This week, our team that runs the support handle on Twitter for customer service reached a milestone -250,000 followers! The team started tweeting in August 2009, so that is quite an accomplishment.   While “followers”  is more of a vanity metric (hey, look how cool I am), as a brand it does tend to give you bragging rights internally and of course if you want to get a message out to your community quickly it helps to have a few thousand followers.

Looking back here is how we were able to accomplish this, we:

1. Created Valuable content - All publicly sent content was chosen based on its usefulness to the overall community.
2. Listened to the community – The team paid attention to the community on Twitter and beyond to understand pain points, frequently asked questions and topics of interest.
3. Acted as a concierge – 140 characters doesn’t give you a lot to work with, so the the team tends to act as a traffic director, leading people to the right content at the right time. This means of course that we  had to have great content on the Dot Com, YouTube, Blog and Community to point to.
4. Looked for opportunities for cross-promotion – We recognized that our  twitter channel shouldn’t  live in a bubble. We  include links to the twitter account on other branded channels and we cross link to those channels from our twitter account.  An example of this type of integration – some of our Twitter team writes on our support blog, and our blog content is always promoted via our twitter channel.
5. Took it offline - Social media gives you the opportunity to “humanize” the brand. Engaging in conversations with our customers has allowed us to better understand the needs of our community by having two-way conversations. Taking the team offline to events has given us the opportunity to promote what they do online and at the same time build deeper relationships.
6. Paid attention to “influencers” – We paid attention to folks who had influence, but we also ensured it  didn’t rule everything we did.  Most importantly we recognized that influence wasn’t always the number of followers.
7. Were interesting and unique – The team added pictures of themselves to the background, including their favorite food and their initial so followers would know who was responding to their questions. They also added a team mascot (a dog named Chico) who occasionally tweets for them!
8. Used relevant #hashtags - We used hashtags, but sparingly. We looked to understand what words customers might search for that may not already be within the content of the tweet and were relevant, and discovered #hashtags our fans were already using that would be fitting for our content.
9. Shared information internally – Having the ability to communicate directly to our customers on channels like Twitter allowed us to learn a lot. But, we also had to find ways to action what we learned and in some circumstances let the community know we were doing something with what the information.
10. Tweeted often, but not too often (conversational) – Our community told us when we tweeted to much and so we found ways to balance our public tweeting by using direct messages to offer support.

What has worked for you on Twitter?

When I first started blogging on MEGOAgain.com in 2007 it was because I was excited about the new world of new media, and wanted to share what I was learning.  I wrote about using RSS Readers and Social Bookmarking and of course Twitter.  For the last few years I have tried many of the new social tools that have popped up but none have kept me up to 1:30 in the morning playing like Twitter did in 2007. None, until I tried Quora.

What is Quora?

Quora is a website where you can ask a question on any topic and then the community will answer them. There is a potential to receive multiple responses to your question. The community can help you sort the good from the bad by voting answers up and down.  You can follow topics of interest to you, or search for existing questions before asking your own.

Why is Quora interesting?

Like any social network there are always naysayers who wonder what’s the point. For Twitter they asked who is going to want to hear what you had for breakfast? And, for Quora they question how it is different from other Q & A sites that exist.  It will be interesting to see where Quora goes if it goes mainstream but for the time being I think it will keep people coming back for a few reasons:

• With the ability to vote answers up and down, the good stuff floats to the top
• Quora allows users to create a summary of the responses (take a look at the response to Who are the best female speakers on the topic of Social Media?)
• With the addition of the “voting” on answers there is a bit of gaming excitment. Did your answer get voted up? Down? I love going into a question I responded to and see it at the top! Yes, public recognition matters – we are human.
• Ability to be thanked and thank others for answers. It is nice to know that someone read your post and it was helpful to them. #warmandfuzzy
• The quality of responses is currently amazing. With experts, influencers, and other movers and shakers participating you can find questions answered by “experts” on a variety of subjects. A question about Forbes received a response by the Executive Editor of Forbes  and a question about casting is answered by Ashton Kutcher. Yes,  Ashton Kutcher is on Quora.
• I can follow topics of interest and my friends which guarantess that each time I sign in there is new stuff that is relevant to me in my news feed.
• Easy to share content of interest on other social networks that I already particpate in.

So here is where I get really excited….

What is the potential for a customer service team in social media?

The obvious potential is for employees at brands to respond to questions on Quora.  If a company has active participants in social media channels they could respond to questions where the community has been unable to help (unanswered topics) or respond where misinformation has occurred.  In addition I see a few other opportunities for monitoring and gathering insight:

Monitoring: I would suggest companies should at the very least be paying attention to what people are discussing about their brands on Quora. It goes without saying that a company should have an ear to the ground on the entire web. Monitoring should be step 1 on Quora. Also noteworthy, thanks to @jowyang it seems Quora creates Twitter accounts for some brands (see comments on his recent blog post Quora for Business currently not allowed but you should still monitor).  These Quora created Twitter accounts can make it easy for a cutomer support team to monitor questions related to their brand. A few examples: BlackBerry; Zappos, Intel.

Gather Insight: By listening to the conversations a business can gather insight and feedback on their products/services. What are some of the Frequently asked Questions? Why?

An important note for businesses considering responding on Quora – Quora doesn’t allow accounts for organizations only humans. So, your staff will need to set up individual accounts and within their profile/title show association to the company. With any social network – remember to play by the rules, understand best practices and etiquette before jumping in. This post on Quora – a Marketer’s Manifesto does a great job of outlining guidelines for businesses participating in Quora.

What do you think of Quora? What is the potential for social customer service?

Picture thanks to Mike Duggan

Originally posted on MEGOagain.com

This year I had the incredible opportunity to attend CES (Consumer Electronic Show) in Las Vegas. This show attracts the biggest brands in tech and the people that love them. The word is that 140,000 people hit Vegas this year for CES! I think at any given time we had half of these people in our booth!

So what did I learn from attending #CES?

1) 5 Nights in Vegas is way to long

Late nights, bottle service, hard concrete show floors and your family in a different time zone. Enough said.

2) Expect the unexpected, and do the unexpected

Brands competing for attention at this large show pulled out all the stops with Celebs (our BlackBerry booth had Adrian Grenier, Olivia Wilde, Piers Morgan and Common) and fake Celebs (there was a fake Lady Gaga roaming the show, although the real one was also in attendance).

From David Berkowitz on Flickr

The most “unexpected” campaign was the attendance of the Hershey’s team promoting Reese’s Peanut Buttercups. A candy company at CES? They launched new Reese Mini’s at the show, including a press release and press conference “Reese’s Next Big Little Thing” hosted by tech guy Chris Pirillo. While I heard some muttering about why Reese’s was at a consumer electronics show, I think it was a clever PR play and judging from a quick review of a Google Search it worked. Of course I am a huge fan-girl for chocolate and peanut butter.

3) Technology is awesome

I work in tech, but my love of technology has always tended to lie in the ability to connect over social media rather than ooohing and ahing over gadgets, gizmos and shiny metal and buttons. After I walk around the show, I now have a much better idea as to why friends are obsessed with flat screen TVs and booming speakers and high tech appliances. Due to CES my appreciation for what goes into the creation of the products, and the incredible innovation that exists is today is 1000 x what it was pre- CES. I saw a mind blowing wall of televisions thinner than mobile phones; listened to headphones that made me feel like I was in the movie, and even high-tech vacuums that make me want to clean. This, along with the incredible integration and collaboration between brands makes me simply excited about what is to come!

4) Taking Online – Offline can be a huge success!

Our team from @BlackBerryHelp was onsite to do some live tweeting and offer tips, tricks and support to people who visited at the booth. Our @BlackBerry team was also running contests and live tweeting about events at the booth. These efforts proved successful in building awareness and engaging our community. And, even share of voice it appears on social networking sites.

Kodak also had a Blog Zone at their booth run by Thomas Hoehn and Chief Blogger Jennifer Cisney. The team was live tweeting, blogging as well as hosting talks on technology and social media.

I met a number of other social media types from brands at the show – who were tweeting to keep their followers looped in to the buzz at CES. I am sure next year we will see even more engagement from brands on the social channels around CES.

5) I want to go again!

Tweeting, Foursquare check-ins and blogs from CES…what will 2012 bring?

When I took over the Self Service team about twelve months ago it was probably the most traumatic and painful paradigm shift I’d ever experienced. After 12 years of traditional corporate thinking hammered into my skull, the first order of business was determining how social media was adding value to the support organization. Were we reducing support costs? Were we deflecting calls? Were our customers happy with our service? Everywhere I turned, the same reply, yes, but, the value is difficult to calculate definitively in social media. If I were a senior exec looking in on this business I’d be inclined to close the shop. I began to get very nervous…

Okay, surely there are best practices and industry metrics for this stuff I told myself. I was a social media acolyte, but now out of necessity I had to become a black-belt. I dove into social media like a guy doing a cannonball into the deep-end. Michelle inundated me with books, blogs, industry articles, and suggested I start following Social Media thought leaders like David Armano, Jeremiah Owyang, Brian Solis. I talked to other big companies about how they were measuring success. Everywhere I came up with the same result “well, you can’t really prove it”. I realized I was spinning my wheels on trying to nail down a definitive correlation and decided to start with the basics. Some percentage of those accepted solutions and RTs were mitigating calls, let’s low-ball it and call it a day.
What is interesting  was that as we looked at the data, we could see that as social media usage was increasing - the call volumes were decreasing. Was it a result of what the team was doing? “Well, I can’t definitively prove it” I thought with a crooked smile…
To summarize a few lessons I learned in my first 3 months
·         Don’t lose yourself down the rat-hole of definitive value metrics. Assume some small percentage of what you’re doing is deflecting calls. Ideally, work with a business unit specializing in business analysis/reporting  that the rest of the company trusts to do up your numbers, they’ll have more credibility. Create an unassisted or social media scorecard and have it presented along the assisted scorecard at monthly exec meetings.
·         Harvest the feedback you’re receiving through every social channel you have. Summarize and present this to senior management to help make your assisted or unassisted service offerings better. It can also l help you make the case for more budget/resources. Also, find ways to route other relevant information to the areas of the company that could benefit from it like Product Management or R&D.

Not too long agao I was fortunate enough to spend a few days with the best minds at Lithium. Over dinner I spoke with Michael Wu, Principle Scientist of Analytics about the goal of social media and what companies should be trying to do with the data they’re capturing about their customers. Of course the goals may be different depending on strategy or what part of the organization you work in, but where do you start?

The essence of our conversation was that you need to think of everyone in social web land as falling somewhere between fanatical brand advocate and seething hatred detractor. The ultimate goal, when analyzing the data you are able to collect through social media, is to find ways to move people up the chain towards brand evangelism. It’s a simple but powerful idea. Michael said one good way is to first identify your advocates and empower the heck out of them so that it’s easier for them to do exactly this for you. They already have the integrity and trust of their social network, your job is to provide ways to amplify their promotion of your brand and leverage their reach.

@armano I am not but here’s the best way I can visualize it.

Last week was Customer Service week, likely a week that passes you by without much hoopla unless you actually work in a service role. At our office they rolled out the red carpet for the staff in order to honor the folks who work the “front-lines” with our customers. One week of recognition seems inadequate when you consider the impact the service department has on the business.

Customer service helps you find and help people with their problems. Serving customers with the information they need, at their time of need, empowers them and makes them better users of your product or service. In return for awesome customer service they may in turn talk about your product to their friends, family and social network (both on and offline) referring others to your company.  Essentially your customers create new customers for you. This form of word of mouth or peer influence  means that customers matter after the sale. Increasing positive touch-points with your customer after the sale simply gives them more reason to feel good about the purchase and your company. This is where customer service plays and has the opportunity to make a difference.

If great customer service can actually affect so much: brand loyalty, sales, sentiment then why are customer service departments often the ugly step sister? Unfortunately, customer service is typically treated as a cost center, the focus is on cost reduction (# of deflected calls) and efficiency (timed response). But customer service can be a powerful marketing channel. This has become more true than ever before due social networks where customers are referring and sharing product information; and where brands and customers are having two-way conversations. Frank Eliason says it best in Marketing is Smart, Customer Service is Submissive - we need to make the customer story central to decision making. It is time for customer service to tell and show the business the key role it plays in the success of the company.

Customer Service may only be a week long – but how important is it for your business?

We hope that you will enjoy this newly launched blog where we focus on passionate customer service in social media!

When I joined the workforce e-mail was pretty standard as a method for communication and the Internet was commonly used for research purposes. But, in the early days of email many business owners and managers did not allow e-mail in the offices for fear that their employees would not get any work done, they were concerned over how to manage, store and capture e-mailed information, and of course they grappled with security issues surrounding e-mail. Today, business owners and managers have realized that e-mail has increased the speed of business communication, and concerns over data capture and management as well as security have largely been overcome.

Social Networks Stats and Facts

There is a new tool that has caused much consternation and hand-wringing for IT Managers and business owners – social networks and social media.  A new report by Nielson puts social networks ahead of e-mail in online activities according to a recent article in the Globe and Mail.  Neilson found that 1 in 11 minutes online is spent on a social network or blog site, bringing social networks and blogs to the fourth most popular activity following search, general interest portals and software manufacturers. More telling is the growth seen by social networks during the period of the study (Dec 2007-Dec 2008) which saw between 1.4 and 1.9% growth for the top three activities versus an incredible 5.4% for social networking.

There are 150 Million active Facebook users and a recent research study from Pew Inernet shows that 11% of online adults say they have used the social network Twitter. A Netpop report shows that 7 Million people in the U.S. are contributing to content online and that social networking sites have grown a whopping 93% since 2006!

Despite the growth in the use of social media and social networks specifically, many corporations have decided to bury their head in the sand and hope it goes away, much like they did when e-mail came on the scene. Instead of facing the issues these companies have decided to simply block employees access.

Blocking Access

The concerns for social media are similar to those in the 1990s when e-mail entered the workplace: productivity, data capture, privacy and security. The approach the same – block, refuse access, refer employees to old technology (oddly in the case of social media it is often e-mail!). But this is short-sighted, unrealistic and a passive approach that will eventually (if not already!) be seen as anti-productive.

Let’s look at the concerns companies have regarding social media:

Productivity: This has to be the most ridiculous of the reasons. 1) If employees want to be slack off all they need to do is go stand by someone else’s desk, go for a smoke break, chat at the water cooler, close their eyes and have a snooze. Let’s face it if you can’t trust your employees are doing their job…then you didn’t hire the right people or they are bored, unchallenged or unempowered. 2) If employees are allowed to use social media they can actually become more productive! (More on this in next post)

Data Capture/Management: Many social networks are easily followed, stored and saved. People have clearly moved beyond this issue with e-mail – and this can be accomplished with Social Networks. Ownership can be overcome by businesses as well by contracting space on sites for block of space that would be under control of the company as suggested by Salesforce.com precedent. Another alternative is to set up internal IM systems, social networks and Wikis for use with Internal Communication. While this does not help customer and vendor communication it can allow employees some use of tools that will help productivity while maintaining data security and capture.

Privacy and Security: This is a biggie, and closely related to data capture and management. Panic has ensued amongst business owners with regards to data privacy and corporate secrets. And, of course it can be an issue as more and more employees spend time on social networks discussing their lives (which includes work) with Facebook status changes, LinkedIn profiles, and of course the tweets on Twitter. Companies obviously want to limit and retain close control over sensitive company information, at the same time they also must find ways to engage and communicate directly with their customers (or risk losing them). As social media becomes increasingly interconnected and more customers EXPECT companies to be active on social networks it will become inadequate to simply block social media sites and use URL filtering. Instead companies can help alleviate the privacy and security (and avoid potential lawsuits) issues by creating policies and educating employees on safe data handling. (Note: There are also IT tools available on the market to help monitor, examine historic patterns of leaks and discover and eliminate malware that have in the past been issues with some Web 2.0 sites). Privacy and security is an issue whether your employees are using social media or not – but a easy to understand policy, and a central contact for questions related to privacy and security can help companies avoid future issues.

Net Generation at Work

Companies that decide to limit or block use of social media are not only unnecessarily limiting their communication with their customers through online methods, they are also forfeiting the chance to discover new tools for collaboration within the organization. By closing the company off from social media they are also driving away younger employees who are looking to work for companies whose culture fits their life and ideals.  Don Tapscott in his book Grown Up Digital says the “Net gener [age 18-32] arrives at work, eager to use his social networking tools to collaborate and create and contribute to the company. For starters he’s shocked to find that the company’s technological tools are more primitive than the ones he used in high school…And they are surprised, perhaps naively, to learn that corporations have antiquated ways of working.” These same Net Generation workers can, if given a chance, show companies how to collaborate in new ways more effectively and efficiently. But, these workers don’t stick around long according to Tapscott – they usually only last two years before moving on. Which is too bad since Tapscott’s research shows that those companies that embrace the Net Gen norms perform better than those that don’t..

This generation, of which I am a part of (well I missed it by a month…), view life and work different from other generations according to Tapscott – and that view is defined by 8 characteristics or norms: Freedom, Customization, Scrutiny, Openness, Fun/Entertainment in life and work, Collaboration, Speed, Innovation.

Tapscott definies these characteristics as they relate to work (summary):

Freedom: Net Geners expect to mix work and their personal lives, and this includes choosing when and where they work. They want flexible hours, the ability to telecommute, and other services that make their lives easier.

Customization: They want employers to treat them as individuals and this means giving them learning and development opportunities that are right for them. They want an adaptable work environment, job descriptions that are project based and customized, flexible benefits,  and more frequent discussions on their contribution to the organization.

Scrutiny: How we search for jobs has changed and how we research the company before we make a change has as well.  According to Grown Up Digital 60% of Net Geners check out a company before accepting a job offer. They want to work for companies that are transparent, share information, and have integrity. Tapscott says: “Young people respond well to management integrity…there is greater loyalty and lower turnover, and employees are more likely to do the right thing.” (For example more likely to get their job done even if they take a break to check Facebook, and more likely to hold company secrets sacred and follow company privacy policy).

Collaboration: Net Geners want to work with other people and collaboration is how they get stuff done. To them the workplace should be less about hierarchies and departmental silos and more about connecting with others to solve a problem. Using social networks, social bookmarking, Wikis, aps like LinkedIn Huddle Workpaces or Virtual worlds (Second Life) to meet, collaborate, plan, and execute.

Fun/Entertainment: Fun and work go hand in hand for this generation – they don’t need to be separate. Cultures that allow employees to have a little fun at work end up with more productive staff. We all need a break before diving back into another round of work – and if surfing on a social network is that little bit of fun – why block it?

Speed: This generation is used to speed and instant responses. Why not? We no longer have to wait for dial-up or snail mail! For Net Geners red tape is frustrating, feedback should be in real-time and bureaucracy can mean doom in the market. They use social media tools such as Wikis and IM to speed up communication within the workplace.

Innovation: This is a fascinating point Tapscott makes: “If video games taught this Net Generation anything, it’s that every problem has seemingly endless solutions” and so this generation is looking for new ways to their jobs, to be innovative in their workplace, to challenge status quo. Many of these young workers bring their knowledge of social media to the work place creating new communication channels, building collaborative work systems, and finding new ways to solve a business problem.

In the End

Social media such as instant messaging, blogging and social networks have gained ground as communication tools outside the workplace by leaps and bounds, and it is only a matter of time before they, like e-mail before them, become necessary and an acceptable part of the work place.  The concerns for productivity,  data management, and security and privacy are valid – however they can be overcome by education, corporate policy and new IT tools. Ultimately, if a company hires good people they will need less process and bureaucracy to police the space – as the employees in an open and empowered culture will be more likely to use social media tools wisely. Through using social media in the workplace employees will find new ways to harness collective knowledge, collaborate, and create ways to communication effectively internally and externally.

As always  – connect on Twitter and Google Friend Connet (right hand side). And, if you enjoyed this content – subscribe!

Images from Stocl.xchng (bigevil600, brokenarts, glennpeb)

Some time ago (before my sleepless night) Beth Harte had an interesting post “Is Social Media the Same as Marketing?” She questioned the term “Social Media Marketing” and said “the term social media marketing is not working for me: social media is about sharing and discussing information. It’s communications, not marketing.” What ensued in the comments section was not only a discussion of whether we could call social media – marketing or social media marketing; but a conversation examining the hierarchy and definition of Marketing itself. Now I am a little late jumping into the discussion – believe it or not this has been in the “drafts” for a long time!

Define Marketing…

Some comments on the post placed Communications squarely as part of marketing, others separated marketing and communications as though it were Church and State. The four Ps are mentioned, and then suggested they are an over simplification of marketing.  Marketing runs the show. Communications runs the show. One comment says PR, Sales, Marketing, and advertising are all different disciplines. Another says MarCom and PR are separate but collaborate more often. Still another commenter says that the P for Promotion stands for various communication techniques that would include PR, personal selling, advertising and publicity.

Dale Evans, the author of Social Media an Hour a Day said

“marketing is being defined more and more by what consumers experience and translate into shared content than it is by what a marketer has to say directly”

Walter Pike quotes Peter Drucker:

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself”

As does Gabriel Rossi:

“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.”

And Laurie Broderick quotes the AMA

“Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.”

the original market

Ultimately, I don’t think it was necessarily the definition of marketing that was really in question, as all definitions brought up seem to recognize that the role of marketing is to have such solid understanding of their customer base that they strategically create, deliver, and appropriately price the products or services that this customer wants or needs. The original meaning came from literally going to the market to buy or sell goods. However,  I think confusion surrounding the definition comes when we assume that Marketing is just sales promotion.

From the variety of comments it may be that the trouble is not defining marketing, but defining the roles that fall in the umbrella of marketing. In particular, the role of Communication and Marketing Communication.  My understanding has always been that MarCom would fall into “Promotion” – one of the simplified 4P’s of Marketing. In, my working experience it has always been that MarCom and PR have reported into Marketing.  I realize that is not always the case.

Start with the Basics

I took a look at Marketing using the perhaps over simplified 4ps (from my school days, many years ago!):

The Marketing Mix:

Product: Create a product that fits the needs or wants of your customer. Specifications of the goods or services should meet those requirements.

Placement: Otherwise known as distribution and refers to the channel in which a product or service is sold.

Pricing: This is the process marketers use to set the price of a product for market.

Promotion: Textbook definition houses the following in this “P” – Advertising, Sales Promotion, Publicity, Personal Selling (Sales), Branding and other methods to promote product or service.

It is this final P that seems to be the conundrum. Many businesses house these promotional roles in a variety of silos, others have them report directly to Marketing, still others work in tandem with the Marketing group, and of course still others outsource some of these roles to (a variety of ) agencies. Some include only those aspects that would be considered Marketing Communications:

According to Wikipedia: “Marketing communication is concerned with the general behavior of an organization and the perceptions of the organization that are promoted to stakeholders through these touch points. The six areas usually associated in this representation are: Advertising, Public Relations, Promotions, Direct Marketing, Event Marketing, and New Media.”

Others see MarCom as those “selling” aspects of Communication and leave PR out of the mix – seeing it as a Communication role.

Needless to say it is all a bit of a mixed bag.

We also need to examine Marketing as potentially having three additional Ps  (often associated with Service but could just as well work when talking about products):

People: Any person coming into contact with customers can have an impact on overall satisfaction. In the customer’s eyes, the people are generally inseparable from the company and they can therefore highly affect the customer’s experience.

Process: This is the procedures involved in providing a service (or product) which can be crucial to customer satisfaction. Example I buy a new Humidifier at Sears for my baby’s room, take it home and discover it sounds like an airplane jetting off so I take it back – but have to wander the store (with stroller and baby in tow) find an elevator and return it to hardware (where there is no immediate staff member to help) – despite numerous “Service” desks on the main floor.

Physical evidence: To reduce the feeling of risk, thus improving success, it is often vital to offer potential customers the chance to see what a service (or product – especially key for online shopping) would be like. This is done by providing physical evidence, such as case studies, or testimonials. This could also refer, I suppose to the physical appearance of the product – the quality (or lack of) it promises.

Is it Marketing vs Communication?

After reading Beth’s post and the numerous comments I decided I would search about to figure out if there was a rule of thumb for the relationship between Marketing and Communication. It seems once again that there are two schools of thought. In fact- this leads to two possible hierarchies.

1) Marketing is the 1-way, the push, the sell. Communication is two-way. They are two different disciplines. Two different departments.

2) Communication is a piece of the marketing puzzle. It is the tactics used to market and to converse with the target market. Same discipline. Same department.

Hmmm. Doesn’t help does it? While I believe that Communication must work in an integrated manner with the Marketing department, it seems that there are just as many that see the two as very separate pieces of the corporate puzzle.  If separate how do we ensure that all communications are sending the same messages? And, where does Social Media fit in – Marketing or Communications? Both?

The Dreaded Social Media

Like Beth, I dislike the term Social Media Marketing.

Social Media is defined as “primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio.” (Wikipedia). The words “sharing” and “discussing” being an important factor to differentiate the “media” from other one-way channels such as television.

The problems I see with the term “Social Media Marketing”:

It is a name that in a few years will be dated. The web is, and has been for years – social. What happens when every site has some sort of forum, profile sharing, comment field etc. Will we still call it “social”? Or will that be rather redundant?I wonder if the even the term “media” too closely relates it to Television and Print Media which are traditionally used in an interruption method which as of now is a method which has not worked for the web.

and Social Media cannot be seen as only a tool to send simple outgoing marketing messages, as it also allows for two-way communication which can help an organization do much more. Amber Naslund said it best in the comments to Beth Harte’s post:

“Social media doesn’t just need to fit into marketing or public relations or other disciplines that are used to communicate. It’s also about customer service, technology and user experience, client relationship management, product and service innovation. It’s an undercurrent of so many more business touchpoints than we’ve ever seen, and I think that’s causing some consternation. In a good way, but it’s still hard.”

Social Media is two-way, it is authentic conversation between customer and company – and in such should fall under Communication. However, look at it in another way it works to benefit marketing in a number of ways:

Let’s just look at a few examples:

Product Idea Generation and Product Innovation

Sites such as My Starbucks Idea and Dell Ideastorm allow customers to work along with the company to develop products and innovations. To work this must be a collaboration between Marketing and the customer. However, as always it must remain “on brand” and conversational – so Communication must also be at play.

Customer Support Forums

Software companies have for quite some time had self-service support forums, allowing customers help other customers. These types of forums allow customers help others trouble-shoot, personalize and understand the product or service. Examples could include simple Forums; or more developed community oriented sites with blogs, wikis or active consumer groups. This type of support can have an effect on how the brand is perceived, and despite the fact these are not employees of the company, on overall satisfaction with the product or service.

Customer Support via Twitter

Many companies are using Twitter to promote products or services, or drive traffic to their website. More effective however, have been the companies such as JetBlue, Starbucks,  and others who have also offered Customer Support through their Twitter accounts.

Corporate Blogs

There are certainly corporate blogs that are using the blogging platform as a tool to promote only, either to solely offer information on products or to drive traffic to their corporate site by optimizing for search using the blog. However, these are generally not successful in engaging their customers.  Other blogs that offer more insight, helpful content, and increased depth of information such as Graco’s Corporate Blog or Fiskars Fisk-A-Teers Blog have helped to build loyalty amongst their target demographic while of course increasing brand awareness. But, once again is this genuwine communication – Marketing? or Communication?

There are an amazing number of examples of Consumer Generated Content (wikis, videos, blogs, even advertising), File Sharing (photos, videos), Fan Pages, Social Networks, desktop widgets, online widgets,  – Peter Kim has an amazing list of social media examples.

Clearly, it seems to me if we treat these social media examples as “marketing”  or a simple tactical tool to sell products or services we are missing out a vast amount of information, we are missing out on a authentic conversation with our stakeholders and customers.  On the other hand, if it lies in Communication – then Marketing can miss out on an incredible space for innovation and collaboration.

This brings us to my 3rd point on why I dislike the term Social Media Marketing

It cannot be a silo. social media needs to fit in the grand scheme of the brand strategy. It needs to be consistent with other communication channels and it needs to work with the 7 Ps of Marketing. Because of this -  hierarchies may need to change.  Perhaps an executive level that joins the discipline of Marketing and Communication, and Customer Service allowing an integrated approach to communicating and marketing to all stakeholders, to all customer touch points.

The problem that Beth Harte recognized is that if we place social media in this type of integrated approach is that “the mashup will allow for people [aka agencies] to offer services like Social Media Marketing or PR Communications or Marketing Relations or… (really, you don’t want me to go on right?) without having a firm grasp on any of the disciplines that they are trying to deliver or implement.”

This kind of approach means that any advertising agency, PR agency, boutique can claim the title of “social media” expert since they work in the realm of communication or marketing, or advertising. The onus is then on us (the “us” that work on client-side) to flesh out the agencies that “know” and those that “think they know” or “don’t know” social media. As Beth says ” the walls need to come down and the need for two-way communications is forcing a sledge hammer through the walls. But at what cost?”.

This comes down to my reason for blogging in the first place. As someone working on the client-side I believe I need to understand what the agencies I work with are trying to sell me. I understand my business best, but if I just take what the agency is telling me without actually comprehending it, and being involved myself then I am not doing my brand justice. So I am involved in social media – social networks, blogging, listening and contributing. We need to be accountable to our brands and unfortunately this will mean sorting out the agencies selling “snake-oil” and those that are true communication “experts”.

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