Brand Management Archives | Reverbal Communications

Brand Management, Politics, Social Media

3 Lessons on Leaning Into Your Values From Ben And Jerry’s

Ben & Jerry’s proudly displays their core values, which guide all of their work on digital and in general.

Ben & Jerry’s is the top-selling ice cream brand in the US and has a massive fan base of ice cream lovers all over the world.

But they don’t just make ice cream. They also speak their values. Loudly and proudly. In fact, they’re one of America’s most outspoken brands.

Often when we think of people making a stand on important issues, we think of activists, advocates and politicians… not big businesses. But time and time again, Ben & Jerry’s have shown that businesses can – and should – be a part of the most important conversations shaping our lives.

Not only have they shown that living your values is important, but they have also laid out a roadmap for other businesses looking to join them in doing so – especially in regards to their very popular and very outspoken social media program.

So let’s take a moment to explore some of Ben & Jerry’s top-performing posts across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and dissect just what makes their social media content so powerful.

First off, if you didn’t already know, Ben & Jerry’s is a company that is seriously committed to progressive values.

Human rights, social and economic justice, as well as protecting the environment make up the core tenets of their values. And these stances frame all of their work from the ice cream they make to the tweets they share. You can learn more about their values here.

So what can we learn from this iconic brand that never accepts silence in the face of injustice? A lot!

Lesson 1: Your Values Should Drive Your Entire Business – Not Just Your digital Content

That’s the primary lesson to take from Ben & Jerry’s. If your values don’t touch every aspect of your business, then they won’t seem authentic when you throw a social post into the world in honor of some holiday or news event.

Ben & Jerry’s constantly seeks out opportunities to support causes and they take big risks to fight for what they think is right.

Take this post about a new ice cream flavor for example. It’s their fourth most popular Facebook post of the past year and it highlights their commitment to fighting for racial justice and equity.

Ben and Jerry’s live their values in everything their business does.

Not only did Ben & Jerry’s take the opportunity to voice support for an important cause, but they also put their money where their mouth is. By partnering with Colin Kaepernick, and committing to giving all of proceeds to his organization, Know Your Rights Camp, Ben & Jerry’s shows that they are a company that doesn’t just talk the talk on Twitter, but one that truly lives its values.

While you and your organization may not be able to partner with Colin Kaepernick, your brand can still find ways to live your values.

Start by naming them. What do you believe in and why do those beliefs matter.

Once you’ve named them, share them with your employees, talk about them with community members. And of course show them in your content.

Sometimes we have to take risks to do what is right. If you’re going to choose to voice your values, you’re also going to have to stand by them when they’re tested.

That’s exactly what Ben & Jerry’s did this past summer during heightened tensions in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict when they ended their franchise agreements with stores in “occupied Palestinian territory.”

Sticking to your values isn’t always easy, but it is always worth it.

While plenty of very vocal people and organizations disagreed with this move from Ben & Jerry’s, the company stood true to its core value of advocating for human rights and dignity, above all else.

It’s not always easy to do what we believe is right. But the fact is, when you do, people notice. Your employees know when you do – and even more so when you don’t! – stay true to your word. Your followers do too – just check out the comments of that Instagram post.

And since 70% of consumers want to know what brands are doing to address social and environmental issues – social media is a great place to live your values!

Lesson 2: Meet Your Customers Where They Are By Being Part of the Conversation

Another aspect of Ben & Jerry’s social media content that makes it so powerful is that the brand speaks to consumers at the moments when it counts the most.

When you know your values, you always know what to say.

As the country, and many of us here in Wisconsin, were grappling with the outcome of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, Ben & Jerry’s came out with a statement showing the hypocrisy of the criminal justice system.

Being a part of the conversation while it’s happening can be difficult – unless you, your staff, and your audience already know what your values are. Then, it’s not nearly as hard.

By having clear core values, Ben & Jerry’s was able to respond to this event as it was happening in a way that made their stance clear and that also contributed to the online conversation happening around the trial.

Don’t just share your values, share your reasoning behind them like Ben & Jerry’s did here.

Ben and Jerry’s is also good at telling you why they feel a certain way about a timely issue. They provide transparent explanations and press releases that can take complicated issues and make their stance on them clear cut.

Some followers are going to disagree with you. But by making your values clear, and backing them up with the thought process behind them, you will show that you’re a business that’s thinking about these issues critically and applying your values to them.

By creating content that sparks or contributes to a conversation, while also explaining your position, you can encourage followers to interact with your business on social media while also building the trust of your most loyal customers, who likely feel the same way you do.

Lesson 3: You Don’t Have to Fight Every Battle, And You Don’t Have to Fight Anything Alone

While Ben & Jerry’s certainly doesn’t shy away from taking tough stances and big risks, they also don’t fight every battle.

When you know who you are and what you value, it’s easier to know what to say and when to say it. And your followers will better understand what to expect from you.

Ben and Jerry’s is passionate about social justice. On 4/20, they could have easily just posted a joke about Half Baked or ice cream being the perfect cure for the munchies!. But this are no ordinary ice cream brand.

Instead they posted about racial disparities in arrest rates for marijuana and the importance of passing the MORE act.

Ben and Jerry's encourages Congress to pass the MORE act on Twitter.

They’re not out there taking on big tech or tweeting at particular politicians. But they are displaying their values in ways that make sense by informing their audience and urging them to action.

This is something that any business can do. By talking about issues that make sense for the values your brand represents, you can build a loyal and dedicated following. You might not get every sale, but your values have a way of breaking through even the most crowded media environment.

There are also plenty of ways to make your values relevant to your business, besides just talking about them on social media.

Partnerships with organizations or folks in your community can be a great way to share your values.

Partnerships can also be a powerful way to do so. In this example, Ben & Jerry’s partnered with an activist organization, a Black-owned coffee producer, and a Black artist to advocate for transforming the way we approach public safety.

These kinds of partnerships can be developed for any business.

If you’re a bank that values economic justice, partner with a local organization to help teach folks about financial literacy.

Maybe you’re a clothing brand passionate about supporting animal shelters – that’s awesome. Partner with a local artist to make a T-shirt and donate part of the proceeds to a local shelter.

Efforts like these will make it easier for you and your followers to stand up for what you believe in while also helping to amplify your presence in your community by bringing new people into your audience.

Overall, we can really learn a lot about how to share values on social media from seeing how pros like Ben & Jerry’s do it.

Their willingness to articulate and stick to their values permeates throughout their business, making them an active participant in important conversations, and a powerful ally to partners fighting for the same values.

Your business can do this too… if you want. And when you do so, your employees and your followers will love you all the more.

Looking for ways to further incorporate your values into your digital marketing program?

Let’s Talk!

May 19, 2022/0 Comments/by Josh Klemons

Brand Management, Step Up Your Social

Step Up your social ep. 17 — How Chewy Uses Their Customers’ Darkest Moments To Build Unyielding Brand Loyalty

What do you do at the end of your customer lifecycle? Do you go above and beyond to ensure that the customer who is moving on never forgets just how much they love you?
Chewy is a pet supply company. They know their customers will have to cancel their auto-renewal products… eventually ? ? ?

But Chewy doesn’t just offer canceling clients full refunds. They take their “marketing generosity” to the next level.They don’t just want to get out of the way. They want to be a part of the family.In this episode of Step Up Your Social, we take a look at how Chewy creates unyielding brand loyalty from their customers, even as those customers are canceling their orders.

We then give some thought to how *you* can keep your client lifecycle going, even as it seems like it might be wrapping up for the foreseeable future.

Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

If you’re a pet person, you know how much joy your little furry (or scaly or feathery) friend can bring into your life.

Sure there are chores associated with having a pet: They have to be cleaned, walked, taken to the vet… did I mention the endless cleaning?! But through it all, our days are just better with a pet at our side.

Unfortunately, most pets have shorter life cycles than us pet owners.

You might enjoy your fish for a few months, your bird for years, or your dog or cat for decades. But eventually, that hard day will arrive when you have to say goodbye to them… for good.

So now grab a tissue, wipe your eyes and take off your pet owner hat and replace it with your digital marketer hat.

If you’re in the business of selling products to pet owners, this cycle can create a real challenge for you. When someone loses a pet, your customer cycle for them ends. At least for the time being.

There aren’t TOO many industries where customer service reps have to field questions from the grieving as a regular part of their job.

Selling pet products is DEFINITELY one of them.

So you know that awful day is coming for every one of your customers. What do you do?
If you’re Chewy, you use that awful day to builder deeper and more meaningful relationships with your customers.

Head to Twitter and search @chewy and the word died and you will find countless stories all getting at the same thing – my pet died. I had regular packages getting delivered from Chewy. I called to cancel and not only did they refund my money, they told me to keep the food and donate it to some other pet owner who needed it.

AND NOT ONLY THAT! Loads of people shared stories that they got flowers in the mail from Chewy expressing their condolences. I even saw people posting about Chewy sending them oil paintings of their passed pups!

To quote just one of the many tweets you’ll find when you search: “That’s all class.”
Here’s the thing – you can find these posts all over Twitter. But I first learned about this tactic from a random post in a Facebook Group.

And I can pretty well guarantee you that anytime a first-time pet-owning friend asks someone on the receiving end of Chewy’s — let’s call it “marketing generosity” — where they should buy their pet supplies, they aren’t just going to recommend Chewy — they are going to do so empathically, as if it’s a family company.

Could Chewy simply offer full refunds and call it a day?

Sure.

You might even see tweets letting you know that Chewy customer service makes it easy to cancel orders when your pet departs.

But by going from easy to compassionate, Chewy takes their relationships with their customers to another level.

They don’t just want to get out of the way. They want to be a part of the family.

On a P&L, this might seem bad for business. You are building deep bonds with someone who no longer needs your services.

But pet owners are pet owners through and through. It might be weeks or months before they get back on the horse (or kitty or puppy or chameleon). It might even be years. But they will almost certainly get another pet!

And even if they don’t, they will have friends and family members who do.

Chewy sees these regular order cancellations not as an end of their relationships, but as the start of a whole new one, one deeper and with more intimacy between them and their customer.

And it pays off for them big time – don’t believe me? Just head to Twitter or Google or reddit or Facebook and poke around! The stories are endless.

The takeaway here: wow your customers, even if they’re no longer your customers. Host free classes teaching people how to be better at something related to whatever you sell. If you ship products, make the packaging so fun people can’t help but post a picture of it on Instagram. If you’re a nonprofit and someone sends you a gift, do you send a thank you that let’s them know you appreciate them… or do you send them a letter that knocks their socks off?

The person who bought your product or donated money might never do so again. So what?! They are the people most likely to spread the word about how great you are to their networks.

Make it easy for them to do so and more importantly , give them a reason to want to!
At the end of the day, remember that you can’t just sell pet stuff. You have to be a pet person! I hope you have the same passion for whatever you are selling or advocating for online, as your typical pet owner has for their furry, four-legged friend!

January 27, 2021/0 Comments/by Josh Klemons

Brand Management

Nothing Online is Ever Actually Private: A Cautionary Tale

I LOVE Twitter lists. They are an amazing listening tool, helping to bring order and clarify to the chaos that is the Twittersphere.

You can use them to easily simplify who you are following at any given moment on Twitter. While I follow many accounts, there are times where I ONLY want to know what a few of them are saying. So I have a Twitter list just for them.

I love them so much, the second episode of my podcast, #StepUpYourSocial, was about how, when and why to use them. (You can listen to that episode at stepupyoursocial.com or wherever you stream podcasts).

Whenever I run trainings on Twitter, I always highly recommend that people utilize this amazing tool.

I even include it on my list of free tools you should be using but probably aren’t and recommend that even if your brand isn’t on Twitter, you have an account you can use to build lists and monitor your competitors, customers, influencers, etc. just as a way to keep tabs on your field.

So yeah, I’m a fan.

There are two types of lists: public and private.

Public lists can be followed by anybody and they are visible through your profile. And whenever you add someone to such a list, they get a notification. They are public.

Private lists on the other hand exist only for you. No one will ever know that such a list exists. No one can follow it or even find it unless they are logged in as you. And of course no one knows when you add them to it. They are private.

But here’s the thing — nothing online is ever actually private.

When I build private lists for political campaigns, I also give them overly-guarded innocuous names like “interesting” or “other campaigns.” I would never call them “competition,” “the enemy,” or, as we’ll soon see, “haters.”

Likewise, when I work with businesses or nonprofits on developing their own listening tools or prepping them for crisis management, I always push them to do the same. Don’t call the trolls “trolls.” Call them “interesting accounts,” or “people to follow.”

Why? you might ask. These are private lists. No one will ever know that they exist.

Well, that’s true. Right up until it’s not.

I was (and am) always afraid of hacking. I have run very large Twitter accounts and you never know what’s going to happen. If heaven forbid someone hacked into one of those accounts, it would be awful. Because they could post whatever they wanted.

But there would be nothing incriminating or embarrassing in those accounts for them to find. Because our campaign doesn’t have “enemies” or “haters.” It has “accounts to follow” or “notables.” It would have to be a pretty quiet news day for that story to get written.

Well as it turns out, my caution was extremely valid. Because Vice just reported on a bug that led to people being notified when they were added to… private lists. 😳 😳 😳

The bug was first noticed when a Vice reporter was added to a PRIVATE list called… you guessed it… “haters.”

Who’s fault was this? Twitter’s of course!

Who’s problem is it though (should it happen to you)? Yeah, YOU know.

I always advise that you never put anything in writing you aren’t prepared to see in the paper. But that advice definitely goes beyond writing.

Being in a sketchy Facebook Group — even if it’s a secret Group — can still come out. Having a secondary account you use online to talk about how hot or awesome you are… is stupid. And risky!

And labeling Twitter lists, even private ones, with any name that would embarrass you were it to come out — is just a bad idea.

Be smart out there y’all! The internet is our permanent record.

December 27, 2019/0 Comments/by Josh Klemons

Brand Management, Facebook, Step Up Your Social

Step Up Your Social Ep. 10 — Facebook Wants You To Know What Your Competitors Are Doing… So Does Google

Don’t you wish you had a magic wand you could use to see what your competitors were doing well, so that you could grow your own business accordingly?

Facebook has a free feature, available to all Facebook Brand pages, that might as well be a magic wand. Yet so few brands are taking advantage of this simple, powerful and important feature.

So let’s dig into Facebook’s “Pages To Watch.”

Afterward, we’ll cover some other helpful and free tools you should be using to keep tabs on your competitors across the internet, including mailing lists, other social channels and the almighty Google Alerts.

Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Don’t you wish you had a magic wand you could use to see what your competitors were doing well, so that you could grow your own business accordingly? Facebook has a free feature, available to all Facebook Brand pages, that might as well be a magic wand. Yet so few brands are taking advantage of this simple, powerful and important feature. So let’s dig in to Facebook’s “Pages To Watch.” Afterwards, we’ll cover some other helpful and free tools you should be using to keep tabs on your competitors across the internet. But first up: Pages to Watch.

To access this great feature, go to your brand’s Facebook page. At the top, you will see a menu bar including the following items: Page, Inbox, Notifications and then Insights. Click there. If you haven’t been to your insights yet, you are missing out on a ton of valuable information. We’ll do some more deep dives into Facebook Insights down the road. But for now, let’s just stick to this particular tool.

Once you’ve clicked Insights, you’ll be on the “overview” page. Scroll down to the bottom and you should see a section called “pages to watch.”

If you have never been there before, chances are Facebook has auto-populated the section with pages they think you might want to watch. If they guessed right, great. If not, simply hover over the number on the left and you can delete it from your list.

To add new pages, click the option to “add pages.”

Once you have your pages set up, you’ll see some very basic data: the name of the page, it’s total page Likes, the percent it grew from last week, how many times they posted this week and what their engagement this week has been. None of those data points are all that useful. BUT, if you click on the name of any of the pages, something interesting happens.

Facebook opens up a pop-up box and shows you that page’s top content from the past week. Top content in this case means that it had the highest combination of reach and engagement of anything that page posted this past week. And you can scroll down and see all of their content from the week, ordered by how popular it was for their audience.

Quite a feature, right?!

Bear in mind, when you follow a page, they have no way of knowing you are doing so. So if you want to know what is working for your competitors, without having to continuously go back to their page and scroll through their feed, you can just pop on over here every couple of days and easily keep tabs on them.

If you see that several of your competitors are sharing an article or a meme and it is resonating with their audiences… well don’t steal their content. But definitely do be inspired by it!

The content that is working for your competitors will probably also work for you. Follow along, learn, and create your own content accordingly.

And here’s the thing, while of course you should be watching your competitors, don’t limit yourself to them. Follow influencers in your field, relevant journalists or publications, even high value customers if you they are using brand pages.

Figure out who’s success you most want to track, and then spend a few minutes setting up your Facebook Pages to Watch. It will be an amazing tool you can use indefinitely moving forward.

While we’re on the topic of tracking your competitors, influencers, high-value customers and the like, let’s cover a few ways to do so outside of Facebook.

First of all, if the people you want to follow have public mailing lists, sign up! There’s no better way to know what they are excited about, then to see what they are sharing with the people they care about most. It probably goes without saying, but you might not want to use your company or organization’s branded email to sign up for a competitor’s email list. So use your gmail address, or create something new specifically for this purpose. While it might seem weird to be on their list, don’t forget, unless they are limiting sign-up (and this is important: don’t lie in any way to get on their list!) they know that their list is public. And chances are, if you have an email, they’re on it! As far as influencers and relevant journalists go, you can use your branded email or not. Your call.

In episode two of this podcast, we covered the power and the importance of twitter lists. Twitter lists are a great way to follow relevant accounts. And you can use private lists to do so under-the-radar, even if your brand isn’t using Twitter as an outreach and communications tool. Go back and listen to that episode for more.

There are also plenty of third party tools out there that will track keyword mentions and send you alerts when those keywords pop up online. Some are free, most are not. But one powerful one that is free is google alerts. If you haven’t set up google alerts yet, you should do so immediately.

To do so go to google.com/alerts. Once there you can put in some relevant keywords and let google know that you want to receive email alerts whenever those words are used online. It’s important to know that google alerts don’t track content from social media platforms, so don’t expect to see Facebook or Twitter mentions on there.

But if someone mentions you or your brand in a blog post, or on their website, Google will usually catch it and send you an alert.

And here’s the thing, you can select if you want google to send you an alert as a mention happens, or to instead send you a daily or weekly digest of all mentions. For your brand, you should get those alerts as they happen. Unless people are talking about your brand numerous times a day, you want to know you’ve been mentioned as soon as possible. But if you also want to use them to track competitors, industry keywords, influencers and the like, you might not need them rolling in as they happen and you can opt to receive those alerts as part of a daily or even weekly round-up. The choice is yours.

One other cool thing you can do with google alerts is set them up for high value clients so that if that client gets an award or someone writes a story about them, you can be amongst the first to reach out and congratulate them. Alternately, you can let them know if you find something problematic that they might want to deal with

The tools are out there for you to keep tabs on the internet. The set up is relatively simple and the rewards can be immense.

So I’ll finish this episode with the same question I started it with: Don’t you wish you had a magic wand you could use to see what your competitors were doing well? Turns out, you do! You just have to take a moment and set it up.

April 19, 2019/0 Comments/by Josh Klemons

Audience Outreach, Brand Management, Facebook, Step Up Your Social

Step Up Your Social Ep. 6 — Stop Inviting Everyone You Know To Like Your Facebook Page

You start a new Facebook brand page. It’s only natural to invite everyone you know to like the page.

The problem is, you’re actually hurting your page’s future growth when you invite people who like you — but don’t care about your brand — to like your Facebook brand page.

In this episode:
• We dive into the Facebook algorithm
• Talk about the difference between “good” and “bad” likes
• Cover helpful tips to grow your page with the right audience
• The importance of using a brand page for your page (as opposed to a personal account)
• And a whole lot more

Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

February 5, 2019/0 Comments/by Josh Klemons

Brand Management, Social Media, Step Up Your Social

Step Up Your Social Ep. 5 — Are You Displaying Your Handles Everywhere?

Step Up Your Social Ep. 5

Are you leaving low hanging fruit on the table? Are you missing opportunities to encourage your current customers, fans or audience to start conversations with you online, thus promoting your brand to their own networks in the process?

In this episode, we cover two inter-related topics: the importance of displaying your handles *everywhere* your audience is and the vital role that engagement plays in creating and managing a beneficial social media program.

Never forget — social media is not a tool to speak TO the people. It’s a tool to speak WITH the people. The goal is to have conversations and to build relationships.

Find other episodes of Step Up Your Social here.

Full Episode Transcript

Today we’re going to cover 2 inter-related topics: 1) the importance of displaying your handleseverywhereyou audience is. And 2) the vital role that engagement plays in creating and managing a beneficial social media program.

So let’s jump right in.

There’s a restaurant in Madison where, after you order, they hand you a number to place on your table so they can bring you your food. Pretty standard operating procedure for a lot of restaurants. BUT on the back of the number they hand you, they’ve printed their social handles. It’s amazing too me how few restaurants take advantage of such precious real estate.

Do you think that diners are going to be more or less likely to post about a restaurant when the restaurant’s handles are right there in their face, as they are captive audiences, waiting for their food.

You don’t need to be a restaurant to learn from this simple social hack. Are there opportunities your brand is missing to turn your offline customers or audience into online fans?

If you’re in a band, invite your fans to connect you on social. No one is going to care more about what you post on Monday morning than the person who came out to see you on Saturday night.

If you run a brick and mortar store, display your handles near the door, near the cash register and on any other spaces you think will speak to your customers.

I’m blown away when I see packaging from big companies that doesn’t mention the company’s social handles.

There’s no one you more want to connect with online than the folks you are already connecting with you offline. They are your base. Your foundation. Your community. Putting your handles everywhere you are already connecting with them helps to move that community to connect with you online as well as off. And when they do so, you have helped facilitate your big fans — your current customers — to easily tell their own networks about you, and how much they love you, in the process.

If you hand out paperwork, send out physical products or distribute anything, put your handles on it! If you print t-shirts or bumper stickers or hats, put your handles on them.

If you have a brand hashtag, include that as well.

If people visit your location, whether it’s a brick and mortar store, a restaurant, a non-profit or anything else, display your handles loudly and proudly.
I also recommend putting up a sign encouraging people to “check in” on Facebook. You can offer incentives — a free drink or a bumper sticker for anyone who does so — but to be honest, for a lot of folks, just being asked will be enough encourage to get them to pull out their phones and tell their friends where they are right now. And when they check in, their networks will see those notifications. And the Facebook algorithm will get excited and start pinging away on your behalf.

Never forget — social media is not a tool to speak TO the people. It’s a tool to speak WITH the people. The goal is to have conversations and to build relationships. It’s fine if you are starting the conversations you are having with your community. But it will be waaaay better for you when members of your community are starting the conversations with you instead. Displaying your handles is one of the surest ways available to encourage them to do so. And it costs you nothing.

Caveat: this is true whether or not you display your handles, but ESPECIALLY if you do — you need to be monitoring your social channels and making sure that when folks do tag you, thus starting a conversation, they aren’t then going on to be ignored by you.

You HAVE to speak back. Sometimes a like is all their comment requires. Responses are better though, even if just to say thanks. We’ll do another episode soon on dealing with trolls and difficult questions, but at the least, take advantage of the low hanging fruit right in front of you — the positive comments and the simple questions your audience is asking (do you have a gluten free option? What are your hours?)

If you could monitor your social channels constantly, that would be great! But let’s be realistic, you probably can’t. And that’s okay. Set reminders on your phone or put a post-it note above your desk as a way to remind yourself to check your notifications. At minimum: check them once a day. More is better, but I’d rather you do it once a day consistently than fail trying to do it 3 times a day.

People will be fine with a lag in conversation of a few hours. They’ll likely even forgive a full day passing before getting a response. But any more than that and the window will have closed. You will be trying to converse with someone who has already moved on to the next thing.

Don’t let the low hanging fruit elude you. Post your handles anywhere your community is. And when they talk to you, talk back! A like or a quick thank you costs you nothing and they go a long way towards letting the people that matter to your brand know that you aren’t trying to talk at them, rather you see them as an integral part of your community.

And really, what could be more social than that?!

January 23, 2019/0 Comments/by Josh Klemons

Brand Management, Politics, Social Media

Social Media Loves Babies and Puppies… But Hates Hypocrisy

If you have tuned out this news completely for Memorial Day weekend, congratulations!

If not, the biggest story in your varied timelines is probably about how the US is systematically removing children from their parents, many of whom came here seeking asylum (and all of whom came seeking a better life).

The parents are being given no information as to where their children are being taken or when — if ever — they will get to see them again. To make matters worse, we are now learning that the US has lost children (thousands of them 😞😱😡) that are supposed to be in the system, and that many of these children are getting sold to human traffickers.

This morning, Ivanka Trump tweeted a picture. The caption: “My ❤️! #SundayMorning”

While ordinarily, a picture like this would have gotten the Likes and the RTs rolling in, it could not have been more tone deaf to the world around it.

Ivanka is not just President Trump’s daughter, she is also a senior member of his administration.

A tweet does not live in a vacuum. A digital intern would have looked at this tweet and recommended to Ivanka she not post it, when the story of the weekend is lost children.

But post it she did. And so the Quote Tweets rolled in:

David Roberts — Writer for Vox

Patton Oswalt — Comedian, Actor, Michelle McNamara’s Husband

West Wing Reports

Jess Dweck — TV Writer

As a general rule, pictures and videos of babies and puppies can be engagement gold. But while good content is important, it can’t work without an awareness of context.

In other words: you can ignore the people; but rest assured, they are not going to ignore you.

May 27, 2018/0 Comments/by Josh Klemons

Brand Management, Politics, Twitter

Beware Sharing Articles You Haven’t Read…Especially If You Are the Subject

It’s always best practice to read through an article before sharing it via social media.

Sometimes a headline tells you most of what you need to know, and it’s okay to only skim the article, without reading every word. For example, if your local paper reports that a new baby panda was born at your zoo, you can pretty well trust you got the gist of the takeaway before even clicking on the link. It’s still a good idea to read through it, of course, just to be sure there are no critical takeaways/surprising angles towards the bottom of the page. But you are probably safe making assumptions about what you’ll find in the article.

While reading through articles before you share them with your networks them is important, if the article in question is about you, it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!

Yesterday, the Salt Lake Tribute named Senator Orrin Hatch “Utahn of the Year.” (Yep, apparently someone from Utah is a Utahn — good to know!)

On its face, this is a pretty big honor. A significant paper from the state’s capital city named Hatch their person of the year. I can see why he would be excited to get that out far and wide to his networks.

Unfortunately for him, the article didn’t exactly line up with the headline.

The very first line of the article should have been a clue to even the most casual of readers: “These things are often misunderstood.”

It then lays out what he has done to deserve such a title.
•   Hatch’s part in the dramatic dismantling of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
•   His role as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in passing a major overhaul of the nation’s tax code.
•   His utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power.

While the first two bullet points were clearly intended to be direct hits against Hatch, it is possible that he could wear both criticisms as points of pride. If he thinks it’s good to scale back national monuments and to raise working people’s taxes so that massive corporations can get a tax break, then he might have read the opening lines and been proud of his accomplishments.
But of course the opening line of the article made clear that the Salt Lake Tribune editorial staff is far from impressed with their senior senator.

And even if the intention of the first two bullet points confused him, that last one was pretty damn clear: “His utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power.”

Oof.

The article goes on to call him a liar who has long overstayed his welcome in Utah. It also says that if he doesn’t retire now, the voters should toss him from office in 2018.

Double Oof.

I read the article yesterday and thought — “Damn! This is brutal.”

But of course that’s not the story here. The story here is that while I read the article and found it brutal, Senator Hatch (and/or one of his aides) saw the article as well, but never read past the title before proudly shared the scathing op-ed with his Twitter network this morning.

Oof. Oof. Oof.

Let this be a lesson to you. Read the article you are sharing. ESPECIALLY if you are the subject.

P.S. Do you know what the ratio is (in the context of Twitter)? It’s when you get waaay more responses to a tweet than likes or retweets. It’s typically a sign that people disagree with your message pretty vehemently, as supporters typically like or retweet, and comments tend to be criticisms of the message. Someone might say: dang, look at that ratio! So notice Hatch’s tweet has a 10:1 ratio.

“Dang, look at that ratio!”

December 26, 2017/0 Comments/by Josh Klemons

Brand Management, Social Media

McDonald’s Botches Black Friday; Recovers With Style

Social media moves fast. You need a good strategy, but also countless cute/clever/funny/helpful/interesting pieces of content day in and day out to make it work. If you are doing it regularly, you are going to occasionally make mistakes.

The majority of the time, you will notice your error before anyone else does and you can delete your tweet or edit your post. Sometimes though, the only option is a response.

In preparation for Black Friday, McDonald’s sent the following tweet into the world:

WHOOOOOOOOOPS!

This wasn’t a typo or someone hitting send too fast. This was someone copy and pasting a note from an internal document, throwing it into Twitter or a third party scheduler, and letting it fly.

They didn’t even wait until Black Friday to send it — the tweet went live on Thanksgiving.

Now if you run a small business or manage your band or nonprofit’s social media account, you could simply delete this tweet. If you’re a behemoth like McDonald’s, not so much.

You do have a few options though. You can:

Apologize.
Call the FBI and claim your account has been hacked.
Blame an intern or member of your staff.
Respond with something awesome!

McDonald’s went with option four, tweeting this the following morning:

While the follow up tweet didn’t get nearly as many retweets or likes as the original tweet, it did appease the internet, which is always hungry for a social media scandal.

You need look no further than the responses to see that the follow up fully appeased the Twitterverse. This time.

But user beware: if you or your team require coffee to start the day, then by all means, have it on hand! If you are McDonald’s that really shouldn’t be a problem. 🙄 🙄 🙄

November 27, 2017/0 Comments/by Josh Klemons

Brand Management, Politics, Social Media

Skittles Perfect Response

Yesterday, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted this:

The backlash was quick and it was fierce. A particularly good response (one of thousands) came from Jon Favreau, who used to work for President Obama.

And on the other end of the spectrum, here’s one from @darth:

It’s worth noting that as offensive as Trump Jr.’s tweet was, it wasn’t even an original idea.

When Ben Carson was running for president, he often used a similar analogy to justify his opposition to accepting Syrian refugees, except he substituted Skittles with rabid dogs.

Mike Huckabee, during his run for president, used peanuts. Others have replaced Skittles with M&Ms or grapes.

Former Congressman Joe Walsh—who you might remember as the guy who threatened President Obama in the aftermath of this summer’s shooting in Dallas—was offended by the tweet, but only because he didn’t get an h/t.

Suffice to say, it’s not a new argument.

Now imagine you are Skittles (the brand), and suddenly—inexplicably—you find yourself trending on social media. What’s your response?

Really think about what you would do. A massive, household name is being equated with poison and refugees and xenophobia. Do you attempt to “capitalize” on the situation, ensuring the world that every Skittle in the bowl is good and poison-free? Do you try to be funny, serious, irreverent, angry… On a situation like this one, you could ask a hundred branding experts, and they would all probably have a different idea.

And yet, Skittles managed a perfect response. Here it is in its entirety:

Skittles are candy. Refugees are people. We don’t feel like it’s an appropriate analogy. We will respectfully refrain from further commentary as anything we say could be misinterpreted as marketing.

In 30 words, they clarified that they are offended by the comparison, that they don’t agree with it, and that they would now be shutting the hell up.

In fact, despite the fact that they are a brand with a vibrant social media presence, their Facebook and Twitter accounts have gone completely radio-silent since this controversy erupted yesterday.

Here is the lesson for brands: don’t see every mention of your brand as an opportunity to raise sales or increase market share. You can’t capitalize on tragedy; trying typically raises your profile in ways you don’t want and associates you with a story which you probably don’t want to be a part of.

It’s so easy to see how this could have gone wrong for Skittles. Instead, they came out the heroes in the story. Or, at the very least, not one of the villains.

Epilogue
The bowl of Skittles in the picture that Trump Jr. tweeted was used without attribution. And much richer than that: the photographer was once a refugee himself!

Want to read more great responses to this awful tweet. Here are 21 you are sure to appreciate. Did you see any others in the Twitterverse that aren’t on this list? Tweet them at us or share them in the comments.

September 20, 2016/0 Comments/by Josh Klemons

Nothing Online is Ever Actually Private: A Cautionary Tale

Beware Sharing Articles You Haven’t Read…Especially If You Are the Subject

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