Social Pros Podcast: Real People Doing Real Work in Social Media

Beth Dockins, Director of Customer Service for Scott's Miracle-Gro, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss Scotts approach to social media customer service, social media "tribes", and how the Scotts brand has evolved to becoming an informational and educational company for lawn and garden owners. Please Support Our Sponsors Huge thanks to our amazing sponsors for helping us make this happen. Please support them; we couldn't do it without their help! This week: From ExactTarget, a free white paper called "3 Truths Every CMO Needs to Know About Social Media and the Customer Experience" From Expion, a case study about how HR Block mobilized 90,000 tax professionals in social media using Expion to guide their activity. From Janrain, a free guide on how to improve conversion rates and data quality. And from Cision, a free content marketing kit to help you get the most of your brand storytelling. http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-pros-podcast/how-scotts-uses-social-media-for-maximum-customer-support/

Brooks Thomas, Communications Specialist at Southwest, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss the progressive setup of the Southwest social media team, the widespread success of a long-running corporate blog, and keeping an authentic voice for a large brand. Please Support Our Sponsors Huge thanks to our amazing sponsors for helping us make this happen. Please support them; we couldn’t do it without their help! This week: From ExactTarget, a free white paper called “3 Truths Every CMO Needs to Know About Social Media and the Customer Experience“ From Expion, a case study about how HR Block mobilized 90,000 tax professionals in social media using Expion to guide their activity. From Janrain, a free guide on how to improve conversion rates and data quality. And from Cision, a free content marketing kit to help you get the most of your brand storytelling.

Dorie Clark, Forbes contributor and author of Reinventing You, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss avoiding being pigeonholed in your current job, how to make a career change organically that will make sense, and accurately representing yourself in your personal brand.

Mitch Joel, President of Twist Image and Author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss the fast-paced changes that are coming to the way the think about mobile and e-commerce, improving the signal-to-noise ratio, and his new book due out in May. Please Support Our Sponsors Huge thanks to our amazing sponsors Janrain, ExactTarget, Cision, and Expion for helping us make this happen. We couldn't do it without them! Read on for highlights: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-pros-podcast/get-ready-to-reboot-your-life/

Callan Green, Senior Social Media Specialist at Sony, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss the layout of Sony’s social media team, how to find success on Pinterest, and playing to strengths on different platforms. Please Support Our Sponsors Huge thanks to our amazing sponsors Janrain, ExactTarget, Cision, and Expion for helping us make this happen. We couldn’t do it without them! Read on for some of the highlights and tweetable moments, or listen to the full podcast. http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-pros-podcast/how-to-make-pinterest-your-brands-own/

Matt Thomson, VP of Business Development at Klout, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss the “Warren Buffett problem” his company faces, those fancy analytics at work behind the Klout algorithms, and expanding to offer brands a whole new product. Please Support Our Sponsors Huge thanks to our amazing sponsors Janrain, ExactTarget, Cision, and Expion for helping us make this happen. We couldn’t do it without them! http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-pros-podcast/solving-klouts-warren-buffett-problem/

Alix Hart, Brand Marketer at Best Buy, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss integrating social into all aspects of customer service and battling the "showroom" effect as a brick-and-mortar retailer. Please Support Our Sponsors Huge thanks to our amazing sponsors Janrain, ExactTarget, Cision, and Expion for helping us make this happen. We couldn't do it without them! Read on for the highlights: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-pros-podcast/how-to-turn-social-connections-into-in-person-sales/

Jake Jacobson, Social Media Manager at Garmin, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to reveal Garmin's Youtility-esque goals when it comes to social media and customer service, plus how Garmin has been able to educate its wide and dedicated fan base through specialized content. Please Support Our Sponsors Huge thanks to our amazing sponsors Janrain, ExactTarget, Cision, and Expion for helping us make this happen. We couldn't do it without them! Read on for the highlights: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-pros-podcast/how-to-leverage-a-community-of-passionate-fans/

Todd Wheatland, VP of Marketing at Kelly OCG, joins the Social Pros Podcast from Content Marketing World in Sydney, Australia this week to discuss producing massive amounts of relevant content, curating your personal brand, and how to get your followers to share your content. Please Support Our Sponsors Huge thanks to our amazing sponsors Janrain, ExactTarget, Cision, and Expion for helping us make this happen. We couldn't do it without them! View the highlights: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-pros-podcast/how-to-curate-6000-pieces-of-content-this-year/

Michele Wingate, Social Media Manager for American Family Insurance, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week todiscuss building lasting relationships on social media, complying with federal marketing regulations, and developing an internal community to support employees in social media. Please Support Our Sponsors Huge thanks to our amazing sponsors Janrain, ExactTarget, Cision, and Expion for helping us make this happen. We couldn't do it without them!

Andy White, Senior Manager of Social Media Marketing at M80 and creative genius behind Audi's social media strategy, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss the importance of brand trust in a social media team, the thought process behind the successful #WantAnR8 campaign, and how Audi's social agility lets him get things done.

Andy White, Senior Manager of Social Media Marketing at M80 and creative genius behind Audi's social media strategy, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss the importance of brand trust in a social media team, the thought process behind the successful #WantAnR8 campaign, and how Audi's social agility lets him get things done. Read on for some of the highlights and tweetable moments, or listen to the full podcast. Please Support Our Sponsors Huge thanks to our amazing sponsors Janrain, ExactTarget, Cision, and Expion for helping us make this happen. We couldn't do it without them! Listen Now  Click the play button to listen here: Download the audio file: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8813029/SocialProsEpisode55.mp3 The RSS feed is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/socialprospodcast Find us on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/convince-convert-blog-social/id499844469 Tweetable Moments "We have the keys to the kingdom. That's the sole reason we've had so much success." -@white (tweet this) "Most brands are completely tone deaf, even if they're on social media." -@white (tweet this) "Within 2.5 minutes of the lights going out in the Superdome, @Audi had the tweet out." -@white (tweet this) With Great Responsibility Comes Great Innovation Andy describes the unique situation at Audi. He has been running their social media scene for a few years but has always done so as a contractor from social media agency M80. The arrangement has worked, he vouches, because his team was given full creative control. They have to receive approval to expand to new outlets, but otherwise Audi trusts the team to make all their own decisions. Early on, Audi decided they wanted to be a "challenger" brand to reach out to followers who might otherwise not follow a car brand - who might not even own a car - and engage with them alongside the Audi aficionados. Andy was the engineer behind the world's most successful Twitter campaign, which was centered around the hashtag #WantAnR8. The hashtag was actually originated by a consumer on Twitter, and Audi actually gave her the car for a weekend and filmed it, then ran a promotion on the hashtag. Similarly, the team was able to give a car to the documentary film crew behind Follow Friday the Film so they could drive across country to make their movie. Audi was also the first brand to use a hashtag - #ProgressIs - during a Superbowl commercial, back in 2011. All of these examples show the brand's social agility. With a smart team running the campaigns and the trust of the company behind them, they're able to achieve more than any brand who is micromanaging their social media outlets. Holy Social!  Zena brings a point to us this week from DoubleTree by Hilton. Vanessa Sain-Dieguez, Social Media Director at Hilton, recently said that Hilton responds to all customer inquiries on social channels within 15 minutes, no matter what time or day they happen. To many brands, this seems overwhelming, but with that kind of service level agreement, problems will be much fewer and far between. And considering 42% of consumers expect a response within the hour when they're complaining on social media, it seems like more brands will need to tune up and take notice. Social Media Stat of the Week: 800,000 of LinkedIn's 1% tweeted their rank At the end of 2012, LinkedIn sent emails to their users with the top 1%, 5%, and 10% viewed profiles. With more than 200 million members, their top 1% is 2 million members strong. Jeff brings us the statistic that approximately 800,000 of those 1%ers tweeted out their status after receiving the email, which is a 4% tweet through rate (distinct from a CTR). The key for social media networks is to have an external means of re-engagement. Relying on engagement within the social network alone will allow it to atrophy. LinkedIn, with probably the most robust email re-engagement strategy to date,

Jessica Gioglio, Public Relations and Social Media Manager at Dunkin’ Donuts, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss Dunkin’s army of brand advocates, whether frequency of using a brand contributes to brand loyalty, and what the social media staffing looks like at a company as socially active as Dunkin’ Donuts. Huge thanks to our amazing sponsors Janrain, ExactTarget, Cision, and Expion for helping us make this happen. We couldn’t do it without them! http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-pros-podcast/how-to-derive-inspiration-from-an-active-fan-base/

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Sonny Gill, Social Media Manager at U.S. Cellular, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss social media strategy on the regional level, competing with the big dogs, and maintaining a level of excellent customer service using social and traditional strategies side by side. Please Support Our Sponsors Huge thanks to our amazing sponsors Janrain, ExactTarget, Cision, and Expion for helping us make this happen. We couldn't do it without them! Tweetable Moments "Social has definitely become a staple in our customer service." -@sonnygill (tweet this) "I shake my head at this year's SuperBowl yet again because branding only goes so far." -@jkrohrs (tweet this)