Tag Archives: clients

6 Classifications of Social Media Engagement

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Sometimes I’m just stupid. I’ll be honest with you. So when it comes to Social Media integration and management, I like things to be clear and simple.

I just want to share this simple method we have at Aaron+Gould for managing client Social Media. Perhaps you can do something with it. These are our 6 classifications of social media engagement:

1. Indirect Positive Mention
2. Indirect Querying Mention
3. Indirect Negative Mention
4. Direct Positive Mention
5. Direct Querying Mention
6. Direct Negative Mention

When monitoring engagement (the first 3 are conversation about, the second 3 are conversation with), we can immedately act accordingly because we have protocols in our guidelines for what should be done under each circumstance.

One more thing: we see any engagement as an opportunity, not a threat, and our guidelines are all geared with this in mind.

Question: What can you do with this and where can you take this?

Scaling The Levels Of Social Communication

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smsIf a picture is worth a thousand words, then what is a tweet worth?

One of the things I persistently tell my staff is “get on the phone!” When trying to get information, sort something out, or close the loop on a contract or task, I really do hate it when people leave things to email when they could so easily pick up and phone and do it right there.

Even when my wife says to me “I’ll text them” I say to her, “why text and wait for an answer when you can get one right away if you call!” The other day I even had someone say to me that they hoped so-and-so got their tweet about their meeting. My answer again was, “Phone?”

We seem to have forgotten sometimes that our mobile phone does indeed make phone calls on top of email and tweeting! Continue reading →

Solving the Social Media Catch 22

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IMG_3959I have an idea. Here’s the problem it solves:

You know you can help organisations with Social Media – more so than the people they put in charge of their Twitter accounts. You know how to develop strategy, integrate and operationalise it. You can manage it, and you can measure it. You can show ROI. You see how it fits into the organisation as a whole.

Trouble is, the organisation won’t hire you. The company won’t take your agency on to fulfil their Social Media needs, and the agencies don’t bring you in as a consultant.

Why? Because you have no big names on the CV. Effectively, you can’t get work because you don’t have work.

There has previously been one solution to this problem: Lie. Continue reading →

4 Flaws To Learn From Eurostar

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So there’s lots of buzz right now about Eurostar’s mass travel delays following a train failure mid-Channel Tunnel, and the subsequent issues surrounding the handling of their Social Media presence by self-called ‘Conversation Agency’ We Are Social.

I am not intending to repeat much of what’s already been said, nor lay out the background of the situation, which is neatly summarised at TechCrunch. You can read what I have found to the best articles on the theme of this being a Communications problem as opposed to a Social Media problem at BrandRepublic, Digital Stuffing and at Rob Fenwick’s blog, with thanks to Mack Pack for pointing me there with his good summarising post. My aim is to discuss the flawed view of the majority that is held towards Social Media. Continue reading →

Handing Off vs Signing Off

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Wait .. Don´t go !!One of the most significant challenges in 2010 and realtime is the inability for agencies to function in the traditional mode of signing things off.

PR, Marketing and Ad agencies typically, when writing copying, releasing images, video, etc, for a client, have it all signed off. This is a way of providing protection – for both the brand, and the agency – and it makes perfect sense. The challenge is that in 2010, with more emphasis on realtime response (on the web, and off the web), there is simultaneously the removal of the time to sign off on every engagement and interaction.

The solution that I pose for this problem is a fundamental shift in the way outside parties handle brands and accounts – a change from signing off to handing off. I’ll explain: Continue reading →

Moving Forward Part 1: Creating Permission

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Moving Forward

I’m going to address over the coming weeks some of the stages of Social Media and P2P program development in order to provide a structure and direction for really three sets of people;

  1. First, practitioners of Social Media and the even more exciting P2P (people-to-people) organisational model who can use this content in their dealings with their clients,
  2. Secondly, for CEOs, MDs, and other c-suiters who are already doing some degree of Social Business, but want more structure,
  3. And thirdly, for those mid-level employes in larger organisations who desperately want the organisation to start using Social Media.

Continue reading →

The 6 Types Of Social Media Presences You’ll Meet In Heaven

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For all the skepticism of ‘love’ and other such metaphysical language in the marketplace, it’s interesting to watch the TED Talks. In fact, it’s interesting to watch this TED Talk in particular by Rory Sutherland. Listen to the language – it’s about value, perception, resources, persuasion, emotion, compulsion, desire – all from the mouth of a highly respected advertising genius. In other words – the guy who gets paid millions to bring home the bacon for the brands, talks about emotion.

In actual fact, as you listen to these wonderful people appearing at TED, they continually reduce incredible things down to things of the heart. Emotion.

As I first stated yesterday, and refined with help from @Claire_Sloane , the successful social media practioner is a master of relationship before they are a master of ROI. Everyone who successfully uses social media is doing something different from the businesses that don’t get social media – they are aiming to add value, not aiming to sell stuff. We all recognise that business is about relationship – especially with small businesses – and social media is simply an enabler that magnifies and intensifies this. You can check out and use my framework that looks closer at this on the concept of lifting restrictions here. Continue reading →

Uncompromising On Your Experience

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Sustainability Without CompromiseI founded Aaron+Gould on August 12 2008, and in order to get cash flow through the door I did some work at a really cheap rate – I mean, stupidly cheap. You tell yourself that you’re building your portfolio, or building your network, but after it all you realise it’s just one of the things that you do to make ends meat.

Side note: most business people would never be this honest – they’d be too busy posturing – but I know that you learn just as much from the scars as you do from the successes. Anyway…

So I took the job late last year. To cut a long story short, we finally got the last bits of copy we needed this week (after 7 months of silence) to wrap the project up. Thing is, our rates are now exceedingly more, and thus I faced the dilemma: do I do the bare minimum, quickly and to a low standard, and say “that’s it”, or, do I treat them just as valuably as our other clients?

My solution was found in the following Gucci slogan: Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten.

Let me rephrase using my favourite word: Experience is remembered long after the price is forgotten. Every person I am in contact with, every client my agency serves, every visitor that enters my church, every follower on Twitter and reader of this very article – every single one deserves a compelling experience, and it is that experience that they’ll remember above all the other factors that fade over time.

To this end, I resolved not to compromise this client’s experience. I’ve decided that providing a compelling experience is now one of my personal and business non-negotiables. I won’t compromise it.

What won’t you compromise?