Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

D’Amico Changes Seats at the Twitter Table.

Monday, August 9th, 2010 by Jennifer Kane

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about the social media campaign launched by D’Amico, a restaurant and catering mega-force here in Minneapolis.

The word on the cyber-street about the campaign had been highly negative for weeks, but it seemed like D’Amico either wasn’t listening to the feedback or – more distressingly – didn’t care.

Well, my post seemed to have struck a nerve and I received a lot of feedback on it, from people who agreed with my assessment, those who thought I was an overacting blowhard, and even D’Amico themselves.

D’Amico heard us …

Recently D’Amico made some big changes to their social media strategy that I think are important to note and to applaud.

DamicoTweet

  • They condensed accounts: As noted in the previous post, their initial strategy was to go wide and shallow, which some people interpreted as “spammy.” Going narrow and deep makes them seem more authentic.
  • They acknowledged our frustration: One of the main D’Amico accounts now sports a wallpaper message from the Director of Operations, Lynn Ulrich, that basically says, “we tried something new…you didn’t like it…we’re trying something different.” This is a very transparent and classy way to handle the feedback.
  • They’ve personalized their messaging: Accounts for D’Amico’s humans sound more, well…human. The gratuitous hash tags have been scaled back and replaced with more conversation content.

So, is it working?

The jury is still out on whether this change in strategy will be effective for D’Amico.

Since social media monitoring and measurement is one of our KaneCo capabilities (D’Amico is not a client) we have access to tools to get a quick snapshot of how their online community is reacting to their changes:

Picture 2

Since July 22, there has been a notable decrease in negative comments (shown in red) about this company, and I think that’s worth noting.

The challenge for them will be to increase the number of positive comments (shown in green) they are receiving from the community – a percentage that has remained unchanged.

(For those of you who are curious, the grey areas on this chart represents “neutral” sentiment – mainly consisting of news and information D’Amico has posted about themselves.)

While the negative comments they receive have been very specific to their social media efforts …

  • “@DAmicoandSons who planned your strategy? The name/number thing is really off putting- all d’amico tweets seem impersonal and broadcasted”
  • “Anyone else getting annoyed by D’Amico & Sons on Twitter???”
  • “I was suddenly followed by a large number of D’Amico accounts. It’s a very creepy feeling. I blocked them all.”

The positive comments they’re receiving are still only in reference to the services the company provides …

  • “with my kids + nephew + a yummy d’amico chicken salad croissant + a good book – at the Beach! Gorgeous day!!”
  • “Haven’t had this in a while, but I’m craving D’Amico’s sunday brunch breakfast pizza!”
  • “Having an amazing lunch at D’amico & Sons! The Hot Italian truely is hot”

Good luck, D’Amico.

Let me be clear, my previous post about D’Amico was not part of some personal vendetta. I wasn’t vying to get hired by D’Amico. No one paid me to write that post. (If anything, it put me in the middle of a D’Amico “drama firestorm” that distracted me from my day-to-day workload.)

My objective with the post was simply to give voice to and summarize the thoughts I was seeing surfacing in continuing waves from my feed and analyze them from my perspective as a social media strategist.

While I’m not seeing feedback on the new campaign in my feeds, I do think this company’s efforts to respond to the concerns of their social community should be recognized.

Too often we are more inclined to place blame rather than to reward the acknowledgement of it.

And that is a shame.

I think the D’Amico campaign offers a good lesson for any company entering the social space, and it is this…

If you decide to employ social media as a communications tool …

  • You will not be able to fully control it.
  • You will make mistakes.
  • You will get called out and criticized for things you say and do (whether they are valid points or not).

That’s not just D’Amico’s reality. That’s the reality of social media, and one we will all have to face eventually.

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D’Amico takes a troubling seat at the Twitter table.

Friday, July 16th, 2010 by Jennifer Kane

The social media campaign of caterer/restaurant conglomerate, D’Amico has been the subject of much on and offline conversations in the Twin Cities the past month or so.

For those of you who have missed it (and it’d be real hard to miss it if you live here), D’Amico entered the Twittersphere recently with a boom.

Screen shot 2010-07-16 at 11.50.38 AM

They set-up many, many, many Twitter accounts (often with such cozy names as D’Amico_12) for the brand, each of its restaurants, each of its employees and all of its catering arms.(There is a small handful of them listed here.)

Then, they populated these accounts with syndicated content (hashtagged within an inch of its life) that is neither gregarious nor graceful in tone or form.

There is no human voice to the Twitter presence – the feeds are just automated “menu-a-trons” brand blasts that march across people’s screens with the calculated regularity and precision of a North Korean army.

If you’ve made the mistake of following more than one of these accounts, the affect can be akin to watching that Faberge commercial from the 80’s with Heather Locklear, where she says “and so on and so on and so on…” while her photo replicates like a virus.

In this Twitter campaign, there appears to be little talking and, more importantly, little listening. And the general consensus among Twin Cities tweeters is that the whole endeavor is highly unappealing.

The larger question though is….

Is it ineffective?

Nope.

(Oh wait…you wanted me to say “yes” here, didn’t you?)

Screen shot 2010-07-16 at 11.59.39 AMThe reality is that broadcast messaging still works, since that’s what most of us are used to.

While the people YOU know might DVR shows to skip commercials, listen to commercial free satellite radio or engage in authentic, relationship-building conversations on social media, a whole lot of other people out there do not.

Now, I’m sure there are a ton of people who follow back these accounts and are befuddled by what they see. But there are probably just as many that think, “oh hey, a coupon for lemonade!” and click through without thinking twice.

I’m sure D’Amico is seeing payoff with these accounts, especially if their campaign metrics are not concerned with brand sentiment, only the number of hits, follows, retweets, etc. – data that, while mesmerizing in its magnitude, often fails to address the larger question of, “Does anyone really LIKE what we’re saying?”

Is it brand damaging?

In their pursuit of short-term gain, personally, I think that, yes, D’Amico is missing the opportunity for long-term growth.

Whenever I complain about them online, I nearly always receive public or private messages in response from people who say, “thank you for saying something about this.”

In short, I have never seen ANYONE publicly stand up in support on behalf of this brand – not even D’Amico itself.Screen shot 2010-07-16 at 12.01.24 PM

This campaign has given D’Amico a bad reputation, but is it brand damaging? Probably not.

I have many connections in the meetings and events industry, and the vast majority of these people have no idea what D’Amico’s Twitter presence is like (many of them aren’t even on Twitter themselves).

These people will continue to use D’Amico as a vendor and will probably be tickled to be asked to “Follow them on Twitter” with no knowledge that their social media experience could be anything different.

Ironically, not only do I not think their actions will damage their brand, I think it will actually reinforce it.

I’ve had a number of contacts with D’Amico staff where the vibe was, “If you don’t like it — tough. We own all the event facilities in this town, so it doesn’t really matter what you think.”

And they’re right.

So, not being particularly chummy or concerned with people’s opinions on Twitter is actually a pretty “spot on” approach for this company. They are authentic … authentically disinterested in what you think.

Is it spam?

One might say that, if you opt-in to the D’Amico party, then you really can’t call it spam.

Screen shot 2010-07-16 at 12.02.56 PMTrue. But I’m inclined to still label it as such simply due to their gratuitous following/unfollowing/refollowing approach.

One reason why many hard-core Twitter users don’t like this campaign is that it is fairly manipulative. It preys off of newbies’ tendency to just automatically follow back people who follow them.

For example, a person sees “New D’Amico follower” in their email and clicks “follow.” Maybe the next day they get another one and think, “I thought I followed them yesterday…oh well [click]. Maybe the next day they get followed from a D’Amico account for one of their restaurants – the name’s a little different, so they think, “okay,” [click].

These and other Twitter tactics are just part of a numbers game. I understand the game, so I just opt not to play.

But many of my clients, friends and followers don’t have that knowledge. What I hear from them is that these practices leave them feeling used, duped and confused.

That sounds pretty “spamy” in my books.

So, what’s next?

I probably am just preaching to the choir here. But, the whole point of a choir is that voices, when combined, amplify.

My own quiet message to D’Amico is this:  Because I do not support your approach to social media …

  • I will not follow your accounts.
  • I will not retweet your information.
  • I will not click on your links.
  • I will not dine in your restaurants.
  • I will not use you as a caterer for my events.

If you feel strongly about this too, then I invite you to add your voice to the conversation.

While ultimately we may not be listened to, I can promise you that we will be heard.

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Posted in Rants about things that piss us off, Thoughts on the Industry | 27 Comments »

5 Tips for Avoiding Social Media “Engagement Overload.”

Thursday, July 8th, 2010 by Jennifer Kane

My social network is kind of a monster.

Like the giant Venus Fly Trap in Little Shop of Horrors, it’s grown into a Hydra-like beast that requires constant feeding and attention.

Feed me, Jennifer...Feed me!

Feed me, Jennifer...Feed me!

I have no one to blame for this but myself.

I’ve created oodles of social profiles for myself and my company and syndicate content among them.

This has created an elaborate conversational web that makes it appear that I am in many places at one time, when, in fact, I am not.

As a consequence, any one post of mine can initiate a domino fall of comments that funnel in from multiple social sources: Twitter, Facebook, Wordpress, LinkedIn, Ning, Buzz.

Add to this a host of parallel conversations via text messages, emails and chat programs, and I’ve got a serious traffic control problem on my hands.

So, how do you tame the social beast when it starts to exponentially grow like this?

Start by trying these five things:

1. Get yourself a dashboard.

You’re a busy person and you probably don’t have time to log into each of your social media accounts throughout the day. (Nor should you have to.) Focus instead on aggregating that information into one central portal.

If you have multiple social channels to manage, set up some sort of central dashboard where you can monitor your conversational traffic. There are a number of free ones out there to choose from, such as Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Seesmic, PeopleBrowsr, etc.

I use Tweetdeck as the “command central” for my personal communications and populate it with feeds from not just my Twitter account, but also Facebook and Google Buzz (You can add LinkedIn too, I just choose not to). Additionally, I use this tool to monitor search terms and accounts for our KaneCo clients.

No matter what dashboard you pick, just try to get all your stuff in one place. You’ll miss less and be able to engage more.

2. Hang up some of your social “phone lines.”

You don’t need to be everywhere on the social web. (In fact, you’ll probably be more effective if you start in just a few places).

The important thing is to be transparent about where you do and don’t “hang out” online, so if people can’t find you, they’ll know why.

Go ahead and set up accounts on secondary channels that you intend to check less frequently. Just make sure to manage people’s expectations in those spaces by doing things like including a message says, “Hey…I’m not on [Name of App] much. The best place to reach me is [Twitter/Facebook/etc.]”

Or, for instance, if someone is continually trying to chat with you via Facebook, let them know that you only check that account once a day. Then, make sure you’re not leaving a browser window with that account open in the background throughout the day so it appears that you’re available to chat when you’re really not.

3. Get over yourself.

Not everything you say in social media will get a response. That’s the nature of the beast, and it’s a hard thing to get used to. If you say, “Wow, today is a beautiful day,” and it’s met with the sound of crickets, that’s perfectly appropriate.

Let go of the notion that every conversation has to have both a sender and a receiver to be viable. And, don’t assume that, if you say something to a person and they don’t reply, that they didn’t read it or didn’t care.

Each person’s experience with social media is unique to their communication style, workplace, logistics, technical set-up, availability, and a host of other factors.

In other words, you’re not always driving the conversation bus in social media … so, focus instead on making the most of your ride.

If you find it imperative that all of your social media conversations get wrapped up nice and tidy (and good luck to you with that), employ the backchannel. Send direct messages, emails, or (gasp!) call people on the phone to thank them for reading your post, schedule a date for your coffee meeting or hash out your differences.

4. Keep an eye on your peeps.

While not responding to every social media comment is a new reality, not responding to multiple comment attempts is still just plain rude.

The social web is fundamentally a giant game of  “I’ll scratch your back, if you scratch mine.” If you’ve been the beneficiary of many scratches lately, you might want to stop and take a look around to see if your community of supporters are starting to get a little itchy.

If you can’t reply to someone in the moment, look for another point of engagement down the road. This might take the form of promoting something they’ve written, doubling back and asking for their advice on a topic or just giving them a compliment out of the blue.

Another way to reconnect with your community is to pick someone out of your feed each day that you don’t really know and respond to something they say. A lot of times when I do this, I get no response. And that’s okay. This exercise is more about planting conversation seeds for the future than harvesting relationships.

5. Find moments of silence.

I’m an introvert, and although the people on social media aren’t actually physically surrounding me, steeping myself in a never-ending stream of their chatter can make it feel as if they are.

When this happens, I just need to close the dashboard, step away from the desk and go listen to something that demands no attention … like the hum of the air conditioner, or rainfall or childrens’ voices down the street.

By doing this, I’ve learned that sometimes the best way to feed the beast is to let it go hungry for awhile.

Go back and audit your stream. If you were following yourself, would YOU need a break from you?

  • Are you chattering incessantly?
  • Are you badgering people with your attentiveness?
  • Are you bludgeoning people with information they haven’t asked for?

As in our offline lives, what can seem like devotion and engagement on your part can come off as sucking all of the air out of the room to someone else.

Set aside a moment of silence and look at the world through your community’s eyes. The view might surprise you.

Open up and say “Ahhhh …”

At the end of the day, it’s not about the number of people who talk to me or listen to me on the social web.

Actually it’s not really about ME at all.

It’s about having the ability to hear what’s in people’s heads and the opportunity to choose how I’m going to respond to that information. (Comment? File it away for a rainy day? Pass it along to my network?)

This is a valuable, revenue-generating, soul-supporting activity when it’s done right.

Ultimately my social media beast is one that I’m never going to be able to fully tame. But that’s okay. Its wildness is what makes it work.

It’s monster, but it’s MY monster.

Now excuse me … I gotta get back to it. It’s feeding time again.

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Client Disclosure on Twitter – When do you do it? How do you do it?

Thursday, April 8th, 2010 by Kary Delaria

“I’ve developed an acute awareness of (and questions around) how PR professionals talk about their clients on Twitter … There’s no steadfast rule to when or how PR professionals disclose client connections in social media. It’s a choice, up to you, as to how you will proceed in this very gray area.”

Read my guest post on the Minnesota Public Relations Blog.

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Tweetwalls: The Good, The Bad and The “Yo Mama is Soooo Ugly…”

Monday, November 23rd, 2009 by Jennifer Kane

Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you: The Tweetwall – the hottest new accessory for events in the digital age.

If you haven’t seen one yet, give it time. They’re quickly becoming ubiquitous.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cycus/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

(How ubiquitous? How about the fact that you can now tweet prayers to appear in an aggregated feed for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?)

For those of you who are new to the concept, a Tweetwall is a projection of an aggregated; auto-refreshing conversational feed, that’s often occurring simultaneously as a real-time event or gathering.

As an events tool, Tweetwalls make a lot of sense.

Increasingly events have “back channel” conversations that are equally as compelling as the “front channel” ones. Incorporating a Tweetwall into the experience allows you to marry these on-line and offline conversations and connections.

Additionally, live streaming, social networking and virtual reality have begun to blur the distinction between being virtually present at an events and actually being there in the flesh. A Tweetwall is an excellent way to give your virtual friends a seat at the table too.

But, like any other technology advancement, there is a wrong and a right way to use a Tweetwall.

Before you jump in, here are some tips to help you avoid making any rookie mistakes.

Tweeters + Speakers = Not a Match Made in Heaven

The first exposure most of us have with Tweetwalls are at conferences or workshops where the feed is being projected behind a live presenter.

At first glance, this seems like a natural and smart move.

But as one who’s coordinated, watched and presented in front of Tweetwalls for over a year, let me be explicitly clear on one thing. In my opinion…

Tweetwalls do not belong behind presenters.

Never.

Never ever.

It’s an ineffective logistics choice from many perspectives:

  • If you have one presenter competing for focus with a wall of moving images, the wall will win every time. The images effectively neuter the presenter and dim the volume on any words that come out of their mouth.
  • By giving the audience play-by-play equal standing as the presenter’s words, you are creating an environment that nurtures a horde of armchair Simon Cowells – each one free to lob critiques at a “performer” who has no idea they are being publicly judged and no ability to defend themselves (as the comments are often appearing literally, behind their back.)
  • Presenters – especially solo presenters — can’t talk, and read your real-time feedback on their talk, simultaneously. And increasingly they are facing rooms full of people who are looking down and typing, so it’s impossible for them to distinguish who is unhappy with the presentation and who is just IMing their friend. If you hate the session, be a grown-up and just walk out. That’s a clue that every presenter can understand.
  • Even if your audience is professional about their tweets, all it takes is for one person to highjack your hashtag and say something inappropriate on your big screen (such as “you suck, get your fat ass off the stage.”*) for you to have a PR nightmare on your hands. Sadly, anonymity tends to breed brutishness in audiences, and a cutting remark never remains alone in a feed for long.
  • Even if a presenter stinks, we should honor the fact that it takes connections to land the gig, time and skills to build the presentation and guts to get up on stage. Any presenter, whether they are good or bad, deserves the time and space to present their materials without a wall of “co-presenters” metaphorically jumping in to add their comments very 10 seconds.

Good Places for a Tweetwall

Make no mistake, I think that Tweetwalls belong at events…just not behind the speakers.

So what’s a better way to use them?

  • Place Tweetwalls within other areas of your event space so they can be accessed without pulling focus from your programming (such as hallways and lounge spaces).
  • Tweetwalls are a great feature for events where there is no formal programming (like an open house or party). In these cases, the wall provides a natural and dynamic center of attention and hub for on and off line conversation.
  • Get away from the “wall” concept and focus on creating other forums where you can aggregate event conversations. For instance, dedicate a page of your event website to the feed or create a conference-specific mobile app that will allow people to observe and engage wherever they are.

No matter what format you choose, just make sure your Tweetwall strategy is a solid one:

  • Your Tweetwall should be set up to auto refresh, so it is self-maintaining.
  • Your Tweetwall can (and should) be visually branded to match your company or event. (It is a communications tools like any other you would employ.)
  • Your Tweetwall feed should be monitored, (essentially you are inviting people to participate in a dialogue within your brand space – you don’t have to moderate the conversation, but it’s good business sense to at least know what it consisted of.)

You don’t have to do all this leg work yourselves. My friends at Clockwork Active Media Systems recently build a new tool called tweetwally that can do a lot of this work for you. I highly recommend checking it out.

Don’t Forget: Tweetwalls Never Die

It’s tempting to think of Tweetwalls in one-off terms: you build it, post it and then shut it down when the event is over.

But the reality is that your Tweetwall feed is full of valuable content that will continue to live online long after your event has been put to pasture.

So give some thought to how you can mine and capitalize on this content:

  • Are you reviewing the feed post-event and following back anyone who chimed in the conversation whom you didn’t already know?
  • Are you capturing quotes from the feed that you could use for future marketing purposes?
  • Are you following up with anyone who made disgruntled comments to let them know that their voices were heard?
  • Are you generating any post-event blog posts to address the “uber” dialogue that you see running through the feed?
  • Are you pulling out constructive criticism from the feed and relaying it back to your presenter(s) in a format that will help them to improve their presenting skills?
  • Are you shifting the conversation over to a future event’s hashtag so you can effectively end this conversation and begin another?

Tweetwalls are undeniably cool. And I believe they signal the beginning of a natural evolution to a future where events will have indistinguishable on and offline experience.

Just be sure to use them strategically.

Virtual sticks and stones also break no bones, but a mismanaged Tweetwall can certainly hurt you.

*Sadly, this is an actual tweet I saw displayed during someone’s presentation.

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Posted in Events Industry, New Media Marketing, Thoughts on the Industry | 6 Comments »

The Top Five Essentials for a Successful Company Twitterfeed.

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 by Jennifer Kane

It’s started.

Companies everywhere seem to have received the “We gotta be on Twitter!” memo and are swarming to the application to fire up a feed.

But does anyone care?

Since I’m a “heavy tweeter” and follow a lot of people, I seem to be on the radar of many of these corporate feeds.

The number of corporate followers I get seems to double each week. While the amount of time I have to vet each follower is growing smaller.

As result, I’ve developed a Twitter litmus test to help me decide which companies I should follow back.

Corporate marketers? Take note:

1. Is Your Company’s Twitter Profile Complete?

Your Twitter profile is your company’s online business card. Make it an effective one.

  • Include a picture. It’s O.K. if that picture is your company’s logo. Just make sure it’s a version of the logo that looks good on multiple color backgrounds. I view my Twitter stream in Tweetdeck against a black background. If you use a gray logo with a transparent background as your avatar, I will literally never see your tweets going by.
  • Tell us where you’re located. I make it a point to follow local companies. Leave off your locale and you could be missing the opportunity to transfer the Twitter conversation to a face-to-face forum.
  • Write a keyword-rich, informative company description. Don’t waste this valuable (and searchable) real estate with dippy slogans like, “We work hard, but have fun too!” or obtuse mission statements like,  “Creating authentic experiences for consumers.” I want to know, in a glance, what you do and if it’s relevant to my business.
  • Include a URL. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a link to your corporate website. But it does have to be a link to a location that will provide me with more detailed information on what it is that your company does.

2. Does Your Twitter Profile Show Your Company Having Conversations with Actual People?

When I’m vetting a company, the Twitter profile page is an invaluable research tool.

  • Do you have hundreds of followers, but follow none of your clients or customers back? (My first impression? You don’t seem like a very nice person to do business with.)
  • Do you follow a ton of people, but have no followers in return? (My first impression? You probably post some pretty boring tweets.)
  • Is your feed full of posts, but includes no @ replies? (My first impression? You like to talk…just not to us.)
  • Is your feed full of @ replies, but no posts? (My first impression? You don’t have much to say, so you use gratuitous, “Me too!” and “LOL” comments to make your company appear “engaged.”)
  • Is your feed full of retweets? (My first impression? You have nothing original to say, so you repeat others’ tweets so you can appear relevant in the space.)

3. Is There a Sense of Human Voice in Your Twitterfeed’s Content?

Nearly all the companies that I see jumping on the Twitter bandwagon are under the mistaken impression that it’s the world’s cheapest and fastest broadcast medium.

Couldn’t be further from the truth, my friends.

If I want to know all about your company’s news and hear how awesome you are, I will go look at your website. If I want to engage with you and learn more about why your business may be relevant to mine, I will go to Twitter.

You need to have something interesting to share with me when I arrive.

You wouldn’t just walk around a cocktail party distributing promotional flyers and call that effective networking. Treat your twitterfeed the same way.

Ask questions. Be helpful. Throw your two cents into conversations. And most importantly, give me a sense that there’s a person behind the Twitter curtain.

I don’t care if that person works in marketing, PR, or the C-suite. I just need to know that they are a human.

4. Does Your Company Use Twitter to “Sell” or to “Brand?”

What is your social media content strategy? If you don’t have one, don’t be surprised if you don’t see a big return on your Twitter investment.

Write your tweets so they sound like the sponsorship messages you hear on public radio, not the ads you hear on a Clear Channel station.

Go ahead and mention your company. Share with us what you do and how you feel about the work, (Feelings? In business communications? Why yes!) and ask people questions about their businesses in return.

Structure your content so that the process of sharing and “telling” your story also serves as the “selling” of your company.

5. Does Your Company Respond to Followers and Follow Backs in a Genuine Manner?

I met a really great business contact recently and had some lovely face-to-face discussions with him. Shortly thereafter, I looked him up on Twitter and started following his company (he manages their feed).

In response to my follow, I received an auto-generated direct message with a generic “thanks for the follow” and an offer for me to download “an exclusive whitepaper which could help me double my follower count overnight!”

Needless to say, this person is no longer one of my business contacts.

If I meet you, and you know my name, but you treat me like an anonymous cog when you reach out to me through social media channels, I will treat your business like an anonymous cog in return.

Treat your clients and customers like you’ve had a dirty one-night stand with them, and you’ll see a whole other side of Twitter’s power – a side that has the ability to break your company’s reputation just as easily as make it.

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Posted in New Media Marketing | 5 Comments »