AaronWagner7000

I don’t blog about trips to car repair shops often, but I had a positive experience with one this weekend that should be spotlighted. 

While taking one of my usual weekend trips to the small town of Sturgis, Michigan, I decided to get my car looked at because of a curious noise. I chose a family owned and operated Tuffy.

After explaining my issue, the owner of the shop introduced me to one of his employees, and asked this employee to drive with me to listen to the noise. The owner also told me that this employee was highly skilled, and very good at pinpointing issues like this.

As it turned out, the owner was correct. The employee heard the noise, took an educated guess at what it probably was, and then confirmed it while looking under the car. It was fixed in around an hour.

I was impressed with their service, but even more impressed with how the owner of the business raves about his people. This experience made me realize first hand that, when you speak highly about your people (either in person, on Twitter, Facebook, or wherever,) at least 3 positive things happen:



1. Your employees will want to live up to the high opinion you have about them, so they perform at their very best.

2. You give customers the feeling that only the best people work at your company.

3. Customers will be more likely to do business with you than a competitor, because your business gives off a positive, confident “vibe.”

Just keep in mind that it’s important to hire well before throwing rave reviews around like candy. But once you hire the best, publicly complement your employees!

Of all the brands that could be looked up to as social-media role models, you certainly wouldn’t expect McDonald’s to be one of them – especially after their recent #McDStories fail.

But maybe their missteps have only served to motivate them to improve. Or, based on a ragan.com article I just read, maybe their recent embarrassment was more of an exception than the norm.

The article is subtitled “The fast-food giant’s director of social media says the brand aims to drive and direct conversation, but not control it.” It begins as follows:

Social media has a universal truth, according to Rick Wion, director of social media for McDonald’s U.S.A. “You don’t control things. You can only hope to steer things in certain directions.”

Great statement. This is a refreshing contrast from the “work-your-network-till-you-get-results” advice I commented on in my last post.

Touching on McDonald’s relationship with bloggers, the article states:

“We want to be transparent in our relationships, and we want our bloggers to be authentic in their opinions,” Wion says. “We don’t want them to hold back if they have an opinion that isn’t totally positive.”

For example, one blogger who’s a fervent fan of the brand said she wasn’t too big on the chain’s new blueberry oatmeal. Wion told her to say so on her blog, because being positive all the time detracts from credibility.

One more notable quote:

“We do a lot of research, a lot of homework, to learn about bloggers who are talking about our brand,” Wion says. “We want to find folks who are talking about us, and we’re not necessarily looking for people who are writing long, glowing blog posts.”

Hats off to Rick Wion. I usually don’t eat at McDonald’s, but now that I read some of Rick’s philosophies on engagement, maybe I’ll grab a cup of McCafé Latte at the drive-through before work tomorrow morning.

Takeaways:

1. Try to steer things, but don’t try to control. You’ll fail.

2. Be authentic/transparent, and encourage others who talk about you to be authentic/transparent.

3. Do your homework. Listen. Learn. 

Photo by HikingArtist.com via Flickr

Even though brands have the opportunity to build authentic relationships that encourage loyalty and satisfaction, it’s still very trendy to try using social media as a tool to manipulate. The bad advice from this article from Social Media Today (titled “Grow Your Real Estate Business Using Social Media”) is an example of such manipulation. Here’s a quote:

“Social media simply makes it easier to reach out to more people but it does not guarantee that these people will buy from you. You still need to work on setting up your social media framework, then work it until you get the results you want.”

I can say with certainty that when it’s time for me to do business with a real estate agent, I hope to find one who’s passionate about more than just “getting the results” she or he wants.

Yes, consumers know that those they do business with need to make a profit to survive and thrive. But consumers also know that it’s much better doing business with brands and individuals who put people first, and who are passionate about their products and services.

The article also (unfortunately) advises:

“Find your ‘sweet spot’ and create an offer your target markets cannot refuse … When you have found the relevant answers, you will need to craft your offer and the corresponding marketing messages around this ‘sweet spot.’”

What this article doesn’t consider is that consumers more often than not can smell your carefully-crafted marketing messages from miles away. It also doesn’t consider that if you think you can offer consumers something they just “can’t refuse,” you’re bound to be disappointed.

Although this wasn’t as true a decade ago as it is today, marketing messages are only effective when a business has excellent products and services, honesty, and genuine passion for what they do. Without these things, marketing messages are just, well… marketing messages.

Excitement, innovation, and excellent products are why brands such as Apple are so beloved. Although Steve Jobs was profits-oriented (who isn’t?), could you imagine what it would have been like for him and his business if he focused on “working” social-media frameworks until he got the results he wanted?

I am sure the day will come when more brands and individuals will start realizing that consumers value passion and good products/services more than they value being “worked.” But, unfortunately, today is not that day.

Sorry if the picture isn’t very clear. You may need to click it…

A recent post in socialmediatoday.com (by Eric Wittlake) contends that since corporations are not in business to serve customers, but rather to earn profits, corporations should not be “authentic.” If they were authentic, customers would see nothing but greed and selfishness.

According to Wittlake,

We don’t want to see the authentic you in social media. So put on your face. Project your carefully constructed image. Just never let us see the real spirit behind your activity.

Always remember: Your audience is ruthless. If you are authentic and display your true motives, we will call you a jerk. If you carefully project your image and then slip up, we will call you a fake. So project your image and always stay in character.

While I absolutely agree with Eric that not all corporations are beacons of selflessness, I do not believe that businesses and executives can merely “put on their faces” and step into the social-media realm in pretense. I believe that those brands who enter social media as liars are slowly decaying. They are decaying because consumers know which brands are liars, and which ones are authentic.

Consumers DO want to see authenticity in brands. The brands and people who are authentic will prevail.

For brands and executives who want to gain and keep trust, here are five tips:

1. Be PASSIONATE about your product or service. If you are not passionate about your product, please quit your job today and apply your skills to something that you are passionate about. Only then will you be of any rich, meaningful value to your industry and to humanity. And only then will your engagement in the social-media arena be effective and well received.

2. Develop a bit of EMPATHY. If you get out of bed every morning only to make money, without any care for the people who buy your products or services, then you are not doing yourself or the world any favors. Think about people. Think of the needs of others. In doing so, you’ll make your product or service far better than your competitors’ products or services. You’ll also have a fighting chance of success in your social-media efforts.

3. Develop a bit of HUMILITY. If you’re so smug and arrogant that you can’t admit one iota of fault in a matter, then how will you ever improve? How will your product ever improve? How will your company ever improve? How will your customers’ lives ever improve? (Trust me. Your customers can smell arrogance a mile away. So don’t even try to tweet with an arrogant mindset.)

4. There’s nothing wrong with making a profit! Just be HONEST about the fact that you are indeed striving for profits. Your customers already know you need to make money for your company. So, rather than acting like you and your product are God’s answers to your customers’ woes, and that you are doing them a favor by allowing them to purchase your product, try listening to your customers. Develop the attitude of, “Hi, customer. I value your business, and I want my company to be the very best in our industry. I want to be better than our competitors. So, what improvements can I make to make you happier? What types of things can I do that would cause you to continue purchasing my product/service?”

5. There’s nothing wrong with marketing in and of itself. Just be HONEST about the fact that you are indeed marketing your brand. Rather than saying “We’ll make you a superstar! Take a picture of yourself with our product, send it to us, and we’ll display it on our Flickr page!” Try being honest, and say, “Please help us develop our fun brand! We’d love your smiling faces to be seen with our product!

Eric Wittlake is correct: The audience (you and me!) is ruthless. We will indeed rip apart the social media efforts of any fake, contrived brand. So the advice to put on a “face” is ill advised. The only answer is for executives and brands to become more passionate, empathetic, humble and honest. Anything less will lead to failure.

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Hershey is engaging with Facebook fans by sticking to three key pillars: awareness, content, and agility.
Read the article  from ragan.com.
BLURB: Filling up your Facebook wall with nothing but announcements about the company’s next big initiative—even a contest—isn’t the way to go, Lingeris says. Every once and a while, fans simply want you to open up the floor and ask, “What do you like?”

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7 Ways to Use Social Media for Instant Feedback
Read the article from Social Media Today.

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[Infographic] How To Use Contra-Competitive Timing for More ReTweets, Likes, Comments and Clicks
See the infographic at DanZarrella.com.

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6 Tips for Handling Breaking Crises on Twitter
Read the article from Mashable.
BLURB: “If the past year has taught us anything about reputation management in the social age, it’s that the past year has not taught us anything. Time and time again in 2011, the same missteps and misunderstandings lead to the same predictably painful reputational outcomes for individuals, brands and organizations.”

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Betty Crocker is helping customers with their frantic kitchen emergencies.
Read the story from ClickZ.
BLURB: Their social media efforts are a “way to connect to people the brand has been connecting to throughout prior generations through magazines, through a radio show, and through cookbooks,” said Bettison. “We really want to help solve people’s problems.”

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Chobani Yogurt is building relationships with Pinterest.
Read the story from Fast Company.
BLURB: Chobani’s now got 17 “boards” on Pinterestand 582 followers, positioning the largest yogurt manufacturer in the state of New York well ahead of global juggernauts such as Dannon or Yoplait, neither of which have a Pinterest presence yet.

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The Following Websites Are Going Dark Tomorrow To Protest SOPA (From Mashable)
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-5 Biggest Missteps Businesses Make When Using social media
Read the story from Mashable.

BLURB: There’s huge potential for companies to get real on social media, but that means asking customers potentially tough questions: What should the company do next? How should the company improve its products or services? It’s scary, uncharted territory for many, but it’s much more efficient to tap social media than to agonize over expensive surveys and focus groups. Most don’t realize that the most valuable “focus group” is the community that chooses to opt in over social media. These friends, fans and followers want to see you succeed (and have a hand in helping you accomplish success).

Here are the biggest missteps when it comes to using social media as a tool for progress, plus some advice on how to overcome them.

It’s sometimes fun to keep track of which companies opt to play it safe by using the politically correct “holiday” verbiage in their marketing, and which ones show brazen fearlessness by using the word “Christmas.” This year, I couldn’t help but to compare BMW with Mercedes-Benz.

What do you think? Which strategy impresses you more?