MindComet

What is trust worth to a business?

It’s not a secret that MindComet uses Radian6 for social media monitoring. And being in the position that I’m in, Radian6’s competitors frequently solicit me in hope of winning MindComet’s business. Historically, I’ve obliged when offered to sit through a demo. I mean, what if I find a product that I like better than Radian6? What if there’s something that can do the same thing, but at a fraction of the cost?

I recently turned down a solicitation from a Radian6 competitor after coming to a realization about our social media monitoring tool vendor—I trust them.

While I don’t typically share emails on my blog, but I wanted to share this one (BTW, names have been changed to protect the innocent)

Dear FRED,

As far as cost, I get that your product is offered at 1/3 the price of Radian6, however, I refuse sacrifice trust in order to save a few dollars.

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Jan. 05, 2010

A lesson in listening. Why Shakey’s Pizza rocks!

Are you a fan of Shakey’s pizza? Well, pop star Katy Perry is. In fact, she recently tweeted that she was hoping for a b-day shout-out from Shakey’s Pizza on one of their store front signs.

To provide a bit of backstory, Shakey’s had already established a Twitter presence and, with social media monitoring help from MindComet, were actively listening to mentions about their brand on Twitter. So when this opportunity presented itself, Shakey’s was already there, ready to go. They reacted quickly and had one of their LA locations change out the sign to say “Happy Birthday Katy Perry”. A photo was snapped and posted to Twitter.

This was a few days ago and unfortunately Katy Perry hasn’t responded to the tweet (yet). However, Holly Madison, star of The Girls Next Door, saw it and sent out her own tweet.

That’s what I like to call PURE GOLD. As a result of her tweet, the shout-out photo currently has over 7,000 views and that number is still growing as I author this post. Add that to the fact that Holly Madison publicly called Shakey’s Pizza one of her favorite things to over 230,000 of her followers! I suppose you could have Holly eat a slice of Shakey’s on Dancing with the Stars, but I’m thinking her tweet was alot cheaper (FREE) and less messy.

So I ask you, when opportunity knocks for your brand will you be listening?

BTW, please help me get the word to Katy by retweeting this tweet. I’d hate to see her miss her birthday wish.

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Oct. 26, 2009

The sore thumb approach to social media

Getting noticed paves the way for progress. It opens doors. This is true in love, work and almost any other activity in life, including social media.

It’s easy to be a “me too”. I’m guilty of it. The problem is, “me too’s” don’t get noticed. You need to stick out, like a sore thumb.

So ask yourself, what do you have to offer that is unique to you? What sets you apart?

The answer to that question is your social media strategy.

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Oct. 08, 2009

Elementary my dear Watson….spammers

The blogosphere is a stir about Seth Godin’s latest undertaking, Brands in Public. Words like brandjacking and blackmail are being spoken in the breath as Godin.

Love it or hate it, I fear that Brands in Public could be doomed from the start due to one simple, yet omnipresent force on the Internet, spammers.

From the looks of it, Brands in Public appears to be a keyword-based aggregate, which are ripe for exploitation by spammers…and trust me they will come. Seth Godin, marketing genius, will work his voodoo and push these pages to the tops of the search engines. He has to, otherwise he can’t demand the monthly fee he’s looking to leech from brands. Once these pages hit the first pages in Google, it will be no time before they’re targeted by spammers and rendered useless by links to porn sites and cheap Viagra (just like Twitter’s Trending Topics).

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Sep. 24, 2009

Injecting social media into your organization

Do you want to know what the hot topics are in marketing circles? Ask the business development person at an agency. Field enough leads, and you begin to see some recurring trends. Currently, about nine out of every ten marketing leads involve some interest in social media—awesome news for someone trying to sell social media, right? Well, yes and no. Despite the frequent interest in social media from organizations, selling social media isn’t getting easier. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

So what’s the problem? Marketers are lining up for social media projects. It should be easy, right?

Wrong. The opportunity may be there, however, nine times out of ten, the concept hasn’t been completely sold internally. Helping the marketing team get buy off from key stakeholders and decision makers is the first step. This can be challenging to say the least. Marketers are generally already in tune with social media and use it. They’ve had a good solid two years of news trickling in through blogs and industry publications which all support the notion of social media as an effective marketing tool. Start venturing outside of marketing and you’ll find that this doesn’t hold true. And as the age of a person goes up, social media tends to become increasingly foreign.

So, we’re essentially being tasked with selling the business application of social media to stakeholders that, quite often, aren’t even participating in social media casually. It’s kinda like selling cake to a person who’s never eaten before.

Education is the first step

This whole process would be a much softer sell if people had previous experience that they could relate to. Here are a couple of ideas for bringing social media into your organization.

Offer social media education brown bag lunches - Pick one tool, whether it be Twitter, Facebook, blogging, or whatever. Explain the tool and show relevant examples of use. Is your CEO attending the brown bag? Go ahead and put together examples that show other CEOs using social media for business purposes. The proof’s in the puddding.

Create a social media reverse mentorship program - I personally love this one. Rest assured that the younger members on your team get social media and are using it regularly. Go ahead and pair them up with someone on your management team in a reverse mentorship program. For the junior team member, this role could be a great honor and provide them with an opportunity to shine. For your leadership team, this would be a great way to quickly get “on board” a crucial business trend.

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Sep. 18, 2009

Market with your four walls

It’s no secret, MindComet sells social media strategy as a service. Organizations come to us, not knowing where and how to start using social marketing effectively. We educate and help them, generally in exchange for money. But today, we’re giving away a freebie. It’s a very basic, two-fold strategy that, in my opinion, is one of the most effective strategies a business can employ.

Part one: Market with your four walls.

Four-walls marketing is not a new concept, yet it is really simple. If you can consistently deliver a unique and memorable experience to your customers, they WILL market for you. Top restaurants have been doing this for years. Do you think that the Cleveland-based chef and restauranteur, Michael Symon, spends significant amounts of money advertising his flagship restaurant Lola? No, his guests do his marketing for him - By the way, if you’re ever in Cleveland you MUST dine there. It is amazing - see what I mean?

So ask yourself, is your customer experience unique? Are you delivering something, whether it be a product, experience, or customer service, that you can reliably say you’re doing better, and not just marginally better, than your competition? Work on this until you can emphatically say yes, then move on to part two.

Part two: Encourage or ask your customers to talk about you on social media channels.

If you’re doing part one right, then you’re guests will already be talking about you to their friends. However, you’re goal is to have them talking about you in a public forum, like social media. Don’t be bashful, strike up conversations with your happy customers and see if they use social media. If so, ask them to post reviews on sites like Yelp, Urbanspoon, Twitter, Facebook, and their blogs. Sometimes people just need a little nudge and I guarantee that a good number of them will be happy to do it.

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Jun. 26, 2009

Death of the dog and pony show?

Besides heading up MindComet’s media department, I also oversee the entire technology group. Technology is where my roots are. In that particular role, I’ve made more than a few software/service purchasing decisions…which means sitting through multiple demos given by sales people all claiming to have the best product. Invariably, everyone always says their product is the best. But, how can this be?

It can’t.

As a purchaser, I know that they’re not all equal, despite the claims. Once you’ve heard three people say their product is the best, rest assured that two of the presentations you’ve heard are dog and pony shows (look, I understand. It’s sales. Going in saying, “sure my competitor’s product kicks our ass, but…“, isn’t a winning formula for hitting quotas). It’s my job to spend hours wading through sales speak to find out exactly who’s the “nuts” and who’s not. It can be tough.

Cue social media.

The internet and social media are now the great equalizer. Establishing a relationship is no longer a guessing game. Questions like is their product reliable, how’s their customer service, and are their other customers happy can be answered before signing a contract. Just put your ear to the ground and listen in customer communities. Ask past and current customers questions about the product on social platforms. They’re generally very honest…sometimes brutally honest.

According to a blog post on eMarketer, only 17% of people trust advertisers. The majority of consumers trust word-of-mouth recommendations by friends and family. While many of the people you engage in social media are relative strangers, it’s valuable feedback that can contribute to your decision. Personally, I strive for a decent sampling of feedback and look for patterns. What was the overall sentiment about the product? How did people generally feel about the level of customer service?

Do you research products independently on social media platforms before making a purchase?

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Posted by Jeremy Hilton on Jun. 08, 2009