Archive for the ‘Case Study’ Category

I’d like to introduce you to Ramon De Leon of Domino’s in Chicago. How I met Ramon is quite simple: Twitter. This morning I tweeted out Tom Martin’s latest post “Is Pizza Hut’s Twintern Job Post Ethical” and I got the following response from @DPZRAMON: “Could be just a publicity stunt for Pizza Hut. Why advertise in NYT? @tommartin is rt- that shows they don’t get it.”

By clicking on DPZRAMON’s Twitter bio I could see that he was with Domino’s in Chicago. So, I asked him the obvious question: “Hi there! As a Domino’s owner, how are you dealing with what happened? Is it affecting business at all locally? (Agree, PH stunt)”

Ramon’s responses:

“The effect was minimized b/c since Tues(4.14) I went after the Chgo convo’s about this.Did not hide;made myself extremely visible.”

“I used monitter.com and joined as many Chicago Tweets on this issue as poss;I started answering B4 ppl were asking.Tks 4 asking”

Obviously, from a social media perspective, I was intrigued and wanted to learn more about Mr. De Leon. Ramon honored me with a phone call so I could get the scoop on how he uses social media to connect with customers. What I found out was indeed quite interesting!

Ramon De Leon (aka DPZRAMON) – King of Online Sales

Ramon has been engaged in online sales of Domino’s pizza since 1999 and has been engaged in social media since 2005 (long before the term it’s known by now). Ramon has long been a Facebook member and has connected with students for the past 4 years. His Facebook strategy is simple: Connect with local university/college students, give them the best service & pizza ever, and develop relationships that will last beyond their college years (as in delivering pizza to their place of business). According to Ramon, “it’s a social cycle.”

Social media, potholes and pizza

What do these three uncommon things have in common? Ramon, of course. When Ramon heard that CBS2 was doing a story on potholes, he reached out to them to share his collection of pothole videos (made with 12seconds.tv). Why potholes? Well, Ramon has 75 drivers who encounter these potholes often while delivery pizza all over Chicago. Apparently, if hit just the right way, potholes can really mess up the quality/appearance of a pizza, thus affecting customer service. Ramon was featured in nearly half of CBS2′s 3 minute story…all while wearing his Domino’s shirt.

Turning the camera on CBS 2

When I was checking out Ramon’s blog (before I learned his back story) I found something that amazed me. Ramon was able to turn the cameras on TWO CBS2 reporters and interview them (be sure to take a look at the two videos) after they interviewed him for their potholes story. I don’t know about you, but it’s the first time I’ve ever seen that happen. But here’s a hint: the only way that it happens is if you develop a relationship with reporters by giving them something newsworthy to begin with!

But wait, there’s more!

Not only does Ramon use social media for customer service, video blogging and public relations, he also monitors what customers are saying and when necessary uses social media to apologize.

A passion for pizza and social media.

If you speak with Ramon it is so obvious that he is passionate about Domino’s, customers, and social media. In fact, he constantly monitors social sites for mentions of his stores and he provides a flyer that includes all his social sites on a flyer, which is taped to all Domino’s pizza boxes leaving his stores just to make sure customers can find him online. He also attends a lot of social media conferences to keep up on the latest social media best practices. If you don’t believe me when I say Ramon is passionate, maybe you’ll believe Gary Vaynerchuk.

The million dollar question(s)

So Ramon, we all want to know…is all this social media stuff increasing your bottomline? Ramon’s answer: YES!

And, of course, we are all wondering…why isn’t corporate taking some lesson’s from Ramon? Well, it appears they are, but let’s give them some time to wrap their heads around it, okay?

Lessons Learned

1. Monitor conversations
2. Engage customers on & offline
3. Provide quality
4. Relationships are job #1
5. Reporters can be your friends
6. Be honest
7. Be passionate
8. Have fun!

DPZRAMON is the pizza guy to know in Chicago! Thanks Ramon for your time and sharing your story with us!

[Image: EasyFindGuide]

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Geoff Livingston’s and my original post “Top 25 Ways to Tell if Your Social Media Expert Is a Carpetbagger” was really meant as a silly riff in reaction to the sudden rush of folks offering social media services in the wake of the economic crisis. The post was never meant to be anything more than half rant/half humor, but the 180+ comments on both of our blogs indicate that we touched a much bigger nerve. Since it’s a prescient topic, we’d like to offer a more serious, positive post to help marketers make a good choice in consultants

A couple of precursors. We’re just starting the list. Feel free to add, balk, or digress.

Secondly, not having a few of these isn’t a death sentence. Social media communications is still a really new industry, and there are no silver bullet experts or methodologies. To help separate the wheat from the chaff, we are sharing these general suggestions, but if many qualifiers are missing in your potential partner’s offering, as a marketer, PR or communications professional you should probably be concerned.

Lastly, we’ve cited examples. This is not an echo chamber or buddy list (sorry to our buddies not on the list, we only wanted to list one per qualifier). In some cases, we’ve never met said examples, but we know their work.

Finally, there are many qualified SM consultants/agencies. In the case of larger agencies, we can’t vouch for them, but can safely recommend individuals. It would be impossible to list all of the many qualified social media partners. Instead, we refer you to Charlene Li’s Altimeter Wiki as a starting place. We also invite you to give hat tips in the comments section.

OK, here we go again:

1. Believes in the generous web and practices cross-linking in their blog (example:Kami Huyse)
2. Highlights others’ work in their blog (example: Chris Brogan)
3. Integrates social media as part of larger marketing strategy (example: Razorfish)
4. Doesn’t pretend to be an expert in all things digital; instead simply focuses on what he/she/they do best (Example: Common Craft)
5. Gives away best practices in an effort to educate, grow social media in general (example: Todd Defren/SHIFT Communications)
6. Understands that Radian6 and other monitoring tools are vastly superior tracking tools in comparison to Technorati (which really isn’t an indicator of much these days) (example: Fleishman’s Matt Dickman)
7. Will tell you that there is no magic bullet for determining social media ROI and that you need to go further to accurately monitor, measure and determine the effectiveness of social media. (example: K.D. Paine)
8. Understands that social media is an important part of the larger word of mouth marketing principles (example: Ogilvy’s John Bell)
9. Others cite this person/agency’s work (example: see the many here)
10. Realizes that search engine optimization represents an absolutely crucial part of social media (example: TopRank’s Lee Odden)
11. Understands that social media expands beyond search engine optimization tactics that lead to Diggs, Stumbles (StumbleUpon) and link baiting (example: Key Relevance’s Li Evans)
12. Integrates brick and mortar events with social media activity (example: Voce’s Josh Hallet)
13. Has and continues to work on notable social media projects (example: Andy Sernovitz)
14. Understands that conversations are the starting place and not the end game. And though ROI is critical, knows that without conversation you’re not going anywhere (example: Paul Chaney)
15. Understands that social networking and conversation is more than collecting followers and subscribers (example: Mack Collier)
16. Listens to you when you are discussing your challenges (example: Connie Reece)
17. Helps and guides clients so that they can understand the benefits of social media and implement it properly (themselves) (example: Amber Naslund)
18. Knows that social networking works best when they are conversing, sharing, and being human (i.e. doesn’t self-promote) (example: Jason Falls)
    
19. Educates clients on understanding that they no longer own or control their brand and educates them on how to create customer evangelists (example: Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba)
20. Won’t act as your social media ‘voice’ or ghostwrite for you (example: Laura Bergells)
21. Understands the difference between social media tools and communications strategy (example: Ogilvy’s Rohit Bhargarva)
22. They won’t recommend blogging as a first step into social media (example: David Armano) and when you are ready to begin they consult you on how to be successful (example: Drew McLellan)
23. Doesn’t allow clients to be affected by Shiny New Object syndrome (example: Beth Kanter)
24. Understands that social media is more than just creating and delivering content or regurgitating existing promotional copy (example: Joseph Jaffe)
25. Understands that social media isn’t the sole terrain of marketing or PR and helps clients educate internally to other departments (example: Media Badger)

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Being fairly new to the social media scene from a business perspective (i.e. implementing social media for business), I hesitated about writing this post. Then I decided that I needed to… if only to, perhaps, offer a different perspective to a recent social media campaign.

This week the team at Edelman selected 25 bloggers to debut Pepsi’s new can design. Very exciting, right? Since I read Mack Collier’s, Chris Brogan’s, Shannon Paul’s and Valeria Maltoni’s blogs daily, I saw each one post their experience and perceptions day-by-day (in that order, which was interesting to me in and of itself). I am not sure who the other 21 bloggers are, but if I find out I’ll be sure to add on to this post with their experiences. (Apologies in advance to the other 21, but I haven’t had the time to sort through everything on Twitter.)

Mack didn’t reveal who the company was; he just mentioned that it was one we all knew. Chris missed a few key components of the ‘analog’ campaign, Shannon did a video unveiling with her friends Ken Burbary and Craig Daitch, which was totally cool because we as viewers could experience it firsthand. Valeria took pictures of the packages she was sent and added some brand thought leadership.

Here’s the thing. While it’s cool to share this kind of excitement with fellow bloggers (and I give credit to Edelman and Pepsi for that, who wouldn’t want kudos and word of mouth buzz from colleagues in this space?), wouldn’t have been better to engage Pepsi evangelists?

In just one Google search I found:

• The Pepsi Fan Club
• Pepsi Collector’s Club (They have local chapters in Chicago and Southern California!)
• Mike and Joanne at the Pepsi Collector (they have had over 67,000 views!)

Evangelists LOVE your company and your products…hence the name, right?! As Mack Collier put it so eloquently: “Evangelists for this company would have gone absolutely apeshit over the packages!” Just think of how explosive this could have been if Edelman/Pepsi reached out to any of the above social networking sites that they built themselves based on the love of Pepsi. WOW!

If I was doing social media for Pepsi (a dream, I know), here are 10 steps that I might have thrown on the table:

1. Join the above forums/groups and listen to what the Pepsi evangelists are saying.
2. After a bit, join the conversation. Let them know that they are loved in return.
3. Share some exclusive Pepsi goodies with them.
4. Ask the groups how they feel about the current packaging.
5. Share some ideas about some new branding concepts.
6. Get their feedback.
7. If, and only if, feedback is positive about a new brand, select 25 members and ask their permission to mail them a surprise package.
8. Get their reaction to the packaging.
9. Utilize their excitement (with their permission, of course) for exposure outside their community (i.e. traditional marketing)
10. Continue the conversation…daily, on-going, as long as the community exists. (i.e. DO NOT use the community for your branding efforts!)

These are just my ideas. What are your thoughts? Do you like the campaign? How would you have handled it? Does social media work within the chamber? Am I missing something?

If you are Edelman or Pepsi and see this post, please stop by! Inquiring minds would love to know how the campaign came about and your objectives for blogger outreach! Thank you in advance.

[Image: istock]

Added 10/30/08: Darryl Parker has been tracking the Pepsi 25 and his conversation with Edelman’s Pepsi’s B. Bonin Bough over on his blog, Employ the Web!. Check it out for more insights on this campaign.

Added 10/31/08: David Armano’s post on his experience: Classically Un-Classic.

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A lot of folks have been asking for B2B case studies showing social media at work, especially for smaller companies. I recently found a vendor via a complete social media experience—no direct marketing from this company at all―and I wanted to share it with you.

This will be a blind case study in the beginning, but all will be revealed at the end…for a reason.

About four weeks ago I was tweaking my LinkedIn account to find [tip: cool tool] and join some additional groups and do some more networking. And that’s when it happened. A particular group kept popping up on the LinkedIn profiles of marketers that I was checking out. Being the curious person that I am, I went to investigate.

And here’s what unfolded:

1. I did a LinkedIn group search and found the group
2. I then did a search for the group on Google
3. The group search led me to find the company’s website
4. While on the company’s site, I used a free website tool and downloaded a white paper
5. The phone rang within 20 minutes of downloading the paper (I hated this part! But was glad, in retrospect, that I gave them my name and not Mickey Mouse.)
6. I had a good 45 minute conversation about…social media. Yep, that’s right! There was a little bit of discussion about their website, the tool, their offerings, etc. but most was about social media, implementing it, how it’s changing marketing. (I loved this part! Even though I knew they are a marketing a social media application)
7. I had never heard of this company so I went to the MarketingProfs Know-how Exchange forum to further investigate and to see if anyone else had. I had a hunch, however, that the answers I received were from the company’s marketers (give them a read, you be the judge), but none-the-less I was still curious.
8. I then hopped over to Twitter to see if anyone over there had heard of the company, but it was radio silence. But, coincidently, there just happened to be a bunch of timely tweets appearing about this company and its new free tool that they released. And how the company “listened” (via Twitter) to a tweet and actually implemented the suggestions made on the tweeter’s blog. Now that got my attention!
9. I then signed up for the company’s webinar. I wish I remember where I saw the promo for the webinar, but I can positively say, I don’t think it was an invitation from the company.
10. Finally, after feeling that I did enough investigation, got a sense of what they could achieve for me [because it obviously works for them, in my experience] I signed on with this company for their services.

Cool right? A customer in only 10 social media steps. But here’s a caveat to consider…what if I wasn’t a curious person? The whole social media experience would have ended with me adding the LinkedIn group and that would have been it (at least for now). But being a marketer interested in social media and this company’s services, I wanted to follow the bread crumb trail and see where it would lead me.

So my questions are: How would you help your target audience along to participate in social media with you? How do you peak their curiosity if they are not naturally curious? Does it take a case study like this to convince marketers, and their company, that social media does work ‘in real life?’

And finally, because I really want to see if they are on their social media game and if they are listening, here’s the company name Hubspot. I’ll know for sure if they leave a comment.

Disclaimer: This is in no way a promotion for this company. If they don’t deliver, they and you will be the first to hear it from me…and that’s the beauty of social media.

Photo Credit: StockXpert

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