Pivot Preview: Social Business

In my recent MediaPost article, I argued that social media is a ripe avocado whilst social business is guacamole, taking something that is good already and transforming it something that is truly amazing. While the analogy seemed to hold up and allowed me to showcase IBM’s updated platform that helps companies make “guacamole,” it didn’t provide an inside look at how B2B brands are approaching social business.

To redress that shortcoming, here is my recent interview with Danna Vetter, VP of Consumer Strategy at Aramark.  Danna does a particularly good job explaining how Aramark moved social from being a tactic to a business strategy.   And by the way, Danna will be presenting next week at the Pivot Conference in NYC.

Drew: First, can you explain to the uninitiated what Aramark does?
ARAMARK provides food, facility, and uniform services for a number of verticals, including sports arenas and stadiums, hospitals, colleges, universities and schools, and businesses around the world.

Drew: What does it mean to become a social business?  
To be a social business, you have to integrate your business processes with social technology. To take that further, one could argue that a truly social business has leveraged social technology, tools and channels to fundamentally change the way they do business.

Drew:  Has Aramark become a “social business?” And if so, can you talk a bit about the journey?
We’re not there yet but we’re working toward it. We’re still early on our journey, but we’ve recognized the importance of getting there and have made some great progress.

The reality was that social was happening all around our company (and with our consumers and clients) whether we were actively involved from a corporate perspective or not. Like most companies, our first steps were removing the fear of social for our executives and business leaders. So we brought the right stakeholders to the table and created the kinds of governance, strategy, and framework to ensure people were actively involved and comfortable with the process. We needed to make sure social was no longer a tactic, but a business strategy.

We trained the organization on the importance of why ARAMARK was leveraging social. And for our active social users, we gave them the proper training and resources to operate within their social strategies. We also created listening frameworks that helped identify, route, and respond to social conversations. This has all helped us limit risk and enable new technologies that we needed to be using.  And by creating a connected environment, it also set up our employees to communicate and collaborate in ways that they weren’t before.

Drew:  Where in the organization did the impetus to become a social business come from?
It started with our consumers. The table has been turned and consumers are driving how and where they will be serviced, they expect the companies and brands they interact with to be active in social. To promote, listen and react when they speak up. As a consumer strategy team, we were able to identify this and escalate the need and urgency to take part in these social conversations.

Drew: As VP, Consumer Strategy are you part of the marketing department?  If not, how important is having a broader purview than marketing in order to implement a social business transformation?  
At ARAMARK, marketing lives within each line of business. What’s unique about my team is that we sit in a corporate function that helps accelerate consumer strategies across all of our businesses. This setup allowed for my team to be the catalyst for the social business vision, but we couldn’t do it alone. The reality is that we worked, and continue to work with individuals in all of our businesses and functional areas (including HR, Legal, Corporate Communications, Privacy and others) to move us forward in the journey. This cross-functional team and effort is essential in moving the social business vision forward at a company as large and complex as our organization.

Drew:  Have you been able to link your efforts to become a social business to any tangible goals like customer satisfaction or sales?   
We are still in the beginning of finding ways to link those goals to bottom line results. We have had some great wins in terms of leveraging our listening framework to identify consumer issues and connect them to the right people across the organization – and eventually to solutions. We also have some success in terms of using social channels for marketing and promotions, but we’re often in a situation where we’re trying to connect online promotion with offline action. To be honest, it’s just hard to track that type of interaction. We’re working on it, and I don’t think we’re the only company facing that challenge. Right now, we are trying to focus our active users on building our networks, engaging with our audiences, and listening.

Drew: What advice would give to a friend in your role at another company about the social business journey?
Be patient and stay aware. It is not an overnight project. Just when you feel like you have won over everyone needed, there’s a whole other set of people you have to win over.

Social and digital technologies are making leaps every single day. You need to adapt and evolve what that means for your company as well as your strategies. Make hard decisions and be ready to change them tomorrow.

Finally, find the right people. Every organization has people who are passionate about social media from a personal perspective. Find those people and put them to work.

Pivot Preview: Social & Beauty

Let’s just start with the fact that Sephora has nearly 4 million fans on Facebook and over 700,000 followers on Twitter.  Clearly this is a company that is doing something right on social media and well worth a closer look.  Thanks to the kind folks at Pivot, I got the chance to interview Bridget Dolan, VP of Interactive Media at Sephora, prior to her presentation at the conference next week.  I am certain you will find her comments as enlightening as I did.

Drew: What role(s) does social media play in Sephora’s overall marketing strategy?  Do you assign different roles to different platforms?
Social media plays a major role in Sephora’s overall business strategy. We value the engagement and conversations we have with our customers through our multiple social channels and encourage this social engagement throughout the organization.  After seeing how successful the Sephora Facebook and Twitter pages have been, we implemented a Pinterest integration when we re-vamped Sephora.com in April 2012, and have also since created a Sephora Instagram account. Both have seen a lot of organic growth over the summer and we are always looking at new social platforms for other ways to engage with current and potential clients.

Facebook and Twitter allow us to hear from our clients real-time and react one-on-one; we respond to every single customer question and give our clients a voice. We then learn from our clients and use that information to inform our strategies throughout the organization.

Pinterest and Instagram allow us to react to micro-trends, like showing your spirit with Olympic nails.  We also provide Sephora fans a look behind the scenes of what it is like to work at Sephora, be at our shoots, and which products we are obsessed with. BeautyTalk allows us to foster a beauty community on our site, to get customer questions answered by Sephora experts and other beauty enthusiasts. Tumblr lets us tell our trend and brand stories from another angle – insights from our beauty editors.  YouTube lets us share our expertise and teach customers how to apply makeup and see the latest trends – which encourages them to shop, play and enjoy makeup.

Drew:  A recent Forrester study said social media drove less than 1% of sales for most companies.  Is Sephora performing above that average and if so, why do you think that is the case?
Sephora is a huge company, and driving 1% of overall sales is still a big piece of the pie. I do believe that social media is influencing a lot of sales that can never be tracked: watching a Sephora YouTube video, then shopping at the store on the weekend, or liking an Instagram post on your phone in the coffee line, and buying the products online when back you’re at your desk.

Drew: Have some social platforms proven to be better at driving Sephora sales than others?  If so, please explain.
Facebook is our largest social media platform, and is still driving the most sales for us by far.  But the velocity of Pinterest growth combined with its shopping-centric nature have made it a very promising sales channel since we launched on that platform 6 months ago.

Drew: Is driving sales the wrong metric for social and if so, what metrics do you use to rationalize your investment?
Whenever we can measure direct sales, we do, but it isn’t the only metric to consider – really social media is about engagement.  We are fostering a long-term relationship with our customers.  We want her to be inspired to try new things, find information through sources she trusts, find products that really get her excited, and help her to use the product to its fullest with confidence post-purchase.  Social media helps her with the entire purchase cycle, and keeps her engaged with our brand for all of her beauty needs.  If you can create a venue to engage your most valuable customers, and enlist them to be evangelists for your brand to all of their friends, plus they will answer all of your other customers’ beauty questions because they are just that passionate… it is priceless.

Drew:  A lot of brands would kill to get nearly 4 million fans on Facebook.  How have you been able to attract so many fans?  Media?  Promotions?  Both?
Bridget: Sephora has truly passionate fans that love beauty and love Sephora.  The beauty category is a natural fit for social – our customers have always talked amongst their friends about beauty products they loved, but Facebook makes it much easier to connect with other Sephora fanatics.  We have done a bit of advertising and a few promotions, like Fan Fridays, but we mostly view Facebook as a place to have fun with our customers, and I think they can tell how much we love talking to them.

Drew:  Is there one Sephora social program that you are particularly proud of?
I think BeautyTalk is one of the more innovative undertakings we’ve done in social media.  We created a robust community on our site where our clients can come to ask any beauty question or talk about beauty,  organized by category. This allows our customers to find really rich answers with multiple points of view, combined with real-time advice from our experts.

Drew:  How has Fan Fridays been working for you?
Fan Fridays has been a great program, and our customers love it.  When we have an early access product or really hot promotion, we can be out in as little as 20 minutes.  We keep trying to support the growth, but it can be hard to anticipate which Fan Fridays will go wild until your wall lights up and you realize you need even more for next week… again.

Drew:  You have over 100,000 followers on Pinterest which is way more than most brands.  What are you doing on Pinterest that is gaining so much traction?
Beauty is inherently a visual category, but right now things like nail art and gorgeous product shots are inspiring our customers to re-pin our images. We also have integrated Pinterest deeply in our site so every product and brand image is pinnable. We do all of our own photography in house, and that investment pays off in a place like Pinterest.

Drew:  Is there a brand out there that you think is just killing it in social?  If so, which one and why?
I think it is the “brand” that Eva Chen created for herself.  She is literally on every social media channel – trying innovative things, living the life, inspiring people every day with videos, pictures, products, quotes.  And she is creating a unique footprint in each venue that is relevant to that platform and her followers in each.

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Pivot Preview: Crowd-Sourced Finance

Innovation doesn’t just happen.  It takes innovators; individuals and organizations willing to take a chance, to go out on a limb to try something new and unexpected.  One such innovator is Paul Wilmore, who as Managing Director of Consumer Market, is helping his organization, Barclaycard US, crowd-source product ideas like the new Barclaycard Ring.  I was delighted to catch up with Wilmore before he speaks at the upcoming Pivot Conference in NYC.

Drew:  Your Pivot topic, Crowd-Sourced Finance, is quite intriguing.  Can you give me a preview of the conversation you’re going to have with Brian Solis?
Crowd-sourcing can be used to take the guess work out of product development and traditional market research tactics. It’s a more interactive and intimate way to build a better product. That goes beyond just Finance but Barclays can leverage this new model to build better products and deepen relationships with our customers.

Drew: What role might a major financial institution like yours play in crowd-sourced finance?
I am hopeful this model changes the way financial institutions engage their customers, forcing them to build products that are simpler and more transparent and allowing the end consumer to be part of the solution not just a user of an end product.

Drew:   Is crowd-sourcing in some ways a threat to the traditional banking model?
Not a threat but a better way for consumers and financial institutions to work together.  Crowd-sourcing helps to take the guessing out for the bank and get right to the questions of what’s important to customers.  Financial institutions need to have the fortitude to be completely open and honest with their customers in order for this model to really work.

Drew:  Could crowded sourced finance have an impact on the credit card market?  If so, how might that happen?
It’s already happening.  You’re seeing issuers coming out with tools to put more control into the hands of consumers such as the online capability to re-structure a debt, change a payment schedule to ensure that a loan is paid down and set up auto payments.  Consumers have more choice in reward card redemption options – most programs now offer travel, cash back and merchandise.  And now with Ring, consumers actually decide jointly how it works.

Drew: Because of regulatory concerns, most banks have been reluctant to fully embrace social media.  Will the same trepidation apply when your competitors look at crowd-sourced finance? 
There is no question that banks have a long way to go in social media.  However, I’m pleased that my institution was willing to embrace social media for the launch of Barclaycard Ring and allow our team to have conversations with members of the community, answer questions frankly and share what’s happening with the program.  Today, our members review an updated, online profit and loss statement for the Ring card portfolio.  This is a big step for banks.

Drew:  Tell me about Barclaycard Innovation Lab.  Where did the idea come from and how has it worked so far?
The Barclaycard Innovation Lab was created as an initial step to invite consumers to help us co-create the launch of Barclaycard Ring.  We know it was very important to be in market quickly with this idea and get real consumer feedback (focus groups only go so far).  Six months after the initial crowd-sourced concept was pitched to the company, we were in market with an invitation only community, asking members to help us co-create the next evolution of the credit card.

Drew:  Since you launched the Innovation Lab in May, what has been the biggest surprise?  
The level of engagement of the community members.  Members are answering other members questions about the credit card and financial products in general.  Members are posting very thoughtful ideas around how the community concept and underlying products should continue to evolve.  Members have voted on product features and charitable organizations to support.  This level of engagement has been very strong and fairly consistent since launch.