Finding Your Social Voice

Sharing, friending, commenting, checking in, retweeting…the level of participation social media platforms have ushered into the business world have delivered opportunity as well as issues.

Consider the average marketing planning cycle. Many marketers organize around an annual plan with campaign strategies that have specific start and end dates. But you can’t flip Twitter and Facebook on the day a campaign begins, expect results and then flip them back off at the end of the campaign. Social media is a commitment not a campaign.

Can You Hear Me Now?
Consider a brand’s social media presence to a telephone. If you turn the phone on and give the number out to consumers, that phone is expected to work 24/7/365. This can create a challenge when identifying the right resources and the right content required to engage with consumers across social media platforms.

Goals Drive Resources
In a recent article, MarketingProfs’ Ann Handley outlined the varied approaches to supporting a Twitter account, blog or other social platform as well as the pros and cons for each approach. But in all instances she suggests supporting them with a specific person that is identified by name and can even be found on Google. Putting a name in front of a brand is not always well-received. Brands are used to being anonymous and in line with exacting identity standards created to achieve a single, consistent brand voice.

Brand Voice vs. Social Voice
But social participation works best when it is done by an individual. That may sound silly or obvious. But many companies operate its Facebook page or its Twitter account anonymously without identifying the person actually responding to customer inquiries and comments. This detracts from the effectiveness of the effort.

Companies including Sharpie, Sodexo and Best Buy all have their own unique social voice and it’s brought each brand positive results.

Making Marker Fanatics
CPG brands know their fans and Sharpie is no different. Positioning themselves as enabling creativity, Sharpie has gone from being a marker to being an unmatched design tool harnessing creativity and amplifying self-expression. A quick search of Flickr alone shows how extreme this can become. By personifying their brand through folks like “Sharpie Susan” Wassel, they have a fan club that continues to grow and inspire itself.

An Appetizing Corporate Culture
Sodexo relies on social media to help detail its culture. The foodservice giant has to staff a 100,000 person -- and growing -- workforce. Kerry Noone personifies its HR function with amazing results. Noone notes that Twitter alone has saved them $300K in Monster.com advertising.

Listening. And Responding
Best Buy has evolved the farthest by pushing its brand and its social voice to ultimately become one and the same. Through Barry Judge’s self-admitted experiment, opening the doors to direct customer input and using Twitter to connect it’s blue shirts to any customer on Twitter, it’s been an evolution for the electronics retailer.

As detailed below in a comparison created by Shiv Singh, you can see how a brand's voice and its social voice differ. But in all instances, Best Buy’s used social media to become a customer service channel and connect real customers to real employees. It’s even apparent in Best Buy's advertising. The results have helped the brand immeasurably in the very competitive market of consumer electronics.

Social Voice Best Practices
As sites like Twitter attract brands, some stumble when it comes to finding their voice. Should the tweets/status updates be made by one person or multiple? Should these people be identified or should they remain anonymous? While there are several approaches, the more a brand is represented by a real person the more engaged it can become with its customers. Here are some basic tips to consider.

1. What does Google already say about the people representing your brand?
2. Sign Tweets/Posts. Something as simple as ending tweets sent on my work account with ^KD show when it’s me doing the tweeting.
3. A picture will help reinforce that real people are behind the brand. This could be the avatar, this could be the background, but the more attempts at making a personal connection, the better. This is actually one we need to implement. Our Twitter page needs the personal touch of a pic.
4. If a brand does not have the staff for multiple people representing the brand, it should consider promoting “online office hours” noting when the brand is most likely online.
5. Consider that a person representing doesn’t have to be the brand, they merely help reinforce it.
6. This person should have a passion for the brand. It won’t work if “Skippy the Wonder Intern**” is updating a brand’s Facebook page.
7. Consider any online tool to help make a connection. While a brand might focus on Facebook and Twitter, sites like Flickr, Twitpic, YouTube and Whrrl (http://whrrl.com/ ) to tell a richer story. Keep in mind that all of these sites lead back to the brand.

The end result of understanding and finding a brand’s social voice can bring dividends in customer satisfaction, human resources, research and development more. It all depends on a brand’s goals and focus.

** Hat Tip to friend and blogger Daniel Lally who, while never having met Skippy, created him to personify the intern shouldered with “doing Twitter” and “making the Facebook.”

Cross-posted to Empower MediaMarketing's blog, Social Study.

Comments

[Mike Boehmer]

Wow. That is so interesting. I like the idea of putting initials with tweets/status updates from your brand. I have noticed that I get a lot more interaction when sending a work-related tweet from my @MikeBoehmer57 than from @HamiltonCoJFS. You're always on the cutting edge. Glad you shared this!!!

[Lisa McLaughlin]

"Social media is a commitment not a campaign."
I think this is a very important thing for companies to remember, that their presence on the web should be more than just a one hit wonder during a promotions campaign. This blog did a good job touching on the importance of keeping a sustained presence in order to create a real social voice. As you said, a social voice will not only allow the brand to better identify itself with people but it will allow companies to "humanizing" themselves. I like the point about how using a real person to represent the brand whenever engaging in social media helps reinforce the fact that real people are behind the brand, which is so important in building trust with the customers. Thanks for the great blog!

[Meredith Laurie]

I am actually following your blog for my message development class and I am so happy that I picked a blog that is useful to understanding my classes as well.

I find the idea that simply creating a single personality to represent a brand can make the brand exponentially more popular to consumers. I actually find it strange that companies didn't think of this sooner, considering the importance they place on emotional connections in their commercials and other advertisements. It would be easy to transfer the personalities from liked commercials, such as the Sprint guy, and move them onto Twitter and facebook. It completes a humanizing circle and builds the trust that consumers needs to stay loyal to a brand.
Thanks so much for these thoughts!

[Kevin Dugan]

Mike, Lisa and Meredith, Thank you for all of the feedback. It's funny to consider how quickly things change. One of my least-favorite examples is my Twitter handle: prblog. When I first started registering with sites, usernames were typically an alias of some sort. To remain consistent, prblog became my de facto username. In hindsight (circa 2002), it should have been some iteration of my name. It would spare my current branding issue. Some folks know me only as prblog.

And while a corporate blog never brought up the issue of personification, other than signing posts, it becomes a definite issue with Twitter and Facebook.

Meredith - Companies did not consider this sooner because of this rapid evolution. But more importantly, marketing has fought for years to make sure the brand is represented consistently. Brand Voice is a part of this representation. So social voice has thrown a lot of companies for a loop. "How can people be consistent vs. visual identity and brand standards?!" Baby steps!

[Sodexo Insider]

Sodexo using former CNN reporter to circulate negative propaganda against labor organizations

Gaithersburg, Maryland – Michael McManus, the Director of Public Relations of Sodexo, is being used as a weapon by company to create and circulate negative rhetoric against labor organizations such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

In late 2009, Michael McManus, the Washington Bureau Chief and White House Correspondent at HDNews, was hired as Director of Public Relations for Sodexo, the global food and facilities management company based in Paris and the Washington D.C. area.

During his three years at HDNews, McManus handled the day-to-day operations in the Nation's Capitol including the DC based reporting, managing, and the public relations and marketing of the television network.

Prior to that, McManus spent 12 years anchoring, reporting and producing at CNN. During his time at CNN, McManus anchored, reported on, and produced countless major stories, including the Iraq war, the JFK, Jr. plane crash, the 9/11 attacks, TWA flight 800, the Virginia Tech massacre, the Pope's visit to the United States, and the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. While McManus had a stellar career at CNN covering disasters and major events, he was roundly criticized by many labor and environmental organizations for his superficial and often flattering coverage of big business. In fact, McManus had earned a reputation for being a friend of big business and was known as being very critical and dismissive of the concerns and issues of labor.

Originally, Sodexo had stated that McManus would be building the company’s digital presence and heading up its social media strategy. However, some PR representatives at Sodexo have privately indicated that McManus has been mainly hired to attack the SEIU and other labor organizations. As one Sodexo official stated, “the best defense is a good offense.” Given McManus’ history of being a friend of big business, McManus is said to be greatly enjoying his role as “labor attack dog” for Sodexo.