In full Retweet — November 13th

In full Retweet Whether you love Twitter or hate it, the microblogging service is one of the single most dominant forces in communications at the moment. In the same way that AOL introduced the great unwashed masses to the internet, Twitter is training people to think, speak and interact online in new and novel ways. Just as AOL made it easy to establish a dial-up connection, Twitter’s offering has been deceptively simple — broadcasting to the world 140 characters at a time. Until now, all of the thousands of applications for using Twitter have been developed by 3rd parties.  This week, however, Twitter shook the  foundations of the social media world by introducing a slight tweak to the service. It now has a “button” which users can click on to forward (”retweet”) messages that they’ve read. If you don’t think that’s a big deal, you’re mistaken! 

 What do you say, Jay! A quick google search on “social media marketing  strategy” will yield approximately 76,200,000 results, 99.9% of which  will tell you that in order to sell something, you have to establish an  “interactive relationship” with your customers online. Easier said than  done. In his blog, Convince & Convert, Jay Baer cuts through that b.s.  to tell it like it is: “Your customers don’t want to be your friend.”  Recognizing that most of the time people are online to amuse themselves,  not serve as an unpaid spokesperson, Jay explains that in order to  succeed, companies need to convince “the customer that by NOT connecting  with you, they are missing out on something of value.” Put that way,  it’s much easier to understand what a huge undertaking this whole thing  is. 

Ask Wendy, she’ll know! The expert consensus is that companies need to  create relationships with their customers by making interesting and  useful comments on other people’s blogs, providing links and  establishing their brand’s personality. As a consultant to these  companies, the problem I see is that blog comments are made by *people*  not by *companies*. Being a good social media do-be, I posted about  this quandry to my LinkedIn marketing group. Right away, industry  stalwart Wendy Soucie (no link, just google her!) got back to me. She  agreed that “Social media users don’t want to talk with companies. They  want to talk to people who can give them good recommendations, tell them  how to fix something, provide help, and answer questions.” Citing Zappos  as an example, she recommends finding an employee who is vested and  passionate.

 Wanna bet? Ironically, in spite of the whole “be real” mantra of social marketers, my friend Tyson sent me a link this week about a successful branding effort that actually relies on a fictional character. The Luxor casino in Las Vegas actually designed a “specific personality to speak on behalf of the property” (LuxorLV, on Twitter). According to their VP of marketing, this character “was a way of trying to develop a better relationship, a different kind of relationship with potential customers.” Apparently 7,000 people think this is a good idea. Who says Madison Avenue is dead!