Recorded on Monday, March 16, 2009; running time: 11:34
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I'm an unabashed fan of JetBlue Airways -- and it isn't because I get my own TV monitor every time I fly with them (OK, that helps).
Actually, it was JetBlue's irreverent, tongue-in-cheek approach that first won me over (a good match for my sense of humor), and the experience has continued through with my customer-service requests, interactions with the flight crew, and exchanges with @JetBlue on Twitter.
Morgan Johnston is the main man behind that @JetBlue account, and in this audio conversation recorded at the 2009 SXSW Conference, he explains how companies can have meaningful interactions with customers in 140-character chunks.
SHOW NOTES
* Morgan shares the biggest lessons he and JetBlue have learned over nearly two years of maintaining a corporate account on Twitter.
* Morgan talks about how JetBlue has worked to communicate with customers authentically through social media.
* Morgan offers two pieces of advice to brands that struggle to find their human, conversational voice online: 1. Know what your brand's personality is. 2. Reach out to your customers and find out what they expect from the brand.
* Morgan explains why Twitter may not be the best channel for addressing in-depth customer service questions.
* Morgan discusses the importance of engaging with customers in the social channels where they already spend their time.
One reason why? Businesses don't taken the time to craft a strategy around their blogging efforts.
In this audio conversation from the 2009 SXSW Conference, Matt Ceniceros, senior communications specialist at FedEx, explains the folly of that directionless approach to blogging, arguing that organizations must "define [their] success" before launching a social media initiative.
SHOW NOTES
* Matt talks about FedEx's efforts in adding new-media elements to the online newsroom and explains how the project paved the way for the the FedEx Citizenship Blog.
* Matt discusses the importance of "small wins" when trying to secure executive buy-in for the implementation of social media.
* Matt addresses the general lack of trust in corporate blogs; he contends that each brand must define its own success with blogging.
* Matt explains how the FedEx Citizenship Blog, with some 120 employee bloggers, reflects the company's mission and corporate culture.
* Matt shares the story of how a suggestion on the corporate blog ultimately lead to FedEx Office Free Resume Printing Day, held on March 10, 2009.
Recorded on Saturday, March 14, 2009; running time: 13:59
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In the days leading up to this year's SXSW Conference, New Marketing Labs vice president Colin Browning (pictured above) led a group of four intrepid travelers on an Innovators' Road Trip through America's heartland.
Starting in Detroit and finishing in Austin, Colin Jeff Cutler, John Johansen, and Jim Storer explored and shared stories of innovation in American business. (Disclosure: LiveWorld bought the group lunch on the final day of their journey.)
In this audio conversation, Colin and John recap their trip and discuss the value of content marketing for brands.
SHOW NOTES
* Colin recounts the first discussions of a road trip one year earlier and explains how the event ultimately came to fruition.
* Colin discusses the qualities of innovation that surfaced in their conversations with businesses during the trip.
* Colin and John share their philosophy on good content marketing, including the power or storytelling.
* Colin explains the value for brand sponsors on projects such as IRoadTrip.
I may be the loudest LiveWorlder yapping on Twitter (1,200 posts - gulp! - as I publish this post), but I'm far from the only one.
In addition to our main LiveWorld account (@LiveWorld), some 27 staffers have individual Tweetin' accounts, where we chime in on not only community and social media discussions, but also on topics and issues that matter to us personally.
Check out our LiveWorld on Twitter directory page to see each of our names, positions in the company, and latest tweets. And if you want to connect with any or all of us on Twitter, just follow!
Twitter is evolving into a powerful search engine.
My friend Mitch Joel even muses today that Twitter is "going after Google," and I have a story of my own today that illustrates why he just might be onto something.
I snapped this photo yesterday while visiting the Lakewood Church in Houston. Lakewood is the largest church in North America, welcoming more than 40,000 visitors and members through its doors each week. It also broadcasts a portion of its service across the US and to dozens of countries around the world every Sunday.
But for as big and well known as Lakewood may be, neither its content-rich website nor Google were much help for me this morning, when I was trying to remember the name of the singers on stage in the picture above.
... to a blog post from a Lakewood member who had recorded the live stream of the service and had posted the performance of the very song I'd found so uplifting! (The names of the vocalists, if you're wondering, were Aaron Rodriguez and Seth Perez.)
Twitter is sitting on a gold mine of tweets that contain the stories, opinions, random/idol thoughts, and passions of millions of people around the world. I think we're only beginning to scratch the surface of how this rich data can be tapped into through search.
Brands looking to embrace the content produced by their supporters should consider the example of The Kindle Chronicles, a weekly podcast "all about the Kindle" hosted and produced by Denver resident Len Edgerly.
Len is friend that I first met in my former hometown of Boston a couple of years ago (Len spends a few months of the year in Beantown), and he's the epitome of an early adopter. Not surprisingly, Len got his hands on a Kindle not long after the product was first launched by Amazon in late 2007; he's been an unabashed advocate ever since.
In a wide-ranging video conversation I had with Len earlier today, we discuss how the Kindle has changed the way he consumes the news and how he's building a community around his Kindle Chronicles podcast.
(Technical note: The audio and video are slightly out of sync; I'm still learning on the video-production side!)
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