Whole Foods Market is a 30 year old company with 270 US stores. However over the two years they have become avid users of twitter and it has paid divedends for them. They have now 1.5 M followers and roughly the same number of fans on Facebook.

They started with a single @wholefoods account but soon realised that the value of twitter for them was to have customized local information. So instead they encouraged each of their stores to create a twitter and facebook accounts. They now have almost 200 company twitter accounts and new ones are added regularly. Information is kept local and relevant to their customers. Whole Foods approach to social media with their employees has been to be hands off allowing each employee to develop their own authentic style. This grassroots approach has resulted in their explosive level of presence in scoial media.

They intially decided to use Twitter because they were interested in interacting with customers. However they never anticipated the effect it would have. Now their internet presence includes an active blog with videos on creating healthy meals, a Flickr page and a customer feedback site which uses Twitter. They have also created a valuable iphone app with 2000 searchable recipes and a store locator. Their goal is to meet their customers “on their home court”.

In August the CEO of Wholefoods caused a major stir by coming out against Obama’s Healthcare reforms. Consumers responded by mounting a backlash via twitter and facebook. A boycott was announced. Wholefoods response was to start a debate from the CEO’s own blog. In this way they were able to monitor the discussion and Wholefoods advocates were able to pitch in and defend the company. This is not to say that the negative PR did not damage the company however company were able to manage and ameliorate the consequences. Social media can certainly be a ride!

SociaLNK can help develop an active online presence for your company. Contact us.

In eight years Zappos grew their business from $1.6M to over $ 1 billion. They did this by making customer services their number 1 goal. Their motto is “Powered by Service” and they aim to provide the top online service there is. CEO Tony Hsieh attributes their substantial growth to word of mouth and repeat customers.

A quick look at their website reveals that they are certainly different to any online retailer I have used here in the UK. They have free shipping both ways and 365 days to return items. Their phone number available 24/7 is listed up front on every page and they even have a line in Spanish. This is a very different experience to many online retailers who tend to hide their phone number deep in their websites.

Despite this 95% of their orders are online. However they have found that nearly all their customers contact them at least once by phone. Customers experience fast, accurate fulfilment and state that they have “above and beyond” customer service.

Zappos also invest heavily in their staff. Staff have five weeks of training when they start at the company. Customer service is seen as everybody’s business. There are no call times for reps and no sales based performance. They believe that building a positive culture amongst employees is the best way to do business. That culture is slightly zany but that personality fits with their customers and the fashion business.

To promote the business benefits of their culture Zappos have run a series of insights workshops where business people can come and view the culture for themselves. I watched a few of the feedback videos from participants and it was clear that there were some very impressed business owners. What an excellent way to build word of mouth and buzz around a brand!

Zappos make full use of social media, twitter and blogs. But somehow it is the culture and the personality that make this work so incredibly well for them. This is an example where the word of mouth strategy is very well baked in to the brand.

Amazon have recently acquired Zappos so it will be interesting to see if there is any shift of culture or whether the customer service ethic can transfer across to Amazon. Amazon have just launched a new online shop in the uk called “Javari” which does have the free shipping and up front phone line. The website is still in beta so clearly this will be one to watch!

Social Media is certainly becoming a buzz word in many companies. But how can we measure return on investment (ROI)? It certainly isn’t simple. There are many ways being touted to track social media but there is no obvious “perfect” solution. It isn’t like a simple email campaign where you can measure the number of emails sent out, the number opened and the conversions that resulted. Most of what happens in social media is securely hidden from view by a login. The outcomes are often much more fuzzy things like developing “brand awareness” etc. The things that appropriate for your company will be specific to your current situation.

So what can we measure? To start measuring Social Media ROI you need to define your own set of metrics relevent to your particular context. What do you value as a measure? Could you measure the number of retweets a blog post get? Number of views of a video? Number of comments? Would it be relevant to define a metric based on comment length? By setting up a system you can start measuring your outcomes to establish what is working for you.

It is important to realise that simply having a large number of followers/friend/subscribers does not actually mean anything in terms of engagement. You need to look a whole lot deeper than this to understand what is really going on. The things you measure should aim to identify the people that are actually hearing what you say and are actively engaged in building community themselves.

So where are the conversations relevant to your brand happening on the internet? This is where you need to be. These niche areas often have fewer people but they are often highly focused and engagement levels are high. The best way to find such relevant conversation is to use social media monitoring software.

Your company can make a real difference to the level of engagement in their brand by the way they behave on social networks. If you simply use the network as a way to advertise then you are loosing a lot of the value of social media. Social means participating in social channel, by sharing opinion and giving people a reason to interact with you. A company that engages with personality and a level of giving will have a much higher level of engagement from others.

At a higher level you also need to set up a social media strategy with clear objectives. This helps not only justify your activity in the long term but also helps you work out what your logical next steps should be.. SociaLNK can help you develop metrics and strategies to help you understand your own Social Media ROI.

MASI bicycles is a very small road bike company in the US with a 75 year history. They were almost on their way out when they were bought by Haro in 2004. Haro took on a steward for the brand in the form of Tim Jackson. Tim had next to no marketing budget. So because it was a relatively cheap way to promote the company he started writing his blog MasiGuy 6 months after he started the job and has never stopped.

The response to the blog has been amazing. By the end of 2008 sales of MASI bikes had increased by 400%. The number of visitors to his blog were up to over 1000 per day. Through the blog he has managed to develop both B2B relationships with vendors he buys from and also the retailers he sells to. He has quite a few blog readers in Taiwan who are people that he buys from. Some retailers have told him how they have a computer available in the shop with the blog open on that page. In other words the blog is being used as a frequently updated brochure to sell direct to customers.

Tim has now expanded their social media presence. He uses Twitter, they have a facebook profile, LinkedIN and a number of online forums. As Tim puts it I am a social media omnivore – I go wherever the conversation is. He uses the different media for different purposes – Twitter and Facebook are great for direct 1 on 1 interaction. This role of brand advocate is a key part of his strategy … in a sense Tim has turned himself into the face of MASI bicycles and it has really worked.

Tim’s blog is a great example of how to use blogging well. He uses it to covers trends and niche interests i.e. he doesn’t just talk about MASI but things of interest to the whole community. He also solves problems for his customers. He shares MASI’s news and successes. But most importantly the approach is highly personal.

This is a great example how using a simple tool like blogging can really build growth in a company whatever the size. Contact us if you would like some support in doing this yourselves.

If you need an example of real return on investment for social media (ROI) then it is worth considering the Dell story.

Dell has been using Social Media since 2006. They started out with a simple corporate blog.. However their real success came when they started to useTwitter in June 2007. This June (two years later) overall revenue traced to twitter links had topped US$3M. Those are fairly staggering statistics.

The beauty of the technology is that it is easy to track people that link to the system via their Twitter Posts. So at last we have some real hard evidence of Social Media return on investement. Most of the revenue has been generated by making ad hoc sales via their @DellOutlet stream. However Lional Menchaca Dell’s chief blogger argues that they have also seen that Twitter posts are “driving interest in new product as well”.

In the past year Dell have really upped their Twitter presence increasing the number of streams (focused around targeted groups of customers). Some of the streams include Twitter exclusive offers which have created a buzz and helped them to grow their follower base (now at 1.2 M followers in the US). This year they have also started to create international Twitter streams like @DellOutletUK.

In a sense with their Twitter streams Dell have mastered the idea of Seth Godin’s permission marketing in real time. Twitter followers choose to have the information and they have an easy way to turn on and off the marketing stream as and when they see fit. The customer is in control tailoring the type of marketing information that they would like to be sent to them and when. In addition by creating exclusive offers on Twitter Dell have developed a story to go with their stream. People like a good deal and so news has travelled fast about the special offers which in turn has generated more followers.

No doubt Twitter keep a record of which Twitter streams drive the highest number of new converts. It would be interesting to see what the Statistics are like for Dell as compared to other corporates!

Here at SociaLNK we like to keep on top of the latest changes in Social Media Marketing. We would be happy to discuss a strategy for your company.

So what sort of content stimulates sharing amongst clients? I’m not sure if my facebook pals are a particularly visual group but I find that they will often share a nice infographic. Why is that? Because it is generally summarizing a story. There are a huge variety of different ways that graphics can be used to tell stories.

If that Infographic is interactive in some way then the story is even more compelling. I liked the simple example shown here. This shows a very basic animation of how job losses have come and gone across the United States since 2004.  The graphic is especially poignant as it ends with the huge red circles of today’s economic crisis.

Although the graphic has some pitfalls these are all well covered by the 80 or so comments that have been left by viewers. Included amongst these are numerous mentions that they have shared the page with their colleagues. It is also interesting to see that different people have taken away different messages from the infographic – one comments on the clear effects of hurricane Katrina, another talks about job losses in their local area. This infographic is not just a souce for one story but many different stories depending on the individuals context. This is content that their clients clearly value. Can you think of some data that would interest your clients that you could display as an infographic?

Other examples of valued content are wiki’s based around your subject area, Blogs, Slide shows, Podcasts and even databases of key information. Providing rich content means that clients will return to your website and recommend it to others. Ensuring that that content can be shared via quick buttons to the relevent social media is a good strategy to ensure that when they like something they bookmark it and share it!

SociaLNK can help your company build the right strategies to encourage content sharing in your particular context – contact us for more information.

The Blogosphere

Does your company have a blog? If not why not? Do a quick search of your competitors on technorati or Google. You will find that most if not all of them have a blog. Nowadays your company website is it’s shopfront to the external world. It is the most powerful tool you have to sell your company’s services. The content needs to be well designed and relevant. An easy way to ensure that appears up to date is to have a blog with regular contributions. Setting up a blog is simple and affordable – well within the reach of any organization.

One of the advantages of a blog is that it allows you to cover a wide variety of topics in a current manner. Readers select the parts that are of interest to them … in this way the content is automatically customized to the reader. Your static web pages open a dialog with your clients. However your company blog allows you to demonstrate much more about your company’s philosophy and how you go about your business. Customers love having the opportunity to provide feedback and the comment sections of a blog provide a very focused way to do this. Here at SociaLNK we have seen many examples of new contacts coming through directly as a response to a bog post. It is an excellent way to reach out to clients.

The content of the blog can be very varied. You should share good news about your company. Case studies are a powerful way to showcase what you have been up to. You can also report innovations in your sector and demonstrate your ability to think ahead of the curve.

Of course blogging is also very welcomed by the search engines. The more different terms you use in your blogs the more likely that your company will turn up in relevant searches. A good blog will quickly attract subscribers who track all the latest news from your company.

As Carlos Domngues – Senior VP at Cisco puts it “We see social media, such as blogs, as a great way to build your business and tap into the ideas and input of people using your products.” If you want your company to appear accessible and relevant to your business sector this is a no-brainer!