Community Management is something I think few brands do really well. It’s a hard thing to pull off, not only because brand culture needs to be on board with having a conversation with its community instead of blasting crap messages out constantly, but also because of the strategy development and tactical execution involved. It’s hard enough for brands to get marketing right with the tools we’ve always had, let alone blending the old and new.

A big part of my job at Mall of America is managing and developing its online community. Listening to what people say about the Mall of America brand, interacting with our community and continuing to build it by having meaningful conversations. This tactic of our work fits within the guest experience and innovative marketing programs piece of our social media strategy.

Working in this space is interesting (for so many reasons), in that rarely do I (as a consumer) experience the level of digital outreach we provide our guests at MOA (and I’m not insinuating we’re perfect at this either). I’ve just had such an experience at InterContinental Hotel Times Square in New York City that I believe many brands could learn something from. 

When I booked travel for my New York trip (I attended and spoke at Blogworld & New Media Expo NYC 2011 last week), there was no particular reason for my choosing InterContinental TS, other than proximity to the conference center. Their website was pleasant and booking was a breeze. Upon arrival, I had a very positive first impression. The hotel is new, beautiful and located a few blocks from Times Square. The staff is very friendly and welcoming. When I got to my room, I was delighted by its modern, yet homey feel, the amazing bathroom, quality of the iron (I need a good iron) and amenities, not to mention my stellar view.

Being a Foursquare user and someone who likes to share where I go, what I do and experience (basically everything), I opened my Foursquare app, checked in and uploaded a picture of my view.

Moments later I received this tweet from @IC_TimesSquare:

They’re listening… and engaging… saying hey and utilizing new media (conversation) tools as a way to extend their brand promise. I dug this. Even though I spend a bulk of my time making sure people who mention Mall of America in their tweets and/or speak directly to us are acknowledged in whatever way necessary, it really blows my mind and gets my attention when brands do that for me. I appreciate it because I hang out on Twitter, therefore I enjoy it when I am followed up with or essentially, marketed to there.

Our conversation continued:

I left the hotel to grab dinner with coworkers, returning to find an envelope under the door. I thought it may be a receipt, as my stay was prepaid. NOPE! It was a lovely hand written note from Victoria, the InterContinental Times Square’s community manager on duty. It read:

Lisa,

Thanks so much for tweeting with us and we hope you enjoy your stay! Please let us know if there’s anything we can assist you with.

Best,

Victoria

It also included a ‘drink on us’ ticket for the fantastic hotel lounge.

What’s the ROI of this?
I can’t possibly leave this post without validating why an activity like this yields. Here’s my perceived ROI of my experience at IC_TimesSquare:

• Branding – @IC_TimesSqare‘s digital activities are an extension of their on-site guest experience. I can’t stress the importance of this. It is one of the biggest struggles when it comes to integrating new tools into an already existing strategy. The ROI – I’ve told at least 10 people and am writing positive media about them here.
• Loyalty – Provided superior guest service, making my stay a positive one, ensuring that I’ll pursue them before any other hotel in New York next time I travel. When I make travel arrangements elsewhere, I will be more inclined to search out an InterContinental.
• Revenue – At least $60 spent in @IC_TimesSquare lounge. Two of the most awesome dudes I know, Dave Fleet and Chuck Hemann, met me for drinks.

How do you do this too?
This impressive experience made me curious (of course), so I sought Victoria to ask about how Intercontinental manages social strategy. This was her answer:

“Currently the set-up for InterContinental hotels is that each property is set to look after themselves – with cross promotion and educational opportunities offered from the corporate level. At this property specifically, I work on-site with a team off site to help feed relevant and interesting content as well as making sure there is a constant conversation happening with our customers.”

I liked her answer. While short, it covers a lot of ground and also remains consistent to the experience they’re providing. They’re offering autonomy to employees, while also providing framework at the corporate level.

So… make sure you know what your key messages and marketing communications strategy are, develop social strategy (which really is a human approach to your marketing – that’s all) around existing marketing communications strategy, and the tools will follow. Easier said than done, of course. If you’re looking specifically for listening tools, etc. Google it. Many have written on the topic, or I’m happy to provide recommendations in comments.

Big thanks to InterContinental Times Square for providing me this experience. Made my trip to New York that much better!

This post is a co-authored (mainly authored) by the fantastic Chuck Hemann, VP of Digital Stragegy for Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence . He blogs at Analytics is King.

In the critically acclaimed part one of our series (OK, maybe that’s a little over the top), Lisa Grimm and I discussed disclosure in social media from the brand perspective. We offered up some ideas for you on how to maintain a strong relationship, while also getting to share the good stuff that everyone worked hard to create. As Justin Goldsborough pointed out in the comments to the first post, disclosure need not be hard.

However, from the agency point of view it tends to be made more complicated than it needs to be. Quite often we disclose parts of the campaign/project that we shouldn’t, or we don’t disclose at all with varying shades of gray in between. We’re passionate about the work we’ve created, and that passion often leads to overly ambitious “sharing.” These two posts aren’t meant to reign in the sharing of good work. Quite the contrary. We’re just trying to ensure that you don’t end up having to field angry phone calls from “the boss.”

So if you are going to share information online about client campaigns what are some things you should know from the agency side?

• Don’t share any inside baseball – This should be a no-brainer. If you do share the final output of a client program, do not share any details about how you got there. First of all, the only people who would care about the very intimate details of a program are your competitors and you don’t want that getting in their hands. Secondly, sharing that kind of detail will only end up making the client look bad.

• Discuss “sharing” with the client before posting – Again, this should be very common practice but it is something we deal with consistently, especially in larger agencies. Before you post anything, anywhere, just run the contents of your post by your client. If they give you the go-ahead, then you should feel good about posting it.

• If you are posting, please use (client) or #client. If the client has approved your sharing of the program, you should include some form of disclosure mark. You owe it to everyone who could come across that content to disclosure your connection to the brand. This isn’t done often enough. If you don’t feel comfortable including the disclosure mark, don’t disclose at all.

• Don’t ride on your client’s coattails. To reiterate ‘lessons’ from part one, if you haven’t worked with a client in a long time and have nothing to do with the work they’ve produced, you don’t need to designate your conversation with #client. I think this is where things get sticky, but where we all have the ability to be human here,

• Consider including the client in your post. If you are writing a blog post about the program on your personal or agency blog, consider including your client as a co-author. You’d be surprised how much they like talking about their work too! This is another opportunity to grow the brand/client relationship, uncover other client needs and potentially gain more business.

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it’s a nice start. What say you about this perspective?

In the spirit of talking about things other people don’t talk about openly, but at times desperately want to or should, I’d like to share a little something about an exercise my husband and I are doing to be better communicators and build a stronger marriage, specifically as it pertains to MONEY.

My hubs and I, a.k.a. Chad, have been married for a little more than one year and have been together for almost seven (wow). We communicate beautifully in most areas, but like many couples out there money is not our simplest issue to explore. We have different experiences with money (as everyone does). These experiences helped to develop our value systems and behavior patterns with money, which inevitably are also different. Sound familiar? Well, it’s usually the reality of most couples and people out there in some regard.

We’ve had our fair share of money arguments along the way, but managed to come to a decent understanding before we were married. We knew we had further work to do, but hadn’t found the magic potion on our own just yet. We interviewed other couples, our parents, chatted about it during premarital couples counseling and talked about possible money management methods and systems in private at home. Despite all of these efforts, the doing something piece, the taking ACTION piece wasn’t falling into place.

So… for Christmas we decided the best gift to give each other was a money class we’d both heard amazing things about over the years called ‘Couples and Money,’ taught by nationally known financial educator, expert and author Ruth Hayden.

We went to our first of five classes last Monday and I gotta say I’m really looking forward to the next four.  The following are my takeaways so far:

• One of the first things mentioned in class was: It is socially and politically incorrect to talk about money. In our culture. In our relationships. And consequently in our families. Well, no wonder money is hard to discuss!!! It’s kind of a no brainer and really a huge relief when you think about it this way. Our societal and cultural framework doesn’t have the ‘let’s talk about money like sane, rational and open adults’ built into it in a healthy way. In essence, it’s embedded as a natural dysfunction in our cultural and relational fabric.

• The purpose of this class is to make us a better management team; It’s about learning and being in partnership with money. It was explained that there are two parts to money: Counting and Managing. Counting is ability to know how much you make, how much you need, budgeting, etc. The management piece includes how you make it work, how you make decisions, how you and money coexist, etc. (after you’ve counted the money). Many couples think that if they count it and the numbers ad up that that’s most of the battle. There is much more.

• Class is about DIALOGUE and INTROSPECTION. I find personal reflection to be one of life’s most important, and often most difficult things. I’m a big advocate for Emotional Intelligence and its importance in the bigger picture. It is my experience that when I take inventory of my stuff, my interactions with the rest of the world are far simpler. This class is no different. This class will challenge both of us to take a hard look at our part in how we view and interact with money — and then we will come together to discuss it. When thought about in this way it makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? I know that in past discussions about money I walk in thinking I’m right, which sets the discussion up to fail because I haven’t really dug deeper. I hope that makes sense.

• People don’t change unless they have to. Then they change just enough to get out of crisis. Love this because of the truth in it. Won’t get into it too much, but obviously the goal of this class is to change the necessary behaviors around money so we can be in better partnership with it and our mates.

I look forward to sharing more about what we learn and how it helps us navigate through developing better communication and a  strong financial partnership for a successful future! As always, I love to hear your experience or thoughts if applicable:-).