As you’ll no doubt read here over and over again, social media is important to your business. If you don’t engage on Twitter, Facebook, or Youtube, you’ll eventually go out of business. At least that’s what the experts will have you believe. Fear tactics are not so much as effective in business or defining customer relationships as they are at creating a sense of [contrived] controversy. I must be honest with you however. While social media is indeed a game…
Without a Strategy, There Is No ROI
Guest post by Danna Vetter, VP, Consumer Strategies, ARAMARK – Part 3 in a series Have you ever started a meeting without an agenda? Driven your car with no destination? How about gotten surgery before diagnosing a need? While some of those options may seem like refreshing changes, it’s not the way you run your business. But that is exactly what it’s like when you start a social media campaign without a strategy that ties to real business needs. At ARAMARK, a…
Smashing Convention: Billy Corgan on why artists need more than viral videos
Welcome to Revolution Season 3! Although, we unofficially launched one of the interviews early (because of the GRAMMY Awards), Season 3 proudly debuts with an unapologetic interview with none other than Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins. This episode also celebrates the release of Oceania, the new Smashing Pumpkins “album within an album.” As guitarist and co-founder of the Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Corgan was at the forefront of one of the most important music movements in recent history. He’s not…
Culture Shock: Culture’s Impact on Social Marketing and Business
Guest post by Ekaterina Walter, a social media strategist at Intel. She was recently elected to serve on the Board of Directors of Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). Follow her on Twitter Culture is one of the largest components of how we communicate: not just how we say something but how we choose the tools we use to get a message across. This is as true for social media as it was for the telegraph. For example, if you…
Inside Look: How The Boston Celtics Win in Social Media and Digital
The Boston Celtics know how to win. And while the team is now preparing for the next NBA season, Peter Stringer, Senior Director of Interactive Media is on the court every day. With 6.5 million fans on Facebook and 600k followers on Twitter, Peter’s work is just getting started. Serving customers in today’s hottest networks is one thing. Catering to a worldwide community of rabid sports fans requires in a series always-on digital arenas takes a different level of engagement…
Dear [insert business name], what’s your promise?
You say you want to get closer to customers, but your actions are different than your words. You say you want to “surprise and delight” customers, but your product development teams are too busy building against a roadmap without consideration of the 5th P of marketing…people. Your employees are your number one asset, however the infrastructure of the organization has turned once optimistic and ambitious intrapreneurs into complacent cogs or worse, your greatest detractors. You question the adoption of disruptive…
The future of TV is more than social, it’s a multi-screen experience that needs design
The future of television is much more than social; much in the same way that the future of media is too, more than social. Social is a fabric; it connects the individual nodes that make up the human network. But, social however, is not a means to an end. And, as such, the same is true about the working theories driving Social TV. Understanding the role social plays in how viewers connect with programs and other people is essential to…
The Path from a Social Brand to a Social Business
I’ve been a long-time supporter of MediaTemple’s (MT)Residence program along with Gary Vaynerchuk, Neil Patel, and many others whom I respect. I wanted to share my “7 questions to answer to become a social business” with you here.. Social Media is pervasive and is becoming the new normal in corporate marketing. Brands who get this right are starting to build their own media networks rich with customer connections numbering in the millions. Right now, Coca-Cola has over 34 million fans…
They All Laughed – The road to becoming a social enterprise
Guest post by Danna Vetter, VP, Consumer Strategies, ARAMARK People laughed when we began talking about putting resources towards building a social structure for a company like ARAMARK. We heard it all: The standard – “We can’t open ourselves up to this kind of risk.” The mean – “You’re just trying to manipulate company perception.” The ridiculous – “No one wants to read tweets about hot dogs.” If you don’t know, ARAMARK is a private, $13 billion global company that…
It Takes Courage
It’s inevitable that I will get the question. You’d think by now that I would learn to expect it…that I would prepare for it…or have a response that would be purely second nature. But I don’t. I’ve no standard answer that automatically inspires anyone in the moment to take action. And, to this day, I neither expect the question nor do I have a rehearsed or standard riposte committed to memory. So what is “the question?” The question faces those…
