Archive - April, 2011

Tim Sanders Invites You To Enter The Good Loop

April 29, 2011 in Book Review with 0 Comments

Books make the greatest gifts — to give and to receive.

Even if I have a stack of shiny new books vying for my attention, I’ll crack open the book a friend or colleague has given to me (or recommended to me) before all others.

Such was the case with Tim Sanders‘ new book, Today We Are Rich. A colleague gave me an autographed copy recently and it immediately went to the top of the lineup.

I don’t typically devour motivational self-help books. I’ll often skim their surfaces or jump around from chapter to chapter and stop when something strikes me as personally relevant. But I read Today We Are Rich cover to cover because it was a different kind of self-help book.

For starters, it had a strong narrative and chapter sequence that built on itself. More importantly, though, the book is about achieving and leveraging a true sense of confidence that comes from living beyond one’s self in the service of others.

That beyond-self message is conveyed in a folksy, commonsensical and down-to-earth tone centered on the wisdom and life lessons passed down to Tim by the grandmother-sage who raised him, Billye King Coffman.

True to the spirit of the its message, Today We Are Rich doesn’t try to be anything but immensely helpful, providing a lifetime’s worth of tried and true tips, tidings, tools and takeaways.

The loving — yes, loving (that’s Tim’s thing) — spirit of the book was captured best in the epilogue:

You see, by making a difference in my life and later noticing and accepting it, Billye entered the good loop of life. She’s got rocket fuel, an endless supply of it… This is a place I want to end up, a virtuous cycle, where I can make a different to others and let the results continually refresh my soul and body. And I’m excited to know that it’s possible, as long as I’m willing to faithfully practice the timeless principles Billye handed down to me. I invite you into this loop too. It’s big enough for all of us.

I love the phrase, “the good loop of life.” What a great way to describe what social responsibility, social media and social marketing — being “social” — is all about. When organizations and individuals come together, not as companies and consumers but as citizens with a common cause, they really do enter “the good loop” together.

So, what are the 7 principles that will put you on the path to the good loop of life?

1. Feed Your Mind Good Stuff
2. Move The Conversation Forward
3. Exercise Your Gratitude Muscle
4. Give To Be Rich
5. Prepare Your Self
6. Balance Your Confidence
7. Promise Made, Promise Kept

That’s the skeleton. You’ll have to read the book to get the meat off those bones.

-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts
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- Matthew DiGirolamo

Pepsi’s Social Vending: Consumer Mousetrap?

April 28, 2011 in Corporate, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Technology with 0 Comments

In its apparent quest to exceed every company in the world at being “social,” PepsiCo announced that it has designed a social component into its vending machines. What was once just a mundane, transactional and (better yet) anonymous experience has now been made social by the ability to give away your friend’s valuable contact information while you “gift” them a drink.

A prototype of the “Social Vending System” debuted this week at an incredibly wonky-sounding trade show — the National Automatic Merchandising Association’s One Show in Chicago. I’m kicking myself for not requesting a media credential.

While I applaud companies for doing something truly innovative in this space (and the Pepsi Refresh Project was just that), what this vending technology seems to really be about is how to take a consumer touch-point, apply social wrapping and a piece of social cheese, and turn it into a consumer mousetrap.

At its heart, I think being a “social company” is about transforming customers into better citizens, not better consumers.

I have a different standard for what constitutes a social technology. And “Social Vending” just doesn’t meet that standard.

What do you think?

-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts
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- Matthew DiGirolamo

Publicists: The Social Media Clean Up Crews

April 18, 2011 in Social Media, Social Messages with 0 Comments

It seems every week brings another high-profile social media mishap. I’ve been saying this for a long time and wrote about it recently: social media isn’t a job for interns. Well, according to the NY Times, social media isn’t a job for celebrities either.

This line summed up the perils of celebrity tweeting best for me:

“I don’t think about it as if I’m talking to a reporter,” he said of Twitter. “It’s a bit strange.”

It’s very easy for a celebrity to be lulled into the false impression that they are only communicating to their own followers and fans.

On an intellectual level, celebrities know that every tweet or Facebook post is public information broadly available to the media. But the casual directness, immediacy, intimacy, and one-to-one engagement that social media affords can confuse that understanding.

Most celebrities are natural performers. They intuitively know what will make their fans happy and social media allows them real-time feedback and confirmation of their instincts. Yet, what may serve, amuse or charm one’s own “community” may not play well in a wider context. What hits the spot for one group may badly miss the mark for another.

There are simply no walls around social media performances, and that’s a painful lesson many celebrities learn.

When asked, my advice is always — apply a filter. And I’m sure that advice is music to a publicist’s ears.

- Matthew DiGirolamo

9 Crisis Communications Tips From Biz Stone

April 15, 2011 in Corporate, Social Media, Social Messages with 0 Comments

On his personal blog last night, Biz Stone gave a terrific response to Fortune’s predictable Trouble @Twitter article that was meme-ing around, well, Twitter all day yesterday.

His blog, The Trouble Bubble, was so smartly executed that it could be a case study for successful executive-level crisis communications. Not every negative or probing article requires a response. Not every criticism or complaint needs to be addressed. But when a reporter questions the soundness of an organization’s management, operations, vision or culture, then an executive-level response is merited beyond just a soundbite or short statement. And this is how it’s done well.

So, based on his post, I give you:

9 TIPS FOR SUCCESSFUL CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS FROM BIZ STONE

We founded Twitter, Inc. in March of 2007 and while we have long said it’s about the users, not the service, we have nevertheless enjoyed favorable media coverage. What took so long for somebody to write the article that says we are falling apart?

Tip 1: Provide historical perspective — long view backwards.

The normal press cycle is to put a company on a pedestal and then knock it down. It’s much more interesting that way. Twitter has had so many ups and downs you’d think we would have had more negative press. To me, it’s like watching the movie Rocky—he’s up, he’s down, he’s out, he wins!

Tip 2: Put criticism in context. Show perspective.

Fortune magazine finally stepped up to knock us down with a cover article, “Trouble@Twitter.”

Tip 3: Thank those who are complaining or criticizing for doing an important job and providing valuable information or lessons.

Here are some examples of how this works. After mostly positive coverage of Facebook, Fortune finally published an article in April of 2009 titled, “Is Facebook Losing Its Glow?” However, later that year they published, “What Backlash? Facebook Is Growing Like Mad.” Google received similar treatment. In July 2010 Fortune published, “Google, The Search Party Is Over.” Later that year, they published, “Google Continues To Gain Search Marketshare.”

Tip 4: Be matter of fact in tone. Build your own case logically and methodically.

We’ve had lots of positive press from Fortune in the past. In July of 2010 they published an article titled, “Twitter’s Business Model: A Visionary Experiment.” The article ended with, “Facebook might want to take notes.” It may seem odd, but from my perspective, this means we are being taken very seriously. Twitter is an important company and it’s under scrutiny from journalists—this is exactly how it’s supposed to work.

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Hosting Howard Schultz with Peet’s Coffee

April 5, 2011 in Branding, Corporate, Personal Reflection with 0 Comments

I had a chance to attend the Los Angeles leg of Howard Schultz’s national book tour this morning for “Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul” (thanks, Larry Benet).

As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m a big admirer of Schultz’s leadership style and corporate vision. No executive is better at communicating core values and articulating the importance of balancing profit motive and purpose motive.  Whenever I hear him speak — and today was no exception — I’m struck by his authenticity and conviction. You can tell that he leads with his truth and believes in the values his company stands for.

That said, nobody that incisive can escape a touch of perfectionism. I suspect he is a perfectionist (we can sniff out our own) and I know he is a brand control freak so it must have just killed him that the event producers served Peet’s Coffee during the pre-event reception. Yes, that’s right. They hosted Howard Schultz with Peet’s Coffee.

Everyone was whispering about it. Not sure who should have caught that minor detail, except for everyone working on the event in any capacity. I even overheard a member of the security team joking about it with an usher while people were filing into the auditorium.

Someone asked Schultz about the oversight during the Q&A session, and he said exactly what I was expecting, “When I saw that they were serving Peet’s Coffee, I almost turned around and left.”

Schultz spoke about the word “love” today and what it means for someone to love what they do, to love the company they work for, to love a brand and what it stands for.

When it comes to brand management, love is in the details. You just can’t miss those kind of details.
-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts
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- Matthew DiGirolamo