November 9th, 2009

American Express OPEN keeps 'pulse' on small business with social media

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 9:44 am

Categories: Brand Management and Monitoring, Branding, Corporate Social Networking, Customer Loyalty, Fortune 500 Series, Marketing, Microblogging, Small Business, Social Business, Social Media

Tags: Social Media, American Express Co., Small Business, Small Business Owner, Business Owner, IQ, OPEN Forum, Jennifer Leggio

The Fortune 500 series has historically focused on how large companies are using social media to help to further their own businesses. One company, American Express, has a division called OPEN that is exclusively dedicated to the success of small business owners and their companies. The growth of these businesses in turn means that OPEN will succeed, and the company has realized that social media has become a priority for small business owners and is putting a great deal of focus there with its social media activities and its new Pulse offering.

I spoke with Jason Rudman, director of strategy and marketing for American Express OPEN, about the company’s social media strategy and delivery, as well as benefits to its small business customers.

Q. [Jennifer] How exactly is American Express OPEN is leveraging social media to grow the business of its customers?

A. [Jason] Business owners tell us every day that their business resiliency and growth depends in part on their ability to connect with others for advice, support and networking. At the same time, many business owners have what we call a “high relationship IQ” but a “low social media IQ.” Beginning in 2007, OPEN Forum established itself as a leading source of business insight and advice. We have evolved the experience to be both an online resource and networking site created to meet the needs of small business owners, to help them solve problems and to start to bring relationship IQ and social media IQ into equilibrium, thereby helping our customers through the social media learning curve.

Q. How did OPEN’s social program begin?

A. Originally launched in 2007, OPENForum.com initially served as the on-line companion to a live event-driven platform created with the goal of providing key networking opportunities for small business owners to grow their businesses.

Q. What are the most important objectives that American Express OPEN is trying to meet with social media?

A. Engage business owners in a new set of experiences that increase loyalty, value perception, and relevance of our brand and continue to lead in the online engagement space to attract partners, so as to ultimately create additional compelling benefits for Cardmembers and convert prospects.

Q. How are you measuring the success of these programs?

A. For OPEN Forum, we keep a pulse on how we are doing by measuring engagement and soliciting feedback. The level of engagement in both our content and the business interaction among our Cardmembers is the best indicator of our success.

There are a set of metrics that we focus on monthly, such as unique visitors (UVM), repeat visits, time spent on the site, enrollments in Connectodex^SM [our proprietary networking tool for OPEN Cardmembers], etc., that form the basis for how we are resonating with business owners.

We are also starting to measure the brand impact that OPEN Forum is having for OPEN – it has been extremely positive since we started measuring our impact in Q4 2008, as well as amplification effect of our content and the “buzz” quotient of all that we do. Finally, there are some emerging stats that are peaking our interest – for example, how many times and how frequently is OPEN Forum being retweeted; this again shows a level of engagement and interest in what we are providing business owners.

Q. Marcy Shinder of American Express OPEN said during her presentation at the Conversation Marketing Summit that social media was invented by business owners. Why do you think this is true?

A. Small business owners are successful by building individual relationships – for example, with customers, prospects, vendors – based on an innate ability to talk to everyone, to get to know people. You might say this is “social IQ” and that many entrepreneurs possess this in droves. You see it frequently when a small business owner engages their customers or reaches out to new ones through a very personal style of marketing. Social media as we know it today is just an extension of this in the digital universe.

Next: Introducing Pulse –>

October 27th, 2009

2010 Predictions: Will social media reach ubiquity?

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 9:19 am

Categories: Blogging Best Practices, Brand Management and Monitoring, Branding, Corporate Social Networking, Enterprise 2.0, Government 2.0, Marketing, Microblogging, Public Relations, Social Business, Social Media, Social Media and Security

Tags: Social Networking, Facebook, Marketing, Network, Twitter Inc., Social Media, Foursquare, Poken Pulse, PR People, Jennifer Leggio

The year 2009 has been a pivotal one in social media. We’ve seen the explosion of a previously misunderstood social network as well as the rampant adoption of social media by major brands. We’ve seen these companies take big chances, some ending in success and others ending with harsh lessons learned. It seems that almost everyone’s brother, sister, mother and grandfather are now on Facebook, and that social media itself is a bubble baby no more. At the same time, it’s important to note that both business users and consumers have barely scratched the surface of opportunity that the tools and strategies around social media can provide.

In order to achieve continued success many things have to happen. Cracks in the echo chamber, widespread communication of proven successes, best practices for return on investment (ROI) are just a few. And as companies embark on their 2010 planning, they are hoping for a glimpse of what is to come.

Rather than create a wish list, I followed Peter Kim’s model and turned to my network to find out what it believes social media will become in 2010. I asked about 40 people to participate and 31 responded with at least a few words on what might happen next year.

The predictions are meant to be thought-provokers more than gospel, and come from a mix of thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and folks who get their hands dirty every day dealing with social media for their companies. Predictions range from general social media to enterprise 2.0, government 2.0, security, public relations and even location-aware social networks. But the over-arching theme of most of the predictions say that 2010 is the year that social media will just be, rather than serving as a shiny new toy.

Without further ado, here are the 2010 social media predictions.

Next: David Armano, Karen Auby, Andrea Baker, Nenshad Bardoliwalla –>

October 13th, 2009

Nine 'don't miss' social business sessions at Blog World & New Media Expo

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 12:59 pm

Categories: Blog World Expo, Blogging Best Practices, Brand Management and Monitoring, Branding, Community Management, Conference News, Corporate Social Networking, Social Business, Social Media

Tags: Media, Blog, Social Media, Jennifer Leggio

Next week kicks off the long-awaited Blog World & New Media Expo in Las Vegas. The conference is an annual event dedicated to trends in new media, including blogging, podcasting, social media, online video, music, television, radio, gaming, entertainment and communities. Keynotes include many of the usual social media suspects: Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, Jeremiah Owyang, Guy Kawasaki, Laura Fitton, and so on. There will also be some entertainers on hand to keynote as well, such as Kevin Pollak, Anthony Edwards and Jermaine Dupri.

The most interesting pieces of the conference, to me anyway, lie in the Social Media Business Summit, a track that focuses on tools and guidance for businesses using social media. This summit runs Thursday through Sunday alongside the other tracks at the regular conference. Here are the business sessions that I have marked as “don’t miss” on my own schedule:

• B2B Social Media
• Internet Marketing for Smart People
• Why Blogs Are Your #1 Search Marketing Tool
• Crisis Communication in the Era of Social Media
• Listening 2.0: Activating Social Media Across the Enterprise
• Bullseye Marketing: Precision Targeting on the Social Web
• Social Media Customer Engagement, Customer Loyalty
• From Skeptic To Advocate: Proving the Business Case to Your Boss or Client
• Social Media: The Bad and the Ugly
  

I’d like to selfishly note that yours truly is speaking during the Social Media Business Summit at 12:45 p.m. on Friday on “Don’t Jack My Brand: Security Awareness for the Marketing Manager,” a session that puts some of the security onus on marketers who need to protect their customers, partners and corporate entities against the risks of brandjacking. Add it to your schedule here.

I’ll also join Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter Group, Ted Murphy of Izea and blogger/entrepreneur Wendy Piersall on the keynote panel “Sponsored Converations” at 2:45 p.m. on Thursday. Please join us.

What other sessions are a “don’t miss” for Blog World & New Media Expo?

September 28th, 2009

10 Fortune 500 companies doing social media right

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 10:53 am

Categories: Brand Management and Monitoring, Branding, Corporate Social Networking, Fortune 500 Series, Marketing, Social Business, Social Media

Tags: Social Media, Jennifer Leggio

Throughout the last year I’ve highlighted several Fortune 500 companies who have a smart approach to social media. Writing about the large companies demonstrates that even giants with hundreds of thousands of employees can successfully flex to run solid social programs. I get approached by a lot of different companies for this series but I only select the ones I think are really onto something. Here are excerpts from the top 10:

Office Max: “Marketing is all about change. There’s a saying that ‘if you don’t create change, change will create you.’ It’s a great thought. I’m continually open to new ideas and new media and new approaches and new methodologies. At OfficeMax, we’ve embraced social media and incorporated it into our marketing strategy to reach today’s digital consumer through humor, entertainment and personalization.” — Bob Thacker, senior vice president of marketing and advertising

Newell Rubbermaid: “The more we engage with our consumers, they more we learn and the more we can expand our social media efforts. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to start small, be flexible and be willing to pull back and change if something does not work.” — Bert Dumars, vice president of e-business and interactive marketing

Cisco: “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.” — Carlos Dominguez, senior vice president in Cisco’s Office of the Chairman of the Board and CEO

Texas Instruments: “First move is to always understand who we are trying to serve. What problem are we trying to solve? We want to create a customer support strategy, not a Twitter strategy! Once we understand the need we are trying to fill, we look at benchmarking against best practices. We have no shame in learning from what other companies are doing.” — Devashish Saxena, director of global Internet marketing

Continued –>

August 21st, 2009

Social media policies critical for reducing legal, business risks

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 7:30 am

Categories: Brand Management and Monitoring, Corporate Social Networking, Legal, Marketing, Social Business, Social Media

Tags: Social Media, Jonathan I. Ezor, Jennifer Leggio

* Jennifer Leggio is on vacation

Guest editorial by Jonathan I. Ezor

The business press is filled with discussions of social media, from blogs to Facebook and LinkedIn to Twitter, and how they can move your company ahead. While there are tremendous benefits to social media, there are some risks as well, both legal and otherwise. The risks are all manageable, but only if you recognize and address them ahead of time.

First, consider what specific laws and rules apply to your company. Investment firms, for example, must log every communication with clients. It’s hard enough to do that with IMs; how do you save every tweet that comes from a customer? The Twitter Web site does not offer logging; if you’re going to enable Twitter in your brokerage, you had better find (or develop) a Twitter client that does.

Another rule for many industries is confidentiality. It’s true for medical professionals, attorneys, financial advisors, and anyone with a non-disclosure agreement. Unfortunately, it’s too easy to reveal confidential information, either directly or otherwise, through social media. If, say, a sales rep posts to Facebook that he’s looking for a good restaurant in Bentonville, Arkansas, it’s fairly obvious that he’s having discussions with Walmart (the major retailer headquartered there), whether or not Walmart (or the rep’s boss) wants that visit publicized.  The company may currently have an exclusive with another retailer, and may be investigating jumping over to Walmart. That discrete investigation goes out the window with that otherwise innocuous tweet.

Don’t forget about other rules and laws that apply to your firm. If you fill your Facebook page with images and videos to which you don’t have copyright, that can lead to lawsuits or takedown notices. If one of your workers creates a fake identity to boost your product or criticize a competitor’s offering, consumer protection agencies may take notice. Negative tweets about potential hires can be used as evidence in a discrimination action, and anything you or your colleagues post online may be introduced in a courtroom.

Beyond laws and rules, your company’s reputation can take a severe hit through indiscreet or careless use of social media. That doesn’t just mean embarrassing errors, although those can certainly take their toll. It can be just as bad or worse when, for example, your company promises to be responsive to customers via its social media portals, and fails. Not only does this indicate lack of care, but it’s a setting where those now disgruntled customers can tell millions of fellow customers (or worse, potential customers) how badly your company has treated them. Picture a Facebook wall filled with negative feedback from your customers, and you begin to see the pitfalls.

In order for your business to get the most benefit out of social media platforms while minimizing these and other risks, you need to create and enforce a comprehensive social media policy. Your policy should be based on your goals with social media, take into account any special laws or rules, and identify people or positions who will be the public face of the firm online. You should decide whether and how other employees may identify themselves with the business when tweeting or blogging, and if you permit them to, give them guidelines on how (and how not) to do so. Training on how to use various social media tools is key, as is an ongoing search for mentions of your business (by its employees and others) across the Internet. Make sure to involve your company’s risk managers (insurance brokers, attorneys, accountants, etc.) in your planning. Above all, be proactive in learning about these resources and how best to use them, and you’ll be much more likely to see profit rather than pain from social media.

Jonathan I. Ezor is a law professor at Touro Law Center and director of its Institute for Business, Law and Technology, and is counsel to The Lustigman Firm on issues of privacy, e-commerce and affiliate programs. He can be reached at jezor@tourolaw.edu.

August 5th, 2009

Security risks of Web 2.0 tools should not be overlooked by enterprises, individuals

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 12:49 pm

Categories: Brand Management and Monitoring, Corporate Social Networking, Security, Social Business, Social Media, Social Media Best Practices, Social Media and Security, Social Networks

Tags: Web, Network, Malware, Tool, Current Technology, Web 2.0, Social Networking, Networking, Security, Internet

Like it or not, the use of Web 2.0 technology use in enterprises is here to stay. Even longstanding enterprise software providers, such as Salesforce.com, have created tools for integrating social networks into the customer support and lead generation process. And you’d be hard-pressed to find a Fortune 500 company that doesn’t, at the very least, have a corporate blog.

Over the last few weeks, two organizations issued study results focusing on the use of social networking within the enterprise. RSA Conference, in its “What Security Issues Are You Currently Facing?” report, surveyed nearly 150 C-level executives and professionals charged with directing, managing and engineering security infrastructures within their respective organizations.

Social networking and security was a consideration, however it appears that organizations thus far claim to have been minimally impacted by social network threats. According to the survey, 84 percent of respondents allow Twitter and Facebook in the enterprise, however only 3 percent were seriously affected by the recent Facebook and Twitter phishing attacks.

“The fact that only 3 percent of people surveyed said that their companies had been impacted shows how big the problem really is,” said Mike Murray, chief information security officer for Foreground Security. “The problem is that the security technology they have in place doesn’t allow them visibility into the threats. Current technologies are not looking for threats that take advantage of human weakness. It’s like having your hands over your eyes. It’s such a bad problem they can’t even see it.”

In another study, Frost & Sullivan issued its “Web 2.0 Tools: Consumer Technologies Entering the Enterprise World” report. The firm surveyed more than 1,400 Web 2.0 tools users who work fulltime within a U.S. organization. According to the report, there are many perceived risks of Web 2.0 tools in the enterprise, including fear over confidential information inadvertently being published, allowance of malware onto corporate networks, network bandwidth issues and loss of employee productivity. Respondents ranked social networks as the tool with the largest perceived risk, above blogs, wikis and team spaces. While to the users social networks presented the greatest risk, that risk is still perceived as only “moderate.”

The fact that both studies indicate a lukewarm concern toward Web 2.0 tools in the enterprise is alarming, and to Murray’s point shows that those surveyed may not understand the larger problem at hand. Earlier this year Kaspersky Labs issued a report stating that attacks through social networks are 10 times as effective as distributing malware through email. That Web 2.0 tools, including social networks, pose a larger security risk to individuals is a misconception. Any of these types of attacks could present serious ramifications for businesses.

Next: Methods to address the madness –>

June 16th, 2009

Seagate uses social media to 'humanize' storage devices

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 10:20 am

Categories: Brand Management and Monitoring, Branding, Community Management, Corporate Social Networking, Customer Loyalty, Fortune 500 Series, Marketing, Seagate, Social Business, Social Media

Tags: Social Media, Twitter, Seagate Technology LLC, Harris, Q., Jennifer Leggio

It was about two years ago that storage device company Seagate realized it had to get into the social media game. The company’s initial strategy was to listen, build community and learn. So, the communications team set up a presence on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and so on, and strapped itself in for quite the ride — and learning experience. Today, the company’s social media efforts are a much more strategic component to its overall marketing mix.

I spoke with Rich Harris, who is responsible for the overall social media effort for the company. This encompasses Seagate’s corporate blog strategy, social platforms, ROI measurement, a bit of video and content creation, and in-depth analysis of analytics/reports as they pertain to social media initiatives. Harris discusses the company’s redefined strategy and use of social media to reach a broader audience

“Seagate has just scratched the surface of where we think we can take our social media vision and roadmap,” Harris said. “I think you will see a much wider scope of content and engagement coming from us, ideally on a global level.”

Q. [Jennifer] How long would you say that Seagate has had a social or digital program in place?
A. [Rich] As far as the full social media program goes, it’s really been just about a year. We put the framework together about 18 months ago, but up until July of 2008, Seagate primarily focused on building relationships in the blogosphere, but had yet to fully embrace social media tools as a communication platform. Pete Steege, a Seagate marketing manager, started the first official Seagate blog called “The Storage Effect” in 2007. So, you might say that launched us into it. We built from there adding online properties and a blogging platform. The response has been very positive. It’s an exciting opportunity for the company

Q. How big is the team? How does this team interact with other divisions within the company?
A. Seagate’s social media team is currently made up of one senior manager directly responsible for the overall strategy, planning and implementation, and a support team of 6-7 internal contributors that blog and assist with editing/packaging of the various social media content that we push out there - video, audio, and market segment focused blogging.

Q. When considering new programs, what are your first steps?
A. Our first steps are to look for a marketing/content gap that needs to be filled for our customers. Alignment with our global marketing and corporate priorities is always top of mind. And we closely monitor feedback on Twitter, Facebook, as well as SocialMention.com and other various analytics tools that we have in place to see what the people out there are saying. Resulting programs could be anything from viral videos, contests, to sponsoring events where storage is a key component of the lives of the audience involved.

Next: Impact of the economy and measuring ROI –>

June 11th, 2009

AMD uses Radian6 as a preferred 'listening' engine

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 11:06 am

Categories: AMD, Brand Management and Monitoring, Corporate Social Networking, Social Business, Social Media, Social Media Measurement

Tags: Engine, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Jennifer Leggio

One of the biggest challenges social media enthusiasts face while trying to sell their executives on a progressive marketing program is proving the value of listening. The concept of purely outbound marketing is old, yet safe, and many companies are afraid to invite the scary conversations in and take action on them.

Technology provider AMD had no such fears when instituting a social media program, but it had a significant advantage: it’s always been engaged in “social media,” even before the popular term was coined, with its expansive user communities.

Chris James, social media and community strategist at AMD, is responsible for leading the social media charge. His objective is to utilize social media across all points of marketing and public relations to reduce costs by scaling and getting in better touch with customers. James is also responsible for driving information about the marketplace back into the business, and says that while other businesses leap first into creating a presence with social media tools, the company’s first objective was to determine what was being said, by whom, and where it was all taking place.

“Our core need is to engage in listening and utilizing as much as we can of what’s going on out in social media to inform business decisions – whether its messages and marketing, language and press releases, customer insights, and so on,” he said.

Next: Listening at CES –>

June 9th, 2009

Squarespace: Stop harshing my Twitter experience

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 1:01 pm

Categories: Brand Management and Monitoring, Marketing, Microblogging, Social Business, Social Media, Twitter

Tags: Apple iPhone, Twitter, Blogging, Search, Marketing Research, Internet, Marketing, Jennifer Leggio

So Squarespace, which does hosting and other webby stuff, is doing an iPhone giveaway via Twitter. Basically all a Twitter user needs to do is enter the #squarespace hashtag into a tweet and then he or she is eligible to win a $199 Apple gift certificate (which could be used for an iPhone). The catch? Said user must enter every day (i.e. #squarespace in the tweets) for a new chance to win.

Earlier today I saw a bunch of positive comments: “Cool for SEO!” “Great way to trend on Twitter!” Etc. Ok, sure, fine. But lately, more of the comments I’ve seen are along the line of this one, from my pal Mike Fratto:

It’s getting really, really annoying. I only follow about 850 people. That includes a mix of dear friends, security nerds, hockey fans and folks I read. My TweetDeck “All Friends” column today was swimming with #squarespace hashtags. It made me want to do one of two things:

1. Unfollow* my poor friends (if I didn’t already unfollow them for #spymaster)
2. Buy them all iPhones just to stop the madness

As I wrote about Turner Broadcasting this morning, this is a case of a decent idea that was taken too far and is starting to turn people off. What about a contest that encourages people to deliver some value? Yesterday Smashwords CEO Mark Coker did a Twitter contest — Tweet something about Smashwords and you could see your tweet in an ad in Writer’s Digest. Coker did two things right: 1) He asked for substance 2) He ran the contest in a short time. It was interactive — it wasn’t just pushing out noise. It allowed him to engage with his users.

How is Squarespace ever going to engage with these users? Honestly, the only reason I even looked to see what Squarespace does is due to responsible blogging. I otherwise wouldn’t have taken the time to look.

Contrary to recent beliefs, I do say nice things about social campaigns. But lately I’ve mostly heard noise. Where are all of the other good ideas at? Please share them.

*No friends were injured or unfollowed in the writing of this blog post

May 28th, 2009

The CEO's top five fears of social media

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 9:07 am

Categories: Brand Management and Monitoring, Branding, Community Management, Corporate Social Networking, Marketing, Social Business, Social Media, Social Media Best Practices

Tags: Marketing, Social Media, Yvonne Tocquigny, Yvonne, Jennifer Leggio

* Jennifer Leggio is on vacation

Guest editorial by Yvonne Tocquigny

I recently spent eight months speaking to more than 200 executives about digital marketing and social media. During that time, I realized that five fears cause social media paralysis for CEOs.

Many business leaders view social media as the “runaway train” of marketing. They fear losing control-of their company’s marketing message and workforce.

Yet, social media is a highly valuable two-way communication medium that enables companies to listen and connect with customers.  Statistics show people listen to the community, not your company.

Fear 1: Negative mentions
Executives forget that consumers have been discussing their company, products and customer service for as long as they’ve been in business. Instead of fear, this should be seen as an opportunity to learn more about customer perceptions and do it for a lower cost than ever before.

Begin monitoring social media for mentions of the company and key products.  Get started with free tools including Google Alerts.  If your company is mentioned negatively, first investigate the facts internally before taking action. Any response should:

• Take the high ground
• Be honest
• Explain what you have done to rectify any issue
• Offer to resolve any complaints personally
• Try to continue discussion offline

Listening and responding to complaining customers will go a long way towards diffusing the negative impact of the criticism. While negative comments are exposed for all to see, so is the responsiveness of the company.

Fears 2 and 3 –>