How to Do it Right

A social media strategy is a big commitment. "People say it's not, but it is," advises Social Media Advocate John Carson, who runs www.johnjamescarson.com. Even though Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are all free social media tools, if you've got staff or teams working on this, it's a financial commitment because you're taking them away from other work.

And once you commit, you have to see it through; you can't just try it out, find it's not working and suddenly stop, because that looks worse than not starting at all. It's like going to a party, chatting with people, getting into a great conversation, and then suddenly walking out. "Social media is just talking to people," Carson reiterates. "Whether you talk to them face-to-face or send them an e-mail or a Tweet, be polite, use manners, show courtesy. If a customer walks into an electronics store and wants to know more about your products, you're not going to stand there shouting [at them to] buy this." There's nothing worse than tweeting "buy my products!" People switch off, he says, because it's like you're being shouted at with advertising.

It's not about a hard sell, but rather about engaging customers. "The way you make money with social media is over time," he explains. "The more you talk to people, the more you convert them to become your advocates, and they will remember you as a company that makes an effort."

But you can't do this overnight. Companies should look at a ROE, a return on engagement, rather than a return on investment. Social media is about engagement, he says, building goodwill toward your brand. Over time, if people love your brand, that will in turn lead to more sales for your company.

But don't make claims you can't back up, because once you do, it's out there forever, and it's hard to ever recover from a bad claim or a lie. Be honest, because the minute you're not, people will pick up on that and they're going to block you, they're going to re-tweet you or they're going to write you up in a blog as a bad company to do business with.

If you're the CEO of a company, it really should be you at the end of that Tweet or that Facebook group. If your team is Tweeting on your behalf, that should be specified. "Don't pretend to be someone if you're not that person," Carson warns. If a customer goes to a conference and runs into the CEO and asks him about a blog post and he doesn't know what they're talking about, that makes everyone feel stupid. If the blog post says it was written on the CEO's behalf by his assistant, people can respect that. "The worst thing you can do in social media is make a fool out of people," he says. Being forced to tweet or blog isn't a good idea either; it comes across as resentful, and people pick up on that.

Best Buy is one example of a retailer that's embracing social media to engage customers. Barry Judge, the company's Chief Marketing Officer, has said in the press that the retailer can't control the message anymore with traditional advertising, so it needs to be part of the conversation. Best Buy used to focus on offering the lowest price, but now, the Internet offers an almost limitless selection of products, and Walmart delivers rock-bottom prices. So Best Buy decided to focus on "Dream Support," or showing customers what they could do with products, and doing it in a way that would emphasize what's good and what's not so good. They even preview unfinished advertising and ask customers what they think.

Hundreds of Best Buy employees, including the company President Mike Pratt, are on Twitter (see our in-depth one-on-one with Pratt elsewhere in this issue); there are no official regulations around this and, in fact, everyone is encouraged to tweet. They can either add their own Twitter ID (and their tweets will be added to the stream of other Best Buy employees who tweet, so customers can find them), or they can tweet under the collective Twitter handle of @twelpforce, a "help force" of some 2,500 Best Buy salespeople and Geek Squad employees who answer customer questions (and the employee is credited at the bottom of the tweet, which is part of the company's goal of being transparent). Best Buy also uses social media internally, such as Blue Shirt Nation, an online community for Best Buy employees.

Newcomer to Canada WIND Mobile is another company following many of these best practices. Chris Robbins, the company's Chief Customer Officer writes his own blogs, since he believes social media is about being authentic. "I'd rather apologize for being late but have it come from me than from someone else," he muses.

WIND is one of the first brands to launch over social media, which it did last August. The premise behind the company is that social media isn't a standalone group: it's integrated across the business. From day one, all employees were given full access to instant messaging (IM), Facebook and other social networking tools. "Every employee in this company reads customer comments and some of them religiously so," Robbins explains. In other companies, he usually had to push to get executives and IT staff to respond, but in this environment, both customers and employees are engaged. "That alone is a huge win," he says. "It's not just a few people in marketing."

If you set up all of these channels and receive customer feedback but don't actually engage in a conversation, it defeats the purpose. "It can't be one way," Robbins advises. "We're in an industry that takes a month to change. Customers like the fact we're acknowledging them."

Some customers, for example, were upset over the issue of data ports, and WIND was able to deal with the issue immediately over social media by explaining what their rationale was. "The sentiment changed from negative to positive within minutes," adds Robbins. "It changed almost instantly. We didn't say yes, but the fact we responded and got back to them [made the difference]."

As a result, WIND has been building up a community of fans or advocates. "When we get trolls, our community members are the first to jump on," he adds. "When people ask questions, it's usually our community members that answer them first."

Rogers Communications has tackled social media by creating a team dedicated to these initiatives. Part of the reason was to listen to the online conversation about Rogers and its competitors. "The Internet is the world's largest focus group," claims Keith McArthur, Senior Director of Social Media and Digital Communications with Rogers, who heads up the team of six. "There's a lot we can learn from what customers are saying about Rogers that can help us improve the customer experience, improve our processes, and even to learn competitive intelligence about other companies in this space."

Keith McArthur, Senior Director of Social Media and Digital Communications, Rogers: "The Internet is the world's largest focus group. We know people are going to be online saying negative things about our brand just like they're saying negative things about every other brand, so we can choose to be part of that conversation or we can choose not to be."

As a communications and technology company, it makes sense for Rogers to be active in the newest ways that people are communicating. "But we knew we had to do it right," says McArthur. "There are so many examples of brands that have made big mistakes, and when you make a big mistake in social media, the community will let you know, and it sticks around for a long time." As a result, Rogers has governance rules about how to engage in social media. Everything must be transparent, for example. One way some brands have gotten into trouble is by having someone go out and say good things about the company without making it clear that they actually work for that company. Anyone engaging on behalf of Rogers must be completely clear that they're a Rogers' employee.

"There are so many brands that aren't listening to what their customers are saying online," says McArthur. If you don't know about a potential crisis that's brewing online, then you'll pay the price. "The conversation about our brand is going to happen whether we're there or not. We know people are going to be online saying negative things about our brand just like they're saying negative things about every other brand, so we can choose to be part of that conversation or we can choose not to be." Being part of the conversation and being responsive means, most likely, there's going to be less negativity because people appreciate the fact you're participating.

There have been instances, for example, where customers have been talking online about moving their account from Rogers. The team will step in to resolve their concerns in hopes that the customer will stay with Rogers; and possibly even move all of his services to the company.

"We have anecdotal examples," McArthur notes, "but we're in the process of refining our analytics so we can understand the return on investment."

Rogers is also using social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to share news and product information, and to recruit employees.

"We're looking at different ways we engage in communities that are already existing or Rogers-branded communities we can build," says McArthur. "We have to start with the right strategy and the tools become secondary. We have to be aware of what all the new tools are, but one of the mistakes companies make when they're getting into social media is they think they have to start with the technology; they have to be on Facebook, they have to be on Twitter; where that may not be the right tool for their audience."

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