Three Reasons Why Happy Brands Win in Social Media

In social media, there is a distinct advantage for brands that are happy vs. those that are not.

Social media, it has been said can be the ultimate BS meter. You can “fake” happiness for a short period of time, but it is highly difficult to fake it in the long term. This tends to trip up companies that don’t take social media seriously, don’t have a social media strategy, and have a weak corporate culture. Let me explain:

For the past five years or so, I’ve been working with major brands on their social media strategy and execution. Ultimately the brands that don’t take themselves too seriously, and have a culture of “fun” are the ones who win in social media. They don’t necessary have to have a fun product however. I’ve worked with GEICO, and their social community is a bustling ecosystem of fun!

I believe that this is true for a few reasons:

1. In social media you can’t always push content. In order to be successful, you must create content that pulls engagement. There are only so many ways you can do this and keep it centered around your business goals and objectives. So inevitably your corporate personality must shine through. What’s going on around the office? What are your employees interested in? What’s got them talking. If you have a strong corporate culture, then these topics will flow like a river. If everyone is at their desk looking for another job, well then you’ll have a difficult time thinking of fun things to post on your Facebook page. But if you’re just about to update the corporate Facebook page, and you’re hyperventilating from hilarity that ensued with your colleague, then the content you post will ooze fun. I promise.

2. People can read between the lines. There’s no faking enthusiasm. When a company writes content from the heart, it’s easy to sense when reading the content. I see so many times when you can tell that a brand has a weak company culture. You start to see posts that only push corporate drivel, or they inevitably start like this: Check out …whatever. When a company culture is filled with happy people you can see that they’re willing to “share” content via their social places. They operate from a place void of fear. They’re not driving the user to the website and only the website. They want their customers to reap benefits from following them in social media. So they figure out what the audience wants, or is interested in, and they share that type of content. This type of interaction feeds into itself, creating a fun environment in the social space, and ensuring full engagement. You can tell the companies that do this, you start to hear language that indicates true happiness. They lack bombast and are easy to give thanks and praise to other companies, and other individuals.

3. Angry employees make for awkward customer service interactions. I worked extensively with retailer Littlemissmatched. They’re a fun, wonderful brand with a really cool corporate culture. It’s baked into everything they do and it permeates all of their content. But sometimes there are serious customer service inquires on their Facebook page. Their customer service team is amazing. Really. When they interact with customers you can feel their joy in helping. So when I would interact with customers on their Facebook page, I became an extension of this joy. I felt it, the customers felt it. It was an impressive dance. Joyful customer service, who knew?

At any given time I can be reading, or listening to the audio-book for up to three books, which is the number of books I’m currently in the midst of digesting. Yesterday I started a new audio-book called “The Happiness Advantage” by Shawn Achor, which helped to inspire this post. I was familiar with Shawn because of this amazing TED talk . But I was convinced to buy his book by a dynamic speaker I met last week by the name of Dennis Budinich. During Dennis’s speech he held up Shawn’s book and told the audience that they NEED to read it. I was sold. And I’m thrilled Dennis shared the book because after listening to the audio-book for only a short time, I’m bursting with ideas. Shawn discusses his years of studying and working at Harvard, and the compelling work that he’s done regarding happiness. I won’t get into the details of the book here, I can only encourage you to purchase it and read it on your own. Have a wonderful day!

This post was originally posted on Social Media Today. By Chris Dessi, CEO of Silverback Social, LLC>

In Business, Hugs Matter. Seriously.

I love to hug. Really, I do. I’m pretty good at it too- at least my daughters seem to think so. I thought I was up there in “hugger ranking” until last week when I met a special guy named Martin Rubin.

Marty Rubin of Spectremedia

I met Marty at an event where I was invited to speak. I was there to speak about social media to the good folks at the New Jersey Bank Marketing Association. My good friend Scott Agnoli, VP of Marketing with Investors Bank had invited me, and requested that I help educate the people in the audience, but I was the one who walked away with the biggest lesson. Let me explain:

When I arrived at the venue, Scott greeted me. He, along with a few other people had congregated around the entrance to the conference room. One person among Scott’s colleagues stood out among the rest. His name is Marty Rubin. Scott introduced me to Marty and in the same breathe let me know that Marty was in the midst of recovering from heart surgery. I was shocked. He looked great, and seemed to be pulsating from an energy source certainly greater than mine. Marty and I immediately hit it off while he regaled me with the story of his heart attack, and his recovery. But that’s not what struck me, or inspired me to write this post today. What really struck me was that almost all of the people in the room had two things in common:

1. They were Marty’s client

2. They greeted Marty with a hug

Now when I say that they greeted Marty with a hug, I don’t mean the one armed “bro-hug,” no, not even close. I mean the type of hug that starts across the room with a booming “Maaaaartty, how arrrrrrrrrrre yoooooooooooy”? and ends in a warm lingering, rocking back and forth hug. Wow.

Marty inspired me, and I hope he inspires you too. Not just because Marty was doling out hugs last week – but because he was giving and recieving hugs from his clients. Too often in life we’re guarded. We conduct business with the passion of a rock. We separate ourselves, our true selves from our work. I believe this is a mistake, and witnessing Marty and his clients interact last week has proven it to me. One look around the room last week and you can tell he’s adored by those that do business with him. I was inspired.

I know that I’m guilty of not allowing myself to fully allow my personality shine through in my business dealings, but Marty obviously works from a different place. He’s following his DNA. I’m sure Marty is a savvy business man (his family business has been around for 80 years), but there is something else going on here. Surely he’s been able to keep his family business running through a horrible economic swoon, but you can tell just by seeing his interaction with his clients – scratch that – his friends that Marty knows how to live life well.

I hope today you approach your work week with a little more heart, a little more passion, a little more love. I know that I’m going to think about every interaction I have and wonder to myself – would they give me a hug like the hugs that Marty received?

Marty Rubin has proved to me that the good guys DO win in business. So have a great Monday, and an even better work week, and remember – you get excited about Friday if you have a job, but you get excited about Monday if you’re following your passion. Happy Monday everyone. Thank you to Marty Rubin.

The Secret to Customer Service in Social Media

Last night – or more accurately, this morning at about 1am I was having a slight panic attack. I’m in the midst of compiling content for a speaking engagement on May 3rd. I’m also launching a new company and I don’t have business cards for the event I’m speaking at- yikes. So seven days ago I used a service called UPrinting to get new business cards specifically for this event. They offer some really great card design services, and I was hugely pleased with the overall process of creating the business card on the site. I payed extra to expedite shipping so I would receive the cards well in advance of my speaking engagement. I paid for shipping to occur in four business days. Yesterday was day seven. Yikes again! So at 1am this morning I proactively had a conversation on their website via Liveperson. The woman I spoke with was kind, helpful and apologetic. I was still annoyed. So I took to Twitter and Tweeted my frustration:

I didn’t feel great about the tweet. I try hard to only tweet positive thing, but I was fully frustrated and not all too pleased. I went to bed hoping I’d get my cards in time. This morning when I awoke, I found this message from Uprinting on Twitter

This tweet happened only and hour after I had sent my tweet. It was while I was sleeping, but when I awoke to their message, I was delighted. I sent them a DM with the order number and commending the service I received via Liveperson. They had redeemed themselves. While I was still disappointed in the process and delay in their service, they had acknowledged my frustration.

Which brings me to the point of my post. The secret to customer service in social media -

LET THEM KNOW YOU HEAR THEM.

While I still don’t have my business cards, I feel hugely better about Uprinting as a business because they “hear” me. They flipped me. I went from furious to sending this last tweet this morning:

In closing – make sure you’re listening, and even if you can’t resolve the issue – just let them know you hear them. It will dissipate the frustration. I promise. I just lived it.

Over and out.

5 Sure-fire Ways to Get Your Boss to Pay More Attention to Social Media

I once heard Gary Vaynerchuk answer the question “What’s the ROI of social media.” His response was partially dismissive, mostly true, and certainly brought down the house. He replied with a fervent “What’s the ROI of putting on your pants.“ I love that response, but I also understand why your boss may cringe after hearing it. She has a budget, key performance indicators, and responsibility. She’s asking you about ROI because she wants to support you. She needs to understand the ROI so she can allocate said budget, and analyze how well you’re doing. So how can you impress upon your boss that she must invest in social media today? Here are some tips:

Start today. Most social media (early on) is free. If you don’t already have a social media presence, then read this post, and get to it as soon as possible. Create the basics (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, Google+, and Linkedin Company Page). Try to keep search in mind when creating these social locations- include the full name of your business where you can. Create Twitter and Facebook before you create Pinterest – you can use Facebook to sign up on Pinterest. Create a gmail account so you can easily synch it with your Youtube channel. All of these locations have intuitive interfaces, but if you want more specific direction – just find me on Twitter and ask @cdessi.
Show her the data: Make sure that you record the date you started, and of course track all activity. Your goal that you need to keep in mind is that you’re making a very qualitative endeavor (social media) into something as quantitative as you possibly can. You must create benchmarks, and track your progress. A few simple ways to track your progress include leveraging tools like Hootsuite, or bit.ly when tweeting or posting links. Tweetreach allows you to analyze the content of your tweets and will produce some really lovely visual reports for you to share with your boss. Also, check out TweetLevel from Edelman. They will compile a really nice analysis of your tweets along with a written executive summary. This will help you distill the activity when presenting your case.
Show her the competition: This is easy. If you’re at a small to mid sized business, I’m sure you have a lot of competition. Whether is be based solely on location, size, or direct competition – start researching. Check to see if they have any social media presence. Are social icons on their website? Are they conducting SEM programs? Do they have a Pinterest board? Aggregate snapshots of all social locations using Techsmith’s Snagit, and present to your boss. This type of presentation will be sure to stir a visceral reaction in your boss. The reality is social media is here to stay, and I’m certain some of your competition are active.
Show her the content - Be sure to create a central repository of all the content you share via the social places – I recommend 37 Signal’s Basecamp. This will cost some money, but it will reap dividends. Sometimes after you post on Facebook or Twitter (and your not tracking activity) it’s difficult to remember what photos, or video you posted. Also, keeping a good inventory of this content will articulate to your CEO that you already have great content and that you don’t have to spend a ton of money to gain access to social media ready content. The first step should always be to leverage your current assets. Once those are exhausted, then start to create unique content. This can be as simple as walking around the office and snapping a few photos.
Show her the money – Now you need to start to make a case for your few months. If you don’t already have access to your companies Google Analytics, then get it. Google Analytics is fantastic for tracking the ROI of social media. you will be able to see how people discovered your site. If you’ve been executing properly chances are you’re going to have some traffic from the few social places I mention in step 1. There is your proof. All you need is some inkling that there is a possibility that social media generates traffic to your site.

Good luck!
@cdessi