Top 10 Tools of the Social Media Swiss Army Knife

If you've shown up here, why don't you mosey on over to my new blog? Yeah, I just soft launched The BrandForward Blog. It's at http://michelletripp.com. You can find all the same posts you can find here. But it's a bit more pretty.

Yeah, go on! Scoot! Nothing to see here!

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You may not like today's post.

I'm not laying into ghost tweeters. I'm not telling Domino's where it's at. I'm not even going to say a single word about big media. Really.

Today I'm turning over a new leaf. I'm going to whip up an informative post. (gasp!) Something you can actually use. Today I'm going to talk about social media. And what the heck you're supposed to do with it.

So let's get to the thing. A lot of people out there are trying to figure out what to make of social media. How to use it. How to master it. How to turn it into something that doesn't scare small children. Companies are trepidatiously calling their agencies. Talking to their buddies on the golf course. Acting all cloak and dagger in the break room as if they're talking about tampons or hemorrhoids. Asking the same question. All in hushed tones.

"What exactly is this whole social media thing anyway?"

"What is Twitter?"

"How do you get your kids to friend you on Facebook?"

Well you could ask a social media expert. Or you could just pull out that Swiss Army knife you've got stuffed in your shirt/pocket/purse/glove box.

Because social media is essentially a Swiss Army knife. And a Roman legion of social media experts can't tell you more about social media than a simple Swiss Army knife can.

Social media is a tool.

A tool to get something done. Just like you'd pull out the multi-appendaged knife's shiny corkscrew to pop open a bottle of wine three minutes after the boss leaves on a Friday. Or flip out the nail file to dig leaky printer ink from your fingernails before meeting with the CEO. Or open up that handy 2" mini-blade to fend off a savage bear attack.

This is social media. Nothing fancy about it. You can sprinkle fairy dust all over Facebook and MySpace. You can pretend Second Life is going to go mainstream. You can daydream about the 19,530 Twitter followers Gary McCaffrey promises to get you in 30 days. Right. And all the wealth and riches that supposedly goes along with that.

But at the end of the day, social media isn't magic. It's just a tool, a multi-functional, albeit bright red and shiny tool. Waiting for a purpose. And without clear objectives and ultra-sharp strategy, using social media is like trying to cut a rope with those cute little Swiss Army tweezers. Not the right tool. Might make a dent but ultimately it's not going to work. And certainly isn't going to be efficient.

Yeah, I could have walked away right now and left this a neat, tidy little sub-1500 word post that might not eat up a whole lunch break. But why have a Swiss Army knife if you can't take it out and play with it. It has so many nifty little pieces.

So here's my collection of social media Swiss Army tools. Each for a specific use, each with its own capability. Just like the Swiss Army knife, social media packs a whallop. But it’s only effective when each tool is understood and used for its proper purpose and executed within the confines of a comprehensive marketing strategy.

1. Social Media as an Account Planning Research Tool
When used as an account planning tool, social media helps a company connect to the pulse of the consumer market and gain insight into how to speak with consumers and how to influence them more relevantly. Social media account planning complements traditional primary research methods and gets closer to raw opinions and of-the-moment brand conversation.

2. Social Media as an SEO Research Tool
Social media can also complement SEO research. Granted, there are a lot of great SEO tools out there that can tell you which search terms are trending for your specific market, as well as what's being overused or underused, and a whole slew of other fun toys. But adding social media research to the mix allows you to do some of the digging yourself so you can see first-hand the keywords in the context of real-time conversation, get a feel for trends by reading blogs, and experimenting with the results of long tail search terms. It's kind of like the difference between getting a creative brief in your IN BOX vs. hearing all the nuances from listening to the client speak about the project. I always prefer the latter. A lot of SEO practitioners will probably say that analyzing link juice, page rank, search terms, and evaluating reach and exposure is naturally social media. I'm just saying it can be used in a truly social way, where a warm body is doing the research as opposed to a search engine algorithm.

3. Social Media as a Public Relations Tool
Social media is a way for traditional public relations counselors to execute their strategies in a more proactive way, building even stronger relationships with bloggers, news brands, and online journalists. It also opens the window on getting brand exposure in more venues than they've ever had access to. Purposing social media for PR uses strategies similar to traditional PR, but using this new set of tools allows for more proactive innovation in the execution. A social media twist can be spun on press releases, corporate communiqué, reputation management, or awareness programs. And on and on.

4. Social Media as a Point-of-Sale Tool
As a virtual point-of-purchase tool, social media can serve as the catalyst for a buying decision. This can be anything from having a sales agent manning the Twitter feed to being proactive about forum interaction on your website. Or creating a virtual sales agent on your website ready to interact in real-time. Or a strategically-placed banner ad. The key is having a proactive presence at the virtual points where customers are likely to be making final purchasing decisions.

5. Social Media as a Customer Service Tool
Social media can be used to field customer complaints and questions, or to direct customers to the appropriate point of contact for specific needs and requests. Or to educate. Or just to have a (gasp!) real conversation. Using social media as a customer service and customer relationship management tool (thanks @AlexnNYC!) lets brands get closer to the customer when the customer needs them most, which in turn influences brand trust and provides brand assurance.

6. Social Media as Direct Sales Tool
Yeah, it's pretty obvious. There are those wonderfully high-minded folks who've discovered that social media can be used as the least appreciated form of marketing: door-to-door sales. Load up an auto DM with a "free e-book" link or the URL to your product website and you're treading a really thin line. When you don't have the time, budget, or marketing know-how to launch something subtle, strategic, and targeted, or you're pretty sure the only way to make a sale is to overwhelm the consumer with big promises and TMI, there's always social media as a direct sales tool. You've seen it around. You know who's doing it. You're probably ignoring it.

7. Social Media as a Direct Marketing Tool
This is a tool that allows marketers to quickly identify and qualify leads and blanket large numbers of potential customers with highly-targeted or loosely targeted direct messaging. Consider it a kinder, gentler form of spamming. Which means when it's used in social media it probably has a tiny bit more relevance than those Viagra and Mexican pharmacy emails that just won't go away. But not much.

8. Social Media as an Advertising Tool
In place of television, radio, outdoor, and print are YouTube, podcasting, banner ads, and blogs. Social media as an advertising tool is so massive I can't even begin to lay out the land without upgrading my hosting package. (okay I'm still on blogspot, just go with me here). The key is that social media as an advertising tool seeks to achieve similar objectives as traditional media, but the tactics and path to sale are different. Requiring a whole new set of strategies. And a very different looking media department.

9. Social Media as a Brand Positioning Engagement Tool
I love brand positioning. There's just something about getting to the core of a product, service, and company that makes my day. Truly brilliant advertising/marketing is founded on solid brand positioning. Getting to the core of what matters to the client and what's true about the company and product. Social media is a phenomenal tool in this respect. It's two-pronged. First, it allows a brand team to delve into the blogosphere, twittersphere, socialsphere, and googlesphere to uncover hidden consumer realities and motivations that ultimately drive brand positioning. On the other side, it gives a brand the chance to be authentic in its connections. When consumers interact with a brand in social media they walk away with a more saturated, lasting brand aftertaste. Social media as a brand positioning tool makes a connection that can ultimately be even more powerful than the connection made through traditional media. And man. Is that hard for me to say. Because one of my greatest passions is harnessing the power of a core value to make a tangible brand connection using something as flimsy as TV/radio/print. But social media ramps that ability right up to 11.

10. Social Media as a Community Tool
I started to lump this with Brand Positioning. But I needed a 10th. And because growing a social media community hinges on crafting a brand experience from the “promise” perspective. And that's branding, baby. But because of this new and interesting animal we call "co-ownership" it creates a need to manage the brand community. Let's just say community picks up where brand positioning strategy ends. Oh and you can expect your customers to now have the title of Brand Manager. You no longer own the brand nor do you control it with an iron fist. This gives you the chance to build customer loyalty in a fresh, new way. Or fail in a fresh, new way. So you better do a good job. With customers. Not just at the awards show and on the blogging circuit. Because people will talk. And that's why today, protecting your social media community is just as essential as protecting your trademark. Only not as easy.

The Difference Between Marketing and Social Media
Okay, just because you can head out into the hinterlands with nothing but a Clif Bar and a Swiss Army knife and still come out alive, a brand cannot survive with a social media Swiss Army knife alone.

Pack the whole bag.

Integrate. Realize that "marketing" is that 5000 cubic inch Kelty backcountry pack you've had strapped on for many an adventure. It holds a lot of gear. You need that gear. A social media Swiss Army knife is just a part of it.

Are there more social media Swiss Army tools? You betcha. We haven't even gotten into the Strategic Alliance tool, Referral Marketing tool, and I'm sure there's someone out there working on a Timeshare Marketing tool. Lord help us. But the point is social media is a tool that has a lot of different purposes. And none of them should be used just because they look pretty. Yeah, a Swiss Army knife is a beauty to behold. It's even got a place in MOMA. But unless you're MacGyver you really shouldn't expect it to launch rocket ships.

Okay, so as much as I'd like to go on and on and map out which social media networks work best with which tools, and go into the mix and match uses of blogging, video blogging, podcasting, webinars, Yelp, and Yahoo Answers, this isn't a white paper and that little man with the stick is jumping up and down. Apparently I've exceeded the time limit. They want me backstage. Now.

Your turn. What are the social media Swiss Army tools you're using? How are you using them? And why. Let's pack this bag.




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The term "Swiss Army" is a registered trademark owned by Wenger S.A. and Victorinox A.G.

Domino's Didn't Deliver: Social Media Fail Whale

If you've shown up here, why don't you mosey on over to my new blog? Yeah, I just soft launched The BrandForward Blog. It's at http://michelletripp.com. You can find all the same posts you can find here. But it's a bit more pretty.

Yeah, go on! Scoot! Nothing to see here!

I was just going to let the whole thing go.

But after a week of reading countless industry blogs praising Domino's and its response to the now infamous viral video of two employees desecrating a sandwich, I just couldn't. Not when Domino's is being applauded for what's essentially nothing short of splashing around the big fail whale tail.

Domino's may know the recipe for the pizza that put 20 pounds on me in college, but it missed a couple of key ingredients on its PR strategy:

1) Speed of Response

Domino's failed on two counts with speed. While I respect that Domino's VP of Communications Tim McIntyre took action once he got news of the video, it wasn't the company that identified and isolated the video and it should have been. Because of a lack of social media tentacles, precious time was lost. And a lot of people saw the video. 

Barf bags abounded.

Speed of response? It was readers of the Consumerist, the now famous Amy Wilson and "whyerhead" who saw the video on YouTube and took the initiative to figure out where the offensive video originated and called the store directly. For Domino's as a company I'm envisioning more of a "deer-in-the-headlights" look as opposed to Speed Racer rushing in to take down the baddies. Let's face it. Domino's was not in position to act quickly. They just got lucky that a savvy internet user had some time on their hands and spared the company an additional million or so viewers on YouTube.

Which brings us to the second way Domino's failed on speed. The internet moves fast. Real fast. The company was basically trying to win a drag race in a 72' Pinto. With a late start. Even though the company is now priding itself and being lauded by some pretty big names for its quick actions, the internet was moving faster. Way faster. The race was lost.

But had Domino's already built up a Twitter community of say even a modest 10,000, the Domino's tweeter would have either been alerted by a follower in the minutes after the offending video was uploaded or they would have (hopefully) been using a search client like TweetDeck or Twhirl and would have known the second the words "Domino" "Domino's" or "pizza" hit the Twittersphere. If they were plugged into blogs and connected to social media trail blazers, that video wouldn't have had a fighting chance.

Lesson for Domino's: Forget those snappy UPS commercials about moving at the speed of business. Today it's about "moving at the speed of opinion." And you can't be detecting opinion and crafting opinion when you're fumbling around in the pit while everyone else is on the race course.

2) Proactivity

For starters, Domino's appeared to have no plan on how to handle a social media crisis, or even know what a social media plan would look like for that matter. They wrangled up management behind closed doors and reportedly didn't include their creative agency or other consultants in the decision-making process. I can only think of one word to sum up what that smells like: panic. Okay and fear.

Definitely not proactivity.

A company that has a social media plan in place would have their agency in the room counseling on the appropriate tactics and reviewing the plan. Unfortunately, Domino's was most likely formulating objectives, strategies, and tactics all in one hasty, heparin-popping meeting. Which no doubt culminated in someone running out of the conference room, knocking co-workers into walls, and stumbling over coffee-bearing interns as they raced to their office to create a Twitter account.

This is what happens when you're not proactive. Things get messy. Coffee gets spilled. People in suits have to run.

3) Creativity

The Domino's video response was the biggest fail whale of the whole thing. Because it left so much on the table. There was nothing creative about it. It was public relations 80's style. No brand personality. No finesse. No charm. Just business. 

It might have worked brilliantly in 1983 but today it felt awkward. It was as if Gordon Gecko walked onto an Edward Jones commercial and proclaimed "Greed is Good!" with a cheshire smirk, expecting a round of here here's. (Sadly, that might have actually worked ten years ago). With today's Wall Street crisis, it would have been grossly out of place. 

This is along the same lines of how the Domino's video response was irrelevant to today's audience. Okay, maybe not so dramatic. But without taking into account today's audience and the internet climate, Domino's message was out of touch. They used the right tools but with the wrong voice. While watching the video of Domino's president Patrick Doyle I wanted to look over my shoulder to see who he was talking to. My dad maybe? 

Creatively, the video could have been so much more. And I don't mean high production value: 

This instant in time for Domino's was the hero moment. It was begging for a brand home run. Domino's didn't ask to have its image thrust into the media so publicly and negatively, but it was given an unlikely opportunity to shine, to build the brand even stronger, and to come out looking like the hero of Pizza brands. What they could have done was fight fire with fire and create a video of their own that incorporated the brand at its best. It could have been a self-deprecating, aw-shucks moment of brilliance that made the public feel good and LOVE Domino's.

Instead they love Susan Boyle. 

The world was waiting for a wronged underdog to champion. And Domino's failed to seize that moment.

Domino's took the stuffy corporate route. Patrick Doyle didn't come across as a personable follow-me kind of guy, but more like a stunned corporate stiff that just had the side of his Lamborghini keyed. 

Basically, the video just felt wrong. It didn't fix anything. And it didn't seize that special moment that could have been leveraged to build the brand. It felt like an Olympic relay team dropping the baton and losing the gold on the last 100 yards of the race. It's terrible that this happened and Patrick Doyle has every right to be upset. But go be upset behind closed doors with a bottle of Glenmorangie. This was the chance for the brand to shine. It was a time to creatively embrace the role of underdog hero. And own it.

A lot of industry bigwigs are probably in the process of inking book deals on the crisis. And B-school textbook scholars are no doubt adding case study pages next to the Tylenol fast-reaction bottle tampering chapter. All of them gushing about how great Domino's PR crisis management was.

But for me and other social media strategists who have a new set of priorities and see the social media landscape as far more than another broadcast medium, and certainly more than an afterthought, we'll be penciling in Domino's as new media's first big brand fail whale.

With any luck, at least a handful of scholars are quickly moving their Domino's chapter a little closer to the one with the Exxon Valdez. Reevaluating the rules of PR. Learning to move at the speed of opinion.

And thinking twice before ordering a pizza.

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Big Media Slept on Titanic While Steerage Rowed to Shore

If you've shown up here, why don't you mosey on over to my new blog? Yeah, I just soft launched The BrandForward Blog. It's at http://michelletripp.com. You can find all the same posts you can find here. But it's a bit more pretty.

Yeah, go on! Scoot! Nothing to see here!

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Oh I can just hear it.

"Why Rothchild, look at those pathetic little boats in the distance. Why ever are they paddling away? Don't they know this is the Titanic? The greatest most indestructible ship the world has ever built?"

"Wretched parasites I say! Let them play on their little Twitters and YouTubes. Let them float along on their blogs. We're on the Titanic, daaahling. Their miniscule machinations are of no concern to us."

Ah, don't you just love big media.

Apparently Google does. A lot more than it loves providing untainted search results. Because Google has decided to dance with the devil. To officially usher big media through the velvet rope. Right past those pesky blogging parasites.

And to justify this sacrilege they're calling it "trusted results."

Gee thanks, Google. Trust "this."

What puzzles me is this move by Google barely got a whimper of response from the blogosphere. Where were the chanting protestors? Where were the snarky T-shirts? I was ready to burn my hard drive. Just couldn't find a ready bonfire.

This is a big freakin' deal. Big media basically slept on the Titanic while steerage rowed to shore. Web 1.0 and 2.0 happened while big media put the blinders on and continued with business as usual. They didn't pay much attention to the pesky bloggers, sneered haughtily at MySpace and Facebook, and for a brief minute discounted Twitter. But then something dawned on them. If everyone in the steerage section can have their own boats, who needs the Titanic?

Engines full stop!!!

So committees were formed and meetings were had. Big media was having none of this. They after all, had gotten the steerage to the other side of the ocean in the first place. What right do these parasites have to abandon ship now?

Enter Google. Who now wants to placate big media by throwing out one of those 100 mile-wide trawling nets to drag everyone back into the boat for a big happy kum ba yah.

Forget that it's sinking. Forget that it's a lumbering oaf that can no longer glide agilely through the water. Did I say it's sinking?

Google can prop up "trusted brands" for only so long before the Twitterers and YouTubers break free of the net and eventually find their way to shore. Google can pacify big media with digital harpoons to stop internet users from easily accessing those parasitic bloggers but eventually, steerage will make it to shore. And unfortunately for Google it won't be what it apparently considers the "right" shore. Oops!

Tropic of Twitter, anyone?

Now maybe the reason this whole "trusted brands" thing has gone down without so much as a squeak is because it's an insidious kind of misstep. The kind that doesn't look so bad at first but eventually oozes over and turns an unnatural shade of green and results in the untimely amputation of a limb. And Google will surely traipse along for awhile as if nothing happened. Merrily building its internal structure like the skeleton of the Death Star. But eventually the damage will surface. That magical thing that made Google as ubiquitous as toilet paper will disappear. Sucked down the big porcelain vortex.

Yes, I did just compare Google to toilet paper.

Okay forget the toilet paper. This is the paragraph to cut and paste. This is why Google's bow to big media is so huge. If internet users wanted a "trusted brand" they would skip Google and go straight to the brand site to begin with. Those "trusted" sites have been there all along. So if big media and "trusted" brands were what users wanted, Google wouldn't have gotten such a foothold in the first place. Big media would already be getting primo page rank. Nothing to have meetings about. Nothing to twist Google's arm over. And duh! Big media had the same opportunities as everyone else for building links and engaging in social media and gaining basic trust to achieve page rank. They just didn't feel the need to associate with steerage. Until they started rowing.... AWAY.

Ding!

So what we have here is this shiny new algorithm to artificially alter page rank. To expose users to what they were running from in the first place. They didn't want the corporate party line. They wanted the raw stuff. The untrusted stuff. The whole reason Google gained such huge market share is because people want content that's REAL. Not manufactured. Not politicized. Not meted out in pre-packaged seal-of-approval bite-size morsels. Users wanted access. And to be accessed. On their own terms.

Google saw the lighthouse through the fog and created a product that leveraged the human desire to KNOW. The desire to communicate, connect, listen, and be heard. Without interference. WITHOUT INTERFERENCE. This is what Google gave us. A central place to find what matters. And to create what matters. Wrapped up in a neat little equal opportunity package. All of the AdSense and Analytics, the AdWords and Gmail, the Reader, the iGoogle. That's just icing. The cake has always been the search.

And what made Google blaze past Yahoo! and whatever those other search engines were that we've now since forgotten ever existed, (oh yeah my favorite, MS SiN) is that it provided a level playing field and gave internet users "innocent" results. Sure, there were algorithms to handle spam, and a recent middle-of-the-night tweak to boost "recent" results to compete with Twitter. But ultimately users could trust Google results. If a story or a blog or a site or a page ranked high it was because someone trusted it. A lot of someones. Or better yet, it was something original. There was really never a need to manufacture another level of trust. It was already established.

So guess where this leaves us? Right where we've been trying to get away from: Big media dominating the news and controlling the minds of the masses. Telling us who we want as President. Telling us which morals are acceptable and which are passe. Squeezing out the voice of anyone who could make a real difference. (Anyone remember how the networks put the pinch on Ron Paul?) Is this really the same media you want influencing (controlling) Google?

Oh hey! China would love this. And all those other countries that use the iron grip of censorship... banning and controlling what the populace is exposed to. Maybe China can have a meeting with Google so they can have their own version of "trusted results." I'm visualizing a "trusted results" algorithm for people who live in Israel. And one for Iran. And one for... New Jersey.

All of the sudden 'trusted results" have become "tainted results."

So while big media was missing the boat, Google was missing the point. The beauty of Google and search engine ranking has always been that anyone can rise based on a combination of quality of content and strategic linking. And then Google has to go and pull the plug on its own juice. Compromising what made itself relevant to begin with.

Dropping itself several places in my mental page rank.

Google, are you paying attention? I know your little crawlers will be stopping by in the next 3-5 days.

Funny, I get the feeling I may eventually be looking for a missing Gmail account.