Why Are All Social Media Case Studies The Same?

Presentations, blog posts, books, panels…they are spill out the same case studies over and over.

• Dell made a few million on Twitter
• Zappos and Southwest Airlines have good customer service and use that online…yay
• Comcast has a team of Twitter folk who scower the conversations for mentions and try to put out fires

Aren’t there any other companies having success through social media?

YES!!!!! And you can get them here at RTM

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And you’ll get exclusive and original case studies of REAL companies achieving REAL results.  Each week I’ll be interviewing a new company offering a new social media case study.

But you can only get them through email.  So sign up today!

Current Case Studies

• Car Dealership who made $9.6 million in revenue
• Data Management Company who branded themselves as thought leaders

If you would like your company to be showcased, email me at scott@realtimemarketing.com

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I’m sorry…I just can’t let this story die.  There’s just too many lessons we can apply back to social media marketing and Public Relations.

So as we all know, a Pickle has fan more fans than the band Nickelback.  Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell the lead singer, Chad, that the whole thing is tougne and cheek.  It’s a joke dude.

Apparently the “Rockstar” (I’m using this term as loosely as I can because I don’t know anyone who can actually call this rock music)…the Rockstar ego cannot allow to lose to the pickle without a fight.  Tonight Nickelback went on the attack.  Basically, they cried like rockstar babies and want the page banned. (Even Perez Hilton weighed in)

Here’s the PR lesson folks…they come directly from The Art of War by Sun Tzu.  And one from Bugs Bunny.

No general should fight a battle simply out of pique

I’m sure it comes as a slap in the face, but really Nickelback…really?  You seriously care about this?  This is how you chose to spend your time?  To go after the group and trying to get it banned from Facebook is only justifying how much of a turd sandwhich the group all thought you were.  Congrats to proving their point to everyone who wasn’t a fan yet.

Why fan the fire?  Do not pick a fight out of emotion, you play into their hands and will be crushed by them.

It is through the dispositions of an army that its condition may be discovered. Conceal your dispositions, and your condition will remain secret, which leads to victory; show your dispositions, and your condition will become patent, which leads to defeat

The disposition is clearly not concealed.  Your disposition is now on the internet and is going viral faster than swine flu.

A clever general, therefore, avoids an army when its spirit is keen

The point of the group was to get more fans than Nickelback…they won.  Here’s an amazing video of the victory dance (thanks Lindsay Allen).  Why pick a fight with an army that’s bigger and at their strongest point?  And especially when your band has no talent.

The correct answer comes from Bugs Bunny

If you can’t beat em…join em

The response that wins that battle is not to fight…it’s to jump in and ride the wave.  Why stop the momentum.  If 1.4 million fans and counting think you’re a tool, you do not prove them correct.  You have fun with it.  You can’t run against a river of moving water…but you can use that water’s momentum to carry you.

Here’s the correct response:

• Create a fast video with yourself in a pickle costume or wearing a “Pickleback” t-shirt.  Write a 2 min song about the group and about pickles.  Throw it on their fan page, your fan page, and on Youtube.
• Create a video congratulating the Pickle’s victory.  But let them know that they won the battle but not the war.  Let them know that Nickleback fans are the best in the music industry and they won’t go down without a fight.  Then email your base and get them into the game.  Tell them they need to fight the pickle and tell their friends who love Nickleback to join the Nickleback page.  You’ve now just engaged your community and let them in on the fun.
• Walk around in a “Pickleback” t-shirt and let the paparazzi see you.  They’ll print it and show what a good sport you are to the world and can have a little fun.  It shows you’re a regular down to earth guy…and not a pompous 5 yr old who can’t take a joke.

If you find yourself or your brand deep in a fight with a viral virtual army…assess the situation and take a deep breath.  If the information is deliberate lies and truly hurtful to your brand, fight.  But when the whole thing is tongue and cheek reindeer games, see if there is an angle to join in the fun and take away the opposition by beating them to their own punch.

Social media marketing is an intense battle for attention.

You’re not just in a fight with other industry competitors…you’re battling everyone and everything.  If you have attention coming your way like this…ride the wave by changing the tide.

This is DAY 24 of my “28 Day Blogging Challenge“

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Scott S. Bishop is editor for Real Time Marketer and a marketing strategist with a specialty in social media.  He is an avid blogger and active across the net.  He is @thescottbishop on Twitter

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We all want to boost and increase our blog traffic, no matter what we’re currently tracking.  Real Time Marketer is a very new blog and so far I am happy with the results.  After about a week, I have 100 people subscribing via Feedburner and for only a few posts, that’s not bad.  However, you can always do more.  I have no intention of making money from this blog so pure traffic, although tracked, is not an immediate goal.

I am much more concerned with reaching and influencing more people outside of my current circle and networks.  A creative way to do that, is to rank higher on the social networks Digg and StumbleUpon.  Although Digg is a wonderful and worthwhile network, StumbleUpon is what I will focus on right now.

So I’m creating a twitter hashtag experiment called #StumbleMe . Here’s how I envision it to work:
When you write a new post from your blog and tweet the link, attach #stumbleme to the end of your tweet.  When I and others see the #stumbleme hashtag on Twitter, we’ll use the StumbleUpon tool bar to rate your post.  That’s it.  I’ll stumble your posts, you stumble mine, we all stumble each other.

How #StumbleMe Will Help Your Blog:

• Your website / blog will be listed on StumbleUpon.com

• Once your website gets stumbled, they’ll often receive visitors from all over the world.  The more people who are participating in #StumbleMe rating your posts, the more people who will potentially see it on StumbleUpon, thus increasing your audience and influence.

• Establish a new reader base for your blog very quickly.

• Gain backlinks from StumbleUpon visitors with websites.

Challenges:

1. You’ll Need a StumbleUpon Account: Sign Up for an account at StumbleUpon here (this should take about 90 sec).  Use the Internet Explorer or Firefox addon located in the upper right hand corner of the homepage (this is the easiest way and how I will use the experiment)
2. You’ll Need To See The Hashtag #StumbleMe: You can either keep a look out for it during the day while you’re on Twitter.  Search the hashtag using Twitter Search . Search the hashtag on Hashtag.org
3. People need to know the hashtag exists: This can only be done by spreading the word.  So either RT this post, or tell others about it, and let folks know you’re participating.
4. People need to act:  Changing other peoples behavior is often the most difficult task to do, just ask any dietitian.  But I’m hoping this experiment is easy and helps others enough where they will participate.  I will do a daily search for the Hashtag and stumble on any post that uses the hashtag, I am hoping others will as well.  When the community participates, we all win.

Will this hashtag experiment prove to be a success?  Only time will tell, but its certainly worth a shot and I think it will be fun to track.

Do you have any ideas to make this experiment better?  Thoughts?  Leave a comment below.

Happy Stumbling

Scott S. Bishop is editor for Real Time Marketer and a social media and marketing strategist.  He also blogs about social media communities at AxeroPulse.com. He is @thescottbishop on Twitter

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I came across a report today in my own backyard that really has left me dumbfounded.  A local company is suing a customer for defamation on Twitter.

Apparently a Chicago Rental Management company, Horizon Realty Group, thinks that using social media is best used to find customers that are paying you money and unhappy with your service, and then sue their pants off.  To Horizon Reality, one bad tweet should cost a customer $50,ooo.  That’s $357.14 per character.

Here’s the tweet that caused the fuss.

“You should just come anyway. Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay.”

Just so we’re clear Horizon Group Management, lets give a run down to your marketing thought process vs the reality of the situation:

1.  Social Media is About Brand Monitoring Only:

Reality: Social media is about communities and conversations.  While brand monitoring is a vital part of social media, it enables a way to join a conversation and get a perspective on the health of your brand.  A simple response would have been to tweet that you’re concerned about the statement and would love to talk ASAP because mold is an issue you take seriously and want to resolve immediately.

2.  Conversations Can Be Controlled:

Reality: Control over your brand and message is difficult. Then again, in reality, did you ever really ever have control? As Chris Brogan has stated, “You never had control of your message.”  People have always talked about businesses, and brands are merely perceptions and emotions individuals feel toward your company or product.  The control you once felt, was merely a closed communication bubble lacking the ability for feedback.  People are still talking, but now those conversations are posted online and available for the world to see and join in. This is in fact, a good thing.

3.    Social Media is Popular, Therefore Lots of People Will See The Comment:
Reality: Mashable reports thru a simple Google search that the accused twitter account “has around 20 followers. While the numbers could have dropped since deletion, it doesn’t appear the message would have travelled far. @abonnen wasn’t a particularly heavy Twitter user, either – she posted somewhere between 1 and 5 tweets per day and often didn’t post for 2 or 3 days.”  Translation, no one saw the tweet and no one cared.  Until today.

4.    We Must Defend All Untrue Statements:
Reality: Even giving you the assumption that it was and untrue statement.  It’s generally going to take more than one bad tweet to hurt business.  A simple response would have been suffeicint.  However, several thousand tweets is potentially devastating.  Mashable alone, has 2200 RT’s and I found the article on DrudgeReport, the 6th most popular news site on the internet.  The one negative tweet was no biggie, the 2200 tweets and potentially ten’s of thousands who read the article and look at you as a bullie and anti-free speech is another story.

5.    It Was an Untrue Statement:
Reality: I have never lived in an apartment from Horizon Reality.  However there are 15 comments on Yelp with an average under 2 stars.  With statements like “horrible maintenance”, “cockroach infestation”, and “health code violations abound-mold” inserted into comments…you either have actual issues to look at, or maybe just unlucky that the only 16 unhappy renters all have active social network profiles.

6.    We’re “a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization”
Reality: I’m not really sure how to respond to that, it’s an actual quote…I didn’t even need to add anything here.

7.    Our Twitter Brand Is Important To Us:
Reality: While although you may actually think that, it’s not important to anyone else.  A Twitter search of all mentions of “Horizon Realty” as of yesterday was ZERO.  Yep, zip.  Today a search of “Horizon Reality” pulls several thousand.  There has been 611 added since I started writing this post alone.  I’m assuming it’s not because you have an unbelievable corner unit everyone is tweeting about.

8.    This is an issue between us and Amanda Bonnen;
Reality: It’s not anymore.  The social media universe is passionate about freedom of speech and openness.  Any attempt that remotely looks like an organizaiotn is trying to mute that will soon experience the viral wrath.

9.    Our Good rep is worth $50,000
Reality: At a very modest average price of $700 per month per unit, you’ll only need to lose 6 customers to lose more than 50k in just one year.  I’m just guessing that the way the Twitterverse has reacted and Chicago being the 3rd most active Twitter city…6 people may rethink doing business with you.

10.    No such thing as bad publicity
Reality: Sorry, that only applies to Paris Hilton and Michael Jackson

I hate to kick a dead horse, that’s not the point of this post.  The point is that social media has the potential to be a key point to your organization, for good or for bad.  Today, we’ve seen what can happen when used incorrectly.  It’s valuable to have an understanding of how social media works…maybe someone could have mentioned that to the legal team.

Scott S. Bishop is editor for Real Time Marketer and a social media and marketing strategist.  He also blogs about social media communities at AxeroPulse.com. He is @thescottbishop on Twitter

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