Marketing as Magic: Delighting Customers Through Deals
Blog PostReal-time geo-located deal services transform the social web from a "What are you up to..." sort of place to a "I want to..." sort of place. A place where a virtual prompt can link to a real-world desire and enable seamless fulfillment of that desire. Real-time geo-located deals is to Amazon shopping, what Flash mobs are to G+ hangouts. Both are awesome, both have value - but only one is birthed online and comes to full fruition in the real world. This is magical stuff.
Amplifiers vs. Advocates – which are you after?
Blog PostMarketers today have a problem: we are confusing people who are willing to amplify our message with those fans who are true brand advocates. Why? Because we don't completely understand what an advocate is. We conflate amplifiers and advocates when they are actually quite different. A true advocate lends their personal reputation to a brand to influence their friends and peers. An amplifier lends their reputation to a piece of content or messaging to influence their friends and peers.
Say Less and Learn More – Communicate Better
Blog PostWhile it is now easier than ever for an enterprise to speak with its customers - it is harder than ever for an enterprise to speak coherently, meaningfully and in a timely fashion. This inability to speak with intention exposes enterprises to very real business problems. Here are a couple ideas to help you in your journey.
Social Echoes as Marketing Assets, Assets, Assets
Blog PostPractically anything a marketing department does these days generates corresponding activity in social spaces as, at the very least, a brand's power users interact with the most recent campaign or piece of news. These echoes should be identified and amplified for maximum benefit.
Turning Social Handraisers into Social Sales
Blog PostHere at Dachis Group we frequently field requests from current and potential clients on how best to establish and implement a social servicing process. It's really not that surprising. Widely publicized successes like ComcastCares combined with fiascos like Dave Carrol's "United Breaks Guitars" have forcibly made companies understand the value of a rock-solid social servicing process. What is surprising to me is how infrequently the conversation turns to wringing additional incremental sales out of social media by focusing on social handraisers.
Activating Innovation at Nokia
Blog PostNokia is a fascinating company. They are the single most important company in the nation of Finland. They employ 129,000 people. They control 40.3% of the global cellular phone market - and yet we only really hear Nokia's name in relation to how badly the iPhone and Android are eating their lunch. With that background, it was interesting reading this recent article in the New York times regarding the countless opportunities that Nokia has squandered to lead the smartphone market.
Dachis Group Summer Reading: Gamestorming
Blog PostOne of our colleagues at Dachis Group, X-Plane Founder Dave Gray, recently co-authored and published an incredibly valuable collection of techniques for the use of games to help individuals collaborate and make decisions in a business setting. The book is called Gamestorming and a group of us here at Dachis Group North America though we would inaugurate our first Summer Reading session by reading it. We all got a lot out of it and thought we'd write up a few of our thoughts for any curious passers by.
Put Your Social Communications on a Diet
Blog PostThe abundance of opportunities to communicate in social media can be the medium's greatest curse. Abundance means brands don't consider their actions the way they do elsewhere where a scarcity demands a clear justification for participation. The result? Low-effort, but low-value communications that are a lot like white bread: cheap, easy and not particularly good for you. The fact is that brands can do better. They can eat whole wheat (even if it doesn't taste as good).
Kodak’s Tom Hoehn on Designating Official Social Roles
Blog PostOne of the key questions Dachis Group clients face on their journey toward social business transformation is when, if ever, to establish designated social roles in existing business units. This is a serious question as headcount begets expense and expense demands ROI. There is no "one size fits all" approach to designating official social roles, but it can be instructive to review the rationale of experienced brands who have already taken the plunge. To that end, Caroline Dangson and I recently contacted Tom Hoehn, Director of Interactive Marketing and Convergence Media at Kodak, to discuss his recent appointment as Chief Listener to the Kodak social media team. Below, please find the transcripts from an e-mail interview on the topic.
Your Company As Network Nodes
Blog PostCompanies today are doing a lot of redundant work. They build costly infrastructure and process to internally replicate functions that customers and prospects give away for free online. This is clearest in the world of customer service where third-party ecosystems like Get Satisfaction and Yahoo Answers are building a case for social media as a supplement (if not replacement) for the traditional internal customer service and research model.