged in the new media space.

Amit Gupta, founder of several wonderful startups like Photojojo and Jelly, sheds some light on how his businesses have benefited from traditional coverage:

Mainstream press is harder to get, but still drives significant awareness, especially among ‘everyday’ people who aren’t spending all day on the internet. And the names of old media carry
significant cache, enough to drive double-digit increases in conversion rates simple because of the credibility their names lend.

I exchanged e-mails with Amit and he was kind of enough to lend some extended insight on what to expect from traditional media. TV, web, and radio are all able to generate fast, measurable results. With these mediums, people are either interested, or they aren’t. There are comparatively few lagging responses. Newspapers and magazines on the other hand, while carrying significant credibility, produce results that are harder to measure because their content is often read over days, weeks, or even months.

The ultimate success of a social media strategy depends on your ability to recognize problems and seize opportunities to solve them. When considering the needs of your campaign, whether it’s brand equity or an immediate spike in interest, consider traditional media as another tool in your toolbox that could meet those needs. However, remember that part of your strategy should involve doing, saying, or making something interesting and worth talking about. If you don’t do that, no amount of good press can save you.

4. Technology

At SoCon10, a social media conference in Atlanta, Carol Kruse (head of interactive marketing at Coke) described the pain her team went through creating a Facebook application, only to find two months later that changes in Facebook’s design would require Coke to restructure the application – a maintenance cost that hadn’t been anticipated. Having a plan in place for making technological changes on the fly is an important ingredient in the fast-paced social media world.

But technology is more than just a potential cost that bloats social media campaigns; it’s also the life that fuels them. Applications like the recently launched MySpace Fan Video are powered by collaboration between experienced creatives and programmers, not just one or the other. Thus, perhaps the most important synergy to be formed by any company delving into social media is one between their technology team, internal or external, and their marketing team driving the strategy.

It all begins with finding ways to start that conversation. Media Post Insider, one of the trade publications  I read daily, has written a post with 3 great ideas that outline how you can get that conversation started— today. Darrah MacLean, the author of the post, suggests that “in our status-update-obsessed culture, people want to have their opinions heard and valued. By being a good listener, you plant the seeds of loyalty.”

Don’t put off today what you need to do for tomorrow. There is no time like the present!

Best Nicole

When was the last time you asked your subscriber base to share their thoughts? Three months ago? Six months ago? 12 months ago? Never? (Say it isn’t so.) Staying current with your audience keeps you grounded in reality. It helps you know what’s really going on, not just what you “think” is going on.

In our status-update-obsessed culture, people want to have their opinions heard and valued. By being a good listener, you plant the seeds of loyalty. As you take a look at your plans for 2010, you might want to add in one (or all three) of the strategies below to help get the conversation started.

1) Survey Says. 2009 resolutions are history, but 2010 resolutions are just getting started. So, how will you do things differently this year? Better yet, how do your subscribers want you to do things differently? There’s no way to know for certain unless you ask. With your customers fresh off their holiday shopping sprees, now is the perfect time to tap into their online and in-store shopping experiences. To encourage participation, consider throwing in an incentive for taking a survey, as Moosejaw did. Another idea would be to tap into your Facebook fanbase and Twitter followers. Simply post a link to your hosted version of the survey email

2) Product Reviews. More and more consumers are turning to product reviews to help them make their purchasing decisions. Why not make a 2010 resolution to show your site’s product reviews some love. Zappos and Sephora get fancy by dynamically populating their review requests with photos of recently purchased products. An even fancier bonus would be the ability to post my recent product review and product shot to my Facebook page! To launch their product review push, Lululemon introduced a “we heart feedback” campaign in the middle of December. While we could debate the timing of the messaging, the branding of it is really inspiring.

(Sidebar: Adding a little copy like “Purchase this item for someone else? Forward this email so we can get their feedback.” is a great solve for when the product review email goes to the purchaser vs. the gift recipient.)

3) Preferences Please. As we move more towards personalizing content and creating meaningful social experiences, we’re going to have to put our preference centers and profile modules to work. Take Sephora, for example. I’ve heard from many sources that they truly use their preference center to help customize emails for subscribers. After receiving this Beauty Insider Update email, I now realize why I get the generic versions” I never filled out my beauty profile! I’ll be excited to see how my email experience changes now that I’ve given them all kinds of details to work with. Taking the update request a step further, Piperlime includes a preference center message in each and every email. Now that’s dedication.

“To further wow her, DeLeon provided pizza for 350 people at the Chicago Social Media Club, an organization DeLeon was initially unaware that Korin was involved in.

“Ramon successfully kept my business, and his professionalism, timeliness and attention to every customer is what keeps me coming back for more,” says Korin, founder of interactiveAmy.com Social Media Consultancy.

To date, the video apology has been embedded more than 87,000 times (the number of times the video’s HTML code has been pasted in online). A Google blog search brings it up on countless blogs in dozens of languages.

AMAZING! For all of those that are still questioning how social media can provide ROI, “this is how we do it” as the song says. Better yet, this is an example of how a small business is leveraging social media to build its brand—via sales, brand evangelism and marketing for new customers. I know that if I were in Chicago, I would be searching out Ramon Deleon’s pizza chain. Customers want to know that you care, that you are listening to their challenges and finding ways to not only solve them—but to recognize an error has been made and make it right. This tells them that businesses DO care—they are human and they want to make sure your next experience superceeds your expectations.

How easy can it be? SHARE with us your experiences and how you’ve leveraged social media to express your challenges and how the business in question did or did not react in kind.

Enjoy this great post!

Best Nicole

When it comes to social media, it takes a lot to impress Amy Korin.

Her resume includes digital strategy for global companies like Procter & Gamble, General Motors, Sun Microsystems and Zappos.

But her local Domino’s Pizza joint left her “completely shocked.”

On a rainy Sunday night, her Domino’s Pizza order took an hour to arrive and then was the wrong pizza. She turned to Twitter to vent: “hardly any room for human error, but still a mistake.”

What followed went way beyond the mea culpa tweet increasingly more common in business today.

Ramon DeLeon, managing partner of seven Chicago-area Domino’s stores, saw the tweet and contacted her immediately.

The correct pizza was already on its way. But “he insisted that he would make it up to me, and WOW me.  He certainly did just that!” Korin says.

Organization:

Domino’s Pizza (7 Chicago-area franchise stores)

Social Media Tools Used:

• Twitter—2,500 followers, @ Ramon_DeLeon
• Twitter search
• Tweetlater alerts (now SocialOomph.com)
• TweetPhoto
• TweetDeck
• Viddler
• Flickr
• Monitter

Results:

• 7 successful Domino’s franchises
• Doors opened to provide pizza for large groups
• Hundreds of thousands of impressions of one video alone
• Dozens of blog mentions

“The only way to put out a social media fire is with social media water,” says DeLeon.

The next morning, Korin found a new tweet from @Ramon_DeLeon: “@interactiveAmy we will make it up to you” with a link to a video apology from DeLeon and his store manager.

Korin in turn shared it with friends, family and contacts across her social networks. “Pandora’s pizza box had been opened,” she said.

To further wow her, DeLeon provided pizza for 350 people at the Chicago Social Media Club, an organization DeLeon was initially unaware that Korin was involved in.

“Ramon successfully kept my business, and his professionalism, timeliness and attention to every customer is what keeps me coming back for more,” says Korin, founder of interactiveAmy.com Social Media Consultancy.

To date, the video apology has been embedded more than 87,000 times (the number of times the video’s HTML code has been pasted in online). A Google blog search brings it up on countless blogs in dozens of languages.

It’s just one example of how self-proclaimed “pizza guy” DeLeon has built his business in a competitive pizza city like Chicago.

“Using the tools of social media, I’ve been able to put Domino’s pizza on the social media radar map in Chicago,” says DeLeon.

Take-Out from Domino’s Pizza’s Ramon DeLeon

1. Be ready at all times.
An opportunity to “wow” can arise anytime. Carry the tools you need—and spare batteries.

2. Do the unexpected.
Going beyond inspires people to share.

3. “Put social media fires out with social media water.”
Counter negative online comments online, with something unexpected.

4. Thank customers creatively.
A creative thank-you goes a long way, especially if it’s sharable like video.

It’s 1 am Monday, Get Selling

When the Domino’s sales week ends each Sunday night, no matter how good the week before was, DeLeon can’t stand a register that reads $0.

“There are people awake at 1 or 2 am and they’re not eating my pizza!” says DeLeon. “I start thinking of hospitals, police departments, fire departments, gas stations, maintenance people in high-rises—all these people who are in the middle of their day right now.”

That’s the mindset that took DeLeon from a pizza delivery guy at age 19 to a seven-franchise managing partner today. From the start, he’s exceeded not only Domino’s expectations but customers’ expectations as well.

In 1998, DeLeon offered customers online ordering seven years before Domino’s corporate. To maintain a personal connection, he began communicating with customers via pager and AOL Instant Messenger in 1994.

Today, his arsenal of electronics on hand has grown to two web-enabled cell phones, a digital camera, a Flip video camera and spare batteries. Back at the office, DeLeon sits in front of four giant computer screens monitoring social media activity—perhaps a micro version of NASA central command.

With tools like Monitter, TweetLater (now SocialOomph), TweetDeck and instant messaging, he waits, watches and responds as fast as possible to keep customers happy, proving “You’re never alone with Ramon DeLeon!”

He Creates It

DeLeon has proven to be incredibly adept at creating content that people want to share. How? By instigating memorable customer experiences.

“With every single delivery or order, we are part of someone’s life. No matter how redundant the process is, the end result is not the same,” he says.

When Chicago resident Theresa Carter tweeted happily about her Domino’s order, DeLeon sent her a video thanks straight from London, where he was speaking to a group of Domino’s franchise partners.

“When I saw that thank-you video from Ramon—from London—I was blown away!” says Carter, president of The Local Tourist. “Now when I want pizza, I automatically think of calling one of his stores and feel guilty if I go somewhere else!”

Carter then made her own video thanking DeLeon for the pizza, proving that he gets big reactions by going beyond.

His contagious enthusiasm comes through in 64 creative videos on Viddler.com (under DPZRAMON):

• Telling customers about Cyber Monday deals, offering coupon codes
• Getting MC Hammer’s autograph as a thank-you for a blogger
• Documenting his trips around the world to speak about social media
• Presenting a giant dummy check to a guest pizza maker, and trying to deposit it in an ATM

He posts photos of special offers on TweetPhoto and Flickr, which encourages even more sales.

They Share It

If DeLeon can get customers to share their positive experiences with others, “even if it’s just with your cat,” then he’s succeeded.

To that end, he makes it easy to share experiences online. After ordering using the online pizza builder, customers can click on a Facebook link, which populates their own Facebook status with details of their pizza order.

Or customers waiting for orders at DeLeon’s stores can take a snapshot in front of a “Photo Op” poster featuring breadsticks and all of DeLeon’s social media handles. He finds customers post those pics on Facebook and Twitter right then, creating even more impressions of Domino’s.

11″ x 17″ pizza box fliers highlight DeLeon’s Twitter wall

The pizzas on his menu even have Twitter hash tags to encourage customers to share what they order.

He uses prime ad space—the top of pizza boxes—to showcase what he calls his “Twitter Wall.” An 11″ x 17″ flier lists the top customer tweets mentioning his stores.

“I try to promote customers as much as I can,” DeLeon says. “If I keep my customers in business, then my customers keep me in business.”

A customer poses in front of Ramon’s “Photo Op” poster

Customers Do Facebook for Him

One of DeLeon’s stores serves Northwestern University and its 15,000-plus students. Yet surprisingly, DeLeon does not have a Facebook fan page. In the days when only .edu emails could get accounts, he was desperate for one.

“I even thought about enrolling to get a Facebook acount,” he admits.

Fortunately, he didn’t need to. He learned a Northwestern student had started her own Domino’s group, “Dominos Is Better than Papa Johns.”

“I try not to come across as advertising, but as word of mouth,” he says.

To give students something to talk about, he started taking photos of every campus event where Domino’s was involved, including images of students holding coupon signs.

He posted them, with a Domino’s logo on each bottom corner, on his www.nudominos.com website. Students would download the unprotected photos of themselves and then share them on Facebook.

Today, students take their own shots and post them, and often tag the pizza box with DeLeon’s individual Facebook ID.

By connecting with students, DeLeon invests in relationships that he hopes will continue as students move into the workforce.

He also reaches out to the administrators of Facebook groups to offer special discounts. In response, all those group members experience Domino’s and post their own comments.

Create Addicts and Advocates

With sales and social media success, DeLeon now speaks to Domino’s franchise owners all over the world—drawing the first-ever standing ovation from a British Domino’s group. Dozens of blogs have featured him and he’s a top draw at social media conferences, where he rubs elbows with Starbucks corporate and social media celebs like Gary Vaynerchuk.

But he insists he isn’t doing anything truly different than 20 years ago as a pizza delivery driver. It’s still about creating unexpected customer experiences.

“Social media is just modern tools to do something very basic in business,” he says.

“I want people to get addicted to the experience of Domino’s. If they go somewhere else, I want them to feel a void in their body. ‘It’s good but it’s not the same.’”

It made me relate that back to the story I tell our clients, both current and future, and the question I ask them: What is your story and is it being told? In her talk, Chimamanda’s cites that if we hear just a single story, we run the risk of critical misunderstanding. As a result, the perspective of that story can narrow and bias the view of the recipient—preventing them from experiencing the rainbow of ideas, offerings and opportunities that that may make up a product, place or thing.

I thought this to be facinating and interesting, especially in light of the debut of Sarah Palin’s book via her Oprah interview, and the media frenzy post interview. Sarah Palin is now out to define who she is by the story that is in her book and the story shared during her Vice Presidential run last year. I took time out today to watch the interview. From my perspective, she spent much of her time defending her story with the reasoning that her handlers and managers of the campaign kept her from her true self.

I think the wonderful thing about this perspective, and the parallel of technology, is that now we have the ability to engage and connect in a global sense—so that we experience a wide range of thoughts and ideas that relate to one story. You get to share your perspective of that story with another directly, as they read it, and they get to discuss and define that story with you as it relates to them. The dangers of the past, as described by Chimamanda’s recounting of her experiences growing up in Nigeria—reading foreign stories about snow, apples and ginger beer, while she lived in endless sun shine, eating mangos—point out how she thought that all stories had to be about the places she read of in those books. But now: they’ve become something that can be instantly shared and translated in a way that allows everyone the opportunity to see the varied perspectives that make the story viable to them—allowing them to connect with others who may read the same story but have another perspective that they can bring to life, in real time, on the global platform called “the internet”.

A magnificent historical adventure from the earliest days of man to the rapid fire movement of the information highway in the 21st century. Have you created your story? How is it being told?

Best Nicole