Brands, Brand Promises, and Social Customers

by francine Hardaway on June 30, 2010

There’s been almost too much conversation about brands and social media. How to build brands, how to monetize them, how to monitor them — there’s an article (or 5000) about everything.

Sometimes the customer on a social media site feels assaulted by the presence of brands trying to market and draw attention to themselves. Some sites, like Facebook, have been absolutely corrupted by brands and fan pages. For every piece of actual, important communication I receive on Facebook, half a dozen others are from brands asking me to “like” them. On Twitter, it’s not much better.

Being in the presence of brands all the time on social media has forced me to think about what I want and expect from a brand, and whether its presence on a social media site has anything to do with my expectations. Three examples: Comcast, Starbucks, and Goober Pet Direct. I’m a customer of all these brands, and was a customer before the advent of social media. Two out of 3 are on Twitter, and probably all three are on Facebook, although I don’t “like” their pages or follow them there.

I don’t want to be “friends” with my brands; I only want them to perform as promised.

1) Comcast is my benchmark for how a brand should behave on Twitter. Although it doesn’t offer me specials because I’m the Mayor of anything, and it doesn’t send coupons to my Twitterfeed, it is there when I need it, for customer service only. Frank Eliason, who has grown legendary for doing something beyond what most brands do — fix problems via Twitter, was out there from the very beginning to keep the brand promise. You didn’t have to know him, and he sure didn’t know you. He just sat out there and listened. He’s not in India. He’s not a bot. He doesn’t try to sell me something. He just tries to make the service work for the customer.

2)Starbucks has a huge social media campaign, in which I never participate, although I am happy to be able to reload my Starbucks card via their mobile app. They tweet up a storm, but although I go to Starbucks all over the world, I don’t follow them. Why do I like Starbucks as a brand? Because people bitched about the lack of free wi-fi, and now they’re giving us free wi-fi. And people must have bitched about the breakfast selection and the lack of healthy foods, because they’ve added a great many food items to the menu, especially wraps and gourmet stuff. Whatever “Artisan” sandwiches are, I think I’m going to like them. And because Starbucks is dependably “there,” whether you are in Rotorua, New Zealand, Bejing, China, Seoul,Korea, or Blythe, California.

3) And then there’s Goober Pet Direct. They haven’t tweeted since Oct. 14, 2009. But they don’t have to. They don’t need a social media campaign. They ARE social, and they don’t have to bombard me with messages on Twitter to tell me that. I feel like I know them. If I order online, the dog food arrives at my door as promised the next day, with a doorhanger containing dog treats. If they run into a problem (they’re out of something), they call me and solve it with me. They are personal, friendly, and don’t seem as if they had “outsourced” their customer relations to another country.

These are three brands who keep their brand promise. They deliver what I expect when I expect it. They have customer service I admire. And unfortunately for social media gurus, I’m not so sure their customer service has much to do with social media. Social media is JUST A TOOL they might use to enlarge their customer service reach. But not necessarily their marketing reach.

Conclusion: I’m going to bet that brands aren’t going to be able to show much ROI for their social media marketing, if by marketing they mean lead generation or sales. However, if social media is used correctly to serve the customer, it will be a great enhancement to a brand.

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Niland Mortimer July 13, 2010 at 9:46 am

There are many faces of social media marketing, two being present on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
At Socialarc we work with brands to promote customer relevant content via the most appropriate social media outlets. Most often this takes the form of outreach to target specific bloggers, message boards and web sites. Sometimes it involves direct messaging using Twitter. Engaging with Facebook groups and fan pages is a “must do” but honestly doesn't often contribute to results. The bottom line of social media marketing is having something relevant and appealing to deliver to customers–like any successful direct marketing effort. The first step is making the content appealing to bloggers, giving them something they want to provide their readers. This in turn wraps the “offer” in a context of relevance and authority. With the right content, we have experience delivering ROI value of up to 20% of a campaign's results from approximately 3% of the media investment. The point is being present in social media isn't enough to drive anything other than awareness. You have to deliver value to your customers, whether dollar incentives, thought leadership or community engagement.

Niland Mortimer July 13, 2010 at 4:46 pm

There are many faces of social media marketing, two being present on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.nAt Socialarc we work with brands to promote customer relevant content via the most appropriate social media outlets. Most often this takes the form of outreach to target specific bloggers, message boards and web sites. Sometimes it involves direct messaging using Twitter. Engaging with Facebook groups and fan pages is a “must do” but honestly doesn’t often contribute to results. The bottom line of social media marketing is having something relevant and appealing to deliver to customers–like any successful direct marketing effort. The first step is making the content appealing to bloggers, giving them something they want to provide their readers. This in turn wraps the “offer” in a context of relevance and authority. With the right content, we have experience delivering ROI value of up to 20% of a campaign’s results from approximately 3% of the media investment. The point is being present in social media isn’t enough to drive anything other than awareness. You have to deliver value to your customers, whether dollar incentives, thought leadership or community engagement.

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