1. who owns it?
I’ve talked about this before and still believe it depends on your brands goals. It should also be stated that multiple groups can participate. We have lots of people across PR, customer support and marketing that Twitter, blog, etc. We have a very large, vibrant MVP community that loves to help talk about our brand. We make it part of our DNA to embrace the conversations from multiple channels.
2. how the heck does it play with our campaigns.
Marketing teams and budgets are inherently driven by campaign timelines. Marketing has not historically run on a 24/7 timeline, which is what it takes to make social media work for a brand. Our anytime, anywhere approach works for our team because we are not on the campaigns team. Windows has a campaigns team that we partner with to leverage the creative assets, messaging, themes, etc but we are not driven by their calendar for outreach. It took awhile for our executives to quite know where to put our efforts but we’ve landed in a great place. We are on the digital marketing team, the same team that runs Windows.com. This digital team is focused on customer experiences and partners with campaigns to promote them when available but the goal is customer experience.
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Agreed completely. The “who owns it” question is one of the leading causes of what I’ve been referring to as “the fly ball effect”. And the answer is never as easy as drawing dotted lines around everything…
Microsoft and big brands have a definite challenge to overcome in the Social Media space. For the most part I recommend just getting started and doing something. Then as necessary make adjustments along the way. It’s kind of like sailing a boat — if you expect to never trim the sails the journey will not likely succeed. Even if the boat does reach the final destination it will be at a very slow and sub-optimal pace – coming in far behind the competition. Right now many big brands seem to exhibit a fear that perhaps someone won’t know how to trim the sails so the boat is kept tied to the dock.
Microsoft has a fairly unique challenge in the Social Media space. Partially because no matter what Microsoft does there will be criticism that Microsoft is either going too far or not far enough. Too far in the sense that there may be a perception that everything must be filtered and funneled thru a PR/AR engine. Not far enough in that everything must be filtered and funneled thru a PR/AR engine. Yes, the statement is the same. This is the dilemma Microsoft often finds itself in.
On the too far side people will complain that they can get the same information from websites and other public facing content. Meaning MS is only putting out “approved” content. On the not far enough side people will complain that they cannot get their specific questions addressed. I think the big issue is the legality of making what amounts to a public statement of fact when Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites are used to convey Microsoft information. In truth, Microsoft does need to be cautious on making public statements because there are legions of lawyers waiting to file the next multi-million dollar class action lawsuit.
How should Microsoft get past this? How should Microsoft show authenticity while maintaining control of the message and to some extent the intellectual property that may be shared via Social Media technologies? There are definitely a few ways to get started. (Maybe I should wait for the call about the role on your team below first ). Seriously, first and foremost I think Microsoft (and other big brands) just need to jump in and get started. For example, Google started a new Twitter alias this week and had 20,000+ followers in about 24 hours. I’m sure there was a lot of behind the scenes planning to make this happen, but in the end they got the word out and the followers arrived in droves. I would not be too surprised if at least one or two press articles come out — letting everyone know that Google is in the game.
Microsoft could do this too and perhaps on an even grander scale. While I do think there does need to be somewhat of a master plan and in a sense a clearing house for content the most important thing is that employees need to be empowered. Empowered to do the right thing, to do their jobs (for which I’m sure they are paid quite handsomely), and to serve the customer and partner community. I think customers, partners, the press & analysts, and even the competition would take note and reward Microsoft for making the effort. I think it would serve as an example for other big brands.
Microsoft has a unique set of challenges and Microsoft has a unique opportunity to set the pace for how big brands leverage Social Media technologies. I’d like to see the latter take place. I’d also like to see a few new Microsoft tools and products to create a social media experience.
Sorry for the long reply, but you really got me thinking.