BrandKnew September 2013 January 2014 | Page 36

10 Social Media Marketing Ideas From Big Brands Rohit Bhargava There is an under appreciated difference between a story and an idea. A story is captivating and memorable. It entertains and often stays with you for longer than you thought it would. An idea, in contrast, is a spark. It happens in a moment and then it’s gone. And if you missed it or if you never acted on it … then you lose it. Recently I’ve been to several storytelling events. One gathered together a dozen innovators to share their stories on human behavior. Another curated every form of storytelling you could imagine – from stop motion Vine video creators to street opera singers. Each offered an amazing collection of stories that entertained and inspired. And I remember those stories. Today I have been moderating an event filled with ideas instead of stories. The Corporate Social Media Summit in San Francisco (#CSMSF) is the second edition of a popular series from the Useful Social Media team that includes a flagship New York event, the West Coast edition today, and a European edition next month. In listening to more than a dozen brands sharing their experiences with social media – there were several ideas that emerged which got people talking. Here are just a few of those ideas: 1. Deflection Isn’t Engagement As more brands turn to tools like Twitter for customer service – one of the increasingly common strategies is to “escalate” issues to the call center. What this actually means is that brands immediately engage with customers who share a question via Twitter by telling them to call the 1800 number to speak to a customer service person. As Adobe Director of Strategy and Business Development Jeff Feldman shared in the opening keynote session, this type of deflection isn’t optimal. Instead, brands that aspire to provide great service need to answer questions in the channel they are asked (unless you truly need to access their private information, of course). 2. B2B Is Better Than B2C For Social Thanks to the visibility of efforts from leading brands like Coke and Oreo’s, it is easy to focus attention on the role that social media has taken in helping major consumer brands to create lots of buzz and some engagement. Instead, Dell’s Global Director of Social Media Richard Margetic pointed out that social media is actually better for B2B brands because they tend to be far more about relationships than B2C brands. As a proof point, he noted that more than 9,000 of Dell’s employees have gone through social media training and are allowed to represent the brand in their engagements online. 3. Social Gratitude Is Powerful It is no secret that people passionately share stories and images of pets online. So when Kat Smith, PETCO Director of Social Media and Commerce took the stage to talk about how social media could engage pet owners – the opportunity was pretty obvious. Still, the big question was how a brand in the popular pet category could engage with these passionate pet owners in a way that wouldn’t just try to upsell them more supplies and materials. One great strategy Kat shared in her presentation was the power of offering validation to customers. Simply by having the brand like customer’s Instagram photos, for example, PETCO could offer tangible proof that it was listening and engaged in its community. And this one act caused intense consumer gratitude … which then led to engagement and conversation.