Community Guy – Jake McKee

Zappos’ 10 Principles

Have you heard of Zappos.com? If not, you need to start paying attention. Zappos is a rising (well, risen) star in the ecommerce space. They’re selling an insane amount of shoes and clothing, and it’s due in no small part to their fantastic outlook on customer service, employee training and support, and word of mouth referrals. I bought my first pair of sneakers through them recently (Nike AirMax 360, of course) and was quite impressed with the service. They emailed me shortly after I placed my order to inform me that they had upgraded my shipping to be overnight. Very cool.

At BlogWorld Expo this past weekend, I stumbled across a Zappos bookmark giveaway that included 10 principles they they live their corporate lives by. Nice and simple, and #6 is one of my own personal mantras too.

1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and a Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate & Determined
10. Be Humble

Interestingly, the Zappos.com site is… less than impressive. The design leaves a great deal to be desired and much of the usability was marginal at best. Where are they spending their money? On their people.

How are you exciting and delighting?

Spike points out the value of the hidden easter egg on the relationship you build with your most dedicated fans.

I finally got a chance to go see Ironman this past weekend. And I was not disappointed. A couple of weeks back on opening day, I was reading through some posts on twitter and a lot of folks were telling others that they should stay though the end of the credits.

So I did. And after an almost full theatre emptied, there were less than 10 of us left. And while I’m not hard-core enough of a Marvel fan to know just what those 15 seconds meant, I went home and looked it up.

My point is this: a lot of people can be fans of your brand. Fans who buy your product or service on a regular basis, that is. But what are you doing for those that are the true blue fans? The ones that will wait after everyone else is gone? The ones that will stay an extra ten minutes for just a tiny little piece of information? That thirst for more information about you and a deeper relationship with you?

So many brands keep their communities (or their illusion of one) at arms length – especially the “crazy fans.” But what would happen if it was the opposite? What would happen if you left those secret Easter Eggs out there especially for those highly passionate fans to find?

You know what would happen? They’d stay until the end of the credits. After that? Magic.

Magic, indeed. Of course, you have to pay enough attention to them in the first place to understand what small touches will actually excite and delight them. Think that’s a lot of work? Maybe, but only at first. Like any good relationship, the dating process is time consuming and trying but it’s also fun and can lead to great things if you stick with it.

Sex and the City understands (mostly) the fourth wall

As preparation for the release of the new Sex and the City movie, the studio has launched a pretty cool Fourth Wall campaign. Carrie’s Mac laptops have played a healthy role in every season of the show, and now the movie. This web app is very cool, and (mostly) recreates the Mac OSX desktop in a way that’s pretty compelling.
I’ve been pretty hard on the TV studios that have tried to create Fourth Wall campaigns [1] [2] , mainly due to their unrelenting corporate branding and ad placements.
Based on the revenue models of movies and television, I’m beginning to wonder if Fourth Wall campaigns are only possible with movies. Movie marketing is about driving interest, which leads to ticket sales and merchandise sales. Movie development tends to place great value on the “universe” the story creates. This universe creates a certain “soul” that is easy to connect with.
Perhaps part of the reason television has lost such huge ground in our minds is that the soul has largely disappeared.

Graco continues to rock their corporate blogging efforts

I’ve written in the past about how impressed I am with the new(ish) Graco blog and blogging team. Now I’m even more impressed.

I just got this great email from Lindsay, one of the Graco bloggers. Nicely done.

Mass e-mails are really the opposite of what we’re going for (personal relationships) but sometimes they’re effective for the Friday before a holiday weekend (please forgive me!!) I really just wanted to let some of our bloggy friends (that I’ve tweeted with, met at a Graco Get-Together or somewhere in the blogosphere) know that today was the Graco Baby blog’s 100th post! Dare I say I’m really proud!

I know a lot of you have stopped by and dropped us a line at some point but I wanted to ask if you wouldn’t mind helping us evolve this blog of ours. Just like you do with a new baby, we’ve read all the blogging books (well they’re on my bedside table ready to read), talked to lots of “experts” on the topic, but some of the best information and advice comes from other parents/bloggers like you. So stop by if you will, read today’s post and give us your thoughts. (of course those of you with the newest of additions might be just a wee bit busy)

Thanks again for welcoming Graco into your community. It has been an incredible experience for all of us and that’s in large part to all of you. Have a great holiday weekend and I hope to hear from you!

Take care,

Lindsay

Lindsay Lebresco
Public Relations and Social Media Manager
Graco Children’s Products-a Newell Rubbermaid company
www.gracobaby.com

Check out our blog at http://blog.gracobaby.com

Become an Utterz Ambassador

The Utterz team is launching an Ambassador Program and you’re invited to apply.

Here’s what the Utterz team has to say:

There are going to be so many exciting new changes to Utterz over the next couple months and we want you to be in on the fun and help us introduce new features to the Utterz community! Come step behind the scenes and:

• provide insight and offer opinions on new ways you see Utterz being used
• get sneak peaks at new Utterz features and influence how they are implemented
• share your knowledge of Utterz with new members

If you’re interested, send us a note at ambassador@utterz.com or create an utter an tag is “Utterz Ambassador” describing why you’re the perfect Utterz Ambassador. Please submit by Tuesday May 27. We’ll be showing off the members of the Ambassador group to everyone on May 29.

Looking forward to getting to it!

Sim, Chris & the Utterz Team

(Disclosure: I am working with Utterz to help build out this program, and other community management tasks)

Presdo: What a Web app should be

Thanks to TechCrunch, I found a brilliant new Web app for dealing with online scheduling. As a consultant working on a Mac and scheduling many clients and sales calls with people who use a wide variety of calendaring program, it’s a bear to get it all working right. Presdo looks like it might solve all of that.

Here’s what TechCrunch had to say (emphasis mind):

I want you to stop what you are doing right now and go try Presdo. It is a deceptively simple online scheduling assistant that is a prime example of what a modern Web app should be. It only shows you what you need to see at the moment that you need to see it. And it understands what you want to do based on normal (and not-so-normal) English that you type in.

I couldn’t agree more – this thing just works and uses the underlying (i.e. hidden) capabilities of the code and server to make things simpler for you rather than painfully more complex.

I can’t wait to see how I can put this app to work.

Fantastic communication from Southwest

Remember Skirtgate? Southwest Airlines escorted a young woman off a plane because they didn’t like the shortness of her skirt. It turned into a debacle, especially considering the hot pants history of Southwest.

Somehow I missed the Southwest apology, and since I’m caught up in talk of quality communication over on the OCRN, I wanted to pass it along.

Southwest Airlines Issues an Apology and Lowers Fares to Match Now Infamous Mini Skirt

DALLAS, Sept. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — In classic Southwest Airlines flair, CEO Gary Kelly today made a public apology to one of its Customers whose trip several months ago has become the subject of recent television and newspaper commentary. Company President Colleen Barrett has reached out to the Customer directly, and Kelly issued Kyla Ebbert an apology and invitation to again fly on Southwest as she taped a television show.

“From a Company who really loves PR, touche to you Kyla! Some have said we’ve gone from wearing our famous hot pants to having hot flashes at Southwest, but nothing could be further from the truth. As we both know, this story has great legs, but the true issue here is that you are a valued Customer, and you did not get an adequate apology. Kyla, we could have handled this better, and on behalf of Southwest Airlines, I am truly sorry. We hope you continue to fly Southwest Airlines. Our Company is based on freedom even if our actions may have not appeared that way. It was never our intention to treat you unfairly and again, we apologize.”

Kelly took an additional step and is sharing his direct comments about the incident by recording ads for national radio. Those comments detail a national fare sale launched today featuring “mini-skirt” fares.

To learn more about these low fares, available only at southwest.com, visit: http://www.southwest.com/?src=PR_FS_091407

SOURCE
Southwest Airlines

Very impressive. Fun, yet clearly apologetic. You also have to give them huge kudos for give ALL their customers a discount, rather than just the one person wronged. That’s taking Skirtgate seriously and showing it!

Common Craft Store Launches

Lee and Sachi at Common Craft have launched a very cool concept: The Common Craft Store where you can buy licensed versions of their amazing video content. Here’s their story on why they launched it:

Why have you created the Store? I thought your business was making videos for companies?

We often hear from individuals who know that we offer free, non-commercial versions, but would like to use our videos professionally and/or in the workplace. They are often concerned about permission and proper usage. By opening the Store, we are providing these people a clear and worry-free path to using the videos for professional purposes.

Further, the store enables us to focus more on our own productions. We love working with clients, but the store will enable us to produce more videos that reflect the needs and interests of our community.

Check out the videos if you have a chance, they’re amazing. Congrats to Common Craft for this big move forward!

Writing makes all the difference

I’ve written in the past about the impact great writing can make on community interaction. This weekend I got my BzzKit for a new BzzAgent program I’m working on, the Chili’s Smokehouse Bacon Burger. (This thing is damn tasty – I tried one while I waited for my BzzKit to arrive, and damn!)

Part of the BzzKit is an introductory letter from BzzAgent Jono, one of the staff members. While most of the letter is pretty standard, the intro paragraph is fantastic. It adds a level of personalization and reality that only Jono’s personality could deliver.

As a longtime vegetarian, I figured the last thing I’d ever Bzz about was a burger. But when I heard we’d be spreading the word for the new Chili’s Smokehouse Bacon Burger, my heart skipped a beat. Like most of the other vegetarians at Central Hive, bacon is the meat we miss the most.

Adds reality to this campaign, and further builds the relationship between BzzAgents and the face of the company, Jono. Nice work. Remember, great communication drives great community collaboration.

I love great email!

I recently signed up to check out Adroll, but haven’t had a chance to plug it into this blog. Too busy.

Today I got an email from Adroll and immediately rolled my eyes and thought “back off!” But for some reason I didn’t hit the delete button and instead decided to read it. I was treated to a brilliant piece of community building:

Hey Jake,

This is John from Adroll Community Development. I’ve been conducting an audit of all the publishers currently signed up with us and I noticed that you have yet to place any live ad code on your site, so I wanted to check in with you and make sure everything is running smoothly. It’s perfectly fine with us if you just haven’t gotten around to it yet, but if you’re having any problems getting the code to work we would like to know. If you have any questions about how to best implement Adroll into your site please let me know and we’ll do whatever we can to get you set up.

Thanks,
John Lem
–
John Lem
Adroll.com Community Development Team

http://www.adroll.com

Personal, clear about the purpose of the mail, understanding of my potential issues. Nice work!