Author Archive
Andy’s Answers: How can I overcome the chocolate problem?
Chocolate is delicious, we all love it. But when was the last time you ate some and immediately told your friends about it? It’s generally a fantastic product, but it rarely inspires us to rush out and tell the world about it. Everyone knows chocolate is great.
The chocolate problem is a frustrating curse that [...]
Andy’s Answers: How TurboTax is taking word of mouth online via social media
TurboTax is a brand built on the principles of word of mouth. For 25 years, TurboTax (and parent brand, Intuit) has focused on building relationships with its customers — even doing “follow me home” research to get 1-to-1 feedback on how customers actually do their taxes.
At our last BlogWell in San Diego, TurboTax’s Christine Morrison [...]
Andy’s Answers: What makes communities work?
I love hearing stories of brands that have built successful, vibrant communities that — while thrilled they’re successful — still aren’t sure why exactly they work so well. Community members aren’t paid, they aren’t being showered with gifts and incentives, and there’s a million other places they could be spending [...]
Andy’s Answers: How the U.S. Navy manages their social-media program
With more than 300,000 personnel operating nearly 300 ships and more than 3,500 aircraft, the U.S. Navy is a massive organization. The fact that they can quickly and effectively communicate anything — in any form — to all of these individuals is amazing, which makes their social-media program all the more impressive.
In his BlogWell San Diego [...]
Andy’s Answers: How do I stay in touch with my fans?
You can’t have long-term word of mouth without an ability to regularly communicate with your fans. It’s how you tell them about new stuff you’re working on, it’s how you get their ideas on what you could do better and it’s how you build on the relationships you’ve already established [...]
Andy’s Answers: How can Starbucks build meaningful relationships with their millions of fans?
Starbucks has more Facebook fans than anyone in the world — more than 8 million worldwide. It’s a huge honor for the brand, but it also creates a significant “now what?” challenge.
The company says its goal is to establish meaningful relationships with fans in these communities, and they’re doing it in lots of ways, using lots [...]
Andy’s Answers: How can I sell my social media policy internally?
In some corporate cultures, creating a social media policy is only half the battle — selling it internally is a significant challenge, too. While new FTC policies have helped management realize the importance of having something in place, some brands are still finding roadblocks that are slowing down policy implementation.
How [...]
Andy’s Answers: How can I encourage my fans to take action?
Having an army of fans is a fantastic word-of-mouth asset — but that’s only half the job. The other part is getting them to take action — this is where the power of word of mouth really starts to make itself apparent.
While most fans would love to help you, they might [...]


