- All the news that’s fit to tweet.
Who has time to keep up with the 200,000 social network blogs and trends and tweets? We do!
This past month, the Smashing Socialites hit up three different panel discussions about social networking. Here’s a recap of what we learned.
WTF is Social Media?
Struck Creative, Straub Collaborative and 52 LTD hosted this panel discussion on May 27th in Portland, Oregon.
This panel featured a diverse group of experts: A social anthropologist, an NBA team marketing executive, an interactive agency developer and an ad agency creative director. They shared tricks, traps and future trends of social media. The moderation and set-up of this forum was not ideal, but we still gleaned a few key points:
- Remember that you are communicating a brand personality.
- Be transparent.
- Think of Twitter as “a living business card.”
- Imagine Social Media as a dinner party — say something interesting or shush up.
- Allow the good, the bad, but not the ugly (from Intel’s social media guidelines*).
* http://www.intel.com/sites/sitewide/en_US/social-media.htm
Harnessing the Power of Twitter
Waggener Edstrom sponsored this PRWeek webinar on June 17th.
The goal of the webinar was to offer tangible insights into how corporate communications & marketing departments can harness the power of Twitter to meet business objectives. Speakers were PR managers from Home Depot, Best Buy and Jet Blue.
- “Set your measurables” before you start.
- Don’t creep people out — If you are going to follow people, let them know why you are following them.
- Be where your customers are at the times your customers need you.
- Be authentic, genuine and humble.
- Leverage existing assets and expertise.
Overall, the best example we heard of a company using Twitter effectively was from Home Depot. They tweet early/late store hours and specific locations to people before hurricanes hit. Also, Alaska Air answers tweets in real time to customers who are running late for flights.
Smartly Leveraging Social Media for your Business: Practical Tips, Tweets & Tactics
Washington Technology Industry Association hosted this panel discussion on June 24th in south Seattle.
Social media is rapidly changing the way companies do business. Companies need to be aware of what’s being said about them and need to learn how to be an active participant in social media conversations. This panel included a marketing communications manager from Microsoft Office, an eCommerce and CRM director from Alaska Airlines, a VP of Sales and Marketing at a brand management firm and the founder of an SEO software company.
- You don’t own your brand, your customers own your brand. What can you give them to shape the conversation?
- Beware of “Shiny Object Syndrome.” Set goals before you invest in social media and share learnings.
- Be part of the conversations your customers are having. Don’t just push out your own conversation points.
- Show thought leadership to build awareness of your product or service
- Participate or get left behind.
To get a good overview of how the corporations are using Twitter for their customer service and public relations, we recommend following these tweeters:
http://twitter.com/zappos
http://twitter.com/alaskaair
http://twitter.com/PEMCO_NW
http://twitter.com/bestbuy
http://twitter.com/jetblue
And that, friends, is your Northwest Social Media Recap!
