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

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It’s uninteresting to follow a company I care about and only read their replies to their customers. I’m going to generalize and say that we follow companies because we like their products and services, we want discounts, special access to promotions, to get closer to a world view we share as well as a response to our questions.

If the majority of a company’s responses are @ replies, it signifies a company is listening. However, listening alone is not compelling, especially if a company’s responses are not directed at you.

Check it out for yourself. Go to these Twitter accounts and see:

@Starbucks
@JetBlue
@Wholefoods

There is another side to this discussion. If we think of the brand as a person and Twitter its voice, the account consisting of a majority of @ replies is approachable. Customers feel that can ask a question and receive a response, evidenced by the account’s activity. It communicates something real about the brand.

I am in favor of a balanced approachability strategy that signifies you are listening, while also providing engaging content. We track the ratio of @ replies in our tweet stream for clients as a metric that helps us navigate this.

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Join the conversation on our Fan Page

This semester I’m teaching a course at Emerson College in Boston entitled Social Media and Marketing. If this topic interests you, there are many ways you can participate. The easiest is joining our Facebook fan page, “Why Social Media Matters.” My goal is to contribute to meaningful discourse about the role of social media in our lives and our businesses. Feel free to drop on by and stay for a while. I’m going to blog quite frequently about it as well.

One of the things I love about social media is how simple it can be. Sure, you can make social media complex. You can measure metrics, use social marketing models and chart the growth of communities over time. However, you can also create one powerful idea. An idea that doesn’t require anything but others willing to play along.

Take the idea of Follow Friday for example. Hundreds of thousands participate weekly in nominating their friends to be followed on Twitter. The concept is simple, and the participation is contagious. To play, you just need a Twitter account. What if we applied the concept of Follow Friday to our lives? Maybe we’d call it “Have you met” Tuesdays. And we would share the great people we know with others we cared about.

Why does social media matter to you?

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So much is made of Twitter as a platform for conversation, it’s powerful search qualities are often overlooked.

Twitter provides marketers with the ability to micro-target based on geography, keywords and phrases, subjects referenced, content and even sentiment shared.

The increased ability to search necessitates a deeper understanding of your target audience. It also enables marketers to create an ongoing focus group to obtain it.

Use search.twitter.com, wefollow.com and other tools to find your brand’s target consumers.

If you follow 100 people from your target audience, you’ll notice trends. You’ll see who your target audience really is, what they read, think and share.

Your ability to market to them will greatly improve, too. You’ll stop seeing them as just statistics and more as real people.

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If you work in midtown Manhattan, you’re likely to know the food cart I’m talking about. It’s the one on 53rd and 6th with 30 people waiting in line. They’re waiting to eat middle eastern food sold from a cart the size of a mini-copper. And they wait at all hours. When I passed by at 10 pm at least 50 people were in line. When I asked them if the food was “that good” to merit the line, they responded, “well, I saw the line, so it must be.”

I believe the same psychology of lines applies to Twitter. So often people use following / follower ratio to determine who they want to follow before actually “trying the food.”

There are many ways to cause lines to form, yet far fewer to cook a great meal.

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Meet Biba Milioto. She’s the creative inspiration behind the social media fashion campaign that has women chasing hidden bags all over New
York City.

Here’s how it works:

Brooklyn handbag designer Rachel Nasvik is luring New Yorkers to her twitter account and blog offering clues as to where she will “loose”
her next bag. Each bag is stuffed with the essentials for a night on the town including a summer mix of music and a mysterious key. The bag
includes a note to the lucky finder which instructs them that the bag is theirs to keep. Finders are encouraged to log on to the blog and
post the story of how they found it under the corresponding picture of the bag’s location. The campaign has been very successful
in getting users excited and eager to participate in the hunt. It’s a great example of how to use social media creatively and effectively.

1. What was the creative inspiration for the campaign?

A few yards of neon pink leather and a desire to create something that was purely fun, and completely tailored to the target market—something that would delight them and engage them in the story of the Rachel Nasvik brand.

It’s actually two separate ideas that happily fused together, amazingly enough. Rachel and I conceived of the bag-hunt aspect separately from what we’re now calling ‘phase two’ which is launching this weekend.

Michael Hastings-Black of Desedo cooked up this fantastic idea of joining forces with street vendors in NYC and getting the bags to have some full-on street level face time- his inspiration was trying to further tease out the totally dedicated relationship that the Rachel Nasvik brand has with New York City, since the brand is so rooted here, where it was born. I love that it has brought the two separate ideas into one cohesive campaign. It’s been great, great fun.

2.  You mentioned there’s a second phase. What can fans expect to see?

Well- that’s where Mr. Hastings-Black comes in. He conceived of this great idea where we hook up with some street vendors (the guys that sell the knockoffs) and slip some of the Rachel Nasvik bags into the mix. It’s meant to be surprising, funny, and irreverent, and also meant to be a bit of a love letter to New York- so much of Rachel’s brand is inspired by the New York lifestyle. What’s neat about this second phase is that since we’re cutting out the middle man of the retailer, there will be maximum street-level presence. We expect to roll that out this weekend.

3. What results have you seen?

The reaction has been overwhelming- on the first day we picked up about 700 followers on Twitter thanks to some web press from DailyCandy.com- that number has grown to nearly 1,000.The blog we set up www.wherethenighttakesyou.blogspot.com has seen lots of commenting and clicks.  And the media loves the idea as much as the NYC audience does- we’ve had such great coverage, which has continued to spread the word. It seems to have offered everyone a reason to smile and pay attention. We’ve also witnessed girls running down the street to be the first to grab the bag!

4. How have you used Twitter to promote the brand and the campaign?

The Twitter account is the lifeline of the campaign- we use it to drop clues, to ask questions, to post pictures. It’s the bridge that is directly connecting us to our rapt audience.

5.  What is the most surprising aspect of the campaign?

How constantly evolving it is- and how because it’s small and tightly managed, it can change every day to up the ante. If Michael has an
idea, or Rachel wants to try something different, we can just go for it and see what happens. It’s exhilarating, and really gratifying. The flexibility of the web and the immediacy of the Twitter feed has totally changed the game in terms of interactivity.

6. What did you do to make sure this campaign truly represented the Rachel Nasvik brand?

I had worked with Rachel previously when I was the Marketing Director at Ravinstyle.com. So I had a very precise idea of where the brand was positioned, and since I live in New York, where there are lots of RN fans, I usually spot at least one bag on the subway each day (full disclosure- I have a closet full of them myself!). So I know there’s a street style, an edginess, and a spirit that is very specific to her customer. She’s the kind of girl who knows where the get the best cocktail in the city, who peruses the smartest bookstores, and eats at the coolest new restaurant- you know, the one that doesn’t have it’s liquor license yet? She’s also not flashy or showy and appreciates subtlety in design.

So- I knew we had to be fresh and smart and that dreaded word: cool. And cool here in New York has an atmosphere & an address- we figured if we showed up where that girl was, with a gorgeous bag and a neat strategy, we’d embody the essence of the brand perfectly.

7.  You called this an “experiment.” What were you testing?

We were testing the waters of interactivity and looking to see how far people would follow us into the game. Will they trek all the way across town for a bag? Will they use a password and ask for what they want? We were experimenting with removing most of the boundaries that usually exist between a brand an it’s audience—we are directly interacting with them in a way that usually doesn’t happen. I’m happy to say it worked!

8.  Can you provide my readers with any advanced clues to where the next bag may be dropped?

That would ruin the fun of the anticipation! Follow the Twitter feed!

**Recognition: Special thanks to @JennMorales for recognizing the campaign and support all aspects of this posts.

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Most of those sites also consider other factors, of course; Mashable provides a detailed analysis of them.

I prefer to use three other metrics in addition to those tools:

1. Number of retweets: Retweetist
2. Number of times the Twitter user’s bit.ly links are clicked. If you have 200 followers and tweet a link that is clicked 120 times, that’s a pretty good sign your network is listening to you.

3. Offline identity. Hundreds of reporters who are new to Twitter have few followers, low influence scores and Twitter Grader grades. And yet many of them can influence millions.

Influence plays an important role of social media marketing. We live in a world where brands buy tens of millions of impressions to reach the right tens of thousands of people. Online influencers create trends and inform buying decisions, so it benefits these companies to invest time and resources in cultivating them.

Significant literature supports this premise, from Malcolm Gladwell‘s “Tipping Point” to scholarly studies in the Harvard Business Review.

About a year ago, Duncan Watts argued against influencer theory, suggesting trends are a result of society’s readiness for them, rather than the power of an elite group of tastemakers.

“If society is ready to embrace a trend, almost anyone can start one–and if it isn’t, then almost no one can,” he writes. Succeeding with a new product is less about finding the perfect hipster to infect and more about gauging the public’s mood. There will always be a first mover, but the contingent nature of that move makes the person in question an “accidental influencer.”
I am more inclined toward Gladwell’s model than Duncan’s. Regardless of society’s readiness for a new trend, I believe the means and messenger of its introduction shape its impact.

I actually am less interested in influencers themselves than I am in those who influence the influencers. I believe that Twitter offers average marketers, even those without sophisticated tools, a unique ability to find out who is influencing each other. One simple way to do this is to use tweetstats to see who an influencer @replies the most.

No matter what tools you use, the influencer campaign’s success depends on how you relate to the influencers once you locate them. If you intend to launch a campaign targeting influencers, the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association’s site is a must read:

“Influencer programs are, by definition, long-term, multi-year commitments designed to build a relationship; they are not marketing campaigns. Campaigns can augment influencer efforts to help find, activate, or engage influencers in particular activities (like a product launch), but influencer programs need to level out the roller coaster of connections provided by campaigns.”

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( by corresponding shapes on Flickr)

When I tweet, cool stuff happens. I call it Twitter serendipity.

I’ll discuss a band on twitter, a few minutes later friends on twitter reply with links to songs I’ve never heard from that band. A few months ago, I helped a new twitter friend find a good deal on a hotel room in NYC. Turns out he’s the VP of a company I’d like to work with. Today, a prominent blogger discovered a tweet I wrote a few months back about wanting to represent bloggers — not just their media but their full offering as brands — to companies. That blogger who emailed me had perfect timing. I am in the process of building that model right now.

When I tweet, cool stuff happens.

I discover articles and events. And most importantly, I discover people.
Businesses often ask about the ROI of twitter. And while there are many ways to answer that question, that most elusive and compelling benefit of twitter is the relationships you create.  So, what’s the ROI of a relationship?

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(Image: In the sandbox by Zesmerelda on Flickr)

I work and play in the same sandbox. At least 30% of our clients follow me on twitter or Facebook.

In the future I wonder if agencies will create a simple list of expectations for clients called, “If you follow us online here’s what to expect…”

Here’s what mine would say:

I will tweet about music, food, revenue generation, fashion and wax poetic hourly
I will post pictures to Facebook that may not interest you, of doors, fire escapes, pigeons and the rain
If you ask me a work question publically (i.e., on twitter), I’m going to call you to answer it, usually, or DM you, but seldom reply publically.
I will not stay “on topic,” in a social network but rather weave in and out of conversations fast and freely
I will help you use whichever social network we’re connected on most effectively – not because I have to but because I love it.

What should clients, or friends in general, expect when you follow them online?  I would love to hear your take.

A friend of mine shared an anecdote on this topic.

“Bob” helped his mother create a Facebook account. Apparently Bob’s mother was only friends with Bob and no one else on Facebook.
Every time he updated his status, Bob’s mom thought he was talking directly to her.
And so, she called him.
Every time.

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Leading digital agency Wunderman, owned by WPP, is using Twitter to recruit talent.
Check out their dedicated recruiting twitter account WundermanTalent.
If you’re a creative digital agency, the talent is on twitter.
Hat tip =)

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