BrandKnew September 2013 January 2014 | Page 37

groupisd.com 36 4. Solve Unique Problems As often as we hear about social media offering yet another channel for brands to interact and solve customer challenges, there may be situations that social media or social customer care is uniquely positioned to solve. One example that Kimarie Matthews, Wells Fargo Vice President of Social Web shared was of a customer tweeting about there being trash outside of an ATM machine. This is exactly the sort of thing that no one would ever call into a 1800 number and wait on hold in order to report. Yet thanks to this tweet, the brand was able to respond both to the customer as well as respond by actually correcting the problem and cleaning up the trash 5. Treat Everyone Like An Influencer In a highly entertaining presentation about the state of the travel industry, disruption, handlebar moustaches (for Movember!) and being Canadian – Flight Centre Global Social Media Leader Gregg Tilston shared a powerful story about the nature of influence. Using the example of how you might be influenced differently to attend a food related event whether you hear about it from the newspaper versus a restaurant versus a chef versus your best friend … he noted that the most influential source among those is probably your best friend. That is also the source among those listed with the least ACTUAL influence when it comes to potential reach and size of their network. So who is truly influential? His ultimate conclusion: “Treat everyone as if they have a Klout score of 80.” 6. Social Can Force Convergence Telling the story of how the Clorox brand thinks about social media, Helen Lee shared how increasing conversation online inspired far more convergence and collaboration among all of the more traditional silos of the marketing organization – from advertising to PR to in-store promotions. One interesting conclusion her presentation raised was to turn one of the most often cited challenges about social media into perhaps its greatest opportunity. As brands struggle to align efforts among multiple teams and divisions, the crossover potential of social media may become the driving force to actually help make it happen. 7. Focus On The Audience You Have As audiences shift and the attention paid to social media platforms evolve, segmenting an audience is a consistent chall [