Boloco, a regional chain of offering “inspired burritos and smoothies,” shared a useful social media tactic with David Gerzof’s social media class @ Emerson College today. As reported by Jeannie Hannigan and Matt Karolian on Twitter through the #ESM hashtag, Boloco retweets negative tweets about their brand to galvanize fans to respond on their behalf.

Advantages of the tactic:
*The fan base responses on your behalf adding credibility
*RTing negative & positive enhances the accounts builds trust by demonstrating objectivity

Disadvantages of the tactics:
*Some negative feedback requires an official response from the brand directly
*Followers unaware of the greater context for the comment may only take away the negative details

I’m an Odwalla Facebook fan, and I drink a lot of their juice. I’m talking four of them a week. I even have a favorite flavor (carrot). Recently, I’ve enjoyed their Facebook fan pages as much as their juice. Their moderation style is creative, fun and fan focused.

Check out their update below using crowdsourcing asking fans to write their next wall post.

This gets fans involved with Odwalla and sparks creativity in their comment thread.
However, asking the crowd for their opinions is only part of crowdsourcing.
More important is determining how these opinions can be used constructively.

Before providing suggestions to enhance this their technique, lets review a few facts. At the time of this blog entry:
* Odwall has 15,169 fans
* This post received 2 likes and 23 comments
* Odwalla did not moderate the comment thread
* Odwalla did not offer an incentive to those who participated
* Their next several wall posts did not reference the suggestions that their fans created

Here’s a few ideas for how to take this one time status update and make it more impactful:

1. Celebrate fans and use their content. For example, “Our fan Myche Worth writes: don’t be an ODBALLA – drink ODWALLA! Thanks Myche! Create a rhythm using ODBALLA and ODWALLA. We’ll feature one on our next update.”

2. Create a tab entitled, “great ideas from our fans,” and showcase your favorite responses. Remember that attention is an incentive – you don’t just have to give away free products.

3. Moderate fan comments. Ask questions. Play along. Encourage. Insert fun brand facts.

4. Raise the stakes. Lets fans name a drink or suggest a fun idea for the Odwalla team implement.

5. YourWalla day. Turn this one fan post into a reoccurring feature by making every Tuesday YourWalla day.

These five points demonstrate simple ways to extend a simple wall update into meaningful community feature. If you’re not currently a member of their community, I encourage you to join. You’ll see many more creative examples of fan updates like the two listed below:

I like this Facebook ad by Maier Advertising. The message is simple, and they smartly included in their phone number in the ad. Since they’re paying most likely on a cost per click basis, including the number in the ad is one way of saving money.