Keeping Up with Social Commerce

May 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Creating a viral video is like “catching lighting in a bottle,” according to Aaron Strout, Managing Director of W20 Group, who shared 10 trends in social commerce at the April Social Media Club of Dallas event. Strout started the session off with a recent example from K-Mart, “Ship My Pants,” which had the audience in stitches.

Social Commerce narrows the gap between customers and business transactions according to Aaron Strout.

Social Commerce narrows the gap between customers and business transactions according to Aaron Strout.

In a very engaging session, Strout defined social commerce as the intersection of analytics, advocacy, content and education—with the purpose of narrowing the gap between customers and business transactions.  In other words, social commerce is effectively sharing information people need to make purchase decisions.

That definition emphasizes that it’s really a buyer’s world, and that sellers need to think more like customers if they hope to thrive.  When you build out your plans and models, think like a customer who sneaks into your company.

Top-down advertising becomes a supporting player for earned media. What’s effective in selling a product is “storytizing” or telling a compelling story in the voice of the customer without taking them outside the experience.  Strout cited BMC Software as an example of a company that effectively uses knowledge sharing, education and videos to get their message across. Since 65% of people consider themselves to be visual learners, videos are critical.

Another trend Strout emphasized is that customer service will stop being seen as just a cost center, and will be recognized as a social commerce profit and knowledge center. Ironically, today many brands hide their 800 numbers to reduce costs, with the result being that customers gripe online and spread the negative sentiment.

Strout also discussed the importance of forensic analytics to help marketers think like detectives, find clues and follow their path to find solutions. Learn more about digital analytics by signing up for the SMC Dallas May 30th meeting, featuring Chuck Hemann of WCG speaking on “From Tools to Humans: Building Your Digital Analytics Capabilities.”

Thanks to our annual sponsors @Pocketstop, @WebSynthesis, and @DangILoveThat. Once, again, we had some great photos courtesy of @AllenTsaiPhoto.

Strout’s presentation is available on Slideshare.

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Pinterest Social Media Chefs Share Recipe for Success with SMCDallas

February 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment

What’s the recipe for a zesty panel on the social scrapbooking application Pinterest?

  • Take Michaels Stores, the bread and butter of the crafts world
  • Add Kendra Scott, a jewelry maker with impressive growth
  • Blend with Tenthwave, a branding agency with demonstrable Pinterest ROI
  • Sprinkle with that rarest of ingredients, a MAN with a million followers on Pinterest (Michael Stancil)

SMC Dallas Most Pinteresting PanelStir carefully with analytics expert and host Robert P Maloney from Pinleague and questions from the SMCDallas audience, and you have a memorable result.

Q: No social media presentation is complete without the dreaded question “How to you demonstrate ROI?” So let’s get that out of the way first.

Michaels Stores sees enough benefit to have 1/3 of their three-person social media team dedicated to Pinterest full time. According to Robert Freeman, Pinterest is well-suited to help customers get ideas for DIY craft projects.

Pinterest helps to create a fun, sharing culture for Kendra Scott. Lauren Vandiver says they leverage just an hour a day on the application to drive 6% of their overall web site traffic.

Within the last 6 months, corporate brands have started to see real ROI, according to Lisa Lantz of Tenthwave. One Kings Lane, an ecommerce site featuring curated design and décor sales promoted a sweepstakes. Contestants built pin boards around the theme using at least one item from the ecommerce site. The winning contestant received a $1000 gift card and the chance to curate their own sale. The brand grew 800k fans in just 9 days. Plus, the fan-created theme boards served as a priceless focus group on complementary products for possible future sales.

Q: Is Pinterest appropriate for all brands, B-to-B or not for profit?

Panelists see great potential for charities, such as Habitat for Humanity, with heart-warming pictures of completed homes. On the other hand, industrial-oriented businesses like Joe’s Plumbing may not have great visuals. Despite lacking visuals, service industries can pin interesting content related to their industries, including infographics. Just ask yourself, “would I find the content worth pinning?” to determine if it’s suited to Pinterest.

Q: What’s the point with secret boards and group boards?

Kendra Scott uses secret boards to “stage” new products and promotions as they are preparing materials prior to a blast customer email. And Stancil finds that group boards are good to follow, since they provide a rich source of content for his fashion-themed boards.

Q: What are Pinterest’s biggest weaknesses?

It needs an API! Brands can’t adequately measure their results or obtain follower data. There are relatively few management or analytics tools compared to Facebook or Twitter. Pingraphy can be used for scheduling, which is a needed function for businesses since Saturday morning is the best time for pins and re-pins. And Pinleague, headed by CEO Robert P Maloney, provides a free analytics dashboard and a for fee audience building engine.

Q: Is Pinterest here for the long term?

Vandiver believes that many are gravitating away from Twitter and toward Pinterest and Instagram because of the rich graphic appeal. In addition to its scrapbooking uses, it can also be used for bookmarking. There are concerns that the application is vulnerable to copyright issues, since many users re-pin copyrighted art and illustrations, often without attribution.

A key to long term viability for Pinterest is “if it pivots to mobile, it’s here to stay,” says Stancil.  And, if it nails search within its platform, it has staying power. “I don’t see any reason it will go away, short of a massive copyright takedown.”

Thanks to our food sponsors Zoës Kitchen. If you missed the event, you can still get a free goodie from Zoës! Download their app in the Apple Store and visit the store for a treat. Props to our longer term sponsors Pocketstop, Websynthesis, and Net Social Education. And as always, thanks to our fantastic photographer, Allen Tsai Photography.

 

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Stratten Presents Marketing, Wit and Stamina at Social Media Club of Dallas Event

November 7, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Scott Stratten (@unmarketing) showed impressive intestinal fortitude while battling an intestinal malady as he spoke to the Social Media Club of Dallas on “The Book of Business Awesome.” Despite suffering through his post-Turkish excursion illness, Scott was hilarious with his Jim Gaffigan-esque delivery filled with asides and internal debates as he explained what it takes to be awesome and how to avoid being un-awesome in social media practice.

Scott Stratten at Social Media Club Dallas OCT 2012

Some of Scott’s words of wisdom include:

Social media is merely an amplifier. It doesn’t fix a bad product or service.

Following a negative incident, companies should quickly and candidly own up to the problem. Scott cited FedEx and its blog post “Absolutely, Positively Unacceptable” following the viral video last December of the careless deliveryman. A quick, honest apology can ride the viral wave with the incident and even leave a business with a more favorable impression than before the event.

Some audiences require extra care. “You don’t want to piss off geeks or moms” since both are very active on social media.

Marketing and HR need to get better aligned, since hiring the right people is the best thing  you can do to market your brand.

When hiring social media functions, businesses should look for personality and passion for the brand. Although Scott likes the idea of metrics like Klout or Kred scores, he questions their validity when people can see their scores, and can game them by performing activities specifically designed to raise the rating.

The best comedy bit of the night was the QR Code Fail routine, where Scott pointed out all the ridiculous, unhelpful and even unsafe applications of QR Codes. Taking top honors was the billboard discouraging texting while driving—which had a QR code on it!

Although the audience was enthralled, we breathed a collective sigh of relief as Scott finished his program without incident and beat a hasty retreat home to Toronto and the comforts of Canadian healthcare. To your health, Scott!

Event sponsors include Chili’s, Allen Tsai Photography and Uber. SMC Dallas Annual Sponsors include Pocketstop.com and Synthesis. To inquire about sponsorship opportunities, please contact Elysa Ellis at sponsorship@smcdallas.org.

What’s next? Mark your calendars for the Jingle Mingle, the big bash of the Holiday season. Benefiting the Dream Fund, the December 6th at Gilley’s is hosted by the Social Media Club of Dallas and a sleigh-load of other organizations.

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Social CRM Gets Down to Business

August 23, 2012 by 1 Comment

Social Media Club of Dallas - Social Customer Service Panel

“Everyone handles social media differently. Get used to it.” That’s the perspective Mike Cearley of Fleishman-Hillard brought to the panel “The Business of Social Customer Care” at the Social Media Club of Dallas last Thursday. The panel, moderated by Bryan Person, Director of Social Insights at Social Dynamx, featured varied insights from social customer care experts at FedEx and Nokia.

As an early adopter of social CRM, FedEx has its practice rooted in the contact center. Their approach? Select five of the best call center representatives, keep them in touch with the contact center by working the phones two hours a day, then transfer that customer service skill into the online world of social media, Facebook and blog responses.

As you might expect, FedEx measures its social CRM reps using familiar sounding call center metrics, adapted to social media, such as:

  • # authors engaged (authors, because not necessarily customers)
  • # authors addressed offline
  • Post quality and accuracy
  • Latency to close—the on-line world’s measurement for Average Hold Time

Like FedEx, Nokia believes social media customer response is best left to customer service. However, Nokia uses an agency to filter and provide initial response. Due to the more technical nature of its service, Nokia divides its seven-member team into Tier 1 and Tier 2 representatives. They look for more technical subject matter expertise and hire representatives with backgrounds in R&D, product quality and training.

The panel members shares similar approaches for handling unhappy customers. Tony Turnage of FedEx says that “your best judgment is your best tool.” Sometimes a measured response is more appropriate. Cearley asks “Does this call for a bazooka?” If not, step it down. Agents need to discern what is actionable. Companies see little point in responding if griping, rather than problem resolution, is the poster’s objective.

How has social customer care brought value to its organizations? According to Sean Valderus of Nokia, social has taught them the need to move faster. Prior to social media customer care, it would take 2 to 3 weeks to analyze a new handset issue. Social media surfaces the issues more quickly, and Nokia now can analyze new product issues within 24 to 48 hours. As Cearley likes to say “show me the value, and I’ll show you the money.”

 

Thank you to our platinum sponsor, Sprint, who is promoting the launch of their 4G LTE service in Dallas and Cedars Woodfire Grill for supplying food. Tabbedout, an application supporting mobile payments, generously sponsored the post-event tweetup at Trinity Hall, while Allen Tsai Photography was our photo sponsor.  And a special thank you to our annual sponsors, mobile marketing firm Pocketstop.com and Managed WordPress web hoster Synthesis Hosting.

Sign up for SMC Dallas’s upcoming events, including Scott Stratten on October 25th, sharing secrets from his new book, The Book of Business Awesome.

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Some Enchanted Evening at SMC Dallas

June 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Guy Kawasaki Social Media DallasYes, you want to be THAT Guy. Or at least be LIKE that Guy. I’m talking about Guy Kawasaki, the original Apple Evangelist, internet technology investor, social media guru extraordinaire, and author of 11 business books. Last week Guy charmed the sold out Social Media Club of Dallas crowd with his talk on “Enchantment.”

Sprinkled through out Guy’s entertaining talk were gems of wisdom taken from his tenth book, “Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions.” Although Guy rules the social media world with a Klout score of 86 and almost 1 million followers on Twitter, his talk was more about getting along with people. Guy believes that in business and personal interactions, your goal is not just to get your way but to cause a voluntary and delightful change in your actions with other people. Some of the key takeaways from his presentation:

  1. Achieve likeability. Serve others, and greet them with a genuine Duchenne smile.
  2. Default to yes. Many people are protective of their time, and tend to default to “no” when asked for a favor. Instead, see what you can do to help others. Set your default to “yes.”
  3. Achieve trustworthiness. You must trust others for them to trust you.
  4. Bake, don’t eat. Many people are protective of their assets. They are eaters, and don’t want to share their food. But a baker sees everyone as a target market. People need their products. There’s a world in need of pies, cakes and cookies. They are givers, not takers. Be a baker, not an eater.
  5. Make insanely great products. For likeability and trustworthiness to reap results, you’ve got to have a great product or service. Showing his Apple heritage, Guy emphasized the need to build “elegance” into your product.
  6. Tell a story. When launching a new product, forget all the buzzwords like carrier class, synergistic, etc. Plant lots of seeds with everyone, including the “lonely boy” Twitter account with just 15 followers. Influence in the world of social media is no longer top down, it is bottom up.
  7. Learn how to present effectively. Don’t be long and boring. Keep it short. Follow the rule of 10-20-30. Limit your slides to 10, your talk to 20 minutes, and use 30 point type so you won’t be tempted to cram too much on your slides and read it.

Guy shared generously in a lengthy Q&A session. Although he had a few slams for Microsoft and maintains his love for Apple computing, that doesn’t carry over to the iOS. “Honestly, right now, if you were thinking differently, you would choose Android,” says Guy. He’s a fan of the Motorola Droid Razr MaXX and the Samsung Galaxy Note because of the 4G speed.

His favorite apps and platforms? He’s a big proponent of Google +, having recently authored “What the Plus!”  The quality of the people and the conversation is better on Google+, according to Guy. He recommends Chrome extensions for Google+ including Replies & More, Nuke Comments, and Do Share.

It took a lot of support from our sponsors to provide this caliber of programming. Thank you to Clublocal, a local on-line service directory, our platinum sponsor.  Other Sponsors include SuperMedia, Standing Dog Interactive, Master of Science in Marketing at UT Dallas, PubCon, Redbutton.tv, Penny Clark Photography, PocketStop and FireHost. We’re also grateful for the yummy treats from food sponsors Great One Cookies and Asian Mint.

Register now for our next event, the Social Media Showcase on July 19.

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