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

()

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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

()

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.

“Last year the Fiesta Movement started with our 100 Chapter 1 agents. In the ultimate foreign exchange program, our 100 agents each spent six months behind the wheel of a European Fiesta. They shared their experiences and completed monthly missions to show you what the Ford Fiesta was all about (months and months before it would be available in the U.S.). Visit the Chapter 1 site to find out more about our original 100 agents and what they did on their missions.”

This year they have taken the movement to the next level by engaging the team’s friends and fans to participate. In essence they are asking the fans to do the marketing and advertising by celebrating local creativity and demonstrating - how each team can build a profile for this soon to be launched product. Below is an outline of this years addition to the product launch and campaign.

“For the next chapter of the Fiesta Movement – and in anticipation of Fiesta arriving in the U.S. – we’re letting our fans take a crack at the advertising. They’ll use their creativity to promote the new 2011 Fiesta. And you get to be the judge.” “The Fiesta Movement is bringing ideas and art to life in your backyard. Our teams of agents bring the passion. We bring the public spaces. Support one of the teams near you as they work with the best creative talent they can find in the area to promote the car, host local events and compete for the keys to their own Ford Fiesta. Agents participating in Chapter 2 will get to use a Ford Fiesta over the program period. We’ll pay for the gas. Team members will compete for prizes (of varying dollar amounts) and will have an equal chance to win a Ford Fiesta.

There are so many reasons to love this campaign. It allows the customers to use the product and SHARE their experiences on a daily basis  with their respected community- Facebook, Twitter, Flickr etc. This campaign combines both offline and online  marketing channels - so people can physically go to events, get involved directly and contribute to a team - while learning about a new product and see first hand how that product could add value to their life. The company in this case - Ford presents the product in a way that builds respect, trust and a real human touch to this soon to be launched product. WHY? Because the voice for the product is no longer a one way dialogue from the parent company - but rather a collective voice from all the customers, their friends and fans that can speak to real experiences -which can then be leveraged through various advertising and marketing channels - to help build the momentum and excitement.

It is fun for the teams, supports competition, creativity and passion and for the community  and allows the community be a part of and support a movement with their “tribe” of like -minded community members - while learning about the value of this new product and how it might enhance their lives. Absolutely brilliant.

Every company should be looking at this brilliant marketing and advertising campaign and creating their own versions for 2010 – 2011. It is a true collaboration between social media, the customer, the brand/corporation and the various marketing and advertising channels that can create brand evangelists. In turn corporations get to receive the dedication and passion of those customers who in turn spread the new product love! How easy can it be.

Best Nicole

Mashable.com has a post, written by Soren Gordhamer, that is titled “7 Lessons for Better Networking with Social Media.” Gordhamer says “Many of us are on both sides of this relationship— sometimes making the connection, sometimes receiving the invitation.” His article is a good tool to use with actionable tips on improving your networking skills.

Tell us about your network and some of the things that you have learned to best utilize your network for 2010.

Best Nicole

Social media allows us to discover, connect, and engage with new people of interest. While most people are open to new connections and receiving messages from people they don’t know, there is a fine line between reaching out and “spamming.” The challenge is to make a connection clearly and effectively without wasting people’s time.

Many of us are on both sides of this relationship — sometimes making the connection, sometimes receiving the invitation. To help navigate these waters a little better, I’ve outlined seven key lessons for improving your social networking skills.

---

1. Find a Person’s Preferred Communication Channel

---

If you want to contact someone you have never communicated with before, do some research. Find the person’s preferred communication channel. If they have a website, check out their contact page and see if they encourage people to contact them in a particular way, and follow their suggestion.

It also helps to discover what level of participation they have on various social networks (Twitter (), Facebook (), YouTube ()) to see which places may be best to engage them. When is the last time they posted on Twitter or Facebook? Do they respond to the @replies they receive on Twitter or comments on a Facebook page? Get a sense of their preferred means of communication, and make contact where they are.

Lesson: Go where they are.

---

2. Say Just Enough

---

This cannot be emphasized enough, and it is probably my toughest challenge. In the age of social media, we may be able to get the attention of more people, but we get it for a much shorter amount of time. One of the biggest mistakes I see people make, is that they send long e-mails or social media messages explaining all the reasons they want to connect. You are likely have not earned not earned the five minutes of the recipient’s time that it will take to read that message.

Brevity is built right into Twitter, making it a great platform for making a first connection. However, if you use other channels, keep it simple. If there are 700 words you eventually want to get across, include only 50 in the first contact. Let the person choose if he or she would like more. You can fill in the rest later. I prefer a less complete 50 words than 700 words that tell me more than I need to know.

Lesson: Less is more.

---

3. Don’t Expect a Response

---

I often see e-mails with phrases like “Please respond,” or “please get back to me.” Unless it is an old friend or a colleague, if you are contacting someone new, you are not entitled to a response. If the person wants to get back to you, he or she will. It is much better to say “If this is not of interest, feel no need to get back to me.”

At times I hear people complain because they reached out to someone and never heard back. The fact is most people do not have the time to get back to everyone who contacts them to say, “not interested.” Open a door without adding pressure. There may be times to follow-up, of course, but don’t do so with resentment or frustration.

Lesson: Say what you need to and then let it go.

---

4. Clarify Early

---

This may seem like common sense, but don’t wait for the last line of your message to say that you want to meet for lunch, or ask your contact if he’d like to speak at an event. Put it right up front. If he cannot provide what you’re looking for, he’ll know sooner rather than later, and will appreciate you for it.

Lesson: Say it up front.

---

5. What You Want is Not the Point

---

You may think that what you want is a phone call or lunch meeting to discuss your big idea. But communication is more than any one project or meeting. What you really want is an authentic connection.

In a very real way, it doesn’t necessarily matter if the person is interested in discussing your project idea. What matters is whether you are making a connection.

If you focus on the relationship more than the specific request, and the person has a pleasant experience reading your opening communication, it is likely the door will remain open for possible collaboration in the future, and the next e-mail you send will more likely be fruitful.

Lesson: No one knows what the future may hold, so make the moment count. Ensure the door stays open, even if no one is walking through it right now.

---

6. Be Open Without Needing

---

Needy never goes over well. Statements like “I really need to talk to you,” or “it is essential that we speak,” show your general insecurity. There is a huge difference between being open to collaboration and “needing” it.

Do not make contact until you find that place in yourself that is totally comfortable with any outcome, including a strong “no” or no response at all. Only then can you make authentic contact. When you do, openness rather than need will come through in your words.

Lesson: Speak from openness rather than need.

---

7. Give Space

---

The key questions people have when someone new reaches out to them, particularly those who are quite busy, are “Do I have time to bring this person into my network? How much time will they take?”

Therefore, it is generally not helpful to send too many e-mails. Doing this may send the signal that you are going to take a lot of the recipient’s time and send numerous e-mails every day, and communicating with you will take great effort.

Instead, give communication some space. Unless something is very timely, let a bit of time pass before sending a response. Let communication have some breathing room. Once there is some level of trust, you can experiment with more immediate information exchange.

Lesson: Focus on thoughtful instead of continual contact.

“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.’”

Ann Handley, author for Mashable.com, writes about what we can learn from these creative and resourceful businesses who understand the power of connecting and engaging with their customers!

Check out some of these incredibly innovative businesses. And they’re all related to street food (something we all love)! Take a break as we can all learn from them.

Hmm time to eat!

Best Nicole

“Twitter* is still a scary, untamed frontier for many businesses,” Fortune wrote last week. I hear a similar refrain from the marketers who are part of the MarketingProfs community: They know that they should be engaging online, but they don’t have the foggiest notion of how to do it.

Lots of businesses on Twitter are doing it right. But, lately, I’ve been finding inspiration less from those companies that have become the poster children for leveraging social media (this means you Comcast, and Zappos, and Dell) and more from the lesser-knowns: not just the little guys, but the littlest of the little guys. I’m talking about street food vendors.

Time was that lunch from street vendors meant limited options. But no more: Street food vendors have expanded both in number and cuisine. In New York City, this growth has recently led to a kind of food fight over turf. But elsewhere, it’s just meant that you can get vegan ice cream sandwiches or East Coast lobster rolls (in San Fran!) as easily as you can score a slice of pizza pie.

Twitter may not be the sole driving source (no pun intended) behind the growth of street food vendors—undoubtedly the economy has done its part to encourage the otherwise unemployed to find an inexpensive way to make a living. But, nonetheless, a growing number of street vendors have been leveraging Twitter in innovative and interesting ways, serving up lessons for any business.

1. Find your target market. (Sometimes, less is more.)

---

The best use of Twitter for your business, of course, is to start gathering followers in your target market. Aside from a few exceptions, you won’t find street food vendors on Twitter with tens of thousands of followers, as their target markets are geographically constrained. Rather, street food vendors focus on getting the right followers.

Lunchtime lesson: 1,000 followers who will actually do business with you are ultimately more valuable to your business than 100,000 less-engaged people.

2. Create demand.

---

New York City’s The Treats Truck writes updates so vivid that you can almost smell the cookies and brownies baking. It also does a great job of creating a sense of urgency in a purchase:

Others stay top-of-mind with hungry (or potentially hungry) customers, like the way Food Shark publishes its daily menu of Mediterranean-by-way-of-West-Texas food via Twitter:

Or check out the “food porn” photos shared by Vancouver’s Japanese hot dog stand Japa Dog:

Lunchtime lesson: Communicate the breadth and depth of your products or services on Twitter in a fresh, compelling way, and in a manner that speaks directly to your customers’ needs.

3. Humanize a brand.

---

NYC’s Chef Shack (run by two NY chefs) does a great job of monitoring any conversation online. When caterer Molly Hermann praised the truck’s Indian spiced donuts, the Chefs responded:

Profound? Not really. But such simple efforts can go a long way to make customers feel appreciated, and to humanize your business.

Or consider the way Rickshaw Truck, which sells steamed and fried dumplings in Manhattan, fosters a personality behind the brand:

Here’s the way Big Gay Ice Cream Truck shows that the dessert circuit isn’t always a bowl of cherries:

Lunchtime lesson: Be real. Reveal a little bit about the people and personalities who run your business so that your customers can connect with you on a human level.

4. Share news and updates. (Even when it’s bad news.)

---

Twitter offers a platform for regular and instant communication. The mobile bake shop known as the Cupcake Truck, in New Haven, CT, publicizes its locations and hours, which change regularly, of course. But even less-portable companies might consider regularly communicating business updates or other news (and how it affects your customers):

Or think about sharing some love by calling out awards and/or customer reviews:

Look at how Seattle’s Skillet Street Food used Twitter to rally customer support when it got into hot water with city officials over permitting issues:

And Durham, NC’s OnlyBurger (”the only burger you’ll ever want”) uses Twitter to keep its customers in the know when things literally break down:

Lunchtime lesson: It might be obvious to share the good stuff with your customers, but consider sharing the less-good, too. Doing so allows your customers to rally around your otherwise sound business. What’s more, your audience will likely respect you more for being honest and forthcoming. (Or, at the very least, you can tell your side of the story.)

5. Gather customer feedback.

---

I particularly like the way many food vendors treat their clientele as resources, not just customers. Here, Washington DC’s Streetflow Mobile, which sells frozen yogurt, solicits street intelligence, literally, when it asks its customers about the best place to find city parking:

Lunchtime lesson: Use Twitter to solicit and listen to customer suggestions and opinions. Treat your customers as resources for the kind of feedback that informs product development or other business improvements.

6. Run fun promotions.

---

NYC’s Waffletruck regularly runs Twitter-specific special promotions to its followers:

Lunchtime lesson: Take a page from Dell’s playbook on this idea: Use Twitter as a vehicle to run certain social media-based promotions and specials. Your followers will begin to readily anticipate them.

7. Create a sense of community.

---

Organizing face-to-face tweetups for Twitter followers is one way of extending your community into the offline world, especially as it will connect your customers to each other (not just you). The nature of that event should reflect your market, of course. Magic Curry Man in San Francisco fostered that sense of customer community by organizing a singles meet up:

Or consider connecting your business to a larger cause, like San Francisco’s UrbanNectar does with its Twitter presence:

Lunchtime lesson: Creating a sense of a customer community around your business furthers your clientele’s engagement with you and your products or services. And connecting your customers with each other strengthens both their relationships with each other as well as with you.

8. Integrate your efforts.

---

Twitter is only one tool in the social media shed—or, in this case, one dish at the social-media buffet table. Like any marketing effort by any business, it works best intertwined with other tools in a marketing mix, like a website, or Flickr*, a blog*, YouTube*, or whatever.

Lunchtime lesson: Done well, Twitter is plenty fulfilling for connecting customers with your business on an immediate and intimate level. But it’s even more nourishing when it’s served up as part of a bigger spread.

The detailed post comes from one of my favorite social media blogs Mashable, written by Soren Gordhammer.

Whole Foods is using social media with the utmost success. In the midst of some controversy mixed in over the past few months, it is clear the momentum continues in their favor. I hope this contributes to the mounting evidence that helps convince you and your company to get started!

Best Nicole

As a company, Whole Foods has impressively embraced social media more than most, gathering over 1.2 million followers on Twitter and 123,000 fans on Facebook() in the process. While it is easy to understand why a relatively young company or one started by a tech-savvy founder would so completely embrace social media communication tools, it is quite a bit more remarkable for an almost 30 year old established brick and mortar company with roughly 50,000 employees and over 270 stores worldwide to have done so.

I recently visited the Whole Foods headquarters in Austin, Texas to meet with members of their new media team, including Bill Tolany, the company’s Senior Coordinator of Integrated Media, and Winnie Hsia, who oversees the @wholefoods account. I wanted to know how Whole Foods integrated social media tools into their communications strategy, and what lessons had they learned from doing so. Below are five of the lessons that Whole Foods shared with me during our chat.

 

---

 

1. Make Content Increasingly Relevant

 

---

Whole Foods started initially with just the @wholefoods account but as it gathered followers, they realized it had limitations: while it was useful for news with national appeal, it was less so for sharing local information or addressing specific interests of customers. A percentage of their followers, for example, might be interested in an event happening at their New York City store or reviews of certain food items, but many others would not be interested.

 

To address this, they encouraged all their stores to start their own accounts and tweet about events at their store and news related to that local area. They also created separate accounts for specific issues, such as one for wine and one for cheese, where the head of those departments post and interact with customers. In fact, with over 150 company Twitter accounts and new ones added regularly, they likely have one of the largest corporate presences on Twitter. The goal with so many different accounts is to create increasingly relevant, and often local content.

 

 

 

 

---

 

2. Go Where Your Customers Are

 

---

When asked how they initially decided to use Twitter as a platform, which was pre-Oprah and before most other companies their size had done so, they emphasized that their goal has always been to interact with their customers no matter where those customers are. As Twitter gained momentum, they realized that a presence on it made sense, though they never foresaw that they would get over a million followers and how much staff time it would take to manage.

 

The conversation with customers, however, is essential to the company, whether it happens in person at a store or on a social network. Whole Foods, in fact, is active on numerous social media communication channels, not just Facebook and Twitter: they also have a Flickr page, an actively updated blog with videos on cooking healthy meals, and have employees responding on the customer feedback site Get Satisfaction(). The goal is not just to pick one place and force customers to come to them, but to meet customers “on their home court,” wherever that may be.

 

 

 

 

---

 

3. Loosen Control from the Top

 

---

Likely the most difficult task for any large company when embracing social media is learning to let go of control. On one hand, most companies will want millions of followers on sites like Twitter, yet on the other hand, large corporations also tend to be cautious when taking risks. They’re unsure how much control they are willing to relinquish when it comes to governing how social media is used.

 

Whole Foods seems to really understand that such a top-down approach does not work in the age of social media. In fact, I was initially surprised that several people I interviewed while at the company headquarters that managed different corporate Whole Foods Twitter accounts used them quite differently from each other. Some, for example, shared personal information while others kept posts strictly to business. When I asked Tolany, who oversees the department, about it, he said that it did not surprise him at all. While they encourage some basic guidelines, Whole Foods has learned that for social media to work well, whoever is managing an account needs to be authentic, allow his or her personality to come through, and have fun in the process. If management tries to exercise too much control, the account will be less likely to succeed at engaging people.

 

---

 

4. Decide What Channel to Use for What Purpose

 

---

With a presence on so many social networks, Whole Foods tries to figure out how best to use each service. For example, they have found that for customer service, Twitter is much more effective than Facebook. On Twitter people can easily @reply a question and they can quickly respond. On the other hand, for “rich media,” including embedding videos or longer posts or responses, Facebook tends to be better. Likewise, for posting original content, their blog serves as the hub, allowing staff from various departments to share material. The company also created a nifty iPhone application with 2,000 searchable recipes and a store locator, which is a great platform for disseminating static information.

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

5. Let the Conversation Happen

 

---

My visit to the Whole Foods headquarter came at an interesting time. The previous week, Facebook, Twitter, and various blogs were ablaze with (mostly negative) comments in response to Whole Foods CEO, John Mackey’s, Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal titled “The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare.” We did not dive too much into the Mackey Op-Ed issue, but we did talk about whether having such a strong presence on Facebook and Twitter has allowed people to more easily express anger at them. During our conversation it became clear that Whole Foods realizes that people are going to talk about the company, both positively and negatively, whether they are have a presence on social networks or not. It is helpful, though, to know what people are saying and to be able to respond if necessary.

 

In fact, when Mackey responded to some of the criticism on his company blog, rather than turn off comments to the post, they encouraged people to express their feedback, and greater than 3,000 people did.

 

---

 

Conclusion

 

---

The central take away I got from my visit was the importance of engaging with one’s customers no matter where they spend time. When I asked Tolany and Hsia what advice they would give to companies thinking of using social media channels like Twitter, they seemed to both agree that the first task is to know if your customers (or the potential customers you want to engage) are present there. Then and only then does it make sense to invest time on a site.

 

I also got that part of what has motivated Whole Foods’ efforts in social media — and what can account for much of their success — is a willingness to be bold and take risks. Such boldness can of course have its dangers (such as when writing Op-Ed articles about delicate social issues) yet this has also helped them plow ahead in social media while other businesses their size waited cautiously in the background to see if it was “safe” or if these sites would gain in popularity.

Of course, any time a company opens up and has a presence on a communication channel like Facebook or Twitter, users can use those sites to criticize as much as to praise. Dealing with negative feedback, however, is better than not having a presence at all. I think Whole Foods is showing that the companies who keep such channels open, and listen to the unpleasant along with the pleasant feedback, will better know what matters to their customers and what company policies may need to change, which is likely to win them support in the end.

Whole Foods, like many other companies, is still finding its way in this age of social media, but they are showing that a non-technology company of their size can engage and innovate in this area.

 It is for all of you who know that you must enter this new world of engagement that I post the article below. It provides you with 5 great ways to ensure that the social media strategy you implement will bring you the success that you are aiming to attain.

Best Nicole

Last October, Gartner unveiled a study that stated that by 2010, 60 percent of the Fortune 1000 companies with a web site will be involved in some form of online community that is utilized for customer relationship purposes. What the research also goes on to state is that 50 percent of those that set out and establish or become involved in these communities will fail in their efforts. That’s about 300 Fortune 1000 companies that will fail at social media: a striking number, especially in light of recent economic pitfalls.

If half of these Fortune 1000 companies — with all of their resources — will fail, does that give any hope to the smaller businesses who venture into the social media realm? To be fair, smaller companies tend to have some advantages, such as being able to act faster in their social media efforts due to the fact of less “red tape” to deal with. However, in this area of online marketing, what it basically comes down to for any size company is understanding what is really involved in launching a social media strategy.

A lot of companies hear the buzz word “social media” and think “oh I’ve got to have some of that,” or they see that their competitor is doing something in social media, so they think they need to match that without fully understanding what they want to do. These are recipes for failure in social media.

Success in social media requires some advance planning on your part, as well as some fundamental shifts in marketers’ attitudes toward online marketing. By following a few simple steps, you can avoid the fate of those 300 Fortune 1000 companies that will fail at social media over the next couple of years.

1. Identify Your Audience

Before you set off down the road of social media, it’s best to take the time and do some research into where your audience is holding conversations about you, your brand, or your industry. Your audience may be busy discussing your industry through a photo group on Flickr, and if you spend your time trying to get articles ranking on Digg because you read a cool article on a blog about Digg’s power to drive traffic, you’re really just wasting your resources.

By taking the time to identify where your audience is active in the social media sphere, you can save yourself a lot in both time and aggravation. Going to where the conversation is being held is one of the fundamental elements to social media success. If you don’t do the research to find out where your audience is engaged, you have no chance of connecting with them.

2. Define Your Success Measurements

How will you decide whether your social media efforts are truly successful? Unlike PPC (pay per click) and SEO (search engine optimization), the majority of social media efforts do not have a direct ROI measurement through traditional analytics. So how do companies determine if their efforts are worth the return?

The area of social media you are focusing on will determine the types of metrics you’ll need to look at. Let’s take an example of looking at video sharing. Most video sharing sites do not allow direct linking from the actual video into your site, they usually allow that in the description of the video, so how do you measure success if you can’t correlate links to clicks and purchases while viewers are watching a video? Companies have to step back from gauging success of social media with the amount of traffic generated or products bought in this case.

With video sharing you must look at other key factors such as the number of views, number of comments, how many links to the video are generated and even how many times the video has been favorited or how many stars it gets in ratings. There’s also the matter of how many subscribers to the channel the video generates to factor in as well. In essence, all of these factors are measuring the success of brand/product/company exposure, which are elements that can be measured.

3. Plan a Strategy that Includes All Stakeholders

Launching a big offline marketing campaign requires a strategy that involves marketing, sales, and other departments within an organization, and likely some outside vendors. Why should social media be any different? A social media strategy helps you plan for both the expected and unexpected. A social media strategy also helps to get all the key players on the same page, it brings all of your resources together and helps to make sure they are working with each other, rather than operating as separate silos.

Without an overall social media strategy, the potential for failure rises even higher. If one department is responsible for the social media efforts and they are just operating on the directions of “get us out there in the community,” failure is right around the corner. Anyone engaging customers in any medium needs to understand the company’s overall marketing goals, messaging, and customer service strategies.

In addition, if different stakeholders in your company are not communicating, you will eventually run into trouble when your social media efforts bear fruit. For example, if your strategy involves Digg and you manage to hit the front page, but you didn’t have IT involved, it’s possible that the onslaught of traffic Digg will send you will crash your site. If your Public Relations department promotes a special event for online participants and your SEO team wasn’t involved, your efforts may not rank well in the search engines.

Without a cohesive strategy, major blunders like these are more likely to happen, and the risk of your social media efforts failing increases tenfold.

4. Be Transparent

One of the quickest ways to fail in social media is to not be transparent about who you are and why you are “here.” Social media is really about building relationships in communities and the conversations you have. Relationships are built upon trust, and if that trust is broken in any way, your efforts are wasted.

When you become involved in a community, make sure from the start to share who you are, your relationship to the company, and your contact information. This tells the community you are “for real” and that you aren’t there to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.

If you plan on masquerading as a customer who uses your products and just loves them, you might want to think twice before employing this tactic. If you are found out to be an employee of the company by a community member, all trust is lost and your reputation within the community is destroyed. It usually goes downhill from there, with the possibility of a bigger PR nightmare once the mainstream media becomes involved.

5. Recognize that It’s Not About You

Companies can be very egotistical when it comes to marketing. For years, it’s been all about getting your message out there so the customer will buy your product or service. With social media, this kind of thinking will get you ignored, or could even cause a backlash against your company.

Social media is about building relationships, and it’s about conversations. Conversations involve more than just you pushing your carefully crafted message onto the consumer. Social media is about a community sharing experiences, and companies listening to that.

The old adage “God gave us two ears and only one mouth for a reason” speaks volumes for social media. Companies should be out there listening to end users, asking questions, looking for feedback, embracing new ways end users are utilizing their products and services. Forcing your prefabricated marketing message upon a social media community will only generate resentment and ultimately failure in social media.

Perhaps if companies take the time to work on some of these elements with their efforts in social media, fewer failures will be seen in 2010 than what Gartner has predicted. Social media can be a very effective way to get instant feedback that’s more “true” than even a focus group could give. Social media can also be a very effective and successful marketing tool, but only if companies take the time to strategically plan for it and not just rush into it head on.

If you’re one of the uninitiated, just go to Google and type in, “What is Twitter.” The first response that comes up offers a pretty clear explanation: Twitter, a free social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time.

The focus of this piece is Twitter’s ability to follow news items in real time, such as the most recent terrorist attack in Mumbai. In his article, Mathew Ingram speaks about tracking this unfolding story using all of the social media formats—blogs, youtube, flickr, etc.—to gather a steady stream of news from people close to the source. There is one school of thought that speaks of the authenticity and veracity of real time messaging as many messages go up so fast that they cannot be verified. But as quickly as these unverified, slightly skewed conversations occur, there is a stream of people that can equally weed out the fiction from the fact. For some, the question then becomes whether the information being received is valid and does that make Twitter a valid news source? However, in all fairness, much of the information reported on cable news is also unverified and in need of correction. The brilliance arrives at the end of the article where Mathew says “Twitter reports are a valuable “first draft of history” and that is a pretty great definition of news”.

One of the real challenges for firms like mine is to find a way to spread the news that social media and social messaging is a form of spreading the news on as many topics, ideas and thoughts as one can imagine. And all of this information can best be shared by the use of this social messaging utility. Did these companies and their decision makers hear, read and see that Twitter is free? In a conversation I had with a brilliant and successful executive the other day, we talked about channels for the launch of a new marketing/PR mandate. Ultimately, the first thought that came to their mind was to get media coverage in a publication such as The Globe and Mail. Wonder if they’re aware that The Globe and Mail, a very important and respected news source that they want to have cover all of their PR initiatives, is actually encouraging all of their readers to follow them on Twitter?

Imagine the number of people that would have 24/7 access to their news if they participated in a process that allowed them to announce initiatives in real-time to a global audience—instead of limiting themselves to a predominately Canadian business focused market. What about all the media, communities and passionate people who are looking to join in and spread the word about, and for, like minded products, services ideas and values. Just imagine how the use of social media tools, such as Twitter, could lead a public relations campaign. Best of all, the money spent on utilizing traditional media sources could be spent setting up an infrastructure that would cost them nothing more than the time it takes to type 100 words or less. Just imagine it…..tweet…. tweet…..tweet.

Click on this link to read Mathew Ingram’s article.

Best Nicole