At Kennedy Communications Global our passion is Internal-External Marketing Alignment. We believe in the magic that happens when a company is fully aligned behind its promise to customers. That’s what this blog is all about.
Taking on the world of social media can feel an awful lot like going to the gym when you’re really out of shape. You groan and moan, and it’s rather painful for the first few weeks. Even the simplest tasks (like writing a single blog post) feel like they take forever, and you’re just not seeing the results you want. But - if you stick with it, it becomes easier, your muscles get toned, you feel better, and it becomes part of your routine.
Here’s a few ideas and resources to help you hit the social media gym, and start building your muscle today:
If your company is starting a blog, and you’re wondering how to find a hook that will keep readers coming back, here’s some corporate blogs that are succeeding.
Need copywriting tips and ideas? Copyblogger is a favorite blog I follow for practical writing tips, tricks, and inspiration. A recent post called “how to kick ass as a freelance writer” has lots of great ideas on how to keep your readers coming back. Even though it’s written as tips for a freelance writer, there’s lots you can apply to writing your blog.
No matter what you do — stick with it. Success in social media will happen as you build your muscle, make new connections, explore and experiment, and increase your confidence. Most of all - have fun with it!
“They’re throwing guitars out there!” exclaimed the astonished airline passenger as she watched United Airlines baggage handlers on the tarmac clumsily hucking guitar cases off the plane and onto the carts.
Musician Dave Carroll heard these words from his seatmate and braced himself for the worst. While on tour with his band last year, Dave’s $3500 guitar was severely damaged by United Airlines baggage handlers in a story that makes the perfect case for the importance of internal-external marketing alignment. Dave went through an arduous process of trying to be compensated for the damage. He talked to person after person at United - finally to be told they would offer nothing more than some travel vouchers for his loss. You can read the complete customer service saga on Dave’s blog.
To make a point and tell the world that he was wronged by United, Dave proclaimed that he would write and produce three music videos illustrating his misadventures and post them on YouTube for voting by the general public. The first video (see below) has recently been published and has become an overnight sensation on YouTube. It’s also being actively discussed in the blogosphere, on Twitter, and Dave’s story has been told through multiple media channels including the CBS Early Show, Rolling Stone, and more. His song is now available for download on iTunes.
Dave’s experience is a classic demonstration of how a company like United has a lot to lose by disregarding the importance of internal-external marketing alignment. There are several issues at play that add up to Dave’s misaligned experience, which is ultimately doing damage to United’s brand:
Failure to live up to service promise.
A basic principle of internal-external marketing alignment is the expectation that you will deliver a service experience that aligns with your brand promise. United’s website offers a very detailed statement of the company’s customer commitment. Among other things, it asserts that United’s customers “have the right to expect - to demand - respect, courtesy, fairness and honesty from the airline they have selected for travel.” According to Dave’s story, he was continually given the runaround by multiple United personnel in several cities as he tried to receive compensation for his demolished $3500 guitar. It sounds like this was not just one poorly trained or disgruntled employee, but a general failure by multiple United personnel to take accountability for a mistake and try to live up to the customer service commitment by handling the issue with “courtesy, fairness, and honesty.” In an aligned company, employees would be given the tools, resources, and training they need to handle customer complaints in a way that lives up to the brand promise.
Cultural issues - “it’s not my problem.”
Dave claims he was repeatedly told by multiple United personnel that the issue “is not my problem” or that the paperwork he submitted was not received. This general lack of accountability can perpetuate an internal culture where employees feel powerless or unmotivated to handle customer concerns. Every time a customer encounters the fallout from this kind of culture, the brand will continue to erode.
The transparency of the social media world.
In the old days, it was easy for companies to sweep complaining customers under the rug. In today’s world of the social web, one irritated customer can quickly communicate to millions through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, the blogosphere and more. For this reason, companies need to not only be prepared to engage with their customers in the social space before there’s an issue, but they need to react quickly when trouble arises to avoid a wildfire.
A customer’s heart was broken.
If you believe that a brand is not what the execs in the marketing department say, but it’s an emotional connection that lives in the hearts and minds of customers - then you will understand the magnitude of Dave’s final verse in his song where he says United broke his heart. When he asks himself in the song if he’d ever fly United again, he said he might if saving the world were on the line, and then he goes on to say:
“…And if I did, I wouldn’t bring my luggage
‘Cause you’d just go and break it,
Into a thousand pieces,
Just like you broke my heart.”
When you break that emotional connection with your customer, you may never get them back again.
Dave’s story of the broken guitar ends on an upnote, although it certainly seems a bit too little too late. The damage has already been done - not just to Dave as a customer, but to the United Airlines brand. Dave posted a subsequent response on YouTube where he says United is offering reimbursement for the guitar. Although he says reimbursement is not the point anymore, and he’s encouraging United to donate the money to charity. He says “United has demonstrated they know how to keep their airline in the forefront of their customer’s minds, and I wanted this project to expand upon that satirically.”
In fairness, I also have to point out that Dave is building his own brand as a musician through this tale. We’ll see what happens to his personal brand and to United when the second and third videos come out in the future.
Has a brand ever broken your heart? What did you do about it? Leave us a comment and tell us about your experiences.
Still trying to wrap your head around the world of social media and what it means to you and your brand? Or are you trying to make the case with your company for diving into the social space? Here’s three helpful items we’ve found in the past week that might offer you some additional food for thought.
Digital Buzz has compiled the top 10 social media presentations. You might find some interesting ideas that can apply to your own situation.
From Harvard Business Publishing, here’s an article on Debunking Social Media Myths. The main point author David Armano underscores is that there’s a common misperception that social media is “free,” and that technology just makes it happen for you. David points out three general areas of social media that require ongoing strategy and management in order to be successful: seeding, feeding, and weeding.
Are you curious about how other companies allow their employees to Tweet and blog without letting things spin out of control? Jeremiah Owyang has identified the five ways that companies are allowing employees to participate in the social web.
Recently we published a blog post telling the story about how a relatively innocent Tweet from the floor of a major tradeshow turned into threatening phone calls from the company who was the target of this Tweet. Had this company approached this situation differently, the brand could have taken ground in establishing a positive engagement with customers in the social media space. Here’s a post from Mashables with great tips for managing social media damage control. Bottom line is the more involved you can be in the world of social media, the quicker you can respond and the less likely you are to be constantly putting out fires.
The ever-expanding presence of the social web is changing how we communication folks are thinking about engaging and enrolling audiences. No matter how much time, effort, and money we put into crafting our campaigns and refining our messages, our audiences are having a bigger say in what our messages really are - or what they should be. For internal-external marketing alignment, this puts even more pressure on the service experience you’re delivering to your customers. You’d better deliver what you promise or the messages generated by your audiences about your brand could get really out of control.
Here’s a few things I’ve run across this week that expand upon this notion.
The New Social Value Scale
An emerging site called the GoodGuide is creating an online resource for consumers to find information related to the health, environmental, and social impact of popular products. This powerful information will allow consumers to make informed choices about the everyday products they use. If this site gains enough momentum, marketers may need to refine messages or even alter products to get a better score on the social value scale.
Every Web Page Will Become a Social Experience
The buzz from social web experts continues to imply that eventually every web page could be a social experience - whether it’s intended to be or not. Jeremiah Owyang recently compiled a list of developing technologies and trends that are shifting us toward this reality. His conclusion is that this shift will give customers the power to rely on friends, colleagues, and trusted social networks to make countless buying and brand-preference decisions. As we move closer to this reality, the work of communicators becomes one of engaging, enrolling, and conversing rather than forcing messages that will be ignored.
Leveraging Customer Passion to Maximize Your Message
Finally, from Harvard Business Publishing, an article on leveraging your best customers as natural (and cheap!) spokespeople. Your customers have numerous opportunities through popular sites like YouTube and Facebook to express their passions for products and services. Why not leverage this passion and use it to your best advantage? You could even hire some of these people to sell for you!
In what ways are you changing your message in response to what your audiences are saying about your brand? Tell us some of the new and unique ways you’re communicating with your audiences – and how you’re supporting those messages with service.
As my son wraps up his kindergarten year, this proud mama has reflected back on that classic book by Robert Fulghum “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” Those timeless rules like “don’t hit people,” “clean up your own mess,” and “put things back where you found them” can help all of us be better people, both at home and in the business world. To read the entire list of kindergarten values, click here.
And here’s a few more interesting things I’ve read this past week:
Are you still trying to decide if your business should join the Twitter revolution? Here’s another post with some rationale to chew on.
When times are tight, businesses that sell luxury products can face huge challenges in maintaining a meaningful brand. Here’s some insight on what to do when “luxury” becomes a four-letter word.
Trying to figure out what to do with all your new online relationships? Here’s some ideas from Business Week on learning and profiting from online relationships.
Many of our clients are excited about the emerging possibilities of social media, but often hit road blocks when talking about the social web with company executives.
Concerns often center around damage control from rogue “social” employees, an unclear return on investment (ROI), or a perceived decline in productivity from team members who are now tweeting, blogging, and friending on the web rather then getting their primary job done.
These are all legitimate concerns but need to be looked at from a broader context that includes quickly shifting consumer behavior, the future business communications landscape, and the tremendous positives that many companies are generating from participation on the social web.
It’s not suprising that many executives are skeptical of the social web. I assert that this scepticism comes, in large part, from a very limited understanding, as well as limited participation in the social space by most executives.
Paula Drum, former VP of Marketing at H&R Block put it this way in a recent blog post:
“One of the most popular questions that I get asked is how to build support at the C-level. Having a clearly defined objective is critically important to gain support of any initiative. However, everyone is always focused on the ROI or return on the investment. I have defined ROI a little differently in this new and emerging space as Risk Of Ignoring. There is an absolute change occurring in how we communicate and seek information as a society. The millennial generation is the first digital native generation with very different expectations of companies and marketing. In the not so distant future the millennials will be a larger purchasing demographic than the boomers. Not understanding this segment will be detrimental for future marketers.”
We’ve collected a few current resources that may assist you with building the case for social media with your “C” suite. Most executives honestly do have the current and long term interests of their organization at heart. I look at it as a simple education process to deepen their understanding of a world that appears very foreign. That is the spirit in which these resources are shared. We would also appreciate your comments on the challenges you face, and success you have in building a more complete understanding about the social web in your organization.
“They’re throwing guitars out there!” exclaimed the astonished airline passenger as she watched United Airlines baggage handlers on the tarmac clumsily hucking guitar cases off the plane and onto the carts.
Still trying to wrap your head around the world of social media and what it means to you and your brand? Or are you trying to make the case with your company for diving into the social space? Here’s three helpful items we’ve found in the past week that might offer you some additional food for thought.
Many of our clients are excited about the emerging possibilities of social media, but often hit road blocks when talking about the social web with company executives.