Leadership Circle Considers Social Media

David Gammel, spoke to the second gathering of the Leadership Circle of the DMAW Educational Foundation on January 28. Gammel’s presentation centered on social media: What is it? Who needs it? Why?

Gammel, the president of High Context Consulting (Salisbury, MD), offered provocative tales and tidbits about such social media as blogs,
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging (AIM, Skype, ichat, and more), youTube, and Flickr.

So what’s the buzz about? Social media magic lies in its viral quality, its ability to spread to millions of people, traversing the Internet rapidly via word-of-mouth. To demonstrate the power of what some call this ìmob-marketingî phenomenon, Gammel offered the following pertinent cases in point.

Strobist.com is a blog authored by photographer and lighting enthusiast David Hobby. Started in June 2007, the Strobist now boasts an online readership of 200,000 people from 175 countries. Hobby, who used to write for the Baltimore Sun, started his blog project as, well.. a hobby; but the information he has posted since 2007 has attracted thousands of followers, earned advertising dollars, and made Hobby famous among amateur photographers. That’s the power of blogging.

And then there’s
Tony Hsieh, CEO of zappos.com, an insanely popular online shoe store whose motto is ìWe are a customer service organization that just happens to sell shoes.î In addition to managing a billion dollar online enterprise Hsieh traipses around the country, micro-blogging his moves, with thousands following his comings and goings. Why? That’s unclear, but, perhaps, to find out where somebody this successful hangs out, with whom he meets, and what’s on his daily – if not hourly -- agenda. That’s the power of Twitter.

Will it blend? Apparently, it will not only blend, it will pulverize all competitors. Kitchen blender maker
Blendtec has now produced some 75 YouTube videos that demonstrate the product smushing everything from iPods to rake handles, golf balls, marbles, credit cards, and a McDonalds’ Extra Value Meal. Views are in the millions and sales are up 700 percent. That’s the power of YouTube.

Lesson Number One: The truth will out. Because social media is about people talking to people, these free and chatty opportunities may seem inconsequential, but – if you’re irritating customers – the bad news will travel fast, exposing fundamental problems of your organization. Case in point: Comcast, one of the country’s most unappreciated (trying to be nice, here) corporations, suffers a host of websites and blogs devoted to trashing it. Antidote: Start monitoring Twitter, blogs, and other social media to find out what the gripe is. Lots of organizations are doing it. Ford Motor Company, for example, has a guy whose title is ìhead of social mediaî ScottMonty@twitter engages Ford customers on Twitter, responding to complaints for all to see.

Lesson Number Two: Via blogs and other social media, it’s possible to become “a person of interest”— someone who is widely known as having expertise and passion (see David Hobby, above). For organizations intent on building a loyal following, that’s a good person to have around.

Lesson Number Three: Social media may not pay, but it sure costs. Organizations who don’t find out what is being written, blogged, and twittered about them risk a lot of bad – and costly – publicity. Those who at least try to counter negative commentary may not be controlling the conversation, but they are both participating in and—to one degree or another—shaping the talk.

Lesson Number Four: Find out where your customers are gathering and join the party. Whether your customers are on Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, all five, or something else altogether, make it your business to know where they gather and find a way to hang out with them.

Takeaway Thought: How can you use social media to build your list?

Contact David Gammel at david@highcontext.com or visit www.highcontext.com.