“If your organization’s employees aren’t on your side, it doesn’t matter how good your relationships with other publics are.” -Guth & Marsh

This is a concept that I wish most organizations would understand—especially when it comes to social media.

While many organizations are struggling with the notion of being social, they cannot idly sit by until they determine the best course of action. At the least, they need to implement a social media policy (with the help of a consultant or agency with actual social media experience, of course) as a first course of action to protect their brand. This is important because employees might be using social networks and potentially identifying themselves as employees of said brand.

In today’s social world, an organization’s publics do not end with employees or the media. There are shareholder, stakeholder, government (national, state or local), and latent publics that an organization didn’t even know existed but now come out of the woodwork because they are offended by an employee’s actions or comments, which is exactly what happened with Chipotle’s recent social media debacle.

Today, many employees feel entitled to start, build and maintain a personal brand. However, what happens when an employee’s “brand” runs counter-culture to the organization’s brand? What happens when an employee does not truly understand the concept of branding (i.e. personal branding is not traditional branding)? What happens when organizations are so busy pushing their messaging—internally and externally—that employees are confused in regards to what the organization’s brand stands for?

A lack of brand understanding and protection can be even more troublesome when you sell and own a franchise. As we saw with Domino’s, the online behavior of franchise employees can and will have a residual effect on the corporate brand, but also a ripple effect on all of the other franchisees.

Food for thought (pardon the pun), should organizations have policies that address the “off-the-clock” social activities of their employees who use social networks? What would you suggest? What have you experienced?

All Facebook: Chipotle’s Facebook Page Consumed By Cat Controversy

“Since the company and employee posted the claim that a hacker approved the post about the cat getting run over, there’s been a flurry of comments on the matter in addition to the hundreds of direct responses to the post claiming a hacker was involved.”

(Dear Chipotle: This is why your marketing, PR and social media people need to understand how technology, specifically the Internet, works. Hackers don’t “approve” they just do what it is they set out to do.)

So Good: What is Chipotle’s Social Media/PR Team THINKING?

“What did that hacker do? Steal information? Post embarrassing photos? No, they posted, from an Android phone no less, about how she just hit a cat with her car. Then, the “hacker” returned to the same Facebook thread, the morning AFTER the alleged incident to continue the conversation. What you don’t see in the screengrab above is that she even posted at 2:43 the next afternoon. Seems like a plausible story right? And by plausible of course, I mean whomever at Chipotle actually bought that story is a grade-A moron. Yet the company came out and said the story was “completely false.” Not that they were looking into it, but that nope, the wizards in their PR department were totally sure that this was a malicious Facebook hacking.”

(Don’t you just love the use of “wizards” here?! I don’t know about you, but the notion of “PR Wizards” will have me chuckling all day.)

Entrepreneur: Franchises Go Social

“Social media may be a brave new frontier, but going rogue isn’t a good idea. ’You still have a brand to maintain and a franchisor to answer to,’ Segreto says. Some larger franchises, such as Tasti D-Lite and Express Employment, actually have managers working in social media. Emerson encourages franchisees to get involved in social media, but to repurpose content that is developed by the company’s headquarters.”

Social Media Explorer: The Franchise And Social Media: SME-TV With Ruby Tuesday

“…[Ruby Tuesday] brought social media in-house because they want someone who is infused with the brand.”

[Image: Fine Art America]

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]