Umang Shah has a unique position as the social media leader at Wal-Mart. His job is not to push marketing or earn new customers — he’s responsible for protecting and managing Wal-Mart’s reputation.
Shah says even though Wal-Mart is the biggest company in the world, not everyone knows about the company’s work in disaster relief, hunger relief and sustainability efforts. His job is to get that message out there. So how does he do it? With data.
Here are some key points from his presentation on SocialMedia.org‘s BlogWell conference in New York:
- Data is better than your gut: Shah’s team posts content for each of Wal-Mart’s initiatives on multiple Twitter handles. At the end of each day, the posts that performed the best with retweets and engagement are automatically reposted onto their most visible Twitter handle — not just the posts they think will perform the best.
- Your best influencers might not be the biggest online influencers: Wal-Mart uses data to identify the top 50 influencers on its content’s subject, not just the person with the most Twitter followers.
Social advertising is the hottest topic in advertising right now. Salesforce estimates that by 2017, the global market for social ads will be worth about $11 billion. That’s some serious advertising cash.
This means it’s time for brands, big and little, to develop a strategy to capitalize on the power of social advertising. The customers are there; people are spending lots of time on social media, particularly on mobile devices — 30% of the time spent on social media is on mobile, and that figure is likely to continue to grow.
Brands have the learn how to optimize ad content to deliver an effective message and call-to-action to their audiences. This sector of advertising is not as aggressive as TV; it actually fits in with the way people absorb content on social networks. Facebook and Twitter have expanded their advertising options to suit a variety of budgets and business goals. (read more…)
In the past decade, the rise of online communities, forums and social networks has fundamentally changed our travel habits. A decade ago, a lot of my trips started with a visit to the AAA office and the library to collect AAA Trip Tiks, guidebooks, maps and other destination information. Fast forward to today, and our travel plans usually start with an Internet search.
In December, as my family discussed destinations that involved a beach or an amusement park, my first-grader quipped that he wanted to go to see Santa Elena Canyon. There was a moment of silence as the rest of the family looked blankly at each other, wondering where this place was. A Google search returned the result that Santa Elena Canyon was in Big Bend National Park in Texas. A tweet to my followers connected me with Beth Nobles, executive director at Texas Mountain Trail, a nonprofit organization that promotes visitors to the six westernmost counties of Texas — an area as big as West Virginia. (read more…)
During his keynote speech Wednesday at The Cable Show, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan praised efforts to increase the use of technology and online tools in the classroom, and he called on the cable industry to expand access to educational content and broadband service.
He also made a “personal plea” for cable to lead the way in the effort to keep students safe, “both online, and in their streets and neighborhoods.”
Three floors below, on the show’s exhibit floor, Esri and uKnow.com were showcasing technology that would do just that.
Esri has partnered with the parental-intelligence provider uKnow.com on uKnowLocate, a service that combines social-network data and smartphone GPS data to allow parents to keep track of their children’s location. It also offers a host of features, including geofencing, mobile alerts and scheduled check-ins. UKnowLocate, set to be officially announced Monday, will be integrated into the consumer-facing uKnowKids product, as well as in uKnow.com’s white-label systems. (read more…)
Wendy Arnott, vice president of social media at TD Bank Group, admits that it sounds strange to call a bank a social business. After all, she says some people have pretty unflattering perceptions of banks, from the stereotypical movie villain to just plain bureaucratic. But at TD Bank Group, the company found a way social media could help it show what its business is really all about: helping people.
In her presentation at SocialMedia.org‘s BlogWell conference in New York, Arnott explains how even in a regulated industry the company has enabled 85,000 employees to share their expertise with one another and improve customer service through social media.
Here are some key points from her presentation.
- Get your social program off the ground with the right leadership: Arnott warns that leaders and their priorities may change, but it’s important to keep educating and sharing your successes. She says leaders always care about what their customers are saying about the company — and relay those testimonials and anecdotes so they can brag about them in meetings.
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