Monday afternoon I made the trek up to Paine Field, caught my first glimpse of a Boeing 787 on the tarmac, and found myself in the middle of a half-day conference for corporate social media professionals.
You know, the people who get to play around on Twitter and Facebook for a living.
Just kidding. Of course, that is the popular misperception. But take my word for it, after spending the afternoon with them: These people work hard, they take this stuff seriously, and they analyze the crap out of things to figure out what works, what doesn’t and what to do next.
They’re pros, and this is business … with just a hint of religion.
“Social media is bigger and more important than other communications tools,” said Andy Sernovitz, known elsewhere as the “word-of-mouth marketing guy,” during his introductory pep talk at the Blogwell Seattle conference at the Future of Flight Museum. “Organizations change when they use social media. Social media is about transformative change across the enterprise, as companies learn to be human.”
These were a few of the more interesting nuggets from the afternoon:
Seattle-based outdoor retailing co-op REI recently launched dedicated Facebook pages and Twitter feeds for each of its 53 markets, trying a new boots-on-the-ground regional strategy for social media. Among other things, that meant training of local employees for interactions with customers online.
Some of the social media guidelines for REI workers: Emphasize the positive, be responsive, don’t sell, don’t be afraid of negative comments, build relationships, have fun and don’t be a jerk.
“It’s shocking how often you can come back to that last one,” said REI’s Jordan Williams.
Also see this recent Ad Age story on REI’s initiative.
Nestor Portillo, Microsoft’s director of community and online support, explained how the company uses Twitter, Facebook and other third-party social media tools to engage with the company’s customers, get feedback on products, and identify problems.
However, his preference is to bring users from those channels into Microsoft’s own online communities, such as the Microsoft Answers and TechNet support forums, because Microsoft can be in control of the end-to-end customer experience in those places.
One of the ways Microsoft has encouraged its expert users to become more engaged with its forums is through recognition, such as a new Community Contributor awards program.
“We saw that after the recognition, people who got that award started to become more active and engaged,” he said, showing the chart at right to demonstrate how the company tracked the trend.
Quaker Oats was another big company that gave a talk about its social media strategy, explaining how it capitalized rumors of the demise of of Cap’n Crunch to launch a social media campaign that boosted the profile of the aging cereal icon.
One the unique aspects of the initiative: The official @RealCapnCrunch account on Twitter speaks in the voice of the Cap’n.
For more on the Cap’n Crunch campaign, see reports from the session by Kathy Gill and Kent Lewis.
And for more on the other sessions held at the event, see the SocialMedia.org blog.
