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Rubbermaid increased sales through customer reviews on their website. Fog Creek establishes authority by having a well-received programming/business blog. Nik

by teej 18y ago

Rubbermaid increased sales through customer reviews on their website. Fog Creek establishes authority by having a well-received programming/business blog. Nike has an online custom shoe store. Zappos is big. Zappos is fanatical about customer service. Zappos uses Twitter as one small channel of their customer service initiative. Marketing.FM has a blog. If the article was about how blogs and customer service are good for business, it would have hit the mark. But I'm missing where Facebook, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Delicious fit in to those examples.

ryanwaggoner 18y ago
He's including blogging as part of social media, which I think is accurate. Blogging seems to work best when it's used with Twitter as a conversation medium, rather than just a place to post stuff without listening to what people have to say. Zappos is big now, but they weren't always big, and I don't have any reason to not believe their CEO when he says that Twitter has been a big part of their success. The Nike example was weak, I agree. But the Rubbermaid thing is a good example of using social media...just because they hosted those reviews on their site doesn't mean that it's not social media. Here's another example that he missed: Yelp. In areas where Yelp membership is high, it has a big influence on local businesses. I agree that some of the sites you listed probably don't have a big impact on the bottom line, but to write off social media entirely because some of the social media sites are time-wasters with no ROI is a mistake.
alphazero 18y ago
+1. Twitter is definitely a useful communication channel, and it stands out from the rest of the fads: email, sms, tweeter. That pretty much covers all the modalities.
smartbear 18y ago
(I'm the author!) Yes I'm including "blogs" in social media. I'm also including things like having customer-driven reviews. It's sensible because "social media" general means things like going where the customers are and giving customers a strong (perhaps primary) voice in your own public persona. I accept your criticism that Facebook and the link-sharing sites don't fit the mold nearly as well, nor are they the primary drivers behind those success stories. (Although in the case of Facebook at least examples do exist.)

by teej 18y ago

ryanwaggoner 18y ago

He's including blogging as part of social media, which I think is accurate. Blogging seems to work best when it's used with Twitter as a conversation medium, rather than just a place to post stuff without listening to what people have to say. Zappos is big now, but they weren't always big, and I don't have any reason to not believe their CEO when he says that Twitter has been a big part of their success. The Nike example was weak, I agree. But the Rubbermaid thing is a good example of using social media...just because they hosted those reviews on their site doesn't mean that it's not social media. Here's another example that he missed: Yelp. In areas where Yelp membership is high, it has a big influence on local businesses. I agree that some of the sites you listed probably don't have a big impact on the bottom line, but to write off social media entirely because some of the social media sites are time-wasters with no ROI is a mistake.

alphazero 18y ago

+1. Twitter is definitely a useful communication channel, and it stands out from the rest of the fads: email, sms, tweeter. That pretty much covers all the modalities.

smartbear 18y ago

(I'm the author!) Yes I'm including "blogs" in social media. I'm also including things like having customer-driven reviews. It's sensible because "social media" general means things like going where the customers are and giving customers a strong (perhaps primary) voice in your own public persona. I accept your criticism that Facebook and the link-sharing sites don't fit the mold nearly as well, nor are they the primary drivers behind those success stories. (Although in the case of Facebook at least examples do exist.)