Category: Drew’s Articles

Gaining Social Traction

Posted on by Drew Neisser

The Social Media World Forum (SMWF) hits NYC next week with an exciting list of speakers and topics.  High on my list of “must sees,” is a case study on Pinterest being presented by Morgan Baden, Director of Social Media & Internal Communications at Scholastic Inc.  I was delighted to be able to catch up with Morgan and get a sneak peak of Scholastic’s approach to Pinterest and how they have been able to gain so much traction in a relatively short time frame.  Given Pinterest’s recent announcement of more brand-friendly pages, now is as good time as any to increase your knowledge of this rapidly growing channel.

Drew: I counted 55 boards on the Scholastic Pinterest page. That’s a lot more than most brands. Can you give me a brief overview of how you got this far?
We have some passionate Pinterest fans in Scholastic who have led the charge, and once we got started and were able to see the reaction our content was getting, we were hooked. Every group within Scholastic has visual content that our customers are interested in seeing, so we work with the various businesses to make sure our Pinterest Boards reflect what Scholastic is all about: getting kids to learn to read and love to read, and supporting the educators and families who inspire them along the way. There’s so much going on at Scholastic in any given day – author visits, events and conferences, new book releases, new product releases, character anniversaries – and we’re such a visual brand that the possibilities for Pinterest seem endless.

Drew:  Some boards must be more popular that others.  Which ones are really working well for Scholastic and why?
We watched closely as the voice of Pinterest began to establish itself, and then we adjusted our strategy and experimented with different Boards to reflect the platform’s general trends. Our quote Boards are a good example – we noticed that inspiring or funny quotes tend to resonate with other Pinners, so we worked with our editorial teams to create and Pin quotes from Scholastic books. But our most successful Boardstend to be the educator-focused ones. Teachers are using Pinterest to find ideas for their classrooms, so we regularly create Boards full of resources to help teachers – things like printables, resources for the Common Core State Standards, and classroom craft ideas.

Drew:  What role does Pinterest play in your marketing mix? Do you see it as experimental or have you attached specific marketing objectives to Pinterest at this point?
Like all of our social media efforts, Pinterest does play a role in our marketing mix. Book covers are linked back to The Scholastic Store Online and our other resources are linked back to scholastic.com so we can easily track sales and site traffic. But our social media strategy overall is more focused on using the tools to communicate with our customers, not necessarily to market to them, and the same holds true for Pinterest. Our customers were already on there, talking about us and sharing our content, and it made sense for us to join them and further tap into their excitement.

Drew: Have you made some changes to your approach to Pinterest over the last 6 months and if so, what/why?
We have! We’ve been on Pinterest for more than a year now and we’ve moved slightly away from the experimentation phase and more into an analytics phase. Pinterest doesn’t feel like “the new thing” for us anymore – it’s an established platform now, and as such it’s been integrated into our overall communications and marketing strategies. We are always thinking of new ways to use it, though – every day we uncover opportunities within our business to use Pinterest in new and different ways, to reach new and different fans.

Drew: What advice would you give to a brand manager just getting started on Pinterest?
Once you’ve established your corporate strategy and goals, the sky’s the limit! I would encourage brand managers to experiment, Pin consistently (no one likes a stagnant Board), and cross-promote your Pins on your company’s other social accounts.

Drew: Do you have a wish list for Pinterest in terms of new things you’d like to see on the platform?
We’re really excited about their new Business pages, which we hope will solve some of our concerns. And ultimately, I’d love to see some sort of umbrella page for brands like Scholastic, so our other affiliated but separate Pinterest accounts could be tied together on the platform.

Drew: Are there any other emerging platforms you’re trying this year or plan on trying next year?
Our newest social media account is Instagram, which we’re having a lot of fun with (along with everyone else!). Looking forward, I could see us experimenting with Path or Fancy.

Marketing Programs That Serve Everyone

Posted on by Drew Neisser

This is part 2 of my extensive interview with Scott Krugman, Director of Communications at American Express on Small Business Saturday.  In this part, Krugman share’s how the program evolved from year 1 to year 2 and offers some hints as to what we can expect to see later this month (November 24th to be exact).  I realize this is a lot of ink to dedicated to one program but if you are a student of marketing, you’ll want to read on because in this you’ll find the secrets to truly great marketing programs–create a win / win / win  situation for consumers, customers & partners and ultimately your own brand will triumph.

Drew: How did the program evolve in Year 2 (2011)?
Year 1 was like catching lightning in a bottle. I think the results kind of blew the expectations out of the water. Year 2, we knew there was an opportunity for it to be bigger. For that to be the case though, it really needed to be more than just about American Express. And I think you saw more corporate partners were engaged. FedEx had a $1 million investment in “shop small” gift cards for consumers. They really did a great job in getting the word out and really mobilizing consumers. There were a number of public officials that rallied around the day and really encouraged their constituents to shop. There was such a groundswell of grassroots support that it went all the way to the White House.

Drew: So, even politicians jumped on the SBS bandwagon?
That’s it, exactly. It’s amazing: in a year where we saw Republicans and Democrats fight over everything—whether it’s the debt ceiling, deficit, you name it—the one thing they could agree on was that, in this particular case, November 26 would be Small Business Saturday. The Senate passed a unanimous resolution making that day Small Business Saturday. But it takes more than just government to encourage people to shop because, let’s face it, with their Congressional approval rating, that’s not exactly the watermark to get consumers to shop.

Drew: Back to Year 2 and the program’s evolution…
We knew that the amplification of the “shop small” message on the day was crucial. So in order for this thing to really be successful, small business owners really needed to own the day. And that meant making special offers around it. So that’s where the Small Business Saturday tool kit comes into play. It allows small business owners to do a number of things. It allows them to do things that maybe some businesses take for granted like help to create a Facebook page. I believe we did the free ads. We allowed them to print out in-store signage because not everything is done via online.

Drew:So, let’s talk about some of the big differences between Year 1 and Year 2 and the increase in partners.
I think there were more than 50 corporate and digital partners (including Verizon, Costco, Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, Google) as a part of Small Business Saturday in Year 2. Again, that really more than doubled-down on the commitment and what this day became in Year 2 versus Year 1. But you combine that with the support from public officials, the support from local, state and national groups—whether it’s the SBA, the NFIB (National Federation for Independent Businesses), convention and visitor bureaus from various cities—all of this culminated.

Drew: So, on an earned media basis, the exposure must have been unbelievable?
Year 2, there were close to 10,000 [media] placements and the total circulation was around 1.7 billion.

Drew: Did people end up spending more or simply shift spending from big companies to small businesses?
We’re not in the business of picking winners and losers here, right? The message was, during the holiday season, “Hey, don’t forget to allocate some of that spending to small businesses and discover what’s so special about them.” That’s what happened. Consumer spending was up for the holiday season.

Drew: Back to Year 2. Why did it work so much better?
There was more awareness of the day. More small business owners were able to leverage the tools in the tool kit that they didn’t have Year 1 to promote the day. So there was definitely a stronger message to the consumer. And the consumer was better able to mobilize. Through the Shop Small Facebook page, a lot of the merchant offers were loaded in, so consumers could find merchants that were close to them through this map and find their offers. I think there were more tools for consumers to make it easier for them to shop small.

Drew:So, at this point, do you now say, okay, we’re going to create an entity called SmallBusinessSaturday.org and let it run itself?
Small businesses at this point are free to promote SBS in any way they want, right? It’s their day. So, like I said, we will always support it. No matter how it started, the end result is this day is bigger than any one company. It really is. Local communities last year started block parties around the day to get consumers into their local downtown areas to shop the day. People were inspired by it, and they want to do things around it. It’s not like they’re calling us and asking us for permission—they’re doing it.

It all starts with the idea. No one entity owns Cyber Monday; however, someone created it.

Drew: Right. So nonetheless, you’re American Express, and you either continue to up the ante on something and keep making it better, like you’ve done with OPEN. So, looking ahead?
Needless to say, Small Business Saturday is something that’s very near and dear to our heart. And it’s something that we plan to support for a very, very long time, and we want to continue to surprise and delight small business owners across the country and make this day as special for them as possible.

Drew: Will you be expanding the tool kit?
As far as the tool kit goes, you have to remember now … the tool kit doesn’t just give them the tools to promote the day; it gives them a lot of tools and skill sets that they need to build their business throughout the year. I mean, flattening the learning curve for small business in the social space, that’s going to help them attract more customers year-round. That’s the beauty of what we’re doing on Small Business Saturday. … These tools might be built around supporting a day, but they live beyond the day. And it allows small businesses to make a compelling argument to their customers by shopping small as a year-round proposition.

Drew:There must have been a few skeptics about your involvement with this program?
Unfortunately, there’s always going to be skepticism, and I’m actually surprised there wasn’t more of it. Any time you have a large company involved in something like this, I think it does open it up to some skepticism, especially in the times that we live in. But that’s okay. The detractors are far fewer than the supporters. And when you go to the Facebook page and you read all the comments from small business owners and they talk about the fact that transactions were up 40 percent for themselves on the day—or in some cases, double—you know that it’s worth it. There are probably more detractors for Black Friday than there were for Small Business Saturday, if you think about it.

Drew: Did non-AmEx merchants benefit as well?
Because, ultimately, we’re encouraging people to shop small, no matter what card they use, no matter where they shop, … the small business owner that chose not to do anything for Small Business Saturday might very well get a customer or two they wouldn’t have gotten if the day didn’t exist. I think that’s kind of the irony. It’s the halo effect of the day that makes everyone benefit.

Drew:You must have faced different kinds of challenges in Year 2, given more time to plan.
That’s an excellent question. Year 2, timing is always a challenge. Going out too early. When do you start talking about this in the press?  When do the writers start talking about it, for example? When are merchants ready to start preparing for the day? Too much time is a blessing and a curse, right? It takes a village to create a day, that’s for sure.

Drew: So talk to me more about the balancing act here between helping small businesses and helping AmEx. 
I think it’s not surprising if somebody says, oh, American Express is doing that … to get more sales on their card. That’s not the case. The case is to help support small businesses. And when small businesses are thriving, the economy thrives. Our CEO went on the Today Show and literally said, “I don’t care if you use cash, I don’t care if you use the card or not—just shop small on the day.” I think that was impressive. He’s saying, support your local businesses.  And that’s a simple message and that’s why we’ve gotten so much traffic with it, frankly. If it was just [an AmEx] card play, it wouldn’t have worked.

Drew: As market leader, it’s pretty simple—if small businesses grow, you’re going to grow with them, right?
Absolutely. If small businesses grow, if more are created, that’s a marketplace that we want to thrive. We want them to thrive.  When they’re doing well, we’re doing well. There are plenty of reasons for customers to use their card, and I don’t want this to turn into a commercial for us, but clearly, our customers think of us—we have a special place in their wallet, and we always will. And we know that. But again, we know for Small Business Saturday to be a success, we need to reach more than just our customers. So it’s a conscious play not for just us to reach out to consumers, but for other groups and other entities and other people and influencers and businesses to reach out to consumers as well.

Drew: It’s a much bigger idea than something as self-serving as “shop small businesses with the card.”
Right. It takes a lot of guts for any company to come to that decision. It’s impressive. At this point, it’s the expectation that we find innovative solutions for small businesses. And SBS is delivering on that very high expectation for us.

Small Business Saturday

Posted on by Drew Neisser

As far as I am concerned, Small Business Saturday is the quintessential example of Marketing as Service, achieving the kind of success that most marketers can only imagine.  The service in this case not only establishes a day that puts the spotlight on small businesses and rivals Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but also enables small businesses to be more competitive throughout the year, with marketing toolkits that highlight their distinct advantages over their larger competitors.

With the third annual Small Business Saturday set for November 24, perhaps the most remarkable part of this program is how it is developing a life of its own, with politicians uniting over its significance and more and more small business owners trying to take advantage of “their” day. To better understand the thinking behind this program, I spent a good hour on the phone with Scott Krugman, Director of Communications at American Express.  Here’s part 1 of my interview with Scott.

Drew: So let’s start with the origin of the idea of Small Business Saturday back in 2010.
Well, like all good ideas, in a way, they originate from our customers. AmEx OPEN’s been around now for twenty-five years, and the reason why we’ve been around so long and been so successful is because we really take the pulse of our customers in a variety of ways, and in this particular case, what we found out through research and talking to our customers, their biggest need coming out of the recession was more customers. So that got us to thinking, what can we do to help small businesses get more customers?

Drew: So after identifying the need, what then?
After a number of conversations with a lot of people, the thought came: what could we do to drive business to small businesses during key times throughout the year?  Naturally, that got folks in the room talking about the holiday season. Obviously big-box merchants have “Black Friday.”  Online merchants, more recently, have Cyber Monday.  So we thought there might be something there for small businesses, and the thought here was, let’s give small businesses their ceremonial kickoff to the holiday season.  Let’s get their holiday shopping season off to a strong start.  Let’s create a day for them.  It wasn’t as quick and as simple as I’m making it out to be, but what that ended up becoming was Small Business Saturday.

Drew:  Looking back now, it seems like a no-brainer, but why back in 2010 did you think it would work?
We thought it was the right message at the right time.  There were a lot of conversations that were happening about the importance of small businesses to the economy.  The “shop local” movement was going strong, so we knew that there would be a lot of support.  We also knew through research that 98 percent of consumers said that they wanted to support small businesses.  So we wanted to create something that would take that support and turn it into sales.  And as we started iterating, it became clear that this was a movement.

Drew: So how long did it take to go from idea to execution?
I should point out in terms of the timing element, this was basically getting the concept of Small Business Saturday to market—it had to happen in a matter of a few weeks.

Drew: Wait, let me make sure I heard you correctly. So in 2010, from green light to execution, it took how long?
A matter of weeks!

Drew: Did you advertise Small Business Saturday in Year 1 (2010)?
There was definitely advertising.  There was also a press conference at city hall involving New York City Mayor Bloomberg and our CEO, Ken Chenault.  There was a lot of earned media around it in terms of announcing the day.  It was a unique enough concept where it got a lot of curiosity and a lot of pickup.

Drew: What role did social media play in the launch of SBS?
There was a lot of social media around it.  In just that first year, we saw 1.2 million people liking the Small Business Saturday Facebook page.  That’s a lot of likes in a very short period of time.  We saw 30,000 tweets using the hashtags #SmallBusinessSaturday and #SmallBizSaturday.  I was told this, and I guess it was determined with Google, that it (“Small Business”) was the fastest-rising Google search term over that time period. So, I mean, there was a lot that went into it, but we knew in order for this thing to take off, it really needed to have a strong foundation in social media for it to become viral.  That certainly worked.

Drew: So why do you think this program took off?
We’re looking at four factors that really helped.  One was there was a lot of inclusiveness.  There was national scope.  The message was clear in terms of individuals being able to boost the economy.  This is really key and really important, because as much as we talk about American Express in this—and we’re not always comfortable doing that because we feel it takes away from the day—it became an agnostic day.  For small businesses to participate, they don’t have to accept the American Express card.  For consumers to participate, they don’t have to use the American Express card.  Is American Express making an offer for consumers on the day?  Yes.  But, they’re not limited to using that card in order to make a difference.

Drew: How did small businesses react?
It created a solution to help spur more business for small businesses, and small business owners really took to it.  I think in Year 1, not as much, because there wasn’t a lot of time to get them to own the day.  So I would say Year 1 was probably more about claiming the day.

Drew: So this feels a bit like cause marketing, another idea AmEx essentially invented.
You know, there are a couple schools of thought on that.  Small businesses definitely needed the help.  But at the same time, this isn’t charity.  Small businesses are the engine that drives the economy.  They’re creating jobs.  If people support small businesses, they’re supporting their local communities.  So they’re not just supporting the businesses, they’re supporting themselves.  They’re helping everyone.  It makes the entire engine work, especially as you’re coming out of recession. But the other piece of it is, it’s the discovery aspect of what makes small businesses so special.  And it’s not the fact that maybe they do need the help, but it goes beyond that.  It’s helping consumers rediscover these businesses that have been there all along in their communities: the amazing customer service, the unique selection and the special experiences.

Drew: So how do small business compete against larger rivals in the face of discounting?
They focus on their core elements.  Large businesses spend millions of dollars a year on customer relationship management tools to understand their customer. Small businesses?  That’s an inherent part of who they are.  So it’s a day for them to really leverage those strengths and allow consumers to kind of rediscover what makes them great.  But at the same time, it’s helping small businesses not just own the day, but give them the tools that they need to thrive during the day.  This might kind of take us a little bit into Year 2, but we can always pivot back and forth.

Drew: It must have been tricking to balance AmEx branding and the SBS idea…
This is one of those campaigns where the message was so compelling, and the reason for doing it was so genuine, that people naturally wanted to take part in it.  Again, this is where it needs to become more than just about American Express, because you’re not going to get the response from public officials if Small Business Saturday is owned by any one corporate entity.  You’re not going to get that kind of response.

So that’s why it’s more than just about us.  We might have been the one to push the idea into the marketplace, but in all honesty, it’s the small business owners that owned the day.  It’s their day.  We might have given it to them, but they have taken it and made it their own.  We will always support it.  We will always do things in the marketplace to support the day and to support small business owners because that’s what we do at OPEN.  But it is their day, and that’s what makes it genuine.  And frankly, that’s what’s made it successful.

Drew: Was it hard to relinquish ownership of this idea?
That’s a fair question.  I think it’s one of the tough things when there’s such a good idea on the table.  I think the natural inclination is to want to own and control it.  But that’s the irony here.  For it to be successful, you couldn’t do either.  And I think there were enough smart people in the room to know that.  Ultimately, we realized, it takes a village to create a day.

Drew: AmEx “$25 offer to shop small” couldn’t have hurt the program.
For us to do this right, AmEx also had to be “skin in the game,” so of course the card member offer was critical.  Otherwise, it’s just lip service.  Like I said, Small Business Saturday is what we created for the entire small business community.  But I think our merchants come to expect us to look out for them in ways that others don’t.

Drew: So, did Small Business Saturday drive small business sales? 
Yes, actually.  I can tell you on the record that transactions of—we can only right now measure folks that use the American Express card, right?  That’s what we have available to us.  So for merchants that accept the card, card transactions were up 23 percent on the day.

Drew: How about the softer measures like favorability among small businesses towards the AmEx brand?
I’m limited in terms of some of the metrics that I can discuss.  But let’s say our philosophy is, if you do the right thing, customers are going to recognize that about you.  And I think that there are not many companies that would have been able to do something like a Small Business Saturday in a genuine way.  I think that has a lot to do with the OPEN brand as it relates to American Express, frankly.

Drew: It must help that this is not the first time you’ve focused on small businesses.
Yes.  We’ve been in the marketplace for small businesses probably longer than anyone else.  I believe we had the first business card devoted to small businesses.  I think because of the history we have in this community, there’s an expectation that we are going to be supportive beyond product offerings.  So I think that it’s one of those situations where all those interests are aligned.  Obviously, we have an interest in doing the right thing to help small businesses: it’s what we’ve been doing.  Our customers expect us to help them with their solutions.  So I think you could say, in a lot of ways, Small Business Saturday was a result of us doing what we have always done, and that’s listening to our customers’ needs and trying to find solutions.  It just so happens that we found something, in this particular case, that was massively innovative.  And is there a halo effect from that?  Absolutely.  That’s why I think you see a lot of other companies wanting to be a part of Small Business Saturday as well.

Drew: So is this about doing well by doing good?
Like I said, I think for a company to do the right thing in a meaningful way, it needs to be genuine.  And I think the marketplace, whether it’s small business owners or consumers, are smart enough to know when it’s not.  So I think it needs to start from the desire of wanting to do good and wanting to do the right thing.  That’s where Small Business Saturday is no different.  That’s where it starts.  I think there’s… if you do the right thing in the right way, good things come with that, yes.

Committing to Small Business Saturday

Posted on by Drew Neisser

In truth, there just aren’t that many truly inspiring marketing as service programs out there right now despite all of my drum beating.  Which is one of the reasons I’m absolutely fixated on Small Business Saturday, a program that unites the nation to focus on “shopping small” for at least one big day.  Conceived in 2010 by American Express and their super savvy Open group, the program quickly gathered support from other big companies like FedEx.  That is just one of the reason’s I was delighted to run into Denise Yunkun, FedEx’s Director of Alliance Marketing at the recent CMO Club Innovation Summit in San Francisco.  Denise was able to provide some really interesting insights into why FedEx is involved with Small Business Saturday and the nature of their commitment.  Our Q+A follows. (By the way, Small Business Saturday will be on November 24th this year nestled nicely between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.)

Drew: FedEx has been part of Small Business Saturday from the get go.  Why? 
Supporting small businesses is, very simply, good business.  Small businesses are incredibly important customers for FedEx and they also are the driving force behind a successful and thriving economy.  Small Business Saturday reinforces the importance of independent retailers in building and sustaining vibrant communities everywhere.  The $1 million commitment we’ve made to this effort is intended to go directly back to small businesses.

The importance of small businesses is undeniable.  They employ half of all private sector workers – about 60 million Americans, they have generated 65 percent of net new jobs over the past 17 years, they account for more than 97 percent of all U.S. exporters and more.  Their success is our success.

Drew: What were the lessons learned from year 1 and 2 (in light of the fact that you really increased your commitment in year 3)?
Aligning to support Small Business Saturday makes good business sense for FedEx as small businesses are such important customers.  Distributing gift cards directly to consumers was a very effective way to engage them and drive them to spend at small business so we are doing it again this year.  Also, it’s an excellent opportunity for us to utilize the more than 1,800 locations in our FedEx Office network for small businesses.  We are providing a variety of free and discounted marketing materials such as posters that can be printed at no cost at FedEx Office Print & Ship locations.  Also, these customers will receive additional discounts when they come in to pick up their posters.

Overall, Small Business Saturday has a strong response last year.   More than 2.7 million Facebook users, 230 public and private organizations, 75 corporations and elected officials in all 50 states and Washington D.C. declared their support for SBS last year. More than 500,000 small business owners leveraged an online tool or promotional materials for SBS and 15,000 businesses signed up for free Facebook advertising to promote their products and services in the run up to SBS.

Drew: Last year, FedEx offered 40,000 $25 gift cards in support of SBS making it a $1.0mm commitment.  How do you measure the success of such a large promotional giveaway?
While we measure this in several ways, it’s important to note that above all, this is an effort to show our  support and appreciation for SMB’s with no strings attached. We do measure engagement and dialogue in social media channels, media coverage etc.

Drew: Will you be running that same offer in 2012 and/or doing something new?  Please provide an overview of your 2012 program (I can hold this until you’ve announced itpublicly)
FedEx will distribute 40,000 Shop-Small-branded $25 American Express Gift Cards to consumers, for free, via the FedEx Facebook page.  The give-away ended on Nov. 3 and  the winners will be chosen at random from the pool of entrants.  FedEx will also provide all registrants with a coupon to Save $10 on a $20.00 FedEx Express shipment, valid through December 31, 2012. Terms and Conditions will be included on the coupon.

FedEx Office® is also continuing its work to help small businesses draw in customers on Small Business Saturday and throughout the holiday season with access to a variety of free and discounted marketing materials.  In addition to the Gift Card giveaway, FedEx Office will support Small Business Saturday by helping independent retailers and other small businesses grab attention on Small Business Saturday and throughout the holiday season. Small business owners can visit Facebook.com/SmallBusinessSaturday  or shopsmall.com/fedexoffice  to access Small Business Saturday posters that can be printed for free at local FedEx Office Print & Ship Center locations.  Additionally, small businesses who take advantage of this free poster offer will also receive additional discount printing offers when they come in to pick up their posters.

Drew: Marketing partnerships can be kind of tricky.  Why do you think this particular one works so well?
FedEx has worked closely with American Express for over 10 years.  With our mutual focus on the success of small businesses, our relationship really is a natural fit.

Drew: How does FedEx make sure your connection to SBS doesn’t get lost in all the noise created by other SBS partners?
Our commitment to Small Business Saturday is substantial.  It’s also a natural extension of what we do for small businesses every day.

Just as one example, FedEx recently launched its first-ever, nationwide small business grant competition which will award a total of $50,000 to six deserving U.S. small businesses. The top winner will receive a $25,000 grant and the remaining five winners will receive grants of $5,000 each.  The top six small businesses – including the grand prize winner – will be announced in January.  We also create and participate in programs that give small businesses a head start, access to new opportunities and education to handle the challenges of shipping their goods.

Drew: Do you have any words of wisdom for other companies that are considering marketing partnerships?
While there are several factors, it’s important to ensure that your interests/goals are mutually aligned and the brands and value propositions are complimentary.

How to Be a Social Media Giant

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Alas for the Detroit Tigers who went down 4 straight against the SF Giants, their success against the Yankees in the playoffs is quickly forgotten as only the winners get the ring (and a parade!)  Arguably, social media has raised its game—no longer a promising rookie but now a reliable, multi-faceted, game-changing veteran.

And lest you think this is just another pitch from a daily practitioner, I called upon the wisdom of four big league players from Aramark, Accenture, Sephora and Barclaycard, all of whom presented at Pivot a couple of weeks ago and helped shape this four-part game plan that should help your company be a giant in social media.

Raise Your Game
With the introduction of a one-game wildcard play-in, two additional teams got a chance to reach postseason glory by winning when it counts.  In social, every company—even B2B brands—also must raise their game to advance.  Or as Danna Vetter, VP Consumer Strategy at Aramark, put it, “We needed to make sure social was no longer a tactic but a business strategy.”

“The table has turned and consumers are driving how and where they will be serviced,” Vetter continued urgently. “They expect companies they interact with to be active in social.”  Consequently, after laying the groundwork internally, Vetter “created listening frameworks that helped identify, route and respond to social conversations.”

Play as a Team
While baseball fans are famous for their devotion to individual player statistics, team averages for batting and pitching make all the difference in the playoffs (one look at the Tigers anemic .159 team average vs. the Giants and you’d know what happened).  The social media equivalent here is broad employee participation, as the winning companies make sure that just about every employee is trained and encouraged to be brand advocates on social media.

Explains Jason Breed, Accenture’s Social Media Practice Lead, “Empowering your networks is a strategic advantage at this point.” For companies that truly embrace social, success results when “every employee is an advocate, not just the media-trained execs,” adds Breed.

Extend Your Line-up
Inevitably during the playoffs, a previously unsung player emerges as a hero, pitching in at just the right moment to help his team to victory.  In social media, this means looking beyond the tried and true platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn and experimenting with emerging ones like Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr.

With nearly 4 million fans on Facebook, Sephora has a huge social sales engine on its hands.  But as Bridget Dolan, VP of Interactive Media at Sephora, notes, “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.”

Stay Ahead of the Curve
Thanks to Billy Bean’s “Moneyball,” “the game of inches” transformed from a hunch-driven sport to a stat-driven enterprise. With social, the opportunity to get smarter about your products and customers is never-ending, and a few inspired companies are uncovering innovative ideas that will drive future success.

Paul Wilmore, Managing Director of Consumer Market at Barclaycard, set up an “Innovation Lab” that resulted in what just might be the first crowdsourced credit card.  Notes Wilmore, “Crowdsourcing can be used to take the guesswork out of product development and traditional market research tactics.”

Final Note
The quotes above are like grass stains on a player’s uniform: indicative of dramatic action but hardly able to tell the whole story.  To see my complete and truly enlightening interviews, just click on these links: Vetter, Breed, Dolan and Wilmore or visit TheDrewBlog.  And if this article seems familiar, that’s because you may have seen it on MediaPost or Social Media Today.

Social and Employee Relationships

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Just in case you needed further evidence that social goes well beyond the walls of marketing, here is my interview with Jason Breed, Global Lead Social Media Practice at Accenture who shared his thoughts on how social is complicating HR and employee relationships.  Jason offers insights into how companies including Accenture are adapting to this new reality.  Thanks Jason.

Drew:  Can you explain how social has made employee relationships so complicated?
First, thanks for the opportunity to talk a bit about this topic that is vexing companies of all sizes and social media maturity levels.  To answer your question, I think employee relationships are already somewhat complex and social adds a few new wrinkles to work through.  From what I see, the new wrinkles include: technology (BYOD allowing access to sometimes restricted sites and information security risks), Brand Advocacy (now every employee is an advocate not just the media trained execs) and further blurring the lines of work vs. personal (when co-workers are a part of your social stream)

Drew:  At lot of companies like to control and centralize social engagement which cuts most employees out of the loop.   What are the disadvantages of this approach?
Good question and I don’t want to further the impression that this is always bad.  In certain regulatory/compliance and other environments centralization is needed.  I’ve noticed that when many companies restrict social inside the organization, it is simply due to a lack of understanding or a lack of perceived business value.  If a company is “doing social” simply to check a box and have not put the required business process and strategy behind it, then it may be better to centralize to help them get comfortable and develop value propositions accordingly.  If a company understands the value of their employee networks, partner networks, etc then centralization and control are less likely.

Drew:  Some companies like IBM are particularly good at unleashing their army of advocates (employees).  What do you see as the benefits of this approach?
Empowering your networks is a strategic advantage at this point.  The Insurance industry is a good example.  Agents have been using social to connect with their customers for a while.  Companies who empower this at the enterprise level can harness the value of every Agent’s network collectively which can create more overall value for everyone involved (Company, Agent and Customer).

Drew:  Is Accenture allowing and or encouraging all of its employees to be active on social channels and if so, how is it working?  
Accenture has been a leader in empowering employees for a while and some of the awards and positive press we receive validates this.  For example, Accenture has received many industry accolades for its work in socially infusing our talent and hiring programs and continues to work side-by-side with leading social networks in developing the next generations of how we recruit, hire, train and retain employees by using personal social connections throughout that journey.

Drew: Forrester recently announced that social media drives less than 1% of sales which could encourage some brands to curtail their social activities.  Is trying to tie social activities to sales the wrong metric given all the other things that social can do for a business including employee retention?
Social activities have to tie back to business value otherwise, why do them?  That said, social provides the opportunity to re-think the way that businesses do business.  Social as “yet-another-sales-channel” is hard to make successful.  There is greater value in reconsidering the sales process (shove out messaging so people will click to buy) so you consider enabling the ability to people to buy (providing product reviews that are relevant to the individual can greatly increase conversions, the same with offering click-to features where customers can get quick answers to special needs.  We work with a company who measures the purchase path and have found that customers who get to a product page from one of their communities is almost 80% more likely to purchase than people who come directly to the product page.  Just that alone contributes 1% of their overall sales, not counting everything else they do.  In social sales, every prospect is not just another nail to the traditional sales process hammer.

Drew:  Do you have any examples of companies that are doing a particularly good job motivating employees through their social media policy? 
I’m not sure that a policy is going to motivate any employees.  Culture certainly has the most to do with motivating employees.  Dell is a great example of empowering employees, training them and managing skills over time as anyone I have seen.  This is done programmatically though where their policies are a small part.

Drew: Given the role that social can play in both recruiting and retaining employees, do you think it is problematic that most companies put social media responsibilities in their marketing  departments?  
Only if the company wants more value out of social than just marketing.  Once again, many companies have set up their social camps where it made sense at the time.  The good news is that companies are deriving additional value out of social and therefore many are in the process of re-designing that function and where it resides within the organization.

Drew:  Finally, let’s talk about netiquette.  Should a boss accept a friend invitation on Facebook from their direct reports?  Should an employee accept a friend request from his or her boss?  Or just speak to the complications of the intermingling of personal and professional lives.  
This is more a question of culture as it relates to each department within a company.  I know departments that participate in activities like an after-hours softball league, etc.  to me, that is acceptable but is different for each individual.  For employees looking to “monitor” their staff, there are other ways to legally do that.