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How to Extend Your Customer Experience Through Social Mediaby Peter Merholz | 10:23 AM August 24, 2009

Im in Toronto this week on business. Arriving a few days early to play tourist, I tweeted for recommendations for

places to eat and things to do. In the onslaught of responses I got, one friend suggested Mildreds Temple for brunch

(http://twitter.com/michele_perras/statuses/3277800736) . Given the flood of commentary, that would not have stood

out, except that someone from that restaurant thanked my friend for the referral,

(http://twitter.com/mildredstemple/statuses/3315139564) and encouraged my visit. On Sunday, my wife, son, and I had

a delightful meal there, one that would not have happened without social media. And Mildreds got some new

business.

Clearly, thanks to services like Twitter and Facebook, there is now a global conversation. Whats not clear is how

businesses can meaningfully embrace it. How can social media augment, fill out, and improve the customer

experience?

1. Only hire people who embody your brand

Its disheartening how typically little regard management has for their staff, as witnessed by their onerous policies and

procedures for appropriate communication. Two companies who lead the way in using social media, Southwest

Airlines and Zappos (disclosure: Zappos is a client of Adaptive Path (http://adaptivepath.com/) ), empower their staff to

engage with social media on the companys behalf. What allows them to be comfortable with this is that both

companies have extremely particular hiring practices

(http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/taylor/2008/05/why_zappos_pays_new_employees.html) that ensure their

employees embrace the companys values.

Whats great about this approach is that you dont need corporate social media policies just let your staff do what

they do. Whats challenging about this approach, at least for other companies, is that most dont hire with same intent

and fervor.

2. If you do need policies, keep them lightweight and human.

Not every company has the luxury of Zappos and Southwest to wholeheartedly trust all staff members to converse with

the public. For those companies, guidelines help staff understand how to appropriately engage. The trick is to write the

guidelines in a straightforward, human manner, and not to overwhelm with corporate- or legal-ese. Intels set of social

media guidelines (http://www.intel.com/sites/sitewide/en_US/social-media.htm) are thorough and clear, and would

probably serve as a great starting point for any organization.

3. Experiment, prototype, pilot try stuff out.

This is good advice for any initiative, social media or otherwise. Not sure how you should best use social media? Try

different things. Join Twitter and start talking. Put up a page on Facebook and see what happens. Launch a small

community on your website, and see if people gravitate toward it. For each of these activities, make sure youve

devoted the time and effort that will allow it to succeed dont assume that because people dont immediately flock to

the initiative, its a failure (or, even worse, that engaging in social media is thus not worth the trouble). Evolve your

efforts and see what sticks. ENGAGEMENTdb published a report (http://www.engagementdb.com/Report) of the

brands leading in social media, and Starbucks came out ahead, notably for their willingness to try a lot of different

things, some of which have succeeded beyond expectations (most notably with My Starbucks Idea

(http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/ideaHome) , capturing customers love for the brand and transforming that energy

into smart new initiatives).

7/5/14 How to Extend Your Customer Experience Through Social Media - Peter Merholz - Harvard Business Review

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4. Its a conversation, which means you both listen and take part.

The worst offenders are those who see social media as simply another platform for marketing communications,

blasting press releases and other promotions without regard. In a discussion within Adaptive Path, a colleague said,

Its not a megaphone, its an ear trumpet (http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/2007/12/vintage_ear_trumpets.php)

! And while that is definitely a more refined notion, its insufficient. While it makes sense to track social media to see

whats being said about you, if you dont engage, youre simply not part of the conversation.