Blu Maya Digital Marketing Agency

Sharing, sharing, sharing. You’re going to be hearing this a lot from here on out so get used to it, better yet get used to doing it!

Popular online retailer Zappos is officially ‘sharing’ with the world it’s most important brand asset, the secrets to it’s culture. They’re not creating ebooks and podcasts about it, they’re moving into management consulting in the form of seminars and a website with employee videos where they’ll share their unconventional practices with conventional souls.

This is groundbreaking stuff. Can you imagine Apple sharing/selling the secrets to it’s culture? Probably not going to happen anytime soon.

Zappos knows their culture is unique and they’re going to use it to extend the reach of their influence because their goal is to offer not just shoes but everything else you can imagine armed with the powerful culture behind it as it’s competitive advantage.

What’s unique to you?

When you look at Zappos on the surface they’re not that different from other online retailers, they sell the same shoes and accessories and at pretty much the same prices. What’s different is much deeper, it’s distinct personality that emanates from the actions all employees make on a daily basis that makes them unique.

This is very powerful and you should take not: A companies best form of advertising is it’s personality.

What actions do you take to express your distinct personality?

We are moving into a very transparent world where what you say and do is dissected to it’s smallest detail to look for inconsistencies, every action you take forms the basis of your brands personality. Actions speak louder than words. You already know this but do you really take it to heart?

How and what are you sharing? What would you like others to share from you?

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In the software world releasing applications that have bugs and then getting feedback is common yet in other industries this is not the same. Just last week I had a problem with Evernote which I use for pretty much everything, I was updated to a pre-release version (3.5 +) and it had bugs on it and could no longer use it. Sure enough I went to Twitter and posted my problem @evernote (publicly not DM) and within minutes they answered. After a few tweets back and forth they identified the problem and suggested I post it on their support forum where they could dig deeper.

I ended up downgrading to a more stable version to use Evernote so I’m still a happy camper.

The problem (me using Evernote) was solved with them presenting me alternatives but more importantly they said “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, we’ll fix this”. Perfect!

PROBLEM

Even if you don’t make software you can still have this type of interaction with your users and solve their problems instead of just ignoring them an leaving them out in the middle of the storm which is where all negative word of mouth is born and you don’t want that. Oh you didn’t help me? Well the I’m going to tell all my friends about how you ignored me. You don’t want a pissed off fan!

SOLUTION

Yes. Saying I’m sorry is very hard for companies to do and even more is trying to fix it and THAT is your biggest obstacle to social media use. You can’t handle the fact that you might make mistakes (and you will!) and that your brands reputation might be damaged in the short term because you didn’t establish some ground rules before ‘jumping’ into the water.

The truth is the ground rules are very simple, they are the same as in the offline world, you solve people’s problems but the only difference is that people have more options and you have to be where they are. All your customers want is to have their problems solved but you’re worried about fixing problems when making your customers happy is exactly what you should be doing and sometimes this means being wrong.

An organization’s biggest obstacle to social media use is reputation management hoping that a PR disaster doesn’t happen yet if you look at this from another angle and see that you’ve been doing this and will keep doing this to stay in business then you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Say I’m sorry and help me fix my problems.

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This is what I’m talking about, a Lexus dealer finds a way to improve the customer experience by bringing the community into the dealership. With a vision of turning the center into a hub of North County life, owner Judith Jones-Cone created a three level center with a cafe and a conference center with plans to open a full service restaurant within the year.

"We wanted to make a real warm environment for our guests, so all of this was done for them," owner Judith Jones-Cone said.

I think this very cool because it builds a community right into the dealership and word of mouth is sure to follow, who knows what financial benefit this might bring but it right it really stands out from other dealers for sure.

ASK YOURSELF: how you can improve your customers experience by adding or subtracting things they care about. How can you make their experience more enjoyable?

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If you don’t believe that marketing is all about LOVE, INC magazine has a great read on how popular retailer Zappos has embraced the notion of LOVE to create one of the most unique corporate cultures. As Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has found out, true competitive advantage comes from making your employees happy which will then make your customers happy:

But Hsieh has a hard time getting excited about any of this. What he really cares about is making Zappos’s employees and customers feel really, really good. This is not because Hsieh is a nice guy (though he is a very nice guy), but because he has decided that his entire business revolves around one thing: happiness. Everything at Zappos serves that single end. Other business innovators work with software code or circuit boards or molecular formulas. Hsieh prefers to work with something altogether more complex and volatile: human beings themselves.

What are YOU doing to make your customers and employees happy? What activities would make your employees and customers happy?

Come on then, go and make people happy!

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The Miami Herald reported on a new study about Twitter psychology:

"The communication and information professors, Mor Naaman and Jeffrey Boase, found that there tend to be two types of Twitter folks. The majority, or 80 percent, were what they called ‘meformers’ — Twitter users who sent out messages that revolved around themselves, updating others about their activities or sharing thoughts and feelings.

The other 20 percent are ‘informers’ — people who were actually sharing information. Not surprisingly, the informers tended to have larger social networks and be more interactive."

So which is better?

I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer here. Social networks such as Twitter and Facebook are very much still in their infancy and as a brand or individual what it all comes down to is: are you’re someone people want to be friends with?

Be a friend not a broadcasting channel

What you should really be focusing on is being a real friend. Conventional marketing wisdom will tell you to always be selling but in this day in age we have it so easy to make more personal connections with consumers that consumers themselves are ‘demanding’ more interaction from brands.

Whether you are and ‘informer’ or ‘meformer’ and consumers are looking to interact with you, ask yourself: what actions can I take to create lasting relationships with my followers?

A good friend is a mix of a useful ‘informer’ with a fun and relevant ‘meformer’.

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