The company approached the use of social media with trepidation. Frightened by the lack of total control, the company feared what their customers had to say.

Asking customers to write product reviews was the first step. To Home Deport’s  surprise customer response was overwhelmingly positive. Nick Ayres, Interactive Marketing Manager observed, ‘”This is one of the few areas where we can tactically say that there’s a good financial upswing for us that you can really see in the general marketplace. Generally speaking, products that have higher ratings and reviews do better from a sales perspective.”‘

Home Depot then decided to distribute their home improvement videos through UTube and other video sites. Their goal is to reach a ‘”different audience in a much more real-time and personal way.”‘

Subsequently the company opted to use Twitter to broadcast emergency information during Hurricane Gustav. Home Depot microblogged to customers  information like store closings and the availability of critical supplies.

Farrow’s lessons learned:

• Begin using social media slowly but begin;
• Trust in yourself and your customers;
• Take advantage of social media to get out content you have already created;
• Look to social media to distribute information fast.

Tyson Foods had been involved in hunger relief efforts since 2000.  Through its own efforts, the company realized hunger awareness is not very high despite passionate people and organizations working for hunger relief.

So in 2007 Tyson launched its Hunger Relief Blog which focuses on positive hunger relief efforts, strategy tips and the grim statistics. The company has also used its blog in its efforts to provide food relief, donating pounds of food for every blog comment related to a campaign.

Tyson communicates its genuine and sincere “do good” efforts via Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Check out Tamar’s blog Techipedia

Farrow’s lessons learned:

• Find a niche for your philanthropic efforts;
• Share the big picture of what your effort is about;
• Involve the community in the cause directly.
• Use multiple social media channels to get the word out.

-Aaron, Zappos Insights Monitor

The quote comes from Barkley’s Mark Logan slideshare presentation “Social Media and ECommerce.

Zappos, an online shoe retailer, believes that its culture gives it a strategic advantage. The company uses social media such as Twitter to share that culture through its employees with the rest of the world.

The company blog is not so much about product or promotion but on the life of  Zappos employees.

Like many companies, Zappos uses Twitter and other social media for customer service. Their purpose is multi-fold:

• Uncover service opportunities;
• Initiate customer response;
• Amplify praise, reinforce service reputation.

Employee psychic investment in the company, customer and self can be summed up in the following:

‘”Anyone can do what we do, but nobody can be who we are.”‘

-Jo Casey, Zappos Helpdesk Coordinator

Farrow’s Lessons Learned:

• Zappos is strengthening its brand by sharing its culture with its customers.  Wouldn’t you want to buy a pair of shoes from a company with people you have had some personal contact with and admire?
• Twitter is the customer point of entry into Zappos’ customer support. Other modes of communication are used as the situation dictates.

Graco is a 66 year old company that makes stuff like highchairs, play yards and car seats. It wanted  to connect with young parents on the internet so the first thing they did was to look for places where new parents congregated. Twitter, forums and message boards were possible fertile ground. In addition, there are so called “Mommy” bloggers devoted to discussing child care.

Graco’s goal was to cultivate a long term relationships with these parents. The company’s first step was to listen to these communities with the intention of becoming an accepted participant at a later date.

One of first things that  Graco learned was that overt commercial endeavors were received negatively. “Thus, it learned that altruism was important; instead of forcing its brand name, the company … ended up using Graco’s name in tandem with real-life events and get -togethers for parents.”

These meetings opened the door to the company’s participation in online communities. Graco also launched a blog for parents.

In time, the company found that the amount of positive comments about Graco increased dramatically.  Graco’s online products also tended to be reviewed much more positively.

Of this effort a company executive says, “‘We see social media as a new way to create stronger, deeper and long-term relationship with our consumers. Social media gives our brand access to our consumers and their needs in a unique environment  and allows our messages to be delivered in a personal, transparent and immediate way’”.   Check out Tamar’s blog Techipedia

Farrow’s lessons learned:

• It’s important for an organization to understand the culture by first listening to the community;
• The organization must find a positive role for itself;
• The currency of social media is information not hard sell.

• “I equate brand with the infrastructure upon which everything else sits. It needs to contain the integrity of a good reputation, the capacity for trust, the flexibility for evolution over time, and the simplicity to be understood and infused with your customers and employees stories.
• Applications like sales, product development, engineering, customer support, and all of the other functions you associate with operating a company sit on that infrastructure and borrow from its characteristics.
• Brand also includes the environment or context a company builds around itself to operate, its culture.”

Maltoni goes on to talk about the role of social media

• “Now think about social. Through the tools we have at our disposal we extend the reach of those interactions and experiences. The results flow back into how we think about our products and services (or they should). The stories your brand creates extend it beyond the company walls and, by reflection, deep inside them.
• Execution in social media enriches brands and the people or tribes that make them work. It means you are changing the world and allowing the world to change you as a business in commensurate parts, while you interact with it.”

At the end of the day, it’s all about execution.