Introduction
I was standing in line to check in at Las Vegas’s then-trendiest hotel in town, the Aria, for nearly an hour. It was June 2010, and I had just arrived after a twice-delayed six-hour flight from New York. I was tired and annoyed, and the last thing I wanted to do was waste an hour of my life waiting in line. Frustrated, I pulled out my smartphone and tweeted, “No Vegas hotel could be worth this long wait. Over an hour to check in at the Aria. #Fail.”
Interestingly enough, the Aria didn’t tweet back to me, but a competitor did. I saw a tweet from the Rio Hotel just two minutes later. If you’re anything like most people with whom I’ve shared this story, you’re probably thinking, “What did the Rio tweet, ‘Come on over, we have no line’?” Indeed, many a small business owner and corporate senior executive who have heard this story have thought that this was the Rio’s ROI moment, and that was surely what the Rio tweeted back.
Had the Rio tweeted such a message, I would have likely felt annoyed by two things: “First, why are they stalking me like a creepy character looking to manipulate me and benefit from my bad experience? Second, why is it jam-packed and happening at the Aria while it’s wide open at the Rio?” On the contrary, however, the Rio Las Vegas tweeted the following to me: “Sorry about the bad experience, Dave. Hope the rest of your stay in Vegas goes well.”
Guess where I ended up staying the next time I went to Las Vegas? And the time after that, and the time after that?
The hotel used social media to listen and to be responsive, showing a little empathy to the right person at the right time. An ad or a push-marketing message simply wouldn’t have worked. But its ability to listen, to respond, and to be empathic did.
The Rio essentially earned a $600 sale from one tweet, one message that got my attention and ended up being integral in my decision as to where to stay next time I was in the city. Not a single person reading this could argue that the tweet was a marketing or sales message from the Rio either—because it wasn’t. That would be considered an excellent return on investment (ROI) by anyone’s standards. But the story doesn’t end there.
Before even arriving at the Rio, I liked it on Facebook by clicking the Like button at Facebook.com/RioVegas, thereby letting my 3,500 friends, and the world at large, know of my endorsement of its customer-friendly practices. A few months later, my friend Erin was looking for a hotel to stay at in Las Vegas over the New Year’s holiday, and I received the following message from her on Facebook: “Hey, Dave, I noticed you liked the Rio’s page. Thinking about staying there for New Year’s. What do you think?”
A friend’s recommendation is more powerful than any advertisement, and Erin ended up staying at the Rio as well, along with 10 family members. Dozens of other friends have surely noticed my tweets and Facebook likes about the Rio and have been influenced since. So, one tweet led to one like on Facebook and, in fact, many thousands of dollars worth of business.
It used to be said that happy customers tell three people about their good experiences and unhappy customers tell ten about their bad ones. But as my experiences with the Aria and Rio hotels demonstrate, today, thanks to social media, happy customers and unhappy customers can tell thousands of people their feelings about a company’s service or products with just a few clicks, relying on the Like button as a virtual endorsement. The Rio leveraged this fact to its advantage, while the Aria did not.
FROM ADAM AND EVE TO MASS MEDIA TO THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA IN COMMUNICATIONS
In the beginning, there was Adam and Eve. Eve said to Adam, “You’ve got to try this apple,” and the first marketing interaction in the history of the world had taken place. It was simple and effective, from one trusted person’s lips to another’s ears, and it resulted in a successful, if free, “transaction.”
Word-of-mouth marketing had begun, and it would remain the best, purest, most efficient form of marketing for thousands of years (see the timeline in Figure I.1). Then, in the year 1450, the printing press ushered in a new era of mass marketing and media. Direct mail, followed by newspapers and magazines, and radio and television, allowed marketers and advertisers to target huge groups of people at once.
FIGURE I.1 History of Marketing Timeline
But today there are literally thousands of radio stations you can listen to—or free ways to listen to music—so why would you ever listen to a radio ad, when you can just change the station? There are literally thousands of television channels you can watch at any given moment and—better yet—technology that allows you to record your favorite shows and fast-forward through the commercials. So why on earth would you watch the commercials, unless you work in the industry and have professional interest?
No, people are not watching and listening to commercials the way they used to, and the marketing and media industries are changing faster than ever before. So what’s a marketer to do? How can you get the word out about your product, drive trials, drive sales, and accomplish all of the other marketing objectives you’ve got? How do you get people talking about you without being so disruptive, and, well, unlikeable? The good news is, people are already talking about brands like yours more than ever before, and thanks to social media, word can spread faster than ever before—so all you have to do is listen, respond, and harness that word to allow consumers to drive the action.
THE SOCIAL MEDIA AND LIKE REVOLUTIONS
The social media revolution has given consumers around the world the most powerful voice they’ve ever had. It’s also forced companies to think about how they can be more transparent and responsive. Social media, along with a global recession, has led companies, organizations, and governments to figure out how to accomplish more with less money—to get their messages out there and talked about, without spending as many dollars on declining media like television, radio, and print.
Word-of-mouth marketing has always been considered the purest and best form of marketing, and social media has continued to prove this fact in many ways. People like to share with and feel connected to each other, brands, organizations, and even governments they like and trust.
Facebook’s Like button, introduced in April 2010, has already been added by more than 5 million distinct websites (see Figure I.2). The Like button allows Facebook’s more than 1 billion users, with one click, to express approval of companies, organizations, articles, or ideas. Whether it’s a friend’s picture of her baby you like, an article shared from the New York Times, a video from a local organization, or a contest from a global brand, the Like button gets more than 2 billion clicks per day.
FIGURE I.2 Facebook’s Like Button
Yet as astounding as these numbers are, it’s the new personalization of the Web that matters most in the social media revolution, both to companies and consumers. It’s Facebook’s ability to show you exactly what your friends and friends of friends like that makes the like function such a powerful tool. If you have a new baby, for example, you don’t care what stroller is advertised on television, and in fact, you probably don’t care if 50, 500, or 5,000 people like a new stroller on Facebook. But if a friend of yours likes that stroller, you are more apt to feel that you can trust the company that made the item and you will be more comfortable buying a stroller from that company.
Facebook isn’t the only social network to adopt a like feature either. YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, and Foursquare have all added their own functionality that allows users to express approval of content, and Twitter has a Favorite button that allows users to approve of specific tweets. Content, companies, products, and ideas judged likeable by people you know and trust can be easily found throughout today’s Internet. Companies and professionals who are worthy of people clicking their Like button will, in the short term, build trust and, in the long term, win the new Web in their respective categories.
As the cofounder and CEO of social media and word-of-mouth marketing firm Likeable Media, I’ve had the privilege of being an early adopter of social media technology and an eyewitness to the social media and like revolution. Likeable’s mission is to help build more transparent and responsive companies, nonprofit organizations, and governments. We believe that social media, used well, is nothing short of transformational, not only in marketing but also in public relations, sales, customer service, and operations. We believe it has the potential to break down silos to better connect companies internally and externally.
We’ve worked to improve social media branding for more than 250 companies and organizations, such as 1-800-Flowers.com, Verizon, Neutrogena, the New York City Department of Health, and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and, through Likeable Local, over 1,000 small businesses, such as dentists, jewelers, and real estate firms. There are organizations of all sizes that have learned to really listen, deliver value, and respond to customers—brands that share and inspire social content that’s worthy of being shared online and offline, and liked, literally and figuratively.
JOIN THE COCKTAIL PARTY
Social media is like the world’s largest cocktail party, where people can listen to others talking and join the conversations with other people about any topic of their choice. There are two main distinctions, though, between a real cocktail party and an online one: First, there’s no drinking online, of course. Second, but more important, whereas at an actual, in-person cocktail party, you can only have a few conversations with a handful of people in one night, online, and through social networks, you can have numerous conversations with potentially thousands or millions of people at once.
In both “parties,” you will find a mix of likeable people and not-so-likeable people. At a cocktail party, you might encounter people who won’t stop talking about themselves, but you’ll also run into those who are great listeners and show you they’re interested in what you’re discussing. You’ll find people who tell great stories and people who bore you to death. Who do you want to see again or maybe even do business with at a cocktail party: the sales guy who talks incessantly about how great his company and products are or the person who listens to the problems you face, has an open discussion with you, and maybe even makes you laugh?
We all intuitively know what makes some people at cocktail parties interesting and enjoyable to interact with. Yet most companies have not figured out how to be likeable in the cocktail party known as social media. Many companies still act like the sales guy who won’t shut up about his products, or someone who tries too hard to dazzle people, or the person who bores everybody to death talking without listening and not asking other people what they want to have a conversation about.
The good news is, you, as a company, have an opportunity to do better, to be the organization that isn’t “that guy” at the cocktail party. By applying the same set of rules you’d apply to be the person everyone wants to be involved with at the party, you can become the most likeable company or organization in your category—and end up the most profitable as well.
Listen carefully, be transparent, be responsive, be authentic, tell great stories—the qualities that would make you the hotshot at the party—and they’ll make your organization a likeable one on social networks.
LIKE IS THE NEW LINK: HOW FACEBOOK IS REORGANIZING GOOGLE’S WEB
You wake up one morning, and your back really hurts. You’ve been putting off finding a new doctor ever since you moved to town, it’s been forever since you’ve had a checkup, and now you’re paying the price. The pain is too much to wait any longer, and you’ve got to find a chiropractor now. So you grab your computer, go to Google.com, and enter “back doctor” and your town’s name. You see a list of 10 chiropractors who have paid Google to be listed there and dozens of others who come up in organic search results. But do you really want to trust your throbbing back to a complete stranger in an emergency?
Then you think of another idea, and you head to Facebook and again search “back doctor.” At the top of the results is a doctor’s listing with a sidebar telling you that three of your friends like this doctor. Beneath the top listing is a chiropractor, next to which you see two friends who like him. “Sweet,” you think. “Someone I can trust because my friends like him.” You make a quick call, and you’re off to get your backache taken care of by a recommended doctor, a professional your friends like.
This scenario and scenarios like it are happening every day now, and the use of Facebook and the social graph (global mapping of people and how they’re connected) for search and commerce isn’t far off. Think about it: Why would you possibly make a decision about a doctor, an attorney, a mechanic, or any important product or service for that matter based on advertising or Google search placement when you can make this decision based on the preference and recommendations of trusted friends? Facebook and social media have made it infinitely easier to do the latter. It’s nothing short of a game changer for marketers and businesses of all sizes.
The great news about the new world of communications we live in today is that everybody has a shot. Build a great product, get the word out to a few people, make it easy for people to share with their friends, and you can win without spending a boatload. Just five years ago, for instance, if you went to a new restaurant that you loved, you might have shared the experience with a few of your friends, family members, or neighbors. Perhaps if you really loved the restaurant, you might have raved about it for a week to as many as 10 or 15 friends. Today, you can share these thoughts with 350 Facebook friends, 300 Twitter followers, or 150 LinkedIn connections, all with one click on your computer or phone. Or you can post a picture of that appetizing, or unappetizing, meal and share it with hundreds of people on Pinterest, Instagram, or Google+.
No matter what the size of your business, organization, or your client’s business, you too have the ability to follow the simple rules of social media outlined in this book to reap the rewards. Senior management, and anyone in a communications position for that matter, needs to know that marketing in a social media and Facebook world is not about broadcasting your message and getting the largest reach and frequency. It’s about tapping into the conversation, listening, engaging, and empowering. The loudest, biggest spenders don’t win anymore. The smartest, most flexible listeners do.
WHAT SOCIAL MEDIA CAN AND CAN’T DO
Before we move on, I’d like to share three key points about social media to dispel any myths you may have heard and make sure I manage your expectations from the start:
1. Social media cannot make up for a bad product, company, or organization. If you’re marketing a bad service or widget, not only will social media not help you but it will actually hurt your cause because word will spread quickly. The good news is, if you’re using social media well, you’ll quickly know when you have bad products, employees, or processes. As a good businessperson or marketer, you can fix these problems before they cause any serious damage.
2. Social media won’t lead to overnight sales success. Success will take time, and it will come in increased buzz, referrals, traffic, and eventually, sales. I wish I could tell you that after you read this book you’ll have all of the tools to instantly turn on the social media revenue engine and watch the money pour in. I can’t, of course. I’ll demonstrate the return on investment of “likeable social media” in lots of case studies, but no matter what, social media is not an instant win. We’re talking about building relationships with people, and that invariably takes time.
3. Social media is not free. It will take time and/or money to achieve sustained growth. Since it’s free to join Facebook and any social network worth talking about, many marketers think social media is free, or at least cheap. Well, the good news is, no matter how large your company is, it’s nearly impossible to spend the kind of money on social media that large companies regularly have spent on network television in the last 20 years. But building and executing a likeable social media plan will take lots of time and work. Ultimately, such a plan can’t be the sole effort of any one marketing or public relations department. Instead, it must be integrated across your entire company, its agencies, and vendors.
BOOKS CAN BE SOCIAL TOO
I write a lot in this book about the two-way interactive nature of social media and the importance of leveraging that potential. Of course, a book is typically as one-directional as a medium can be: author writes, and reader reads and digests. As a social media author, I simply won’t allow that to be the case. So here’s my promise to you: as you read this book, if you have any questions, you need clarification, you are uncertain about content, or you want to challenge me on the points or strategies within, please do let me know, using social media.
Ask me questions through Facebook.com/DKerpen or Twitter.com/DaveKerpen. For a speedier answer, if perhaps not one directly from me, post on our company page at Facebook.com/LikeableLocal or through Twitter.com/LikeableLocal or Twitter.com/LikeableBook. If you have a question, even if you think it applies only to you, there are probably many others out there with similar questions. So I truly hope you’ll take me up on that offer, and ask away.
LET’S GET LIKEABLE
Facebook, Twitter, blogs, YouTube, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and other social media sites and tools are innovating and changing faster than any other communications technologies in history. It’s important to understand the basics behind how each major network works and how marketers and businesses can best leverage each site. Before we delve into the following 18 strategies to help you create an irresistible brand through online social media networks, I urge you take a look at the recently updated Appendix first. This section provides a brief refresher course on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, and other social networks, blogs, and tools that matter most. It contains insight on how to best think about them and use them in marketing and advertising. If you feel as if you don’t need a refresher, read on, but strongly consider using the Appendix as a guide at any time and to provide further context.
While social media sites and tools will continue to change with every week that goes by, the 18 strategies discussed in this book will remain the same and help you utilize social media to become more transparent, responsive, engaging, and profitable.
Thanks for choosing to go on this journey with me. Let’s get likeable.