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? –>

March 2nd, 2009

Q&A with Jeremiah Owyang: Social business economy

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 1:15 pm

Categories: Corporate Social Networking, Fortune 500 Series, Marketing, Q&A, Social Business, Social Media, Social Media Economy

Tags: Technology Company, Brand, Recession, Social Media, Technology, Twitter, Q., Branding, Marketing, Jennifer Leggio

In December Peter Kim took to his network to crowdsource and create his 2009 social media predictions. One such predictor was Jeremiah Owyang, senior analyst with Forrester in the social computing group, who said “The recession will force revenue results out of social technologies.” The key word here is “force.” Meaning, that social technologies need to stand up to the expectations set for them and drive real ROI for businesses, and the truly good ones will be able to follow-through. The others, according to Owyang, will get weeded out.

While it’s still too early in the year to put any hard metrics against Owyang’s prediction — not to mention a lot of social tech companies are not disclosing revenue and a lot of their customers are not disclosing ROI numbers — it is a good time to talk about how this trend is tracking. Social technologies and social media in general are under considerable scrutiny due to the amount of emphasis put on it in 2008. In a related note, Owyang wrote last week about how the recession is going to purge out a lot of self-proclaimed social media gurus who may not be able to produce the quantifiable financial results that clients are demanding.

So on that note, I spoke with Jeremiah last weekend to pick his brain about this prediction, about what clients should be looking for as they sift through the bull, about which social technology companies are really proving themselves — and I even snuck in a bit about Twitter’s long-awaited business model.

Q. [Jennifer] When you say that the recession will “force revenue results out of social technologies,” what do you mean by “force?”

A. [Jeremiah] The companies that don’t provide any quantifiable results or don’t understand how they need to help brands develop profits… they are going to go away in one form or another. There’s been a lot of innovation primarily due to the influx of venture capital funding but not a lot of business models. We saw this in the last innovation wave before the dotcom crash. The recession will force these social technology companies to meet the needs of the market or they will dissipate. It hasn’t happened yet — people still have reserve capital to lean on. But the VCs are looking for business models NOW.

Q. Of course, the most famous social tech company with a mystery business model is Twitter. How does this apply to them?

A. Twitter has success and VC funding but their VCs are demanding that model. The architecture is ready and they have to figure out how to monetize the community. The VCs might not have cared as much a few years ago but now they need to look at these things pragmatically. Social media playtime is over.

Q. Everyone has their theory and interpretation of how Twitter might monetize. What do you see as their best path?

A. Definitely a lightweight customer relationship management (CRM) solution. An advertising model would be too potentially disruptive to the user experience (as seen with Magpie). Twitter is looking for ways they can meet the needs of brands without jeopardizing that user experience. Traditionally brands spend a lot of money on customer acquisition and many of these customers are already using Twitter. These brands also already invest countless dollars in CRM systems. Twitter has the “C” and the “R” but is missing the “M.” The missing piece of that is a tool for brands to track, look for mentions, determine who / what is influencing their customers. This data can be very helpful and right now it is tedious to try to track with Twitter Search and other third party applications. And there is much more intelligent data to be gleaned with the right tools.

Q. So if we’re talking lead generation and tracking via Twitter perhaps a partnership with a Salesforce.com?

A. Absolutely. A lot of CRM firms are already pulling in the Twitter API. Web analytics firms and brand monitoring firms are doing the same, trying to glean information. They know Twitter has the kind of traction that their brand clients are looking for. In time we’ll see more of a connection here.

Why social tech and why now? –>

February 2nd, 2009

Focus on success: HubSpot's rapid growth

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 11:15 am

Categories: Branding, Corporate Social Networking, Lead Generation, Marketing, Public Relations, Q&A, Social Business, Social Media

Tags: HubSpot, Q., Marketing Research, Marketing, Jennifer Leggio

HubSpot seems to be everyone’s favorite marketing firm these days — or at least the favorite of many. The firm, which charged into the market two years ago, now has more than 1,000 customers leveraging its inbound marketing services. I know I’m not alone in being fascinated by HubSpot so I spoke to Mike Volpe, vice president of marketing, about the company’s rapid growth, the benefits of “eating its own dogfood” and how his six-person marketing team appears larger than life.

Q. [Jennifer] HubSpot seems to be on fire in terms of it’s brand exposure. Over the last year, at the least. What do you credit with that?

A. [Mike] Really? Thanks! Two years ago we were five people with an alpha product and 12 customers. Today we’re 65 people and have 1,000 customers. But we’re not a household (or business-hold) name yet. We have a long way to go in terms of building a company and brand. But, the growth we have experienced is completely based on having a great team that has built cool marketing software products and marketing content that people seem to like. All we try to do is build things we think people will like – both software like HubSpot and the free marketing tools at Grader.com and other things like our blog articles, Webinars, videos, and HubSpot TV – and then share these things with people and ask them what they think.

Q. Are you guys “eating your own dogfood” — so to speak — with inbound marketing?

A. Yes, absolutely. About 90 percent of all our leads are inbound. There are two huge benefits to that.

First, the lead quality from inbound marketing is much higher since all of our leads approached us. We make zero cold calls. Every single phone call one of our sales reps makes is calling someone back who has already used one of our software tools or watched a webinar or something like that. A lot of people we call say “Oh, HubSpot, cool! I was hoping you would call. I just watched your webinar and I had a question…” Our sales reps are a lot like marketing consultants because they are highly trained in marketing and are just there to answer questions about our product and how you can use it to drive more marketing results. At other companies you’re making a cold call, and the person either doesn’t answer or when they do answer they start thinking “who is this person calling me and why do they think I want to talk to them.”

Second the cost per lead is much lower from inbound marketing.  Our cost per lead is about five to 10 times lower than the benchmarks for most other B2B software companies. And that enables us to have a very low price product and serve a much larger market of small businesses, rather than spending lots of money and having to go after a small number of large companies and charge really high prices.  It also enables us to grow a lot faster using less capital than other companies, and we can spend a higher portion of our dollars on product development and enhancements, which makes customers even happier. There are a lot of positive reinforcing loops when your company embraces inbound marketing.

How does HubSpot measure success? –>

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 –>

October 21st, 2008

Q&A with Chris Brogan: Social media gets a sanity check

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 9:23 am

Categories: Branding, Corporate Social Networking, Marketing, Q&A, Snake Oil, Social Business Analysis, Social Media, Social Media Best Practices, Social Networks

Tags: Social Media, Jennifer Leggio, Consultant

One of the hardest things a person must do — both personally and professionally — is honestly look in the mirror. It’s often unpleasant, but unless you’re Narcissus, it’s not meant to be a time to fawn over oneself. We take a hard look in order to see our flaws and if we’re strong enough we take our realizations and channel them into actions for improvement.

The blog post I published yesterday about the unhealthy amount of snake oil in the social media consultant community shone a light on many people looking at their practices in a mirror in the face of our spiraling economy. The dismay that wasn’t expressed on the original blog post was conveyed to me via email or through one of the many social networks in which I participate. Some were thankful for the perspective. Some were hemming and hawing about the concept. And others were downright furious.

While I do not claim to hold all of the answers, I am glad that I was able to add to the conversation and foster a bit of exploration. However, after honestly looking at my own self in the mirror last night, I felt it best to get a bit of a sanity check.

Below you’ll find a Q&A with Chris Brogan, who in my estimation is one of the most impressive individuals in business. Chris comes at social media with a perspective different than most of us marketing types — he’s knee deep in enterprise IT. Since my post yesterday focused on avoiding snake oil, I asked Chris a handful of questions, the answers to which reflect a bit more optimism about the industry, and provide some tips for decision-makers who are grappling with whether or not they want to embark on social media endeavors.

Q. [Jennifer] What do you think are the fundamental traits of a solid consultant, whether it be social media or general business / marketing?

A. [Chris] I think social media consultants need more skills in two core areas: interfaces and executives. In the first case, I mean that this stuff can’t live on an island. Alan Scott, chief marketing officer of Dow Jones told me at the New Marketing Summit that he doesn’t have a social media budget. He has a marketing budget. Some of it incorporates social software elements, where those make sense. On the executives side, social media consultants need to display more business knowledge, and speak about their craft from the mindset of value propositions and bottom line business-related shifts. Joining the conversation isn’t a good starting point any longer.

Q. When should a business person consider a consultant versus trying to do it on its own?

A. The main value of a consultant in social media is that the toolset changes too frequently for a business to have accurate information on how to best engage using the best-fitted tools. Where a simple Blogger.com blog would’ve sufficed for a business a few years ago, the conversation has drifted off the blog and out into the new, diffuse web. Forget Twitter; we’re onto FriendFeed. But even after saying this, the best social media consultants won’t take a client on a tool hunt. Instead, they’ll craft something simple and integrated and manageable from a series of tools without inundating a business with all the options.

Q. What are the marks of a good social media consultant?

A. The marks of a good social media consultant are that they’ve produced a body of work on their area of expertise for you to review, that they can point to others who would recommend them, that they have some amount of time spent in this space. Without those three simple checks, it’s kind of hard to know who you’re letting influence your strategy.

Oh, I nearly forgot: if your social media consultant doesn’t talk with a strategic perspective, they’re nothing but a tool pusher.

Next: Strategy, a case study & recommendations –>

September 18th, 2008

Pandora opens up: Q&A with Tim Westergren

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 12:35 pm

Categories: Internet Radio, Q&A, Social Media Economy

Tags: Internet Radio, Radio, Pandora, Advertising & Promotion, Marketing, Jennifer Leggio

In August, Pandora founder Tim Westergren told the Washington Post that the future could be bleak for the Internet radio station due to high percentage of its revenue being forced to go to royalty fees. Now, one month later, Westergren is shooting down rumors and socialsphere speculation about why Pandora is facing potential extinction.

“One of the falacies that is floating around is that Internet radio is poorly monetized — that is not true,” Westergren said. “We’re just being charged more than other forms of radio. At the current pace if we did our projected $23-$24 million this year we would be paying $17 million in royalty fees. That’s 70 percent of our revenue. Someone explain to me how that is fair when satellite radio is charged only about 7.5 percent for its music. It’s really ridiculous.”

The other rumors? Some bloggers have written that in order to survive Pandora needs to get more social, more akin to competitor Last.fm, which has a more interactive quality. But this issue isn’t about site traffic or a lack of reasons for advertisers to invest.

“Advertising is steady for us,” Westergren said. “And the commentary around our needing to be more social shows the ignorance in understanding the economics of Internet radio. Anyone who does Webcasting has these exact problems. I think we’re being more open about the challenge so people may think it’s use, and we’re also the largest pure play Internet radio station so we’re going to get more attention on this subject.”

Fired up about the issue but still holding steady ground, Westergren is deep in the trenches of leading Pandora’s negotiation with Sound Exchange, the entity that represents artists and record labels, but is understandably quiet on the current details.

“We’re currently still negotating and nothing material has changed, but we’re hopeful that all will be resolved in the negotation,” Westergren said.

The news of Pandora’s potential demise sent a shock through music lovers on the Web. Some even went as far to create an “I Heart Pandora” widget for people to show solidarity through their blogs and social network pages and several bloggers have written urging their readers to take action and urge Sound Exchange to settle in favor of Pandora and Internet radio. It was just 18 months ago when Westergren himself put out a call to Pandora listeners sign a petition urging their Congressional representatives to act in favor of Internet radio. Are those actions needed again? Maybe, but now isn’t the right time.

Next: Why listeners should hang tight…for now –>

August 6th, 2008

The social media corporate identity crisis

Posted by Jennifer Leggio @ 12:21 pm

Categories: Branding, Corporate Social Networking, Microblogging, Q&A, Reputation and Privacy, Social Business Case Studies, Social Media, Social Media Best Practices, Twitter

Tags: brand, social media, twitter, joel postman, popeyes chicken, q., branding, social networking, marketing, online communications

The recent “hijacking” of the ExxonMobil brand for Twitter use made a whoosh as the news traveled around the socialsphere. It also brought into view a lot of questions around brand validity and responsibility in terms of social networking. Joel Postman, principal of Socialized, authored this guest piece on the social media corporate identity crisis, which includes a Q&A with one of the newest brands to join Twitter — Popeyes Chicken.

Call it “brandjacking”. Or call it “an open brand” managed through online consumer conversations. Either way, social media, with its often loose standards regarding user identity, has opened up a Pandora’s Box of opportunities for confusion about who is, and isn’t, an authorized company spokesperson.

Last week Exxon Mobil confirmed that Janet, who called herself ExxonMobilCorp on the microblogging service Twitter, was not an authorized representative of the company. The announcement spurred a flurry of reactions, including observations that social media is inherently untrustworthy, and that companies, like Twitter, that run these networks don’t do enough to police the usage of company and personal identities.

To reaffirm my faith in social media, I decided to contact Popeyes Chicken to find out a little more about one of my favorite company representatives, @PopeyesChicken, on Twitter. I did an e-mail Q&A with Alicia Thompson, vice president, communications & PR for Popeyes, and I am pleased to report, in keeping with Popeyes’ brand, their Twitter presence is “Bonafide.”

Q. [Joel] How was the decision arrived at within Popeyes Chicken to develop a presence on Twitter?

A. [Alicia] When we launched our Popeyes BonafideTM campaign in the spring, we knew that we wanted to reach younger demographics, so we included a number of social media tools in our marketing efforts including Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

Q. How many people “staff” the Twitter handle?

A. One person “staffs” the handle…surprisingly NOT from the marketing group, but from the technology team.

Q. Have they been given guidelines as to what they can and cannot say?

A. No, however, he always aligns his tweets along our core brand messaging.

Q. The Popeyes Chicken person/people I have encountered on Twitter seem to be very friendly, and have a great sense of humor. Is this intentional?

A. He’s naturally a friendly, humorous person, so the tweets are in no way contrived. What you “read” is truly who he is.

Q. To what degree are they “empowered” to handle customer issues?

A. He acknowledges consumer issues and directs them to our Guest Relations team so that they can be handled appropriately.

Q. What did you expect to get out of being on Twitter, and what results (of any kind) have you achieved?

A. We are still experimenting with social media and have no real expectations. As for results, we have generated a good amount of interest (folks like you) and we are definitely being noticed.

Q. Any other thoughts you’d like to share on either Twitter or Popeyes Chicken’s social media strategy overall?

A. We will continue to explore social media where appropriate and hope to utilize it even more in the future as we continue our efforts to engage younger consumers.

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