More Than A Newsfeed

I searched for inspiration for hours. I wanted to write something new for the blog, something different than before. Now I realize I just need to be honest with myself: I’m smitten with social media. The more articles and case studies I read, the more pumped up I get! In my first blog I touched on the idea that social media has to be social, interesting and fun. Since then, I’ve read my favorite news feeds, blogs and pages with a more critical eye, curious to see how each are adapting social media to their needs.

Safe to say, the majority of things you’ll see posted are “news” related This could be info regarding a new product or sale, maybe a photo of a recent event, or teasers leading up to a big announcement. It also seems I’ve been seeing more contests and giveaways on Facebook pages, blogs & Twitter feeds.

What’s been the most interesting to me lately are the more creative uses of social media. Delia’s, one of my favorite clothing places, announced a contest online to design your own t-shirt. Then they selected the top 5, posted them on their Facebook page and asked their followers to select the winning design by voting (liking) their favorite shirt. That shirt will then be put into production and sold on the company’s website, catalog and in stores. Pretty neat if you ask me! I was also really impacted when I saw social media used in customer service a couple of weeks ago. Someone had tweeted their frustration about not being able to get their new Michael Kors handbag fixed in store and tagged Michael Kors in the post. Instead of ignoring it, he replied back to the frustrated tweeter asking which location she had the problem in. This was impressive to me on a couple of levels. First, he’s reading all the tweets he’s tagged in, instead of just spitting out information and never responding back to anyone. Second, he took the time to make a bad customer service experience into a good one. How stoked would you be if Michael Kors himself responded to your complaint?! My personal favorite by any celebrity or company, is when they take time to make it personable. Sure I follow Anderson Cooper because he’s a good source for breaking news (and let’s face it – a total fox). However I was really impressed to see that he gives shout outs to people who ask for retweets on their birthdays, or asks a fan to send him a picture of the new pet named after him (see Anders”hen” “Cooper”). Am I biased? Maybe. But I guess it feels good to know that real people really are behind the computer.

Will all these examples work for you? Probably not. Still, it’s a good idea to see how you can best adapt social media to benefit you, whether you’re polling people for information, or just helping them to feel part of your social community.