October 8th, 2009

Sears Holdings Corporation: A silent giant in social media

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 9:23 am

Categories: Branding, Community Management, Corporate Social Networking, Fortune 500 Series, Marketing, Reputation and Privacy, Social Business, Social Business Case Studies, Social Media, Social Media Best Practices

Tags: Sears Roebuck & Co., Social Media, Customer, Q., Jennifer Leggio

Sears Holdings Corporation (SHC) has been a silent giant in social media for some time. Its online community now boasts more than 300,000 users and it was one of the first major retailers to adopt OpenID to connect MySears.com directly from major social networks. The company has been injecting social into most of its brands, which, in addition to well-known Sears, include KMart, Lands End and Orchard Supply Hardware. It hasn’t always been a pretty story, as Sears has suffered some online woes as well, most recently a defaced group of product pages on the Sears Web site. However, the company credits an existing social media presence with helping them deal with that crisis swiftly by allowing immediate engagement with its customer community. I spoke with Rob Harles, vice president of community for Sears Holdings Corporation, about this and more.

Q. [Jennifer] How is SHC using social media?

A. [Rob] We are one of the only retailers – and the only one of our size – that’s created online communities specifically for our customers (MySears.com, MyKmart.com, MyVoice.com for our MyGopher concept). The goal of these communities is to connect with our customers. We offer discussion forums to facilitate questions and answers between customers and associates, an ideas platform to hear what new innovations are most important and product reviews written by customers. The communities also offer an opportunity to address customer service issues. We offer members information about sales, deals, discounts and access to unique coupons and specials for their participation.

Q. How did the use of social media start?

A. We started our first version of our customer community about two years ago. It was primarily intended for research; we used it as a platform for surveys and online focus groups. We realized the greater potential in this forum and quickly moved to expand our community offerings. We launched MySears.com and MyKmart.com in the spring of 2009 with product reviews, discussion forums, member profiles, a company blog, the ideas platform and a number of options for members to find and connect with one another around similar interests. MyVoice followed in July.

Our marketing initiatives have included a social, online interaction, component for some time now on platforms like Facebook. We are becoming more and more purposeful about engaging with customers on those platforms. One example is the recent Sears Back to Campus campaign where we utilized Facebook, Twitter and blogs to let consumers know about the product offering from Sears. We also created several online interactions like the Facebook application that allows college roommates to plan the lay out of their dorm room together, online. They can then buy what they design, creating a link to social commerce.

Q. For which brands, and how?

A. All SHC brands have a social component to them. All brands are represented in our customer communities and have their unique platforms and programs on the greater Web that meet their customers where they are.

One example is our Kmart Design brand. This initiative has introduced our Kmart designers and their design process through blogs, videos and Twitter to customers. Being transparent and upfront about what goes into our design process has proven to be successful; we’ve seen great response in customer engagement and in sales.

Q. What are your social media objectives:

A. Being present in a variety of social media outlets is part of our “Shop Your Way” concept. Shop Your Way is about letting customers choose what works best for their schedule, their shopping preferences and their budget and providing for them through our SHC properties. Our social media efforts offer a choice of online forums for customers to learn more about our products, to share their thoughts with us and to have their concerns or service questions addressed and answered. All within the course of their current online habits.

Support and crisis response –>

August 11th, 2009

Fortune 500 Series: How EMC used social media to recruit, re-brand, rebuild

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 9:36 am

Categories: Branding, Career Development, Corporate Social Networking, EMC, Fortune 500 Series, Social Business, Social Business Case Studies, Social Media, Social Media Best Practices

Tags: Social Networking, Brand, Social Media, EMC Corp., Storage, Hardware, Jennifer Leggio

EMC can best be described as an entity. Not only in the Fortune 500, the infrastructure information provider was recognized by Fortune as one of the 10 most admired companies for product and service quality. This success didn’t come easy to the giant, which needed to significantly rebuild its business after the 2001/2002 recesssion. Part of that rebuild included acquiring more than 40 companies over a handful of years. The other critical part of the rebuild included attracting top talent to help drive a more successful business. To achieve the latter, EMC turned to social media for its recruiting efforts. The below interview with Polly Pearson, vice president of employment brand and strategy at EMC, details how the company acquired talented employees through social media, how career fairs via Second Life can actually work, and how the company measures success.

Q. [Jennifer] How is EMC using social media as part of its HR efforts?

A. [Polly] We are using social media to build awareness and relationships between EMC and the talent market.  We see social media as an ideal resource to further our employment brand in a meaningful, high-reach and low-cost manner.  For example, externally EMC is using tools such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and employee blogs and tweets to build awareness and affinity with the talent market.  We use these tools to provide a genuine, testimonial-based look at EMC’s culture, careers and capabilities, as well as to bring awareness to certain job openings, company developments and general career tips.

Internally, we have a global social media platform for community building, collaboration and knowledge-sharing.  This internal platform has resulted in the serendipitous development of organic EMC brand ambassadors who have taken their new found voices and confidence as spokespeople to the external social network airwaves. This has, in effect, multiplied EMC’s external efforts to build genuine relationships with the talent market.

Q. How did that start? Why did you want to add social media into the program?

A. Following the recession of 2001/2002, EMC experienced a multi-year turnaround. We rebuilt our business by entering adjacent markets, altering our business model and acquiring more than 40 companies.  This evolution was a remarkable success. It, however, left some employees with a mild identity crisis.  By late 2006, roughly half of our company was made up of employees who were new to EMC within the prior 18 months. On top of that, by 2007 we were looking at thousands of jobs to fill, a major college hiring program, and the sizable growth of EMC’s emerging global operations in markets such as India, Russia and China.  As we looked at ways to elevate EMC’s brand with our target talent market, we realized we could not out spend our competition.  We wanted to build EMC’s brand at the lowest possible cost, do it on a global basis and reinforce EMC’s core brand attribute as a leading innovation company.

Enter social media. The first tool we used was, interestingly enough, the least mainstream yet came with high buzz and superior results: Second Life.  We held a series of highly effective recruiting fairs in Second Life that showed us the undeniable power of social platforms for business.  The scale was infinite and the cost was low. The connections and relationships happened with a type of immediacy we had never experienced before on a business platform.  In the summer of 2007, we launched behind our firewall EMC’s first customized internal social network.  We named this platform EMC|ONE and today the majority of our employees worldwide are connecting on it and sharing information regularly in a 2.0 manner.

Next: Measuring for success –>

May 22nd, 2009

Nine worst social media fails of 2009... thus far

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 9:26 am

Categories: Brand Management and Monitoring, Branding, Corporate Social Networking, Customer Loyalty, Marketing, Public Relations, Reputation and Privacy, Snake Oil, Social Business, Social Business Case Studies, Social Media, Social Media Best Practices

Tags: Pizza Hut, Brand, Stunt, Social Media, Twitter, Motrin, Nannerpuss, Jack, Skittles Home Page, Ashton Kutcher

Social media has taken the marketing world by storm. Major agencies and internal divisions are hosting think tank sessions to try and come up with witty ideas to market their products and drive customer loyalty. Some of the ideas they come up with  are great. But others, let’s face it, are serious thuds. Let’s take a look at nine of the worst social media marketing campaigns  so far in 2009 (in no particular order):

House M.D.
When actor Kal Penn decided to leave the popular network dramedy to take a role with the Obama administration, the show needed to find a clever — and quick — way to get rid of the character of Dr. Lawrence Kutner. The show opted to kill him off via suicide and left fans with a lot of questions. What does this have to do with social media? Rather than running from the backlash of offing such a popular character, Fox embraced it by creating an online altar where fans could go leave memorial messages for Kutner. It was their way of trying to maintain viewer loyalty. However, it backfired, with many fans insisting that the altar and flippant social media attempt was insensitive regarding the topic of suicide. Fox has since pulled the altar from its Web site.

Next: Quiznos –>

March 30th, 2009

Microsoft uses TruCast to build community for Windows 7

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 1:35 pm

Categories: Community Management, Corporate Social Networking, Microsoft, Social Business, Social Business Case Studies, Social Media, Social Media Best Practices, Social Media Measurement, Tech Companies

Tags: Team, Community, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Corp., Tool, TruCast, TruCast Dashboard, Microsoft Windows, Productivity, Team Management

Stephen Rose, senior community manager at Microsoft, has a big job. He’s responsible for managing a worldwide community of more than 22 million IT professionals who use Microsoft products. An even bigger job: He’s also responsible for creating community around Windows 7.

Rose primarily works with the Springboard group, an offshoot of Microsoft Technet, a central location that holds Microsoft info for IT pros on client operating systems. The Springboard site, according to Rose, is one of the most used sites on Technet. To help create community and awareness for Windows 7, Rose and his team in part created the Springboard Series Technical Expert Panel (STEP), a “by the community, for the community” program to spur advocacy within IT professionals and community influencers withinthe Microsoft, MVP, and MCT communities. Microsoft wanted to inspire influencers to host or speak at user groups, conferences, etc., or to write about their user experiences with Windows 7.

The challenge? To do both of these Rose and the Microsoft team needed a way to best determine who those influencers are outside of big-name bloggers and journalists. They wanted to talk to the folks in the trenches who are experienced with and fans of Windows 7 to help convert those folks on the fence.

Rose created the panel using a mix of social media tools, such as Twitter and Facebook. That was great for outreach, but what about finding unknown influencers? Rose started using a tool called TruCast from Visible Technologies, a social media monitoring, measurment and engagement solution. TruCast helps companies listen to and learn what targeted influencers are saying in blogs, social networks, bulletin boards, online user groups, and so on, and actually works as a response platform once those targets are acquired. The TruCast dashboard allows for users to know the degree of satisfaction level of their users.

According to Rose Microsoft uses this tool across several different groups. For example, the consumer group uses it to determine customer satisfaction and to engage online with customers. The Springboard group, however, is interested in reaching out to the IT professional who might be on the fence about Microsoft.

“There are Linux fanboys and Apple fanboys who no matter what we say, they want want to be mad and there is nothing we can do to change them,” Rose said. “So we focus on the folks who are on the fence as those are key. They are trying to figure out if they should go with Windows Vista or Windows 7. They might be buyers at companies with thousands of seats or they might be bloggers who have a decent reach into their user-based communities. Using TruCast we can determine who these people are and offer them support, resources and contact information.”

According to Rose, the results using TruCast are pretty intricate.

“It’s a powerful engagement tool. We not only find the posts we’re interested through a keyword but we can see people talking about Windows Vista vs. Windows 7. We can use the same tool to directly respond to and track the conversation in the post. We’ve found it’s been a valuable tool for communicating with the more powerful influencers and finding the smaller influencers we wouldn’t otherwise see.”

According to Rose the team is now working with 250 subject matter experts in 29 countries. He said that TruCast really helped them narrowing down the influencers based on reputation in the community and reach.

“It would be impossible for us to go out and scrape that kind of information without spending hours and hours of time. This is something we can do in a matter of minutes,” he said. “What’s great is it can help us point to where we are missing the mark, where we aren’t engaging, and where are users are that need support from Microsoft. How was I to know we had a 1,200-person user community in the middle of Arkansas? Now we can put a subject matter expert in front of them and get a high amount of impact.”

March 25th, 2009

Fortune 500 series: Texas Instruments uses social media to connect 10K+ engineers

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 9:57 am

Categories: Corporate Social Networking, Fortune 500 Series, Q&A, Social Business, Social Business Case Studies, Social Media, Texas Instruments

Tags: Strategy, Marketing, Social Media, Customer, Texas Instruments Inc., E2E, Q., Jennifer Leggio, Best Practice

A frequently asked question around corporate social networking is, “What kinds of companies are using it?” When social media first became the trend it is now there was a lot of speculation about how only smaller, flexible companies could implement effective social media program. I started this Fortune 500 series a few months ago to prove that point wrong. Companies such as Cisco, Office Max and Newell Rubbermaid discussed their varying strategies and measurement of their tactics, as well as why social media has become an important business driver. The latest interview in the series, with Texas Instruments‘ (TI) director of global Internet marketing, Devashish Saxena, about how the electronics designer and manufacturer engages with its large community of design engineers and delivering customer design support. He also talks about how social media is becoming a larger priority given the state of the economy.

Q. [Jennifer] At a high level, please tell me about the company’s social media strategies.

A. [Devashish] I think of social media as the evolution of the Web from an information/content channel into a social channel. One where people are primarily making connections and using those connections to drive decision making about everything from brands to purchases to films/music/books and a lot more.

At TI, we have approached social marketing strategies by understanding how design engineers (our target audience) can exploit the evolving social nature of the Web. We focus on their design process and their dependence on the Web. We try to keep in mind what the design engineer is trying to accomplish and balance that with what our business/marketing drivers are.

From a social marketing perspective we are pursuing several strategies at TI. Our first area of focus is on the delivery of customer design support. As design engineers pick and start designing w/ TI chips, they often run into situations where they have very specific questions about how to use our products. They can always rely on calling TI’s customer support centers, but more and more of them have relied on ad-hoc engineering communities that have sprung up all over the Web. The problem with these is that there is usually no access to TI engineers here. We have spent countless hours talking with our customer engineers to help us understand their needs and how they go about filling them today.

One of our first steps was the establishment of the TI E2E Community with a focus on creating value by connecting engineers to engineers (both customer and TI engineers) with the primary purpose of delivering design support. We identified forums, video and blogs as the three legs of this community. Forums are pretty self-explanatory, w/ videos and blogs the idea is to develop tricks and trips, design help content - our motto: “peer-to-peer over a beer” [stolen with acknowledgment from the Microsoft Channel 9 guys]!

We are approaching 10,000 registered members - over 80 percent of them are customers. These engineers are coming on a regular basis and becoming the best marketing tool for this site as they continue to find value on a daily basis.

Our goal is to continue to keep bringing new product areas into the E2E community for design support.

One final point, the more time we have spent in this space the more we are realizing that as the online channel evolves into a social medium, our social marketing strategy becomes our online strategy.

Next: What were the first steps TI took? –>

January 22nd, 2009

NHL digital roll-out drumbeats to All Star Game

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 11:01 am

Categories: Corporate Social Networking, Marketing, Social Business, Social Business Analysis, Social Business Case Studies, Social Media, Social Networks, Social Video

Tags: Team, Fan, League, Video, Site, NHL, Michael DiLorenzo, Hockey Fan, Games, Team Management

Right now, Michael DiLorenzo is en route to Montreal to prep for this weekend’s All Star Game activities. It’s been a busy couple months for the NHL’s director of corporate communications, who is just recovering from the excitement around Winter Classic. With NHL starting to step out of the shadow of its professional sports big brothers NFL and MLB, there’s a lot of activity going on.

However, DiLorenzo’s preparations for this weekend didn’t just start. He and the broad team of content experts at the NHL had been prepping for months, including the seeding of preview video and creating an All Star Game micro site. It’s not just about the fans in Montreal — it’s about creating an experience for all hockey fans.

This is merely an extension of the league’s usual fan-centric approach to content. Over the last year or so, the NHL has been working diligently to roll out a three-phase digital media program to serve its estimated 20 million avid fans in North America — 13 million in the U.S. and 7 million in Canada. The primary objectives were to personalize content for avid fans, make that content more interactive, and create a more social presence on its NHL site and sub-sites.

“We know a few things about our fans that feed our strategy as a media business, but also support our investments in digital media,” DiLorenzo said.  “On average, about 50 percent of fans are displaced — meaning they live in a different geographic area than their favorite teams. Inherently they have an access constraint, whether it be missing the games on TV or not being able to buy their team-branded goods at a local sporting goods store.”

What DiLorenzo realized is that the combination of an access constraint and a technically sophisticated audience creates opportunity — for both the league and for the fans. Recognizing that the NHL has “modest” national television distribution (the league owns all of its TV rights) it has the ability to take video online in a way that other leagues cannot.

With that knowledge, the NHL moved forward.

Phase One: The digital media player –>

December 19th, 2008

NFL uses Reality Digital to turn fans into video producers

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 10:06 am

Categories: Q&A, Social Business Case Studies, Social Media, Social Video

Tags: Adobe Systems Inc., NFL, Video, Reality Digital, NFL.com Replay Re-Cutter, Q., Corporate Communications, Marketing, Jennifer Leggio

When the NFL wanted to create evolve the user-generated content on its site — and find a way to better engage its visitors — it turned to Adobe’s Premiere Express technology for video clip editing. When the league wanted to turn that into a social experience, it combined the Adobe technology with a hosted service platform for storing, sharing and managing user-generated content from Reality Digital. The result? The NFL Replay Re-Cutter.

The NFL.com Replay Re-Cutter allows fans to edit and remix video highlights of their favorite plays, players and teams throughout the season. With the Adobe technology, football fans can make their own “personal highlight reel” using existing videos as well as photos, graphics and audio files through a drag-and-drop method. A great tool, but the NFL had a challenge on its hands. With the need to upload weekly video highlights from 32 teams, how would it manage the user-generated content? How would it track where the content is shared? How could they they turn this into a more social tool and create more site traffic?

The solution was found when the NFL integrated Adobe’s technology with Reality Digital’s Opus Social Media Platform, a white label solution. With this platform, NFL fans can share “re-cuts” with others who can view and rate them, and then create their own videos. Videos shared elsewhere then bring interested viewers back to the NFL.com site.

I spoke with Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s vice president of digital media and media strategy, and Noah Fischbach, NFL.com’s director of digital content, to find out more about why they did this integration and what marketing benefits the league is seeing from the Re-Cutter overall.

Q. [Jennifer Leggio] What  gave you the idea to do the Replay Re-Cutter?

A. [NFL] The re-cutter was an opportunity for us to evolve the user-generated content experience on the site. We wanted to take steps in that direction and do it in a way that was smart and conscious of our brand. It was a way for us to allow users to get involved in a way they haven’t done previously and a smart way to expand the suite of content on the site.

Q. How did you get started?

A. We talked to Adobe about a lot of options and one was the Adobe Premiere Express application. It’s a strong product but Adobe didn’t offer any community or social elements around that. Reality Digital really brought this product to life. We were able to aggregate all of the different clips and make them more social. We’re very happy and satisfied. Reality Digital has proven to be a good partner.

Q. What  were the challenges?

The biggest challenge was understanding how to cut up the content and how to bucketize it. When we first launched the Re-Cutter we pre-populated it with hundreds of different clips for each of the teams. But how do we scale? How do we cut it? We decided that cutting them by team was the easiest way for us and for our users. We have a ton of content, though, and we had a challenge in determining how to best make it digestible for our users. Reality Digital was able to help us provide a richness to the experience so that the content is easy to navigate but none of the creative experience is lost.

Q. Has this increased traffic / improved visits?

A. We track the Re-Cutter separately than our other Web traffic and we’ve been very happy with the performance. It’s had a good impact on overall site video consumption. We do registrations as well, though it’s not required, and have been able to capture a lot of fan information that way. We’re happy with the numbers overall. (Note: NFL declined to share specific performance numbers)

Q. What were the primary objectives you had when creating the Re-Cutter and have you reached them?

A. It was certainly an opportunity for us to expand our suite of products and thereby increase traffic. The more different products we offer, the more fans we attract. We also wanted to learn more about our fans. What content do they want and what will they do with our content if given the chance? It provides an interesting programming angle and by watching what content they produce it allows us to get smarter about how we program the overall site.

Reality Digital is creating similar solutions for multiple other companies. While MLB.com is also a customer, don’t think the company only works with sports leagues. Organizations such as MTV, Travel Channel, Real Networks, Sears, Dreyer’s and Hearst Corporation are using Reality Digital solutions.

“We work with a pretty broad cross-section of customers, including retail, entertainment and media, as well as other industries that you wouldn’t automatically assume need a social media platform, such as the sports industry,” said Cynthia Francis, Reality Digital co-founder and CEO. “Some of our customers base their entire business on our platform, whereas others may use it to support a specific feature or campaign. We’ve found a way to provide brand-safe, rich media communities for disparate businesses to build brand recognition and establish stronger relationships with customers and partners.”

December 2nd, 2008

Fortune 500 series: How Newell Rubbermaid uses social media

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 11:42 am

Categories: Branding, Corporate Social Networking, Fortune 500 Series, Lead Generation, Marketing, Public Relations, Q&A, Reputation and Privacy, Social Business, Social Business Case Studies, Social Media, Social Media Best Practices

Tags: Brand, Social Media, Newell Rubbermaid, Graco, Graco Team, Branding, Marketing Research, Marketing, Jennifer Leggio

A couple weeks ago I began a series focusing on how Fortune 500 companies are leveraging social media and the thought leaders behind the companies’ programs. The questions from company to company are often similar, but the answers are vastly different. The first Q&A centered around Bob Thacker, senior vice president of marketing and advertising for OfficeMax, who has had great branding success for his company thanks to some social programs.

Now the focus is on another Fortune 500 company, Newell Rubbermaid, the parent of many wide-ranging brands, such as Sharpie, PaperMate, Rolodex, Shur-Line, Calphalon, Graco, Levolor, and of course the classic Rubbermaid product line. With such a huge brand inventory, how could social media potentially span that broad to help the company overall? I asked Bert DuMars, vice president of e-business and interactive marketing for Newell Rubbermaid, to explain the company’s approach, as well as why, over time, each of his brands will need a dedicated social media expert — and why those experts need a solid background in traditional marketing.

Q. [Jennifer] At a high level, please tell me about Newell Rubbermaid’s social media strategies.

A. [Bert] Our strategy is to listen to our consumers first, understand how they would like to engage with us and/or how they would like us to engage with them. We are using strategic methodologies developed by Converseon (specifically for our Graco brand) and Forrester Research Groundswell (POST methodology — specifically for our Rubbermaid brand). This has led us to start small, experiment and see what works. We then expand the particular tactic based on consumer feedback that they are receptive and that we have developed a level of trust with them in the conversation. Graco has been a first mover for us in blogging and outreach to “Mommybloggers.” Rubbermaid, Dymo and CardScan have been first movers in consumer generated reviews and ratings. These leadership positions allow our other brands to learn what works and then determine how they might like to proceed with social media marketing strategies with their consumer segments.

Q. When considering new social media strategies, what is your first move…To hire? To invest? To seek out market data?

A. We definitely seek out market data first. This is a new area for us and heavy investing (whether dollars, personnel or both) without understanding how, when and why our consumers would like to engage with us is risky and dangerous for our brands. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to listen before you leap. We use ForeSee Results consumer satisfaction service to help us listen to our consumers specifically in the interactive marketing area. We also need to determine if we have something positive and influential to add to the conversation. Our Sharpie brand has done limited to very little social media marketing to date, but there are many positive Twitter posts, YouTube videos and blog posts on the brand and products. So, the real strategy that needs to be considered for this brand is what can we add to the conversation that is not already, organically happening. I think there are some social media tactics that will work, but if there is already a large amount of activity and it is positive, you need to be very careful not to disrupt and/or interrupt it.

Next: The importance of a social marketing team –>

November 20th, 2008

Fortune 500 series: How OfficeMax uses social media

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 11:46 am

Categories: Branding, Career Development, Corporate Social Networking, Fortune 500 Series, Lead Generation, Marketing, Public Relations, Q&A, Reputation and Privacy, Social Business, Social Business Analysis, Social Business Case Studies, Social Media

Tags: OfficeMax Inc., Social Media, Jennifer Leggio, Marketing

“Social media can change your business!”

“You need a social media strategist!”

“Social media can save you money!”

Those are just three of the primary claims I’ve been hearing over and over and over again since I started following social business trends. Are they true? Sure. Are they false? Sure. The definitive answer is, “It depends on your business.”

While there are a whole slew of case studies on Internet-based businesses who have grown their businesses or marketing programs through social networking and social technologies, the larger company case studies are just starting to eek out. I decided to help it along, not by exactly doing case studies, but taking a look at Fortune 500 companies who are implementing social programs, and getting their first-hand take on how those programs are shaping their business.

I started with Bob Thacker, senior vice president of marketing and advertising for OfficeMax. OfficeMax is facing similar economic woes that other big businesses face, however the company is still focused on continuing the social programs it started testing out in 2006. I spoke with Thacker about these programs, future marketing plans, and even social talent hiring practices.

Q. [Jennifer] Tell me about how your team uses social media to build the OfficeMax brand.

A. [Bob] 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. Social media marketing today is about having conversations with consumers in a fun, rewarding manner that they choose to engage in and share.

Q. When considering new social media strategies, what is your first move…To hire? To invest? To seek out market data?

A. As social media marketing opportunities evolve, we are constantly evaluating and seeking new ways to become part of the consumer conversation. We discuss new social media strategies among our team and will try them out first-hand to determine if it’s a good fit for a present campaign or something we may keep in our back pocket. At OfficeMax, we’re unconventional, always testing new waters, and not afraid to take chances. A saying I often use, which applies to our social media strategy is, “If you’re going to crash a party, bring a bottle of wine,” and by that I mean if you’re going to be a party crasher, like advertising, then make the experience better for people – help them, inspire them, enlighten them, entertain them, amuse them, delight them, bring them something that makes the time they spend with you a rewarding experience. Once we decide upon the strategy, we seek the best industry partner to bring this concept to life.

Next: What’s a recent social success? –>

October 28th, 2008

eBooks get social, pose further threat to traditional publishers

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 8:35 am

Categories: Publishing, Q&A, Social Business Analysis, Social Business Case Studies, Social Media

Tags: Author, Publisher, Amazon Kindle, Cost Problem, E-books, Personal Technology, Jennifer Leggio

When most industry observers examine the impact of social media on traditional media industries, the focus inevitability turns to easily digitized media such as newspapers, magazines, radio, television and music.

But what about books, and more specifically eBooks? To get a sense of where eBooks are headed in the socialsphere, I checked in with Mark Coker, founder and CEO of Smashwords, an innovative eBook publishing startup I’ve been watching since their public beta launch earlier this year. In the interview, Mark comments on how the rise of social publishing, eBooks and indie authorship could spell difficultly for traditional book publishers.

Q. [Jennifer] To start, I want to make sure everyone understands exactly what Smashwords is.

A. [Mark] We help authors publish, sample and sell multi-format, DRM-free eBooks. The books are readable on e-reading devices like the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, iPhone, PCs, or even printable to plain paper. Authors simply upload their finished manuscript as a Microsoft Word file and set the price and sampling privileges.

Q. Who owns the content, and how do you compensate the authors?

A. We put the author in complete control over their published works. Our publishing agreement is non-exclusive. We give them 85 percent of the net sales proceeds of their books.

Q. If you publish any book, how do you filter the good from the bad?

A. As a community publishing platform, our authors can publish anything but readers decide what’s worth reading. Readers vote with their dollars and eyeballs, and the best and most popular works bubble up to the top of our listings.

Q. What benefits if any does social publishing provide over the traditional publishing model?

A. The traditional model for print publishing is broken. The system is clogged with expensive intermediaries - literary agents, editors, publishers, printers, distributors and bookstores - that stand between the author and their prospective reader. The cost problem is further exacerbated because publishers have no way to predict demand, so they often print twice as many books as they can sell. The high costs mean that published book authors seldom earn more than their advance, and most publishers lose money on the vast majority of the titles they publish. Many authors see self-publishing as a more viable method.

Next: Indie authorship’s impact on traditional publishers –>