By Nick Johnson - October 4th, 2011

Good morning/afternoon everyone, Hope you're all having a wonderful day! Plenty to get through this week: from key learnings on b2b social media; to an interview on how Verizon use social med...

Good morning/afternoon everyone,

Hope you're all having a wonderful day!

Plenty to get through this week: from key learnings on b2b social media; to an interview on how Verizon use social media for customer service; to a case study on Burberry's evolving role as a media company. Read on!

Verizon's Community Program Manager on using social for better customer service

Our very own Harry Rollason has recently conducted an interview with Becky Carroll, Author, The Hidden Power of Your Customers. Becky discusses the proven methods you can use to engage and grow your customer base, why companies find it hard to use social for customer service, and the importance of using this new tool in the future. Sample quote:

"The combination of social media and mobile devices have produced the perfect storm for frustrated customers, making social media in customer service more critical than ever for companies large and small"

To read the whole interview, head here.

The top lessons learned from our B2B Corporate Social Media Summit in Philly

Last week, Will and Harry went over to Philly to run our first ever Corporate Social Media Summit specifically for B2B companies. Our friend Brian Rice at Business2Community has put together the key lessons learned at the conference.

Some samples from the full article:

  1. Your social media strategy must be aligned with your communication strategy, corporate brand promise and organisational strategic guidelines
  2. Don't mistake tactics for strategy
  3. When B2B blogging, start with a customer problem or question. It makes for more interesting reading (and better SEO)
  4. If it's a 'one to many' approach, you're doing it wrong

The piece contains a wealth of hints and tips for b2b companies looking into using social media. To check it out, go here. And if you'd like to see a full list of tweets from the conference (including many more pieces of advice and best practice), go here.

How Burberry have begun to integrate social media into everything they do

[caption id="attachment_1015" align="aligncenter" width="740" caption="Burberry mentions during their Spring/Summer 2012 show, courtesy of Trendsmap"][/caption]

Mashable have put together a case study on how they are beginning to use social media strategically as part of everything they do. From a 'Tweetwalk' sneak preview of their Spring/Summer 2012 runway show (which caused #burberry to trend worldwide on Twitter); to 'Twitter Takeovers' where fashion luminaries took over various local Burberry  twitter accounts; to a live stream of the aforementioned runway show which was aired on the company website, their Facebook page, on YouTube and at more than 45 of the company's retail locations.

Mashable point out that Burberry are converting themselves into a fully-fledged media company. It's something that has been said many times before - but this is perhaps the best example I've seen of a company realising - and taking advantage of - the fact that we are all publishers now. Note that none of the examples above are marketing-driven - they're all useful content that their fans and followers will value. I'll leave you with a quote from the Mashable piece, from Christopher Bailey, the Chief Creative Officer:

"A brand is not just about product, it's about experience as well, and experiences need to come from the centre of a community".

Well said. Read the whole piece here.

Practical steps on how to gamify your next marketing campaign

As part of our continuing investigation into the strengths - and weaknesses - of  'gamification', comes a piece from Adam Kleinberg on how to gamify your marketing.

The piece goes into detail on:

  • Who 'gamers' are - reminding us that 59% of 'social gamers' are women, and 23% are between the ages of 45-65
  • What 'gamification' is - and it's "not equal to games. [It's] the application of gaming concepts to non-game experiences in order to drive desired behaviour from audiences".
  • How brands have successfully used gamification already - including examples from Starbucks, Nike, Microsoft and Kraft

Find out more here.

BTW, If you're interested in gamification, check out our conference on the topic here.

That's all for this time guys. I'll see you back here this time next week!

Thanks

Nick

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