Angela (the Bulgee Interview)

Finally got my chance to snuggle up next to the new account manger and traffic cop, Angela Scarbrough.  I charmed her and she opened up to me like a Louisiana crawfish.  Here’s how it went:

Bulgee:  Scarbrough.  Any relation to Chuck Scarbrough?

AS:  If you mean the newsman from New York, that’s Chuck Scarborough.  No relation.

Bulgee:  Right.  Some people say that handling traffic at dg is like trying to make a perfect Arnold Palmer.  Are you concerned?

AS:  No, I make a perfect Arnold Palmer.  Sometimes I add vodka.  Know what that’s called?

Bulgee:  Just because I have no lower half doesn’t mean I don’t get around.  It’s a John Daly.  I make my Palmers with Everclear.  Know what that’s called?

AS:  A Happy Gilmore.

Bulgee:  I like you.

AS:  I like you too.

Bulgee:  Know why they call me Bulgee?
AS:  Not sure that I want to know.

Bulgee:  Rumor has it you’re a black belt.  True?

AS:  Actually, I’m a purple belt in Kung Fu.

Bulgee:  Kick anyone’s ass lately?

AS:  Not lately, but I’ve been tempted.

Bulgee:  Let your imagination run wild.  If you couldn’t make it in the ad game, what lower level profession might you fall into?

AS:  I’d probably be a jewelry designer.

Bulgee:  Speaking of which, I like the necklace…and the bracelet.

AS:  Thanks, I made both pieces.  I actually make all the jewelry that I wear, and I’m learning to work with copper, silver, gold, wood, leather and other materials.

Bulgee:  I like leather.  We should have drinks some time, I make a great Happy Gilmore.

AS:  We should.

Bulgee:  Tex-Mex or Tapas?
AS:  Tapas

Bulgee:  Dancing or Bowling?
AS:  Snorkeling

Bulgee:  Rocky or Bullwinkle?
AS:  Bullwinkle

Bulgee:  Truth or Dare?
AS:  I'd have to know you better

Bulgee:  Favorite movie?
AS:  Mannequin

Bulgee:  Really?
AS:  No, I was just pulling your leg.

Bulgee:  That's cold.

Your Business Sucks

Offensive?  Yes, but it’s a fact of life.  Not that your business sucks, but that you simply cannot please 100% of your customers 100% of the time – whether your brand is the Ritz-Carlton, Rolls Royce or Ranch Doritos. 

Fear of criticism should never dissuade you from using social media to promote what you do so very well.  While it’s normal to want to have a social media presence where no one ever publicly complains about your company, the reality is that’s just not reality.  The concern being that bad publicity can bring you down in an instant.  99.9% of the time that’s just not true.  You’re not Chris Brown.  Your business is not about to get liquored up and make a scene at the Emmys or beat up a defenseless woman.  That’s just not who you are. 

The type of exposure your business is more likely to encounter online is a complaint from a customer who had a bad experience, which in no way defines the common experience with your brand.  How your brand publicly handles a reasonable complaint will strengthen your reputation - demonstrating confidence, competence and compassion (we call it the three “r” s).

 

A recent example is from a local restaurant client with an exceptional reputation, receiving an angry facebook and twitter posts, from a disgruntled guest.  One day later, the customer was astounded to receive a phone call from the owner of the restaurant, who apologized and made the individual a very nice offer to return, with friends, as a personal guest of his.  The previously unhappy guest then took it upon herself to post an update on facebook and twitter − rescinding accusations, explaining the misunderstanding and providing glowing testimonial for the restaurant, its owner and staff.  Weeks later, she continues to be a vocal advocate for the restaurant via social media networks.  

Perhaps it’s the complaints made privately that should concern us more than those made publicly. This is where social media really earns its keep in helping manage your reputation. By offering a public place for customers to vent, it allows you to do something about it. Without that channel, unhappy customers are free to undermine your reputation without you even seeing it. 

  

When it comes to social media and complaint handling, here are four tips:

1. If a reasonable complaint is voiced publicly on a social media platform and you have the ability to satisfy the customer, address it publicly and do so.
2. If an inappropriate complaint is posted to your business’ facebook page, delete it (and most often ban user at same time) – remember that this is your property and you don’t have to allow someone to come in and mess the place up – On twitter, you are best served to ignore such a complaint.
3. If the details surrounding a compliant are not clear, provide an email address and/or phone number to handle privately – Often, a satisfied customer will post an update online to communicate their pleasure in being heard and addressed, and an accompanying testimonial is likely (remember, they’ve already demonstrated interest in your business, so you’re half the way home).
4. “Expect the unexpected” – this phrase makes no sense, you cannot expect the unexpected.  But, do your due diligence to brainstorm about what type of complaint you could conceivably receive and have a game plan ready for a quick response.  Responding timely is half the battle, indicating that your business is listening, demonstrating a commitment to customer satisfaction.

When you have a brand that consistently does its best to do right by people, you need not shy away from the opportunities afforded by social media participation.  Go out there, engage your fans and have some fun too!

Transparency

One of the seemingly more exciting benefits promised by social media is transparency.  How titillating! Going behind closed doors, and effectively closing the gap between the informational haves and have-nots.   But, if the early rounds of this social media experiment have taught us anything, it’s that transparency and TMI are intimate dance partners.  Like anything that’s inherently good, transparency has the ability to turn bad (then good again - like Luke from General Hospital).  But just because you get a stomach ache it doesn’t mean you stop eating chocolate bunnies!  Transparency is of serious value to your brand when done right.  Hence, we’ve established our list of six rules for making transparency work.

Rule 1:  Be honest – This might sound crazy – “of course we’ll be honest, that’s what transparency means.”  Not so fast hot shot.  Sure, transparency starts out as an honest play, but next thing you know, you’re manipulating the entire process to show how great you are “behind closed doors.”  It’s not you, it’s human nature, but if you really want this thing to work, commit to giving away some honest trade secrets and maybe even answering some difficult questions publicly.  

Rule 2:  Use sparingly – Transparency is like brining a turkey.  Just because it works doesn’t mean that you should start brining everything (you know, there’s a strong link between sodium and hypertension).  This brings up the TMI element.  Quality transparency is appreciated more when it’s provided in proper frequency.  Less is more.  If you post pictures of your conference room meeting every day, it’s boring.  If you show a picture of your conference room being used for Friday afternoon cocktails, that’s interesting.

Rule 3:  Break some news – Hired!  Promoted!  Fired! (careful with this one) New! Better!  Smells Great!!!  You get the idea.  

Rule 4:  Promote – Who say’s that transparency can’t be honest and also self-serving?  Received the new customer reward cards – show it to your online community first.  It’s letting them in on something new and also spreading the word.  A win-win!  Popular inventory items go on sale – give your online fans first crack.  That’s “behind the scenes” and we all love to see it first.

Rule 5:  Put it to a vote – Take a chance.  Give your online community a say in creating a new policy.  Give them options to vote on and be okay with each choice.  Gain big points on being real, honest and transparent.  It’s also a good way to promote and get buy-in. 

Rule 6:  Make time for “real time” – Most people understand that while social media creates the ability for real time exchange, schedules often do not make such allowances.  While there’s nothing wrong with communicating in “near time,” having periodic exchanges in real time can be powerful, as transparency is built in to the timely engagement.  Schedule a twitter chat or host a conversation on the company’s facebook page to create a simple event designed to engage the audience.

When done right, transparency creates engagement and empowers an online community.  It’s also great for getting the word out.  Like everything else, doing it right takes commitment and thoughtfulness. Have we made ourselves clear?

In Lieu of Fruitcake

As this time of year rolls around, it’s hard to be anything but reflective, and perhaps a bit sentimental.  We sincerely are grateful for all we possess, including a sizable percentage of our blog reading audience - you personally.  Where would this blog be without you, and the handful of other loyal readers?  We don’t know.

Writing a blog for a small audience is immensely satisfying, and today we thank each of you for taking this journey with us - reading this dreck month after month. 

Thank you SpongeB0bKnowPants.  Your retort to our sixth straight article about the importance and significance of branding warmed our hearts…and twisted our heads.  You’ve been quick with a joke and to light up our smoke, and there’s no place that we’d rather be either.  Your support is unquantifiable by our antiquated mathematic processes.  Muchacho gracias senor!

Thank you mister 6foot8sandwiches.  You are a real mench.  A real haymishe gentleman.  Without you, we’d have one less reader, and that’s significant, to us.  It was you who inspired our post about the connection between individualism and cubism.  Your words mean so much.  Your grandeur is only exceeded by your volume, and for that, we thank you from the bottom of our bloodpumper.

Thank you CLEIGHMattewsFiddy2.  It has been an honor to share the Internet field with you.  As the first, and only, to challenge our notion of vertical brand calibrated amplitude, you astutely pointed out that a) there is no such thing, and b) if there were, we would be approaching backwards.  Thank you sir! 

Lastly, we thank you KatCatLayD.  Your observations delivered our brains a punch to the face, your laughter considerably funnier than the joke.  Your presence drove us beyond our limitations and over walls neither imagined nor real.  Thank you for never letting up, and for never letting us down. 

To you, our loyal fans, we are deeply appreciative.  Thank you for keeping this blog our own little secret.  No matter how ambitiously we scoop, our largest helping of gratitude is far less than what you deserve.  Thank you.

Being Present

Ashton Kutcher teaches us many things.  Most recently, a valuable lesson about social media participation.  In case you missed the story, Ashton tweeted about the firing of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, unaware of the facts surrounding the situation.  His tweet read, "How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste."  Once familiar with the sex abuse cover-up allegations that led to the famous coach’s firing, Ashton deleted the tweet, apologized and vowed to take a break from twitter for a while, turning over his account to his public relations team.

For brand managers, this should be a teaching moment about something much larger than the need to think and gather all the facts before we speak (or publish).  Ashton’s error is representative of a larger faux pas committed regularly by tons of brands via social media – the act of not being present.  Respectful social interaction requires attention, a commodity in short supply these days.

We live in a time-crunched society and as a result, it’s only natural to seek efficiencies where we can.  When it comes to social engagement, the need to be efficient should never outweigh the need to be present.  It's never fun to be in conversation with that guy who’s looking over your shoulder the whole time, trying to make eyes with the toothy blonde. 

Social media participation really challenges our commitment to be present.  For social media professionals, there are tools, such as Hootsuite, that promote aggregating information from multiple platforms and publishing to multiple platforms from a dashboard.  How convenient?  While monitoring information from a dashboard may be an efficient process, publishing from it frequently shortchanges the user experience. 

For example, creating a post on Hootsuite to be automatically shared on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn means that it must be limited to 140 characters, to render in its entirety on Twitter.  Perhaps this communication would have been better shared separately on Facebook with greater detail and uploaded with an image.  Do we really speak to our twitter audience the same way that we speak to our LinkedIn audience?  Probably not, considering that one audience is dressed casually while the other is wearing business attire. 

Constant Contact and other email applications allow us to publish email blast content to social media networks via automated process.  The score of this game:  Efficiency 1, Brand Experience 0.  When a Facebook visitor sees an automated post to a brand’s Wall, it essentially says, “Too busy to really be here, but here’s today’s post, enjoy, gotta go!”

The benefits of brand participation in social media include humanizing the brand, joining the conversation and servicing customers on their terms.  Doing it right takes time and attention.  Good friends make time for each other.  Brands should make time to be present when engaging socially.

Use Me

Over the past several weeks, Facebook users have had to endure significant changes to their beloved life sharing platform.  For many, the experience has left us shaken…and stirred.  Whether you’re a casual user or an ubersharer, social media has become such an integral part of our lives that, like email and cell phones, it’s getting hard to imagine life without it.

The difficult part of living with our new highly efficient online communication buddies is that we’re teased with the notion that we control the process, while learning that we are merely guinea pigs in a series of ongoing social media experiments.  These experiments belong to the owners of these powerful platforms.  As willing participants, we must remind ourselves that we are actually privileged to be along for the ride (imagine how it would feel to be excluded from the process).  It’s a hard pill to swallow!  Despite the fact that we publish the content, choose to share our lives and bring our friends to the party - this is indeed someone else’s party.

Facebook reminds us that we are guests at their home, when we login, see changes to the display of our news feed, learn about new features and settings, and that some basic rules of engagement have changed.  Say it ain’t so!  All of this has been done without asking us?  And, we’re told that more changes are in the works, and we’ll love them, they’re being put in place to create a better experience.  Who are we to doubt?

Bill Withers sang about it.  Facebook is the hot, hot chick that we’re dating.  Our friends tell us that we’re being used and our retort, “If it feels this good getting used…you can use me up!”

BE TRUE

Imagine going to a Metallica concert where the band comes out on stage, heavy metal outfits and all, and proceeds to play two and half hours of popular country-western songs.  Not pretty, right?  Yet, there could be seemingly good rationale by concert promoters to do such a thing.  According to the CMA (Country Music Association), 42% of Americans – or about 94.8 million people are Country Music fans!  Shouldn’t any band seek to tap into such a large market segment?

Business owners run up against this type of sentiment from time to time.  Especially in a challenging economy, who wouldn’t choose to seek out a sizeable new pool of potential new customers?  But, like Metallica playing “You Were Always on My Mind” as an encore, broadening a brand’s appeal is not always the right move.  There is a better way.  

First off, let’s be honest – we are not experiencing a “challenging economy,” it’s a LOUSY economy. 
That said, the formula for success in such an economy is simple.  Work harder, deliver more, at a better price…and win!  In building a brand, how do you work harder and deliver more?  You deliver on a stronger brand promise.  If your brand promises great prices and good service, it must now promise (and deliver) great prices and great service.   “Quality, convenience, value” must become “Quality, unmatched convenience and THE best value.”  

It’s not a word game.  Brand promise is a real commitment in the physical world.  It needs to be demonstrated consistently, unwavering.  Bands that are known for playing two hour shows should play three hour shows, because fans are now sacrificing more to spend money to see that live performance.  Always over-deliver, that’s a promise that will resonate with any audience.

Need help promoting your brand promise?  Call us.