The most important element of community is conversation. You don’t need to log-in to a website to have a conversation online with friends,  colleagues and peers. Software, authentication, “enabling technology,” a fan page or a URL all play a part in how we use or access our communities online, but they don’t make the community.

Communities form around shared interests and common problems. That doesn’t preclude products, but most product-based communities are transactional rather than social. We drop in with a question or to see if there’s someone we can help, but we generally don’t “hang out” to talk about products. For example, computer and consumer electronics manufacturers Dell, Sony and HP all have community sites. While a few expert volunteers will literally set up shop within forums like these because they like to help and they like the recognition they get from both the companies and fellow consumers, most users will flow in and out depending on information/support needs and purchase plans.

Successful company-sponsored social communities establish around shared interests, not the product per se. An example is National Geographic’s WildCam community, originally hosted on the site but now using a Facebook fan page. The conversation in the community is about the animals, not National Geographic, but the brand is reinforced continually and subtly.

What do online communities look like?

Let’s take the common picture of online community and break it down a bit.

The simplest online communities form around blogs of like subject matter,  with the conversation happening on blog comments, in blog posts and across the public networks like Twitter and Facebook.

When we think about online community, though, our minds usually turn to more formal social networks. With a username and password and features such as forums, discussion boards, in-system mail, blogs and friend lists. But these communities are not a homogeneous lot by any stretch of the imagination.

You’ll find enthusiast or advocate sites.  Some are barebones, others are more sophisticated, and while they may monetize with advertising or grow into businesses, they generally start because somebody cared and so did her friends. They had passion about something.

Businesses of all sizes are adding community features to their websites. Some by simply adding a discussion board or customer content area, others by building full-fledged community sites.

The tool set is just as varied, ranging from simple tools like open-source forum/discussion board software and content management systems  to free community platforms like Ning to comprehensive solutions  from companies like Powered.

Layered over the private networks are the big public social networks, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. Of these big three, Facebook has the most traction as a consumer social network and multiple options for companies to use it as part of their social media strategy: advertising, fan (company) pages and Facebook Connect. LinkedIn seems better suited for business-to-business strategies, particularly referrals and networking and I’d put MySpace at the opposite end of the spectrum from LinkedIn — strong in entertainment, particularly music, and definitely consumer, skewing younger than both Facebook and LinkedIn.

If a company wants to actively embrace or create a community, what should it do?

The very first question you need to ask — even before where are my customers and what tools should I use — is: Are we willing to make the long-term commitment to the community? Do we have a plan for sustaining the engagement? It’s one thing to start a conversation with the customer. It’s another to keep it going.

If you aren’t certain you will be able to sustain the engagement, you are much better off doing a short-term campaign with a defined beginning and end. This sets the right expectation for the customer while giving you some experience with the community. Blogger outreach is a good starting point. Read my blogger relations category for strategy and tactics.

Let’s say, though, that everyone has deeply drunk the kool-aid and wants to charge ahead and build a social media base site beyond the company website. It’s time for questions two, three and four:

• Where are your customers? Facebook? Twitter? Some other social network? Waiting for someone (like you) to build a space that’s “just right.”  Or has someone already built a social network or online space that meets the same need, attracts the same consumer? If so, you may be better off exploring a relationship with that site.
• How active are your customers likely to be? Active creators or passive consumers? You’ll want to tailor the content of a community site to the needs of your customer. You don’t want to create a slick (and expensive) site with video mashups and interactive games if your consumers don’t like to do that sort of thing. It’ll look like you threw a party and nobody came. Starting point: check out the Pew and Forrester demographic models.
• Do you have, or can you create, regular content for a site? Blog content. Video. Podcasts. Case studies. FAQs. Educational content. Content about interests you share with your customers. Things they will want to use and share with others. This is very important when considering the scope of your online site. The more of this “stuff” you have, the more you can do with and on a community site. If the pickings are slimmer, you need to narrow your scope to something you can execute flawlessly and with flair. In doubt? It is always better to start small and expand the scope as you experience success.

The answers to these questions will form the base of your strategy. Some general thoughts:

1. Odds are pretty good that many of your customers will be on Facebook, so it should form part of your strategy.
2. If you have the content to populate a rich community site, you might benefit from incorporating Facebook Connect to allow your users to easily share content with their friends on Facebook. Other benefits of Facebook Connect: simple authentication using Facebook credentials and increased potential to recruit new members at a lower acquisition cost. BUT: there has to be stuff to share. Worth sharing. Product Spec Sheets do NOT count.
   
3. If your content is a little slimmer, you should start simply. Perhaps add a single forum or discussion board to your company website or build a Facebook Fan Page. Use it to test the waters, including the capacity of your firm to generate robust, share-worthy content and the level of potential participation of your market.

–

I was briefed recently by the folks at Powered about their Facebook Connect functionality. For large companies with the budget (typically $250K and up), a social networking company can cut the learning curve and lighten the management burden of a big community site. As the saying goes, they can do it all for you. Smaller to mid-sized companies that don’t have that much available budget? You can still learn a lot from what the big boys and girls are doing. Check it out and adapt what works for you. Need some help? Call me.

Folks that follow me on Twitter know that this year has been a particularly difficult one for my business. Projects are smaller in scope, delayed, canceled due to lack of funds or not closing at all. Lots of requests for advice and proposals. Not nearly as many closed deals. This is not unusual — everyone is feeling the pinch of the economy — but it is much harder to tough it out when you are an independent strategic consultant who primarily works on a project basis, rather than long term retainers.

To the point that I am re-evaluating my business model, selectively applying for marketing and social media positions, and hoping my brain doesn’t explode.

So here’s where I turn the tables, and ask you, my readers, for some advice. What should I do?

Issue 1: Have I been too generous with my advice? I give away a lot on this blog and have been stung by my one-hour free offer a few times this year. People taking advantage of the free advice with absolutely no intention  of exploring a longer-term business relationship. Should I retract the offer?

Issue 2: It’s hard for an independent consultant to compete with agencies for social media projects. The agency has depth on the bench, can go to the well of existing clients and has a cushion, even if small these days, for business development. But, is this really true, or am I giving a few defeats too much weight? There has to be a creative way to break through so I can pitch my ideas to the larger companies who do have budget right now.

I just have to find the formula, because, goodness knows, I have no shortage of ideas on how companies can integrate social media into their marketing plans to achieve tangible, measurable results.  And not just by throwing a party or giving away free stuff.

I’ve been noodling on an idea that would be just perfect for Interval International, the timeshare exchange company, and last night when the rain was drumming on the roof, I came up with:

• a program for a travel catalog like Travelsmith or Magellan’s;
• a possible approach for a manufacturer of reusable water bottles, for example CamelBak or SIGG;
• a few ideas for big box retailer like Best Buy. As everyone in the social media twitterverse probably knows, Best Buy is hiring a social media marketing manager;
• some thoughts for a book chain that has bricks & mortar stores — think Borders or Barnes & Noble.

The issues are:  how do I get the opportunity to pitch the idea, and then how do I protect myself from the firm just doing it themselves? Because that has happened more than a few times with larger companies in the five years I’ve been consulting. There are no hard and fast answers, but I cannot afford to develop a great proposal for a firm, only to see them execute it on their own six months later. Not anymore.

Issue 3: Small business. Is there an opportunity to help smaller local businesses get started with social media? Typically, they cannot afford to retain a consultant to develop a program or even a blog for them but most  could benefit from setting up a Facebook page.

So, I’ve developed a Social Media Start-up Session for small firms.  I can price it aggressively because the business owner is doing the work; I’m just helping her think through the issues and pointing her in the right direction.

–

I’m doing some hard thinking this weekend. If you have any thoughts, please drop me a note at sgetgood@getgood.com. I would really appreciate your opinion and advice.

There really wasn’t anything new or unexpected. I’ve written about this topic as has Liz. What was nice was to actually hear it directly from the FTC rather than filtered through another source like AP or BusinessWeek.

Here’s my takeway from the interview:

• The key issues are disclosure of relationships and truthful opinion. FTC believes truth in advertising/transparency should apply regardless of the media.
• FTC isn’t regulating whether bloggers take compensation or not. The occasional review or free product is not the issue. FTC is concerned about blog networks, bloggers that consistently receive products/compensation, and disclosure of relationships.
• FTC believes compliance will be high.
• Enforcement will be subject to the same criteria as it is now — the extent of the injury will determine whether it justifies the expense of enforcement. I have long believed this would be the case. Nice to hear it from the source.
• While bloggers would like the FTC to distinguish between free product and cash compensation, it does not seem inclined to do so. However, as noted above, the occasional free product or review isn’t the issue. The FTC is interested in consistent patterns of behavior, and in blog networks, not in whether an individual blogger got a free mascara or a bag of chips.

What they did NOT discuss on Word of Mouth was affiliate marketing, which the AP story said would be included:

“… the guidelines also would cover the broader and common practice of affiliate marketing, in which bloggers and other sites get a commission when someone clicks on a link that leads to a purchase at a retailer. In such cases, merchants also would be responsible for actions by their sales agents – including a network of bloggers.”

I’ve read the initial draft of the changes to the guidelines, and it does not include an example specific to online affiliate marketing such as Amazon. While I expect changes to draft in the final guidelines, I never made the connection between endorsements & testimonials, and affiliate ads like Amazon. Blog networks that offer free products or compensation to bloggers, absolutely. Campaigns that offer compensation to users for reviews on Amazon or iTunes. Again, clearly subject to the guidelines.

But simple affiliate marketing programs?

After much thought and conversation, I don’t think affiliate marketing should be lumped together with the guidelines on endorsements and testimonials. If the FTC wants to review online affiliate marketing practice, it should do so in a separate effort and allow sufficient time for public comment.

Affiliate marketing is a different type of advertising

A review of a product that is compensated in advance by either cash or free product should be considered a form of advertising. The FTC guidelines should apply.

The affiliate marketing relationship is different.

The blogger reviews or mentions a product on her blog and provides a link to a store that carries the item. For example, Amazon. It’s a referral. The blogger is only compensated if the buyer purchases the product from that link.

The explicit endorsement is of the product, although no one would deny that there is also an implicit endorsement of the store, especially if the blog also shows a search widget for the store in its sidebar.

However, once the buyer is at the store, the influence of the initial mention or review is diluted — by the advertising material on the store, by reviews from other consumers, by alternate product suggestions from the store. The blogger’s original opinion becomes one of many sources of information. If the buyer goes ahead and purchases something from the visit created by the affiliate link, the compensation is really nothing more than a “thank you for telling your friends about us.”

Now,  if the blogger received the product for free,  it should be disclosed under the guidelines. But it should be the free product that trips the endorsement guidelines, not the affiliate referral.

Affiliate marketing is understood by Internet users

Whether you see an ad like this:

or embedded links within a post like these Sleep Is for the Weak, The White Trash Mom Handbook, most Internet users  understand these to be affiliate marketing/advertising  links, with a compensation component. Many are probably Amazon affiliates themselves.

In the very long FTC guidelines document, a key condition of the additional disclosure requirement is if the consumer would not otherwise understand that an endorsement was compensated or that the speaker had a material interest. If the consumer would understand that the speech or action was compensated, the public interest does not require additional disclosure.

Examples — An athlete wearing name brand sports apparel is assumed to have a contract with the manufacturer. A celebrity on the red carpet is assumed to have borrowed her gown from a designer. A public figure endorsing a product in a TV commercial didn’t do it for free.

Affiliate advertising on blogs is similar. We don’t need additional information to know there’s compensation. It looks far too much like straightforward online advertising for there to be any real confusion.

What should bloggers do if they have affiliate marketing relationships?

The new FTC  guidelines are due later this summer. We’ll see then how affiliate marketing is covered (or not) in the document. It wasn’t in the initial draft, so we don’t have an example yet.

In the meantime, if you have affiliate marketing relationships, I suggest disclosing them clearly in your blog policy.

–

The Amazon affiliate links used above for illustrative purposes are for books written by friends and use the Amazon affiliate account from my personal blog Snapshot Chronicles. So yes, if you buy a book, a friend gets a sale and I get a teeny weeny commission.

Execution is all the tactical stuff – targeting the appropriate bloggers or reporters, getting the details right — the simple things like name, blog name, email address, following through appropriately, sending review or sample product promptly. Execution is the HOW.

Content. That’s the pitch, the message, the story, the program. Content is the WHY. As in why should I care? Your pitch better answer that simple question straight up, or you will strike out.

Successful outreach programs get both of these elements right. Some recent examples:

• 1-800-FLOWERS Spot A Mom campaign,
• the work Edelman has done for Quaker Oats,
• Peapod, which recently invited bloggers  on facility tours and full disclosure, was a sponsor of the Boston BlogHer BBQ earlier this month.

No question about it, there are PR and marketing people who really get how to do it right, and are fortunate enough to have clients or bosses who trust them, who let them get it right.

Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of them.

I still see far too many execution errors — the dear blogger, dear xx, sending the same pitch to the same blogger at multiple blogs, forgetting to delete template notes, reforwards of messages without deleting the signature (a recent one had 94 sigs).

Irritating but eventually — hopefully — this will self-correct as tools and training get better and marketers become more sensitive to the potential for stupid, preventable errors. Forming the habit to re-read emails and check attachments before pressing send would be a good start.

The more serious problem is the content.

Agencies are still casting too wide of a net, with too generic a pitch. The lack of creativity is astounding. As is the expectation of what might interest a blogger.

From the inbox:

• Invitations to promote a contest or support a charity (regardless of whether the blogger has ever expressed any interest in same)
• The negative competitive pitch. Lead with something negative about the competition and then show how you are so much better. These often are ham-fisted and make the company look like a bully.
• Requests for the blogger to write about or review a product without an offer to actually send the product. Extra demerits if the blogger asks for product, and the company offers a jpg instead. Or worse, promised product never arrives.
• My perennial favorite – press releases (especially when they have no cover note)

We also seem far too reliant on BIG programs – trips, free appliances, free consumer electronics. Lately, Twitter seems absolutely cluttered with bloggers announcing yet another giveaway. More More More. Free Free Free.

I’ll leave aside the issues raised by the potential changes to the FTC’s guidelines for commercial endorsements and testimonials.  I think these are manageable, although I do question whether affiliate marketing should be lumped in with commercial endorsements and testimonials. I think not — more next week.

Problems with the BIG blogger relations programs

First and foremost, are they sustainable? One of the phrases that comes to mind is: Begin as you intend to continue. But can they? I think Frigidaire’s current appliance campaign is very clever, but what happens next year?

Another problem is noise. The signal to noise ratio is increasingly out of whack. There are a lot of giveaways and contests announced on Twitter every day, but I’m not sure I could tell you a single brand. It’s becoming a muddle. Full of ethical landmines like companies offering cash to the first 50 reviewers to post about something on iTunes.

Where’s the creativity?

Why aren’t we spending the time to find those commonalities with our customers that create truly memorable campaigns and foster long term relationships. It can be done. We just don’t take the time.

Instead we rely on formulas. For example the tried and true brand ambassador program. There’s NOTHING wrong with a brand ambassador program. Except if the same bloggers get all the invitations to participate, how wide is your message spreading, and what else is it competing with?

Events. Invite x number of bloggers to DisneyWorld or a spa, treat them really well and hope for the best? What are the expectations and are they being met?

And then there’s my favorite – the solution in search of a problem. The latest example is Dunkin’ Donuts’ Dunkin’ Run iPhone app. Sure, it’s cute and clever, but does it solve a real customer problem?

How well do these programs match up to marketing objectives and do they deliver?

The smart folks are measuring. They know when they hit and they know when they miss so they can fix it for next time. In fact, I expect that the good programs I mentioned above  had some form of measurement based on a consumer behavior, not just clip counting or ad equivalency.

This is where we need to place our focus — on developing meaningful relevant campaigns that deliver results.

Relationships are very important, but when you sit down to develop your next program or new business pitch, ask yourself if you are asking the right questions?

Does the program meet the marketing objectives or are you trying to make a favorite tactic fit? Are you going back to the same well, or bloggers,  over and over, because it’s easy, familiar?

This is even more important when outsourcing all or part of a project. You don’t want a cookie cutter program or something developed to meet the goals of another client.

You want a creative program that delivers to YOUR goals.

While the spate of coverage leads me to wonder if the FTC is getting closer to announcing the new guidelines — the AP prefers to lead, not lag, the news — nothing was announced today. Apart from the fact that it is officially summer, nothing has changed since the last round of posts and articles on the topic one month ago.

The FTC is reviewing its guidelines on endorsements and testimonials and expects to issue new ones this summer. These guidelines will affect social media and viral marketing. They may also impact affiliate marketing, such as Amazon.

If you are upset about this,  I have some questions for you.

• Do you want advertisers to lie to you?
• Do you want to wonder whether a commercial endorsement is honestly from the heart of the writer, or from the keys of a copywriter?

Right. I didn’t think so.

The enforcement guidelines on endorsements and testimonials  exist to make sure that consumers have the information they  need to judge a commercial endorsement. That is the FTC’s job, to protect consumers .

The Federal Trade Commission is the nation’s consumer protection agency. The FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection works For The Consumer to prevent fraud, deception, and unfair business practices in the marketplace. The Bureau:

• Enhances consumer confidence by enforcing federal laws that protect consumers
• Empowers consumers with free information to help them exercise their rights and spot and avoid fraud and deception
• Wants to hear from consumers who want to get information or file a complaint about fraud or identity theft

Consumers.

That’s us.

It’s NOT about the blogger, or your credibility. It’s about whether the reader — the consumer – would have a different impression of your opinion if it were compensated versus unsolicited. Your ethics could be impeccable, your opinion unchanged by the commercial transaction of free product or paid post. It doesn’t matter.

It’s not about you.

It’s all about whether the reader would have a different understanding, and you can’t decide that.

Hence the guidelines, so we can understand our responsibilities under the law, and the need for disclosure.

This doesn’t mean bloggers shouldn’t accept review product or free trips or whatever else companies might be offering for consideration. If you’ve got a property that companies consider valuable, why not profit from it. You just need to understand that under the FTC rules, if you are compensated, either directly or in product, the FTC guidelines for commercial endorsements may apply to you.

I recommend that bloggers publish their review and disclosure policy on their blogs, and if active on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, a policy that covers your potential activities in these networks. I had updated my blog statements a month ago, but today I added links on Facebook and Twitter to clarify how I might mention products on these status-oriented sites.

Your readers decide if you are credible.

The FTC is just asking that you provide them with all the information they need to make that assessment. That’s everything from what and how you say it, to whether you may have been influenced by others.

You want that from the sites and blogs you visit.

Don’t begrudge it to your audience.

Diva Talks! Blog Talk Radio podcast. Toby Bloomberg invited Liz Gumbinner (Mom 101, Cool Mom Picks) and me to talk about the best ways to reach out to bloggers. Especially parent bloggers.

Open the Dialogue, MWW Group’s social media blog – Guest post on the differences between bloggers and journalists (May 28) and Interview (June 15th). All about blogger relations, baby.

While you’re over at Open the Dialogue, check out m.insight, MWW’s new mobile app for downloading marketing & pr news feeds right to your phone.

Radical Parenting – Interview.

communicationcontrolling.de – I wrote an article about April’s New Comm Forum for this German online publication.

I’m still experimenting but I want to warn readers to be very very careful when selecting the initial category for their page. There are three basic categories, each with sub options, and once you’ve selected your choice, there is no going back. The only way to change once you’ve created a page is to START OVER. If you’ve actually published the page and started publicizing it, this means losing those fans, and hoping they follow you.

Why is this so important?
Two reasons. First, discoverability. Facebook uses the categories in search, and if you are in the wrong one, fewer people will find you in general searches, versus specific ones based on your blog or brand name.

Second is that the options under the Info tab are different for each basic category. Local Business allows you to list your physical address, hours of operation, website address and information about parking and public transit. No free-form fields.  For a Brand Product or Organization, you can list typical business information, including company overview and products in free-form fields. Artists, Bands & Public Figures are presented with options very similar to the ones in the personal profile. These cannot be changed or added to.

The Facebook Page for Snapshot Chronicles Roadtrip ended up in the wrong category - Local Other Business. Not because I didn’t pick the one I wanted (Brand, Travel). I did. However, I initially typed my electronic signature with my middle initial; Facebook wanted my Facebook name exactly, without the initial, so it posted an error message. I realized the error, fixed it, and saved.

What I didn’t realize was that in the refresh Facebook had also reset the category to Local  Other Business. I pulled a similar sequence of screens to illustrate this for you.

Initial Screen:

Signature Error:

Refresh:

The good news? I mostly did the fan page to find out what might go wrong when creating one, and lo and behold I was not disappointed. Not having the right options on the Info tab is not a big deal for my family travel blog, but it might be for your company or brand.

What should you do?

1. Take a look at the three types of pages and pick the right one for your brand, blog or business.
2. When you are filling out the initial creation screen, check the box, type in your profile name correctly and carefully review the selection of category before you hit Create Page.
3. If you get the error message, check twice.

You can start over at any time until you actually publish your page, but in my case, I just didn’t notice that the category had defaulted to something else until I started trying to customize the info page much, much later in my process.

I’ll just chalk it up to one of those things I do, so you don’t have to, and hope that my experience helps at least one other person avoid the same mistake. I do know I am not the only one who has run into the problem, as there is a support topic in the Facebook FAQs.

So pick carefully!

Some additional nits:
I wish you could have a different image for the thumbnail and the main graphic. Unlike headshots, which most people use on their personal Facebook profiles, logos don’t always size down to something acceptable in a teeny thumbnail square, and certainly not when the same image is used for both with no resizing possible.

I have a devil of a time getting back to my page to edit it. I hope I am just missing something obvious, but the only way I’ve found so far is to navigate to all the pages I follow and then pick mine. There has to be an easier way….

Giddy-up cowboys and girls.

As of Saturday morning, you can get a Facebook URL with an intelligible username instead of a bizarre sequence of numbers and letters. For example, my profile is now facebook.com/sgetgood.

Organizations and brands with more than 1000 fans of their fan page BEFORE May 31, 2009 could also protect their brand name with a custom URL last Saturday, but everyone else – fan pages created after May 31 or with less than 1000 fans – has to wait until June 28th, although there are mechanisms for protecting your trademarks.

The Facebook URL Grab

This simple Facebook change has resulted in a mad rush to recruit fans and create fan pages, even though at this point, there’s no way to reserve the name for a fan page. Everyone has to wait until June 28th.

Now I’ve already gone on record that I think nearly every business in America should have a Facebook page, because, point blank, your customers are there. If you’ve already been thinking about setting up a Facebook presence, and the June 28th deadline moves you ahead faster, there’s no reason not to go for it, full speed ahead, and try to get the Facebook URL you really want.

But if you haven’t:

• Identified an initial customer/fan base that is on Facebook or can be invited easily (from a listserv, email list, Twitter, website etc.);
• Developed a plan for updating your Facebook page on a regular basis;
• Developed a plan for integrating Facebook into your other promotional efforts, on and OFF line,

STOP!

Take a deep breath, and let’s start at the beginning.

Why do you want a Facebook page? Are your customers on Facebook? Do you have a plan and the resources for engaging with your customers on Facebook once they become your fans? Do you have a blog or other online content, such as video, that you can link to Facebook to keep it fresh? If not, how will you engage the customer? No one likes to be invited  only to have no one else — not even the host — show up at the party. Are you willing to develop promotions for your online fans?

Take the time to answer these important questions about your Facebook fan page before you start, and worry about the unique URL afterward. If your brand is a registered trademark, you have solid ground for booting any cybersquatters. If it’s not, ask yourself — what does more damage to my business? Customers seeing a lame inactive Facebook page for my company or waiting until I’ve got my stuff together even if that means my URL isn’t the “perfect” one?

I think it’s the lame inactive page that does more harm. Your Facebook page doesn’t stand alone; you promote it on your website, in your email signature, in company collateral. Take the time to create something your customers – your fans – will want to engage with. The time you need to do it right. If it is not your first choice name? So what. Your website URL probably isn’t either. If lack of URL choice — that you didn’t get your first choice — is your excuse for not succeeding? You deserve to fail.

Just don’t take too much time…. or your competitor will get there first. Your company or brand DOES need a Facebook page. Just don’t rush to do it before you are ready to commit to continue doing it.

What about blogs?

Should bloggers create a fan page? The answer is…maybe. Facebook created the fan page as a home for companies, organizations and groups. Institutional identities versus individual identities.  It may make sense for an individual blogger to have a fan page in addition to a profile page [a fan page administrator must have an individual profile] under a few circumstances. Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother. It’s just one more thing to update.

Here’s when a fan page may make sense for a blogger:

• If the blog is a commercial business entity. Example: Cool Mom Picks, Alphamom
• If the blog is a multi-author blog.  Example: Snapshot Chronicles Roadtrip, my new travel blog.
• If the blogger wants to have a clear delineation between friends (profile) and fans (page). Example: celebrities, high profile bloggers, professional service providers.

Otherwise? My advice is to think twice before adding another thing to your social media plate. There are already ways to promote your blog through Facebook – Networked Blogs, linking your feed to Facebook, setting up a group. Only do the Facebook page if you are willing to make at least a small commitment to feeding the beast.

I like Avis well enough. They generally have reasonable prices and decent availability for the places I wish to go. But I am irritated that they have my name wrong in their promotional database — they have my first name, Susan, as my surname and my surname, Getgood, as my first name. Hence, the somewhat rude sounding salutation in the email subject line above (received today).

This would be mostly amusing, except that at one point, it prevented me from renting cars online with Avis because my Wizard number and login didn’t match in the customer database. So I contacted customer service, via email of course because the database errors prevented me from using any online mechanisms. After much back and forth, we managed to get the customer record and online login fixed. I’m pretty sure I can rent cars from Avis online, although I haven’t had the need to do so since; it was a family trip and easier to just use my husband’s account.

Apparently they couldn’t propagate the change to whatever vendor or department handles the mailing list, because sure enough, the next email campaign cheerily advised “Getgood” that I could do something or other with Avis.

So I contacted customer service again, because it just annoys me to be called by my last name, which is when I learned that the two databases were — ta-duh — separate. The customer service rep told me she’d pass the word along but there was nothing she could do personally to fix it.

DISCONNECT.

And still not fixed. Promo emails from Avis continue to be addressed to Getgood.

That makes it more than a disconnect. It’s borderline stupid.

Clearly, someone isn’t trying harder.

–

My previous post on the customer service disconnect

The customer service disconnect is not an unintended/accidental hang-up. Nor is it the insidious phenomenon that influential bloggers and tweeters seem to jump to the top of the queue while others languish. The “celebrity” effect has always existed, to one degree or another. Funnily enough, with social media, it has extended to a broader circle, beyond the famous to the “niche famous” like digital celebrities and other online influencers. That sort of makes it more democratic

The customer service disconnect is a far more disturbing side effect of the rise of online & social media marketing.

Specifically, it’s the disconnect between the online marketing, community engagement, shopping bots, live chat consultants and interactive advertising we experience BEFORE we purchase a product, and the lack of similar options AFTER we buy. When the only way to get satisfaction for a customer issue is to call or email the service department, and then wait, on hold or for a reply.

Customers don’t have different pre- and post-sale expectations about the product and their experience with the company. We buy a product and we expect a seamless experience. We also expect our vendors to treat us as well as customers as they did when we were prospects.

Which of course doesn’t always happen. Cell phone companies are notorious for giving better deals to new customers. Software companies often have better deals for new buyers than upgrading customers; sure, they’ll extend the better price if the customer asks for it but you have to know, to ask.

Unfortunately for the companies, it’s a whole lot easier to know all the offers on the table, for whatever sort of product, than it ever was before.

And consumers are increasingly frustrated by having to use old media to rectify problems or complete transactions, when the bulk of the interaction is on new media.

Some examples of the frustration

My son recently signed up for an online site that uses some of his personal information. Under COPA (Child Online Privacy Act), a parent has to extend permission for children under age 13. But the only way to do it was by fax or snail mail. Total disconnect for my son (and my husband and I too). Twenty-four hours later, the permission had still not been processed and my son was pissed that he couldn’t play on the site.

Catalog retailer Lands’ End does a super job all around –  online marketing and customer service. Have a question while shopping? Use live chat to ask your question.  Need to change an order that hasn’t been shipped? No problem. Many post-sale transactions can even be done online. When you do have to call, the telephone reps are courteous, helpful and you never have to wait.

But, good as it is, recently I had a transaction that showed that even the best have room for some simple improvements in the connection between marketing and customer service.

I’m a regular Lands’ End customer. I’m on the mailing & email list and have an account and stored preferences on the site. I’m in their system, full stop. This spring, I placed an order on a Friday evening. The same weekend, on Sunday, when I opened my email, there was a promotional email for Free Shipping, starting that day. I phoned customer service, asked for the free shipping to be applied to my order and it was with absolutely no problem. Great customer service.

Even better though would have been an email that Sunday morning telling me that because my order was placed within 48 hours of the start of the promotion, it was automatically applied and my shipping was now free. Would I like to add some items? That would be superior, unforgettable customer service.

It’s not easy

It’s not easy breaking down the functional barriers between marketing and customer service, no matter how good the company is. The larger the company, the firmer and broader  the barriers between the silos. At a small to mid-sized company, odds are the players all know, or at least know of, each other. The disconnects may occur but it’s easier to sort it out when your desks or departments are side by side.

Scale up and up and up to the multi-national consumer products companies. Many outsource first line phone support and customer service lines to India and other countries with large employee pools and lower wages. But even if the functions aren’t separated by a thousand seas, often they might as well be.

Organizational barriers, language barriers, corporate politics, reorgs, workforce reductions all play a part, but the truth is that customer service and marketing probably don’t speak with each other enough. Once a year, maybe twice a year at an annual meeting that is often more a dog and pony show than an opportunity to solve mutual problems. Each side takes their assigned pieces of the puzzle and regroups internally to figure it out. Report back next year.

I’m being deliberately harsh and stereotypical. I know that many companies already try to punch through this wall in a variety of ways — multi-functional task forces, employees chartered with facilitating cross-functional communications, CRM systems that make information available across the enterprise.

I just don’t think what we’re doing so far is going to be enough in a world where one customer problem aired on a social network like Twitter or Facebook can spark a customer service conflagration. And the fire spreads pretty fast. You don’t have days to respond. If you’re lucky, a few hours. These customer brouhahas also seem to erupt on the weekends — for example, Motrin Moms. Makes sense, right. That’s when most people are catching up on their personal stuff.

Solution?

I don’t have one. Because there isn’t a one-size fits all solution here.

What is clear though is that marketing and customer service cannot waste time arguing about who owns the customer relationship. They have to put their heads together to figure out how to satisfy it in the new reality.

That may mean cross functional teams tasked with cooperating on a daily, not annual, basis. It may mean new Customer departments staffed with experts from all the disciplines. It may mean figuring out how to use the CRM system as more than a sales/marketing database.

There are as many possible solutions as there companies; every one will be different. Even if they make exactly the same products, the people are different. Within the firm and without.

In the end, it’s all about people. And our expectations.

What we don’t expect is a customer service disconnect.