JitterJam – Integrated Social Marketing Software for Business

Even though the economic times are tough, you need to continue to reward and motivate your employees. People are working harder than ever, and there are lots of ways to acknowledge their contributions, to make the work environment more friendly and positive, and to motivate them to continue their efforts towards reaching your company’s goals. Here are a few ideas to help you reward your employees for a job well done!

1. Send a handwritten note. Take time to create a handwritten thank-you to an employee who has gone out of his/her way to attain a goal, to meet a deadline, to solve a problem, or to take care of a customer. Deliver that note to your employee in person and let them know how happy you are with their performance. Make a note of this also in their personnel file so their contribution is noted when performance reviews are being given.
2. Create a fun activity. Create regular fun activities that engage your employees. For example, have a “match the employee to their baby picture” contest and award a prize to the person who has the most correct matches. Let your employees generate ideas for these kinds of activities. As an added bonus, it encourages personal connections between your employees.
3. Treat your employees. As in, give them a treat. Have a monthly birthday party for every employee with a birthday in that month. Treat them to cake, ice cream and time with the CEO. Knowing that top management cares about them is a great way to motivate your team!
4. Hall of Fame. Create a space where you can post pictures and short stories of employees who have been recognized for outstanding service or effort. Create a nomination process and a regular recognition process. Have it be in a public area where not only employees—but your customers—can see the great accomplishments of the people in your company.
5. Reward effort. While success is important, ideas and innovation are just as important. Make sure you have a way to reward ideas and innovation as well concrete results. Create an “innovation award” as part of your recognition system. It will encourage your employees to think outside the box.
6. A little food goes a long way. As a special reward, bring in coffee and breakfast breads to recognize a milestone, a job well done, a large customer win, etc.
7. Create an outside recognition system. Your customers, partners, suppliers and visitors are a great source of reward and recognition. Give them an opportunity to fill out a recognition form for someone in your company who has gone out of their way to help them. Make these forms available in person, online and in other ways to ensure an easy process. Share the comments with the employee and the HR department.

At JitterJam, we relax every Friday afternoon with some snacks and beverages. It’s a great way to unwind after a week of hard work. We named the day Fun Stuff Friday!

How do you you recognize and reward your employees?

In social media, personal connections inspire trust whether in an individual or in a brand. Connecting personally helps brands to develop relationships with consumers and promote advocacy. The challenge is identifying potential advocates. One effective solution is utilizing user-generated content, which allows willing advocates to step forward and help promote your brand. This can be much cheaper for your business, and it will be fun for your customers.

The most common method for gathering user-generated content is asking users to share brand testimonials or a specific brand experience through a video. Consumers are inclined to trust the opinion of customers more than the voice of the company, because consumers are unpaid and don’t have their own agenda. A consumer taking time out of their day to share their positive experience with others is an endorsement of the brand in itself.

A recent video campaign using this strategy was the Ten Second Challenge from Aflac, which asked fans to explain what the company does in only ten seconds through a creative video. While these videos are funny, they also communicate the brand’s message through the credible voice of a consumer. This is a main strength of brand advocacy, and user-generated content accomplishes this and more.

Another campaign leveraging user-generated videos is Tillamook Cheese, who gathered similar videos and used them as the basis of a TV advertising campaign. Since the video campaign, they have expanded their efforts and are now asking their fans for notes that  “Share the Loaf.” This new campaign builds upon existing relationships and fosters new connections through engagement.

User-generated content is beneficial to businesses because the value it adds to a company far exceeds its cost. This campaign strategy can be implemented on social networks like Facebook for almost no cost, while simultaneously identifying the best potential brand advocates. The connections formed with these users give your brand the opportunity to build loyal customer relationships through engagement, which is the first step towards developing brand advocacy.

If you have time, spend a few minutes of your Friday watching these videos or checking out Toyota’s campaign, and see how user-generated content campaigns can be successful and fun at the same time! If your company has used this strategy before what were the results, what worked and what didn’t? And how would you recommend other companies implement their own campaigns?

In the era of social business on the web, reputations are determined by how companies act in the public eye. Whether positive or negative, sentiment can spread very quickly across social networks with the potential to become viral. To take advantage of this, marketers have begun to publicize their socially responsible activities through cause marketing campaigns. Cause marketing has helped companies build brand loyalty, increase engagement with consumers, improve brand reputation, and—most importantly—do good for the community.

The Pepsi Refresh Project is one of the largest and most popular cause marketing campaigns, and recently committed $1.3 million to the gulf coast alone! The campaign is structured so that users vote on grant ideas submitted either by other users or by well-known celebrity figures, allowing everyone to feel like they are doing a bit of good along the way. This creates huge engagement opportunities on Facebook and Twitter and motivates people to share the initiative with others as well.

Dawn Dish Soap has also turned heads with their Everyday Wildlife Champion initiative, which promises to donate a dollar to rescuing wildlife for every bottle of Dawn product purchased. To activate this donation you have to go to their website, where you will see plenty of cute animal pictures, and then enter the activation code from the bottle.  By enabling consumers to complete the donation, Dawn makes them the ones responsible for doing good.

The common denominator in both of these campaigns is finding important charitable causes that consumers feel passionate about and that genuinely reflect the company’s values. Both campaigns move the responsibility of involvement to consumers, empowering them to contribute, and making them feel good about their actions. Additionally, cause marketing motivates consumers to share with the brand and with other consumers creating an opportunity to develop engagement into long-term customer loyalty.

There are plenty of great opportunities to get involved with cause marketing right now, whether you are donating a dollar through Dawn or beginning your own cause marketing campaign. Just remember, with a little creativity you can do an awful lot of good! What other cause marketing initiatives have you seen and participated in? What about the campaigns made you want to participate?

Photo Credit: LittleMan

Consumers love freebies and companies love new leads and contact growth. To satisfy both parties, companies can use contests to reward consumers for participation and simultaneously build their own community. Here are three steps to help you create your own successful contest:

1.  Conceptualize

• Before you begin planning your contest, identify specific goals for the campaign. These could be simply gaining more fans and followers to build your contact database, or building customer loyalty, brand advocacy, and community engagement. Be sure that the value you will gain from the contest matches the value of the prize to the consumer
• The success of a contest hinges on targeting the correct consumers, which will let you gain long-term customer value from participants. Identify an idea or concept that will appeal to your target market, and not just the largest number of people.
• Lastly, decide which format is the best for your contest. The format and rules should be based off of your concept and your goals for the campaign, and will affect how and when you choose the contest winner.

2.  Promote and Run

• Because contests have a set time line for entering and for announcing winners, they will dictate the timetable for your marketing activities. You should promote your contest a few weeks prior to the campaign launch and during the campaign at key time junctures (being sure NOT to spam).
• Your target market should determine the best promotion channels for your campaign. Social broadcasts on Facebook and Twitter will increase your reach, but if your audience receives company updates through newsletters or press releases these channels will be more effective.
• A key part of your strategy is the campaign’s call to action. How will you attract your target market and how will they enter? It is most important that the action of entering the contest benefits your company.

3.  Measure

• Measuring short-term success is as simple as recording brand mentions, conversation volume, contact growth, or sales figures depending on your campaign goals.
• Long-term success will be dependent on these numbers remaining elevated, and developing new contacts into customers. To gain more value from new contacts you can implement a customer loyalty program that rewards continued support and engagement, and would allow you to track which future sales resulted from the contest.

Ultimately you are the person that knows your target market best, and this should determine how you plan your campaign. If you follow these steps and appeal to your desired audience, your contest is sure to be fun and successful for everybody!

Have you used a contest or a sweepstakes as a marketing tool before? Tell us about it! What strategies did you choose to use and what successes were you able to achieve?

One hundred and forty-seven years ago today, a man was born that would revolutionize the American economy, and forever change how people conducted business.  His name was Henry Ford, and he built his business with unorthodox practices that still influence companies today.

His most significant contribution to the American economy was the assembly line, which through teamwork and delegating tasks allowed him to lower costs, improve quality, and produce more.  In this day and age these characteristics can be just as powerful for businesses, and they are still present, especially in social media.  This is because social media is a team effort that everyone must take part in to create an effective presence.  Assigning different people to different channels and mediums of social media based on their skills is also an effective practice–one that is rooted in Ford’s production philosophy.

Ford also turned heads by paying wages that were around twice the industry average, by teaching employees to read and write, and by shortening the workweek.  These practices significantly reduced worker turnover and simultaneously increased employee productivity and well-being.  While our employers today are usually unable to pay us twice the norm, benefits like healthcare and 401Ks, educational reimbursement and employee development and training are widespread and help increase productivity and employee loyalty; all are results of the employment practices that began with Henry Ford.

Henry Ford’s success drove the wide adoption of his business practices.  In the constantly changing environment of social media, differentiation is vitally necessary to be successful, and we can learn this lesson by looking back at Ford.  Some of the most memorable recent social media campaigns (like the Old Spice video and Twitter campaign) were successful because, like Henry Ford, they were groundbreaking and different from anything that had ever been done before.

Henry Ford’s contributions to American business practice were influential and significant enough that it seems appropriate to recognize him today on his birthday.  Whether he was organizing company picnics or implementing his assembly line, he was a transformative force for positive change in his workplace.  Which characteristics of your workplace are related to Henry Ford’s?  How have these helped to make your company and its employees successful?

Photo Credit: Khaane

A few weeks ago, the FourSquare mayorship of our office was up for grabs.  Over time, a clear winner began to emerge, and the competition became one-sided.  While the battle is now basically over, it illustrated how good-natured competitions within the office can be fun for everyone.

These competitions increase dialogue between coworkers, offering more opportunities for them to connect with one another at work.  This provides another way for employees to get to know each other better, and will create a livelier office environment.  These are some other fun ideas for office competitions:

• Team Events – Separate the office into several teams, and create a fun competition that encourages everyone to participate.  Some events can be beneficial to an entire community as well, like a food charity drive or a recycling contest, while also improving valuable intangibles such as teamwork and overall morale within the office. Provide incentives for participation and rewards to everyone for their engagement.

• Office Olympics – Plan to annually take a full afternoon out of the office for this event.  Choose multiple activities, and develop a scoring method that aggregates accomplishments at the end of the day to determine the top three finishers.  Some of the easier events to run are paper and wastebasket free throw shooting, rubber band archery (shoot at a safe target not at coworkers), and the crucial best coffee contest (judged by all).

• Out-of-Office Challenges – This is more of an activity than a competition. Spend a day at a ropes course completing group challenges with all members of your office.  This teaches people to think together creatively to solve problems and accomplish tasks.  This is a great activity to help each individual build confidence and the team to develop skills outside of the office environment.

Prizes for all of these activities can be tickets to a concert or sporting event, an extra personal day, cash prizes, or anything else that coworkers would see as an incentive.  Be sure to ask for feedback from coworkers after events, so the next competition is even more fun than the last one.  What other ideas and suggestions do you have for office competitions?  How has your office used these in the past?

Thankfully, the oppressive heat wave that took over New England last week has, for the moment, moved on.  Hopefully, our brains (and computers) have now recovered and returned to a safe operating temperature.

Beating the summer heat is one thing, but unfortunately the ongoing challenge of slowing sales in the summer cannot be solved with air conditioning, and it continues to test how creative and resourceful companies can be.  With this in mind, here are three activities to help prevent your business from fading in the summer sun.

Attend a Relevant Event. Give yourself the opportunity to make new connections and further develop existing ones.  Personal interaction adds an element to a business relationship that cannot be attained online, and it could be the building block that changes a casual contact into a customer.  In addition, attending an industry event will generate more website traffic and more conversation surrounding your brand—two more sources for new leads.

Start A(nother) Company Blog. If you do not have a company blog, begin one. If you have one, start another on a topic related to your market, your brand or the values or causes you want to showcase. Blogs create another communication channel that will highlight your industry knowledge, your company’s values, or your product in use.  Content quality and frequency are very important—you want people discussing and sharing your content and coming back often. Increasing your level of influence and sparking relevant consumer discussion will both improve credibility and generate more buzz for your company.

Get More Chatty. Participate more actively in conversations that are engaging your target market(s).  Whether or not the topics are relevant to your business, these conversations can help you learn more about your potential customers.  Sharing your thoughts and comments adds a level of social interaction that will make potential customers feel that your company is a part of their community and shares their interests.  This chatter may not be the main focus of your social engagement, but it will certainly help build awareness of your company or brand.

While there are many more strategies for increasing sales when business becomes slow, these are three techniques that, with continued practice, will all provide long-term value to your company as well as providing a short-term boost.  Ultimately, discovering more activities that will help your business fight the seasonally slow pace of summer is only limited by your creativity.

What challenges has your business encountered this summer, and subsequently what activities are you now implementing?

While following the Tour de France the other day, it occurred to me that this exhausting bike race shares many similarities with a company’s social media strategy.  Amidst the crowded peloton (the large central pack of racers), cyclists vie for position, but despite their best efforts they can easily get lost in the crowd.  Typically, the teams with the best performance over the course of the race succeed through consistency and leadership, and by dealing with bumps in the road smoothly (literally and figuratively).  Just as these characteristics allow elite cyclists to succeed, they are also the driving forces for strategic social media success within a company.

• Be Consistent – Like the Tour de France, social media success does not happen overnight.  Both challenges are long journeys that require continual effort, and with each day new successes and failures will emerge.  But don’t be intimidated!  A strong and constant social media presence will bring value to your brand and will be worth the investment.

• Adapt – From year to year the landscape of your competition will change.  In cycling improved riders will emerge each year, and less motivated riders will slow with time.  In social media this process can happen much faster due to the nature of the Internet.  You must be willing to adapt your social strategy to this change by expanding your social presence through another channel, beginning new practices to better serve your customers, or simply by getting better at what you currently do. Be vigilant and continue to emerge on the top.

• Manage Crises – When Lance Armstrong popped a tire on Stage 3 of this year’s race, he lost significant time; but his race team dealt with the situation quickly enough for him to still finish in the top twenty.  Your company’s social media presence is the infrastructure that allows them to listen to what your customers are saying, so you know immediately when a problem arises.  Responding to a crisis swiftly and properly will ensure that your company loses minimal ground, if any at all.  This is absolutely necessary in today’s culture where bad news spreads like wildfire.

• Unify – While one person wins the Tour de France, his team—which consists of many other cyclists—is largely responsible for the victory.  The team protects the biker from the competition and allows him to draft off of them, doing just as much work as the individual winner.  Similarly, effective social media strategy requires that your company or brand team unify and embrace a single strategy to move towards a common goal.

There are many other social media lessons we can learn from this cycling race and from other sporting events, but these are some of the main pillars of an effective social media strategy.  Fortunately for us, we don’t have to burn 10,000 calories a day to learn these lessons!  What other lessons have you learned about social media from real-world events?

In celebration of Independence Day, here are a few links to social media outlets for our government. Hope you have a great holiday!

The White House

The White House is in the social media groove. Have you ever known an administration to have a blog, a Twitter account and an email newsletter and more? Here are links to the White House social accounts and channels.

• White House Twitter Account
• White House Blog
• Sign up for White House email updates
• White House Group on LinkedIn
• Official White House Flickr account
• White House YouTube channel
• White House Vimeo channel
• White House Podcast
• White House Myspace account

Senate and House

Are your Senators or Representatives on Twitter? Find out and get some great stats and info on their use of social media.

• SourceWatch list of Senators and Members of Congress Who Tweet
• Adam Zuckerman Congrissional Twitter Usage stats

GovTwit

GovTwit has an exceptional list of government Twitter IDs and tags. Find the ones you want to follow. This list includes those in media that comment and report on governmental activities, local and state government, agencies, etc. You can also add to the list by recommending someone.

• GovTwit

There are thousands of sites, accounts, blogs, videos and photos related to our government that gives us unprecedented access to news and information (and sometimes mis-information). Your voice and your vote is important. Make sure you use both!

Happy Independence Day!

The word “Networking” sometimes makes people think of a room full of people in suits exchanging business cards. That was how Networking used to be perceived, but with the extension of online social networks like Twitter and Facebook to live events, Networking today includes both social and professional events and enables people to connect on many levels.

You can find any number of events happening on a given day if you know where to look. From hobbies to education, professional interests to just simply meeting new people, you can readily find an event that will suit your tastes and interests. Here are a few sources for you to find your next event.

1. Meetup
• Meetup was created as a way for people to organize event, list them, and attract others to attend the event. It’s free to join and sign up for different groups. Organizers pay a subscription fee (starting at $12 per month) to utilize the site for their group/events. They may charge a fee for people to attend their events, but that’s independent of the Meetup site.
• There are over 7 million members attending events hosted by over 76,000 Meetup groups around the world. If you don’t see a group that interests you in your local area, it’s easy to start one.
• The events are categorized and subcategorized to help you find what you’re looking for. You can easily search by topic AND city, so you can even find events in areas where you’ll be traveling to in the future.
2. Eventbrite
• Eventbrite is a site focused on helping organizations sell tickets to their events. There is no fee to create and promote events, so many organizers use Eventbrite for easy registration and promotion of their free events.
• The benefit to you is that there are a number of great events to choose from, and finding them is pretty easy. Eventbrite has a great search engine that lets you put in a location and begin browsing events. Once you have a list, you can narrow the list down by relative date (today, tomorrow, etc.), location, topic, cost (most of the events are free) and/or perform a keyword search. And like Meetup, registering for the Eventbrite site is free.
3. Tweetup
• While there’s no website that lists these events, a relatively new phenomenon is the Tweetup. A Tweetup is a live Twitter meet-up (not to be confused with the Meetup.com site). It’s generally promoted on Twitter. People generally announce local Tweetups on their Twitter streams. Some of the events are very impromptu, and others are highly organized. Regardless, the events are fairly well-attended by those involved in social media (how else would they hear about them)?
• How do you find out about Tweetups in your area? Do a location-based Twitter search of people near you using the keyword “Tweetup” and start following the links to local events. Don’t forget to follow the people who announce and spread the word about these Tweetups—you’ll be able to find out about more events in your area through them. (Of course, JitterJam does all this!)
• Tweetups are often listed on Meetup and Eventbrite. Use those sites to search for events and bookmark the recurring events. You can also find new people to meet and follow through the registration lists!

I hope these tips will help you find a networking event that’s fun, interesting and educational! Happy Fun Stuff Friday!

Image credit: FOTOCROMO