Tagged as: david armano, Presentation & Stats
Posts Tagged ‘david armano’
Related articles:
- Turning The Tide: An Insider’s Perspective (darmano.typepad.com)
- P&G; Social Media Night: The Results (blogs.forrester.com)
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Jun
25
2008
How Should Brand Managers Think About Twitter?
I have been meaning to write about Twitter for awhile now, but every time I got around to it, the site seemed to be experiencing either extreme fandom (like around SXSW) or extreme hatred (with all the site outages). Well it seems like things have calmed down a bit at the moment so I was finally about to put my thoughts together.
Let’s start with a little Twitter 101
Now first, if you haven’t heard about Twitter yet, David Armano provides my favorite summaries with the two below graphics about the service (click for larger images):
Now with Twitter 101 out of the way, the real question is why should you as a Brand Manager care about Twitter. I’ll be the first to admit that I held off embracing Twitter for awhile. I just couldn’t see the value of a service that was about listening to updates on what my friends were doing. But I ever since I caved in a couple of months ago, I have been a true Twitter fan and advocate for why it matters for marketers.
Twitter is about conversations
For me, I have found Twitter to have three big values for marketers. They are: 1.) Customer Service/Community Management, 2.) Consumer Research, and 3.) Personal Learning.
Customer Service/Community Management:
Some of the smartest people in the industry are talking about why Customer Service is the new marketing and I couldn’t agree more. After all, as the title of Blackshaw’s new book says “Satisfied Customers Tell 3 Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000.” What is great about Twitter is that it can put this customer service in the hands of the Brand Manager without you having to go through your Customer Service Department. Zappos is an amazing example of this as their CEO and almost 200 other employees are on Twitter, monitoring the community around the brand. The powerful of this is that consumers know they can engage directly with management AND employees can actively monitor any mentions of the brand. This can create some remarkable customer service stories, all because of using Twitter to directly connect with people. Brands like Jet Blue, and H&R Block understand this…so have you checked if your brand’s Twitter name is available?
Consumer Research:
The power of monitoring conversations is the consumer research that you can find in the every day conversations. Sometimes this will lead to Customer Service/Community Management opportunities like the above. But just as often, the conversations will be able to serve as your own mini-focus groups. Through a site like Summize, you can plug in your brand name and get alerts whenever a person mentions it in Twitter. Likewise, if your Twitter brand has enough followers, you can start using it for proactive consumer research, asking polls and questions of the audience to help influence your decision. You could instantly tap into the collective wisdom of your biggest brand fans to help influence decisions. Talk about cultivating a powerful relationship with your users.
Personal Learning:
Finally, Twitter creates an amazing personal learning opportunity for marketers and brand managers. Every day we are nose to the grindstone in delivering the business. We are running from meeting to meeting, worrying about shipping the next case or getting a qualified copy score. This unfortunately can leave little time for personal learning besides the occassional reading of BrandWeek or AdAge. There are tons of conferences we would love to go to but little time and travel budget holds us back. The beauty of Twitter is that these don’t need to be barriers to your personal learning any longer. Through hashtags you can monitor anyone on Twitter who is talking about a conference, be it SXSW, Mix08 or TED. Or some innovative conferences (like Chicago New Media Summit) are even creating their own Twitter profiles. This allows you to monitor the entire conversation around a conference from the comfort of your office. This is how I experienced the Resource Interactive iCitizen conference this past May and it was truly great. You are able to listen to the conversations, find out which speeches were worthwhile and then download the presentations on SlideShare.net. Talk about convenience of personal learning on your own time.
So those are my three reasons why Twitter should matter to a Brand Manager today. What do you think? What would you add to the list?
Apr
30
2008
David Armano on Micro Interactions
David Armano of Logic+Emotion delivers yet another amazing presentation, this time on Micro Interactions + Direct Engagement in Web 2.0. He is consistently one of the best bloggers out there, thanks in large part to how he graphically showcases concepts. Check out the latest:
[slideshare id=380432&doc=microinteractions-1209522608046218-9&w=425]
Peter,
While I thanked you for your participation previously in this thread, I now want to join in on the amazing (and constructive) dialogue that has continued since then. In full disclosure I’m part of a small team at P&G building our Digital skills, including Social Media and was also on the team that designed this training event. And as you know, I’m also a believer in “eating what you cook” in digital so I’m relatively active in both blogging (HardKnoxLife.com) and Twitter (@daveknox).
I’ve spent the past day listening to the conversations about our event but thought I would offer some additional perspective on the event.
The P&G Digital Event was an internal training exercise for 100 or so of our senior marketing leaders. We wanted to create a hands-on event for them to see first-hand what Social Media is all about. We wanted to bring it to life for them and take it beyond buzzwords and shiny objects like Twitter, the Long Tail, or CGM.
We hoped to see our leaders come away with several realizations but a couple I’ll mention relevant to my comments include:
It is the last point I really want to speak to. As I’ve followed the conversation, it looks like some have thought we were “having a one night stand” with Social Media. That isn’t the case at all. There are many P&Gers that are active in Social Media – as well as many of our brands. We wanted the event to help support those that aren’t as active see first hand that you have to be wired differently than traditional marketing efforts to be successful in the space.
Sure we could have told them that in a speech or powerpoint but that goes against the heart of Social Media where it is about doing and living it. Luckily some of the best and the brightest in the space where willing to help us show our marketers how to do just that. Many are our business partners today. But I also believe that their engagement was more than just “good account management.” People like Peter Kim, David Armano, Deb Schultz, Pete Blackshaw and many others involved are truly ambassadors of Social Media who can help teach marketers the RIGHT way to be involved. I’m honored that they are willing to help us learn.
Every P&G marketer involved woke up the next morning having seen firsthand a world that is different than the world they know and that digital is having an impact on people’s lives in new ways. And while change doesn’t happen overnight we’re working to embrace the truly dynamic and exciting digital space to serve consumers and build our business.
Thanks for listening and please keep up the dialogue. Healthy debate is how we all learn together. And please believe me when I say that P&G is here to learn and live our motto that the “Consumer is Boss.”
Dave Knox
Procter & Gamble Brand Manager, Digital Business Strategy