Connie Bensen

Twitter users are intuitively on the cutting edge! A couple of days ago I saw someone comment that they wished they could order their take out food by text messaging.

Social media marketers will be challenged on how to help their clients creatively utilize social media tools. Consumers want time saving features & efficiency. But listening carefully to customers could result in some very interesting services that integrate social media tools that people are already using. (I think that’s the key).

Jim Tobin posted this ad by Papa Johns where people can text their order in. Now imagine if the customers that use this service opt in to receive text messages of special offers that were sent out near the end of people’s work days? Would that increase sales?

NPR has a 5 min podcast on Papa Johns & Dominos using text messages for ordering.

gomobo.com is a service for restaurant users to use. It allows users to text their order in & pay, then they receive a text message back stating the time the order will be ready.

Their tab to recruit restaurant owners has very descriptive clip from a Good Morning America spot. Their comment that it’s quite popular with 40 yr old soccer moms was interesting.

Check out their call to action to recruit new restaurants. It’s a very tactful appeal to consumers to take responsibility for recruiting restaurants.

Have you used a service like this? Is it something you’d like to see in your neighborhood & you’d use? What other services would you text for? library, dry cleaner, pharmacy,…?

Does a brand have personality? This question brought more to mind:

• If you asked your customers, would they say that your brand has personality?
• As a marketer how do you give your brand personality?
• As a Community Manager how can I give our ACDSee brand personality?

All of those questions resulted from reading about Rohit Bhargava’s new book.

Faceless companies don’t work anymore. In a world where consumers have more access to information than ever, and more power to share their voice … a brand’s identity is no longer controlled through marketing and advertising. In this new era, what you say your brand stands for is no longer good enough. What you demonstrate to your customers matters most. This is the power of your personality.

This book is going to be an interesting read because I think my sister & I personalized the ACDSee brand. Here’s what happened:

• We’ve had a website since January, but this happened July
• We started holding real time chats at digital scrapbooking sites
• We became branded as Connie & Heidi – our personalities came thru
• Because ACDSee Photo Editor was little known, we spent the first half hour chatting about it each time
• Our chat schedule has been busy with one per week since July
• ACDSee Photo Editor not only has users, but word of mouth is increasing

I had realized how we launched ACDSee Photo Editor. Talking about it in real time was far more effective than traditional advertising efforts. But have we given the brand personality? And my sister stepped up the social media initiative by doing a webinar so people could see the software being used! That was well received too.

So my question is – when digiscrapping ladies think of ACDSee, do they think of ‘Connie & Heidi’? Or does the brand have it’s own personality? I just asked a couple what their ‘word association’ response was to ACDSee. One said ‘easier scrapping’ & the other said ‘Connie’. I think I need a bigger poll!

Overall, social media efforts are probably more appealing to potential customers because of their interactive nature. Customers are thinking about the product, asking questions and if that results in a positive experience it’s integrated with their sense of the brand.

In my work as a Community Manager I’m working externally with Customers as well as internally with our team. It’s my goal that the enthusiasm for social media tools is extended in both directions. Everyone should share in the excitement about the brand! It’s more than just creating & selling of the software. Or on the flip side, the use of it. It should be an experience that everyone wants to share with others!

So my challenge is how can I impart this? Here’s an example where a digital designer uploaded an image of her kit, then describes it using Utterz (it definitely gives it a new dimension). Does it give her work personality?

What ideas do you have for creating brand personality? We can brainstorm while we wait for Rohit’s book to be published!

Yesterday the new Facebook advertising plan was announced. It’s logical that it’s going to be integrated right into our newsfeeds. Maximum exposure is the goal. And I think that the premise is that if it’s transparent, then it will work? (that part I’m still trying to understand). But let’s keep in mind that it IS advertising

We are all consumers first. I have been quoted for saying:

Facebook has tremendous potential for networking & marketing as long as you’re sensitive to the idea that it’s a social space.

So Facebook has a new plan to allow advertisers (including People) to create Pages, buy Social Ads & Facebook Ads. Here is Facebook’s description of a Page:

Your fans love you, and their friends will know it.

When your fans interact with your Facebook Page, the actions they take are automatically generated into social stories. These stories are published to News Feed, which friends may see the next time they log into Facebook. The stories link back to your Facebook Page, inviting more people to interact with it, which generates more social stories and drives even more traffic to your Page. Think of it as word-of-mouth marketing, only completely free and happening online.

But my Friends ARE my fans! Why do I need to create a page in addition to my profile?

And the phrase ‘think of it as word-of-mouth marketing, only completely free’ – isn’t the basic premise of word of mouth marketing that it IS free? Since when has that cost anything?

Jeremiah created a page for himself. I appreciate his providing an example. Rather than befriending that Page, you can become a Fan. When I click on that option, I get this:

I must say that the sentence ‘You can change this setting later, if you want.’ In my opinion, Facebook’s settings aren’t apparent & it should read, ‘You can change this later, but it may be very difficult to figure out how’. In the meantime it’s feeding into my Newsfeed that I’m a Fan of Jeremiah. Well, why state the obvious? We all know this! Anyone that reads my blog is aware of that. And if you aren’t, now you know!

Last night in reading the commentary, some questions came to mind:

• Is this something that my company can use? & our digiscrappers?
• How is this different than the ACDSee Group that I created?
• Ultimately what value does it provide?

So today I did some more reading & looking around Facebook.

Nicholas Carr provides an example of how Coca Cola will use it. They have a Page up now.

Sprite will create a new Facebook Page for Sprite Sips and will run a series of Social Ads that leverage Facebook’s natural viral communications to spread the application across its user base.

Ummm, I’m ignoring werewolf & zombie invitations (even from my daughter), why would I be inclined to add a Sprite Sip? My profile won’t load the way it is, why would I add more applications to it? (I commented yesterday about my waiting to hear from Facebook – do they have Customer Service?) In the meantime I’m minimizing the number of app’s I have because they don’t load, much less adding a number of Advertising app’s.

The next question is how is the Page different from a Group? Jeremiah has a Web Strategy Group & now a Page. I see the main diference is that the Discussion Board is placed high on the Group & at the bottom of the Page. Is this an indicator of the value of Discussion on the Page?

Another thing that I’m trying to figure out is how is the Newsfeed information different from a Page & a Group? For example if Julia writes on the wall of the ACDSee group, that’s posted throughout her network. Isn’t that just as effective & offers the same benefit? What am I missing?

Something that bothers me is that you can’t search for the pages. You could for sponsored groups. Do a search for Page & this comes up, but if you click on the Pages tab you can’t view them. Maybe it’s too early?

So I’m glad that Jeremiah created a sample Page to demonstrate it. I will be his fan in real life, but I can’t really hit that button on Facebook. It brings me to my last question, what value does it provide? Ultimately, it seems to be advertising & to be honest, I ignore the banners, flyers, etc. I’m at Facebook to talk with my friends, my daughter (I’ve helped her with her homework there), and network. It’s difficult to knowingly subject my friend’s newsfeeds to that.

I value my newsfeed & do read what my friends are doing (ignoring the periodic boxed ad – in fact it annoys me when I find that I’ve read it). That’s how I learn of new groups. AND in the last month or so, the Home tab is the only one that will load on my wireless access, so it’s how I use Facebook (not by choice mind you). Just as I respect my friends in regard to not spamming them with pointless app’s, likewise I won’t spam them with ad’s.

One last thought about all of this. I value my time & everyone else’s. There has been a discussion about groups & how people just join & don’t participate. Bryan Person had commentary on that on his blog. There are a number of Groups that provide me with value. The Web Strategy group, the Community Manager group (which I’m moderating with Jeremiah) & there are a few others that I participate in. So now toss in Pages.

In less than a month I’m presenting on Groups at a Facebook Conference, so I welcome your comments. And feel free to answer any of my questions, I’d love to hear your ideas.

Isn’t this a great representation of the social media landscape? Darren Barefoot created it based on a video where Robert Scoble explained it.

Wouldn’t it be a great diagram to explain the use of social media tools? and how they fit into marketing strategies?

How many of these are you using? Which ones should you be trying?