The Smartest Brands in Social Media and One Brand That Could Use Some Serious Help
SamirBalwani from Mashable just put together a top ten list of companies who are effectively using social media.
His top ten list includes the following:
1. Blendtec blends everything imaginable on YouTube
2. Burger King and The Whopper Sacrifice on Facebook
3. Starbucks “My Starbucks Idea” microsite
4. Sun Microsystems and the CEO, Jonathan Schwartz’s blog
5. IBM with an abundance of blogs
6. Zappos CEO on Twitter @ZapposCEO
7. ComCast on Twitter with @ComcastCares
8. Ford use of Social Media for reputation management
9. Graco building communities on Flickr
10. Dells’ recorded ROI from their social media platform
It would be a good idea to keep your finger on the pulse of each of these forward thinking social media companies. We can all learn something from their successes.
What do I think of Samir’s list?
I’d say I’m in agreement except for ComCast. I believe they need to be doing a much better job with living out the brand if they expect their social media program to be successful. Is “We Care” their brand? Are they all about customer service? If so I don’t see it and the word out on the streets doesn’t reflect anything remotely close to that.
Asking someone to sit around for 4 hours waiting for an installer to show up doesn’t reflect “customer service”. Having to walk into a physical location 30 minutes from your house just to transfer your account into one persons name doesn’t say “customer service”. And the list goes on . . . .
How do they overcome this?
As I’ve said in prior posts EVERYONE needs to be living out the brand- not just Frank Eliason and his Twitter group. It starts with the CEO and marketing team and works it way do to the guy who installs the cable. They need to get someone in their managing the brand and training EVERYONE in the company on how to live and breathe it.
Do you agree? Or do you see ComCast making a shift toward customer service?