You know who we don’t really trust? Faceless companies.

Yet the vast majority of marketing campaigns are less than personal and follow the traditional model of companies pushing the discussion in one direction.

I can’t be the only one having an issue with this.

So how might the opposite of this look?

Let us use as our example the evil entity known as Rogers Communications. The parent company of everyone’s least favorite wireless brands Rogers and Fido. Now I could write a whole post on all the horrible things that Rogers/Fido do to their customers, but for the sake of brevity do a search on twitter for #rogers and #fail…case made.

Is it just me that sees a massive opportunity for Bell and Telus to not only steal some customers away from a rival, but also to tap into the voices that those around us trust?

If I were Telus and Bell, I’d be searching on Twitter and making a list of say 10-20 people who are extremely unhappy with Rogers/Fido. I’d then go to these people and explain that you would like to take care of them, get them on better packages, with better customer service, better phones and get them away from the evil Rogers/Fido.

I’d go all out. I’d offer to pay their contract cancellation fees, give them their pick of new phones including iPhones and Android devices, counsel them on which packages would be best for the life they lead, hell I’d even give them the phone number to a personal customer service rep…I’m talking all out.

The end result? You’ve now created 10-20 loyal evangelists willing to spread the gospel for Telus/Bell and their services. Folks that will tell everyone who will listen how well they were treated, how they were saved from the clutches of the evil Rogers, how they’re loving their killer new smart phones and the custom wireless plans chosen with their input. They’ll do this on Twitter, on Facebook, but more importantly they’ll do it in real life, to their friends, family, and peers.

Want to make it even bigger? I’d record every minute of the entire process and I’d put that content, even in rough form…EVERYWHERE. I mean everywhere, all over twitter, Facebook, the Telus and Bell websites, on YouTube and Vimeo. I’d create an entire blog around the process, allow the Telus/bell employees to talk about how great it is to give customers what they want ( also bringing a human face to the process ), to follow the process as it unfolds and to very likely provide a venue for others to vent at how they also dislike Rogers/Fido and wish they too could switch.

The final piece of the puzzle. The sheer moxy of the concept would get a tonne of traditional press, newspaper stories, magazine profiles and blog posts and all that mainstream press for free.

If nothing else, Telus could at least stop running those inane animal commercials.

This is a guest post by Kerry Morrison of Reason Intelligent Design, a Vancouver based Web Marketing company.

Contact Kerry
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If you’re thinking of using blogger outreach for your business, here’s my quick primer on how to approach this tactic.

Qualify blogs based on their audience
There are over 200,000,000 blogs on the WWW and the vast majority have little to no following. Not to say that more is always better (if what you are marketing is a very niche product then that niche blogger with a small but loyal following could be an incredibly effective media outlet) but in general, a decent size audience is important. The other thing that I think should be obvious is that the blog’s audience should directly correspond to the target market of whatever it is you are marketing.

Read the blog
This is also part of the qualifying step because there is nothing worse for a blogger than to have to waste time going through pitches that aren’t relevant to their blog or their audience. Engaging through comments or on twitter is also a good way to start to build a relationship with the bloggers you are hoping to gain coverage from.

Optimize your release for the web
By and large, we are a “snacking society” especially when it comes to the content we consume on the web. Bloggers know this any many of them try to limit the amount of text in their blogs focusing instead on rich media like images and video.  To that end, keep copy short and to the point and attach engaging videos and images to supplement your text. If this seems like common sense, I apologize but I have seen PR companies mass-email multi-page, text-only releases to a list of hundreds of unqualified bloggers.  Successful bloggers are simply don’t have time for this.

Give bloggers the respect they deserve
I think something that not everyone realizes yet is that certain blogs are becoming more trusted by the public than traditional media channels. Even though this is happening, I still don’t think that bloggers are always granted the same amount of respect as their traditional counterparts. If you want to gain favor in this community don’t ever patronize a blogger (no matter how big or small) by making it seem like you are doing them a favor by sending a sample, providing a “hot tip” etc. and don’t ask directly for coverage. If the blogger feels that what you have is news that pertains to their audience and, if their editorial calendar has some space, you will get covered.

Everything I’ve touched on here is really all about building authentic two-way relationships with your online media sources. If you reach out to these individuals and consistently provide them with the newsworthy content and new, creative ideas, you’re likely to get a great return on that investment. If you blast out your traditional press release to every blogger’s email address you can get your hands on, you’re unlikely to get any favorable coverage and could even generate some negative press.

If you’re serious about this stuff, do put in the time to get to know this community online and, if at all possible, take it offline too (as in, meet them in person). If this seems extremely time-consuming, it’s because it is. If you don’t see yourself or your company having the time to execute this type of strategy properly, consider outsourcing to an agency that has experience with this type of thing and that has existing relationships with bloggers in your industry.

As I mentioned, this is only a very basic intro into blogger relations. Please feel free to add your additional tips in the comments.

Huge thank-you to Erica Lam and Nicole Soon, two smart and savvy bloggers who were very helpful with this post. You can find them at www.thestylespy.com and www.lemodedujour.com respectively.

- Rosa Meyer

Stiletto Marketing – Interview with Glowbal Group’s Charles Zuckermann from Stiletto Marketing on Vimeo.

Scenario #3 The Big Guns

The ideal situation is one where the organization’s founder, president, or CEO is in charge, or heavily involved in the company’s social media. In this case, this person can become the true “face” for their company. Where we are actually seeing the most of this is in small business or start-ups which makes sense. In these cases, it’s often the owner who is driving sales to start off with and actively trying to promote their company and develop a name for them-selves. What better place to start than social media?

Joyce Cajucom owner of Noir Lash Lounge is one example of a business owner who does a great job with social media. Joyce is sending out tweets and Facebook posts all day long, personally interacting with anybody who has anything to say online about her company. I sent a tweet to @NoirLashLounge letting her know I had enjoyed my appointment with her new trainee and almost immediately, Joyce tweeted right back to say how glad she was that things had worked out. You can imagine how powerful this might be with negative comments as well. How often is it that easy to find such a direct line to the owner?

There are still two main issues that can arise with this arrangement:

1. Business owners, especially small business owners, are typically very, very busy people. This doesn’t always lend itself well to making the time to maintain all the different social media channels they have chosen to engage with. As with most things, when social media is done halfway it’s almost not really worth doing at all.

The best way to get around this obstacle is to really make updating and maintaining social media sites an important part of one’s daily routine. For example, spending half an hour in the morning, right after checking email, and again before the end of the day often works well. The other thing is to make sure that whatever aspects of your social media program can be automated are. I’m not going to go into too much detail about that here because I plan to cover social media aggregating and automating in another post.

2. The second issue I have with putting social media into the boss’ hands is what happens when the boss lacks the skills and knowledge to carry out this task properly? If you can’t imagine, here is one example. The quick answer to this is to make sure either to take the time to learn how to use social media properly or, hire a professional to get your company started and then show you how it’s done.

At the end of the day, although the owner is generally my top choice for who to handle the social media rains, there will always be people who just don’t have the interest or time it takes. In this case, it’s most definitely better to give the responsibility to somebody who is going to handle the job with enthusiasm and care.

- Rosa

Scenario #2: X-Company is Going Social and Everyone’s Invited!

X-Company: “Wooohooo! We are embracing social media and we want our whole company to embrace it to and become a part of it!”

Awesome. But hang on a sec. You aren’t planning on giving all of your employees (or even several) access to your social media sites to post away at will are you? Ok good. That could turn into a real disaster.

Don’t get me wrong, the more people in in a company who are into participating in social media efforts, the richer your content can be. It’s also great to get different perspectives on a business through the eyes of different employees and departments. However, one of the problems is, even if everyone is properly trained in how to use the tools and how to interact with the community, there really is still something to be said about creating consistent messaging and having one person become the “face” that delivers that message.

My suggestion here is that you appoint an appropriate person to be the “hub” and the face of your social media program meaning that they are solely responsible for all content and relationship building. Let the rest of your team know that if they have anything that could add value to the company’s social media streams, they can send it to your “hub person” and they will post it (as long as it is deemed appropriate).

The other issue is that, as with any company initiative, when something is “everyone’s” responsibility, it becomes nobody’s. It’s very likely that not many people are going to take the initiative and get involved in posting and engaging with the community; In today’s fast-paced world, there often isn’t much room in one’s day to accommodate non-essential tasks. If you have one person in charge, links and posts will inevitably trickle in to them from the team but the social media channel isn’t dependent on them. That said, it’s essential to make sure that whoever is in charge has the time themselves. The 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report found that 56% of marketers are using social media for 6 hours or more each week and 30% for 11 or more hours weekly. Keep this in mind when deciding what might need to be taken off of your employee’s plate or, if it makes more sense to outsource this task to an agency.

- Rosa Meyer

It’s a big question for sure and businesses have come up with several solutions all with varying levels of success. Over the next few posts, I’m going to look into several of the most common scenarios and how/why they can work.

Scenario #1: The Over-eager Intern
You see this a lot and I don’t think it’s always terrible. On the plus, interns are generally full of youthful enthusiasm for their new companies and eager to impress and hopefully land a job. They should be more than comfortable in the online space and, let’s face it, they’ve just come out of University where Facebook is probably one of the more dominant activities one’s daily life! (Students, please don’t take offence…. I am only speaking from experience)

But let me ask you this: If you found out your intern spent a lot of time watching TV would that lead you to believe they would be the perfect person to produce your next television commercial? I didn’t think so. This is a professional media channel so it’s important to give it the respect it deserves and make sure it’s being handled properly – not just passed off to whoever has the time. The other issue I have with this scenario is that internships are temporary positions. How does somebody who is only a temporary part of the organization become a proper face for that company? What real chance at developing relationships do they have and how do they transfer these to the next person who comes along?

The only way I can see this turning out well is if the company actually plans to hire this individual after their internship because they are that very special intern who immediately embraces and immerses themselves in the organizational culture and values. Even with all of this in place, I would still put an intern, or any new employee, under the guidance of somebody higher up and make sure they are having everything approved as they go. But that’s just me.

Who’s in charge of your company’s social media program?

- Rosa Meyer