Dull thoughts in a sharp world.

In a followup post about misuses of social media, Forrester announced a variety of stats about how many customers trust a company blog. It stated that:

Only 16% of customers trust a company blog.

Why is that? We I think it stems for a misunderstand of what social media and a blog is used for. A couple weeks ago, I commented on a press release from the Atlanta-based social media consultants, Vitrue, stating the “ForRent.com Dominates Social Media”.

Here is my comment:

Interesting string of comments. In my ongoing battle to digest advertisers (ILS’s and property management) value prop to social media users, I find it difficult to see the significant impact in consumer behavior resulting from ForRent’s social media efforts.
I think measuring should be about the depth of the engagement with the consumer. Just because you have 500 followers on Twitter or 500 friends on fb does not mean any of those 500 people matter or care. Are they customers getting value from the engagement or just competitors in the space?

I am guessing ForRent has done a terrific job having a presence on all the social media sites. I applaud their efforts and am excited to see the industry start to accept these mediums as viable distribution channels. But I agree with everyone else, I think that ForRent’s efforts may be more of a positioning strategy to the industry, than an effort to engagement the renter communities on these social media sites.

The most successful social media campaigns are not utilizing YouTube or Facebook, but creating their own community around the information, shared interests, and activities of the consumer. Nike created a very successful Nike Plus site, and LEGO’s has done a great job in reaching out to their evangelists. Though this may seem so apparent, I think the real value in social media is in the sharing of information, ideas, and connections amongst peers, and not self-promotion.

- Eric Wu

Their response was:

Eric Wu,
Your notion “sharing of information, ideas, and connections amongst peers, and not self-promotion” is great in the general sense of social media. I think what’s missing from your notion is the brand participation. Brands should encourage the behaviors and participate with their customers. Also, if you are inferring that brands like Nike prove that successful social media campaigns don’t happen on Facebook, YouTube, etc. I’d tend to disagree. 45+ Million users congregate on Facebook, almost 70 million on YouTube. Brands who want to embrace the conversational power of social media will participate where their customers are, and only encourage them to leave for functionality that can be better served outside that network (Nike+ is a good example). There’s plenty of examples, similar to Nike, who fare very well engaging on the social networks. Home Depot, Comcast, Starbucks and many others on Twitter. Ben & Jerry’s, Starbucks, Dell, and Nike on Facebook. For Rent, Pepsi, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola on YouTube. It’s important to go to the crowds as it’s always harder to ask them to move to your site, especially just to talk to you.

Aside from Facebook having over 120 million users, I am still not convinced by their argument. In fact, of the fortune 500 companies who did a Facebook app, I’ve read that upwards of 80% of them were deemed failures…. with a small percentage spending upwards of $1 million on the campaigns. Sure, there are a few expections, but for the majority of companies, creating a Facebook application has been unsuccessful. Why have they been unsuccessful? I think it again stems from a misunderstanding that social media is not about advertising. Branding is a by-product of providing relevant, creative, new, interesting, fun content or connecting people around comment interests for discussion. I actually commend ForRent.com for jumping into social media. I follow their blog, read their tweets, and even watch the occasional video and I admire that they are taking that risk. They have done a excellent job in attempting to use all the mediums, but I think they can improve their strategy. But back to the topic… correct uses of social media. Don’t take my word for it, here is some advice from social media guru Jeremiah Owyang:

Health Check: How Trusted Is Your Corporate Blog?

1. Writing style:
How you write indicates how real you can truly be

Great: Blog is written in a human voice
Bad: Content looks vetted by corp comm
Horrible: Rehashed press release

2. Topics:
What does the blog talk about? does it matter to marketing –or customers?

Great: Discusses the lifestyle (or workstyle) of actual customers
Good: Discusses the wider industry topics
Horrible: The corporate blog exclusively talks about the company

3. Humility:
Perhaps one of the most important attributes, how human and real is this blog, or is it giving lip service?

Great: Admits when wrong and discusses in open the short comings of the company and product and demonstrates in public how it will be improved
Good: Admits shortcomings but combats and defends the criticism, also known as spin
Bad: Only discusses the company in the best possible light, and may link, but not take on critics
Horrible: Never discuss the short comings of the company on the blog

4. Linking Behavior:
Links are the currency of the blogosphere, it indicates you respect someone else’s opinion so much that you’re willing to send them away from you.

Great: Links out to other sources, even competitors or critics as well as the next listed +1
Good: Links out to other sources, where other discussions are occurring
Bad: Primarily links to corporate created content 25% of the time
Horrible: Primarily links to corporate created content over 50% of the time

5. Customer Inclusion:
Do corporate blogs allow their customers to partake? or are they only second class citizens

Good: Allows for customers to guest blog, or includes snippets of their experiences
Bad: Content is only published by employees

6. Dialog:
Allowing for feedback can instill more trust

Great: Comments enabled and published instantly
Good: Comments enabled but reviewed causing time delay
Bad: Trackbacks only
Horrible: No comments allowed

7. Comment Moderation:
Blogs that allow for disagreeing comments are more real –and interesting.

Great: Comments (other than spam or off topic) are allowed, including direct disagreements
Bad: Negative comments are censored or altered
Horrible: No negative comments allowed

8. Frequency:
While more isn’t always better, having a steady rhythm of content is important

Good: A steady publication rate of posts appropriate to the speed of that market
Bad: Posts appear at a random rate, often starting off with apologies for not posting
Horrible: Posts appear to either promote the company during an announcement –or to combat a competitor

In short, blog about topics, ideas, issues, and news that your customers would want to hear about, not about how great your company is.