Yesterday, when Jay Baer stopped by our office to give us a full run down of the latest in SM, one particular discussion stuck out to me.  While we constantly remind our clients of this as we pass the SM torch over to them, it really is essential that companies utilize Facebook and Twitter accounts as an added component to a customer service team.

Jay noted that when  a woman calls a company to reach customer service, she almost expects to basically get no where.  When she emails, she may expect a response within a few days.  But, when an individual hops on Twitter and Facebook and posts to a brand that has so openly requested her to interact, she wants a response/solution to her issues RIGHT NOW.

Below are some simple strategies to implement customer service into your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Using Social Media for Customer Service

1)  Monitor your social media accounts daily.  Engaging posts are important, but know that you can’t always plan for what a fan/follower may post.

2)  When a fan complains about your product, don’t delete the post.  Let it be an open dialogue where you assure your fan that the problem is going to be addressed.

3)  Respond to questions, concerns, and even positive feedback immediately.  And by immediately, I mean within an hour!  If you don’t generate a response quickly enough, that may be a lost follower forever.

4)  If the issue requires tech support or help from a separate department within your company, respond within the hour to tell them that you are sorry for the frustration, the issue is being addressed and you will respond with an answer/solution within the next three hours.  (And follow up with that guarantee.)

It’s probably a good idea to have some simple responses to questions that tend to pop up regularly on your fan pages and Twitter feeds, but know that you can’t plan the day to day.  Just be confident in your brand and remember that these fans/followers trust your social media involvement as a part of your customer service initiatives.

What brands do you think utilize social media for customer service best?

The past few years, we’ve seen an increase in companies that haven’t necessarily been known for their eco-friendly ways jumping on the green bandwagon.  While some may call this greenwashing, is it really such a bad thing?

During the Super Bowl, Audi released their new “eco-themed” commercial featuring their latest car (and winner of Green Car Journal’s “Green Car of the Year”), A3 TDI.  The ad follows a squad of “Green Police” that obsessively seek out and arrest regular Joes for their environmental ignorance.  My personal fave is the scantily-clad gentleman running away from a SWAT team-sized crew of green police chasing him down for having the hot tub temperature too high.  The commercial is timely, humorous, and informative in its own way.  However, there are mixed feelings about the ad, as seen in the comments of this popular green blog, Ecorazzi.  So, what are the issues?

1)  Is it greenwashing?  While A3 TDI sets itself apart from other Audi vehicles by being more eco-friendly, Audi is not adjusting its branding to fit this one product.  It can be a step in the right direction for the luxury car industry, raising the bar when it comes to responsibility, and raising awareness about simple changes that can be made in daily life.

2)  Is it demeaning to green-enthusiasts?  While this is an extreme case of environmentalism and it may seem to poke fun at die-hard eco-savers, the ad also offers comic relief when a lot of other brands may take a more “shame-on-you” approach to environmental education.

3)  Is this A3 TDI REALLY green?  As consumers, we all want options.  Whether or not a Hybrid car is the greener alternative, Audi is opening the door to competitors, which means companies will begin working harder to decrease their carbon footprints.  And marketers will get a lesson in sustainable marketing.

So, do we applaud this large-name brand that’s spreading the eco-friendly message or do we disregard them because we would have chosen an alternative way to get the message across?  Please share your thoughts/feelings on greenwashing in the comments.

While companies around the country are learning how to engage in social media, we really appreciate the ones that can have fun with the fact that they may not know everything about it.  And Big Bear Mountain Resort’s new radio spot illustrates this perfectly.  Not to mention, this spot really is AWESOME-SAUCE!

(click the link below to hear radio spot)

BBMRRadioSpot

If you happened to log into Facebook last Thursday, January 7, you probably got a gander into all of your female friend’s lingerie drawers (via colorful status updates, we mean).  Women across the country were secretly sharing the day’s bra color as a means to show their support for breast cancer awareness.

Facebook updates tell bra color

The risque updates created a buzz as marketers took notice wondering the source of the campaign.  Perhaps the bigger point isn’t where it began, rather what it resulted in – a “viral” campaign that actually went viral.

Oddly while on the topic of breast-related health and social media campaigns, a PA nonprofit, Feel Your Boobies Foundation was named one of the top 100 charities on Facebook via Chase’s Facebook contest, Community Giving.  They were awarded an initial $25,000 and are waiting to hear if they will be the grand prize recipients of $1 million (to be decided late February).

While both of these viral campaigns show the power of social media to share a message, perhaps we’ve all missed a rather obvious means to raising money for our favorite nonprofits – well, not all of us have missed it, exactly.  San Diego’s Tariq Khamisa Foundation (TKF) is using social media for their recent Viral Donor Drive, and they’ve tapped into C.K. Prahalad’s message: “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.”

Our client, Aladdin Bail Bonds currently supports the local nonprofit, dedicated to breaking the cycle of youth violence by empowering kids.  TKF’s Viral Donor Drive uses their Facebook fan page, Twitter account, email database and a special “Stop Kids from Killing Kids” website to spread the word about the drive, with a goal of reaching $1 million.  The beauty of this campaign is that instead of asking a few significant donors for a large sum, TKF aims to reach their goal by asking for $1 from 1 million people – illustrating the power at the bottom of the pyramid and highlighting how well social media factors in, offering over 350 million eyes worldwide to TKF and other nonprofits.

Supporters of the nonprofit can make a donation or help fundraise by creating their own social networking campaign in which educational materials will be provided.  For more information or to donate, visit their website or Fan Page.

There’s been a lot of hype lately regarding the constant changes to Facebook fan pages.  One of the most upsetting changes for marketers was the newly added restrictions regarding contests held on Facebook..  As marketers, what we loved about Facebook contests were that it leveled the playing field for companies and brands of all sizes.  Brand recognition and money had nothing to do with whether or not you became visible on Facebook. But sometimes good things must come to an end…or in our case, come to a crossroad, where we’re forced to be more creative with our outreach.

While Facebook hasn’t entirely banned all contests, here are the most important new guidelines to keep in mind:

• You need written approval from Facebook before beginning a contest.  Sounds easy enough, right?  Not so much!  Facebook has companies “fill out” a contact form and in that form, they ask what your ad budget is.  From our own findings, we discovered that this form is somewhat useless if you don’t plan to spend at least $25,000 in advertising, as we were directed away from the contact form when not entering a high enough dollar amount.   Out of curiosity, we entered the $25,000 amount and sure enough, the contact form continues with its questionnaire.  Hey, I guess we finally know how Facebook makes their money.

• You’re limited in how you publicize your contest. If you’re lucky enough to gain permission to run a contest from  Facebook, this means you probably have a larger budget for ad spending than most and also that you need to be aware that you’re still limited with how you promote your contest.

1. You can only run contests on third party applications and may only share info regarding said contest on the canvas page of an application or an application box in a tab on your fan page.
2. You cannot condition that participants take any action on Facebook – that includes uploading photos or videos, updating status, or updating a profile or page.
3. You cannot notify winners of contests through Facebook – that includes private message, IM, status update, or wall post.

Whether or not Facebook took the wind out of your sails, we’d recommend that you re-think running a contest on the platform. Even if you think Facebook wouldn’t notice a tiny Mom & Pop Shop running a contest, iyou are risking having your page shut down and losing your already-established fan base.  Facebook is still a behemoth platform where the demographic is constantly changing and the public is more than eager to interact.  If your brand doesn’t qualify for running a contest, you may just have to find a new/creative way to market you Facebook Fan page.

We’ve learned a lot about social media over the past couple of years and while you may think you’ve figured out the PERFECT social media program, there’s always more to be learned.  Below are five social media secrets from an agency that, occasionally, has had to learn the hard way.

Social Media Secrets:

• Facebook has secret groups – Whether it be because your forum users have run a muck on your public space or email conversations between 100+ people isn’t working, one social media secret you may not know is that Facebook offers what could be your most successful crisis communication tool yet: secret groups.  Admins must invite Facebook users to even see the content.  And these groups are unsearchable so they offer a safe, secure means to open discussions for companies.

• Twitter doesn’t save tweets forever (at least not for public viewing) – For many of us, part of our responsibility when running a social media campaign is measurement.  And while that does mean different things to different companies, most can agree that recording follower interaction is part of any measurement document.  However, according to this article from ReadWriteWeb, Twitter co-founder, Biz Stone explains that Twitter “does save all tweets, but search focuses more on newer content.”  Because of this, you should always be aware that those awesome @replies and RTs from Twitter power users a month ago, may have disappeared into the abyss.  It’s always good practice to try to count or document those interactions on a weekly/biweekly basis.

• Facebook fan page creators will ALWAYS be admins – When an individual creates a fan page for a brand from within their personal account, she cannot remove herself as an admin.  Why is this a problem? 1) Admins can’t ever write a post on the fan page without the post coming from the brand. 2) If that creator is an employee of a company and loses the position/account, he will always have access to the page – that even means they could remove every other admin of that given brand’s page.  Not Good!

• Facebook status updates with links, photos or videos are NOT updates, rather wall posts – We’ve had a few clients question why their “status updates” aren’t updating at the top of the fan page.  The answer: an “update” with a link, photo, video, or other embeddable character isn’t recognized as a simple update by Facebook.  Remember that anything posted by a fan page is added to a fan’s feed, no matter if it’s a post or a status update.

• Internet browsers can sometimes be the culprit to painfully sluggish activity – We’ve had the luxury of dealing with images that don’t seem to want to upload to our albums.  After trying the refresh button, cursing the social media gods and pounding our hands and fists in frustration, we finally discovered that a simple transition from Firefox to Safari (for Macs) was all it took.  Don’t pretend this hasn’t happened to you…you all know you’re relieved that you’re not the only one to deal with browser issues.

This just skims the surface of the secrets of social media. We’d love to hear your additions!

Advanced social media users often struggle to get new information at social media seminars. To that point, this post was meant to be a recap of a recently attended social media conference that discussed measurement of social media campaigns.  However, this particular course vaguely touched on measurement and repeated what we’ve been hearing at almost every other conference we’ve attended.

And it seems the more conferences our public relations and social media teams attend, the more we begin to realize the need for a leveling system with entirely different information for advanced social media users.

I’ve decided to share my recommended leveling system for all AMAs, Ad Clubs, and any other conference coordinators, to help as they’re planning their social media conferences:

Novice Social Media Users: This would be geared towards clients and marketing professionals trying to break into the social media world, but are overwhelmed with where to begin.  Basics would include: which platforms make the most sense for your clients, how to put together a social media plan for your clients, and how to begin building and best utilizing these platforms.  Attendees would learn, based on provided case studies and overall breakdown of platforms, if they should use Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube or implement a blog strategy.

Intermediate Social Media Users:  Geared towards professionals already utilizing social media platforms, this level would share how to make platforms more searchable, more engaging and more time-manageable.  Discussions would include Facebook and Twitter apps that increase fan interaction, and simple SEO strategies to keep bringing traffic to Flickr, your blog, or Facebook fan page.

Advanced Social Media Users:  Assuming attendees already have social media plans in place for their clients or brands, advanced members would learn how to provide comprehensive measurements to their clients, as well as a list of tools and applications that aid in the management of each platform.  Some of the best tools and applications BG has found has been through trial and error or personal recommendations by experts like  Jason Baer, Chris Brogan and Mashable.  These conferences should offer recommended social media behemoths for professionals to follow. After all, we are attending these educational courses to share and learn new techniques.

Do you think there should be a leveling system to these conferences?  If so, what do you think should be taught at each level?

At this public relations firm, we currently aid in management of numerous social media marketing campaigns for clients across varying industries.  And although each particular client requires a different tone and message, we found one thing they all have in common is that the same applications and tools seem to work across the board when looking to increase interaction with our clients’ customers.

Here are some examples of tools we use for our Facebook pages:

Poll:  You can create your own polls for your profile or fan page.  The beauty of this app is that you write the question and as many options as you want.

YouTube Box:  Enables you to input your favorite YouTube videos into a tab on your profile or page.

Extended Info:  This is the perfect application for giving your page viewers detailed information on what you find pertinent.  You can input the topic and detailed information on that topic.  You can also use this app to hyperlink to other sites if you choose.

ArtShare:  Created by the team at  Brooklyn Museum, ArtShare allows you to share works of art from Museums around the world.

Twitter:  Created by involver, Twitter inputs your brand’s or personal Twitter feed into a tab on your Facebook page.

NetworkedBlogs: This application can be added as a tab on your profile or company page to bring your blog to Facebook.  A minor setback is that you need verification from friends on Facebook that you’re the author before Facebook will allow you to post.

Now, while we heard this week through All Facebook that Facebook is putting their foot down on hundreds of app. developers, there are still multiple successful applications that aren’t abusing their loyal users with unrelated advertisements.  (Note: it’s always important that while using tools and applications through your brand’s social networks you do your research and make sure the tools are safe and affective.)

Twitter also offers some very helpful tools.  While we’ve already posted on link-shortening and desktop applications to make your Twitter experience easier, here are some more fun applications to learn:

TwitPic: Allows you to upload and tweet out photos you take with your 140 character description

Twtpoll: (see image above) Simlar to the Poll app. from Facebook, you can embed this link into any website you choose with the same link allowing for a more accurate reading of responses across the board of social media platforms.

Klout:  While possibilities are endless in the Twitter grading realm, we found this particular measurement tool more than helpful.  With an algorithm that is broken down for the layman, measurements on topics we may not otherwise think to grade, and email updates as you grow in your Twitterverse, Klout has opened our eyes on when and what to tweet to whom.

To see how we’ve implemented these applications into our interaction strategies, see samples on our client’s Facebook pages and Twitter profiles:  The San Diego Museum of Art, Jeff & Jer Showgram, NTN Buzztime, and Del Mar Racetrack.  As popularity of social networks grow, the possibilities for new applications and tools seem to be endless.  Here at this San Diego PR firm, we’re just waiting for that magical tool that will measure the success of all of our social mediums.  Any ideas?

Fall may mean a lot of different things to different people.  But one thing we can all agree that fall brings is: FOOTBALL SEASON! Whether you enjoy football for the guts and glory, the socializing and snacks or simply to see the innovative advertising (like our creatives do), there’s a certain magic that comes with the competition of the game.  And at this San Diego public relations firm,  we see it as the perfect opportunity to maximize and capitalize on that competitive nature.

With the success of last season’s Buzztime social media contest, we decided to kick off (pun intended) the football season in the same manner.  Buzztime’s Commissioner Challenge will utilize football aficionados  who are MVP’s in the social media world.

Before earning the title, “The Commish” and being awarded with a $500 gift certificate to StubHub, the top four contestants in the country will compete and acquire points based on Buzztime’s scoreboard. Commissioners will be chosen based upon their own playbook detailing how they will use their networks on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere to gather their friends and head to their favorite Buzztime venue for a Wednesday night Fantasy Football draft.

Merging interactive entertainment, social media, and live football, Buzztime’s innovative competition is at the forefront of  social media marketing.  Details on how and where to submit can be found here.   Now if you know of someone that fits the bill, be sure to mention that they have until October 9 to submit their playbook.

I recently attended an event with the American Marketing Association San Diego.  Speaker, Mike Jensen, who is a partner at Mission Control Agency-Woodland Hills, CA was educating the group on how to begin and maintain a successful Facebook fan page.  Here are some of the bare essentials necessary to succeed in the world of Facebook:

1)    Goals:  Before even starting a fan page, know your goals.  What do you wish to achieve?  Do you want thousands of fans?  Do you want content-specific comments?  In order to carry out a social media plan, there has to be a specific desired end goal.

2)    Voice:  Every successful company in history has a solid, consistent brand.  That should not end when entering the Facebook world.  Your fans want the same brand they’ve loyally followed to be apparent within Facebook.  However, your tone and language may need to be adjusted to fit your audience.  Usually, companies may have to be a bit more lax.

3)    CONTENT: It is all about experience on Facebook.  People join because it’s a tool to share information, photos, and most importantly experiences.  Before you ever post an update, always consider why your fans have chosen to hear what you have to say.  And try to remember this is social; conversation is encouraged, whether good or bad.

4)    Tools and Tabs:  With the popularity of social networks, applications are being created to expand outreach and interactivity for pages and profiles.  Although it can be a bit overwhelming with all of the new apps in the Facebook universe, offering a unique application or tab for your fans will keep them coming back.  A personal favorite app is Red Bull’s Drunkish Dials.

5)    SEO:  Yes, even your Facebook page should be search engine-friendly.  Much like  any other website you’re looking to generate traffic to, Facebook needs a happy medium between engaging content and strong keywords, linking and tagging.

Now that you know what you need to get started, look here for a simple break down to creating your page, and don’t forget to look at our page-we love to feature our awesome clients within our Orange Couch tab.