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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Rob Garner Led SMC Dallas January 2013 Meeting on Real-time Marketing

January 23, 2013 by 1 Comment

Real-time marketing was on everyone’s mind at the January meeting of Social Media Club of Dallas. Rob Garner, master of SEO and author of  Search & Social: The Definitive Guide to Real-time Content Marketing led the evening’s discussion with some excellent information and tactics for marketers.

Rob Garner, author of Search & Social: The Definitive Guide to Real-Time Content Marketing

For the full story of Rob’s presentation, please see the Storify of tweets from the event.

For event photographs, please visit the Social Media Club of Dallas Facebook page.

Stay tuned for information on February’s SMC Dallas meeting featuring some very ‘pinteresting’ people. Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook for all the latest updates.

See you in February!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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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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Social Media Case Studies – 2012 Showcase

July 30, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Our second annual Social Media Showcase took place on July 19th at the Angelika Theater and featured 6 case studies focusing on social media by local businesses and agencies in Dallas.

Our speakers included:

Jackie Bese of Atomic Design and Consulting for Armed Forces Bowl
Miker Stovall of Fleishman-Hillard for Chevy
Jeff Schick of Online Performance Marketing for iFratelli
Alyssa Gardina of Weber Shandwick for RadioShack
Jeremy Vest of Wasp Barcode Technologies for Wasp Barcode Technologies
John Lee of Digital Growth Strategies for YoCrunch Yogurt

Thanks so much to our sponsors Jake’s Burgers for the delicious meal, Allen Tsai for the fantastic photos and Standing Dog Interactive.

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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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Secret to Event Success: Collaboration! – SMC Dallas / DFW SEM / Copyblogger

April 20, 2012 by 1 Comment

Brian Clark, @Copyblogger, "Did I approve you asking me that?"

Let no interview come between two good friends and business associates, but if there should be just a little bit of discomfort in the live questions the audience benefits.

Sean Jackson, @SeanThinks, "Work with me boss."

We were a fortunate audience indeed at last week’s Social Media Club of Dallas and DFW SEM joint event where Sean Jackson, business mastermind and CFO at Copyblogger Media, interviewed his boss Brian Clark, the genius behind and founder of Copyblogger.

“The first three months of Copyblogger was a lonely stretch of obscurity,” said Brian. But he experimented quite a bit with his content and learned quickly what people wanted, what his audience wanted. An audience that would serve him well when he was ready to leverage his influence and make Copyblogger profitable.

Brian thinks of the Copyblogger audience as being in rings around a center that is made up of customers, or as Brian calls them, “family.”

The goal is to move people from the outer, less committed audience circles closer and closer to the inner circle.

His secret? Give things away. “If you feel like you are giving away too much then you’re on the right track,” said Brian.

For more great tips, see my archive of tweets from the event.

Many, many thanks need to go out for bringing this insightful interview to fruition, not least are the presidents of SMC Dallas and DFW SEM, Kendall Shiffler and Dan Sturdivant, who shared some of his thoughts after the event:

Dan Sturdivant, President DFW SEM 4 18 2012

We are also very grateful to our sponsors: Raven Tools, On The Border, Allen Tsai Photography, and Content Authority; with a very special thank you to our annual sponsors: Pocket Stop and Gardere.

If you attended, do let us know your thoughts and what kind of programming you would like to see in the future.

Find photos from the event here on our Facebook page.

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