This was sent to me by Debra Askanase – she does non-profit & this blog post is being posted everywhere in that world. However, I think the message of Ije Nwokorie, Senior Strategist, Wolff Olins goes far beyond the non-profit world. It’s a nice reminder that our brand is our intent and not just our image.

Conan O’Brien being interviewed by Google, it’s funny, yes – but it’s also very very interesting. Conan talks about how he sent out a single tweet announcing his upcoming tour on Twitter.

And then didn’t spend a single dollar on traditional advertising – the tour was sold out within hours.

One.

Single.

Tweet.

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of moderating a panel on Interior Design at Jeff Pulver’s 140 Conference.

This gives one of the best explanations on the future of the internet and why semantic web is important.

Hat tip:  eMarketing Strategies

Restoration Hardware (RH) is one of my favorite furniture retailers in the United States. High quality and great design make it worth the cost. I dream of the day when RH furniture fills my home. I used them as my case study for Marketing Strategy back in the day of my Kellogg MBA and today I’m going to review how they are translating their high-end quality message to the internet.

Short History

Back in 2007 Restoration Hardware (RH) was in serious trouble. They had over leveraged (taken on too much debt), assumed that the housing boom would continue – and got caught in the housing slump instead. Unable to continue, they were bought by a private equity firm, Catterton Partners – but were bid on by Sears (which didn’t do anything to help their reputation).

RH had three brands: RH (main), RH Baby & Child (high end baby / kids goods) and Brocade Home (less expensive & aimed at women).[ Brocade Home is no longer owned by Restoration Hardware. I'm keeping the review of BH inside this post because it's interesting to see the difference between the two brands and their use of social media.]

One of the major problems RH had (besides the leverage issue) was a reputation for horrible customer service. For a company that sells mid to high end furniture direct to consumer that is a very bad thing. I remember reading on Apartment Therapy a few years ago complaint after complaint on how badly people would be treated when shopping in RH stores. Bad customer service for a high end store will typically result a loss of sales. People have a choice as to where they will spend their money, and treating them badly is the best way to encourage them to shop elsewhere. RH seems to have been working on this issue – as the complaints I’ve seen online have been significantly less. The complaints on Facebook are answered quickly and thoughtfully.

Goals

There should always be a goal in mind when spending money in an organization.  The goal of a social media strategy where RH is concerned should be three fold:

1. Increase reputation – repair the damage done during the rough years
2. Increase sales – bring people not just into the store to look, but have them understand why it’s worth it to save the money and buy from RH instead of Ikea.
3. Build mind share and loyalty – this is taking care of the future.

Facebook

I’m reviewing Facebook first because FB has become the main way for consumers to interact with the brands they love. Coke has actually stopped creating individual campaign sites and are now focusing their efforts on their FB presence. This just goes to show how important FB is to a brand. To not have a brand Page on FB is a mistake these days.

• Restoration Hardware (Main) has a Facebook Page with over 4,500 fans. Checked during business hours and peoples comments are answered. Posts are interesting. More or less, this is being handled well. However, the side banners are too dark, too small, below the fold (which means that they can’t be seen upon first glance on the page, significantly lowering their effectiveness) and don’t have enough contrast for older readers (who are part of RHs target market). But they offer good things, which are: Store Hours, Catalog and Special Offers. However, I might add a tab where someone can sign up direct as well.
  • I would make the profile picture smaller, move the member list to the absolute bottom and delete the Information section on the side bar. The date when RH was founded isn’t critical information to the customer – and the specialized banners which give a call to action are more important. They need to find their way above the fold.
  • The colors of the banners need to change. Contrast is key. Larger fonts as well. How many RH shoppers wear reading glasses? Why would RH make them work?
  • Past events should be deleted (and below the banners) – telling people what they missed isn’t a great way to welcome them to your brand. How about telling them what they can look forward to instead?
• RH Baby & Child doesn’t have their own branded page. IMHO, they should.
• Brocade Home is no longer part of RH – but I looked them up anyhow for comparison. They have a Profile, not a Page. Which means you have to be approved to “friend” instead of becoming a fan. There’s zero call to action. They post semi-regularly and they have a lot of fans for the amount of action on the wall. This isn’t being utilized to it’s full potential.

Blog

Easiest way to make your site sticky (get people to return) is to give them something new to come back to. Regularly updated content that is interesting and brings value to your customers also builds interest, loyalty and reciprocity. Plus RH has such a natural audience for a blog on home. If they could get some of their designers to pitch in occasionally it could be even better.

Brocade Home has a blog, however it isn’t actually directly connected to their site. It’s located on blogspot. I would recommend changing over to a Wordpress based blog and connecting it to the main site with the same heading as the main site instead of just a similar look and feel.

YouTube

YouTube is the second largest search engine online. Companies can and should use this.

• There are posts of people videoing their new Restoration Hardware goods – why is there no Restoration Hardware channel or RH Baby & Child channel? Videos of how to’s like the video above could be a reference for customer service people who are answering installation and care questions.
  • People could be educated on the proper way of building furniture and why RH’s furniture is so much better than other options on the market.
  • How to decorate using RH paint and furniture as examples – there are so many options for content here. Re-usable long term content that is helpful as a reference to everyone in the long run.
  • Plus all of the TV pieces that have RH featured – free advertising for RH.
• Brocade Home actually has a channel on YouTube – with one video. But that single video has been viewed over 1,700 times since posted 2 years ago. It takes about 10- 20 minutes to upload a video to YouTube – that time got Brocade Home 1,700 views. Imagine if they actually put some effort into this channel.

Twitter

No presence whatsoever. Not even a Gap style of broadcasting events. Granted, better to not be on Twitter than to do it poorly – but ideally there should be a presence here. Interacting with people on Twitter can pull traffic to the site and store.

And More…

There are other social networks I would recommend having a presence on. Flickr, for example – there are loads of RH and Brocade Home (BH) pictures on Flickr but they don’t seem to have a profile there. On the other hand – Decor8 has a lot of BH pictures listed – perhaps this should warrant a collaboration with her top rated blog? Plus all of the location based networks – a special badge for checking into a Restoration Hardware on Foursquare by chance?  I’m not going through every single social platform out there simply because this post is long enough already – but there’s a lot more that could be done.

Other things I would recommend:

• Monitoring comments on Twitter and other social networks and blogs regarding the various RH brands and the competition. There are loads of analytic software out there to choose from that can provide information.
• Look for more collaboration with bloggers – RH has started doing events with Apartment Therapy, which is brilliant. What about other, smaller blogs? More niche players?
• Twitter – How much does advertising cost annually? How much does one employee dedicated to interacting with the customer one on one cost? It’s the bridge between customer service and marketing – and it’s expected these days.
• Think about mobile applications. How about an augmented reality app that has all of the RH stock inside and users can preview an item in the space through looking at a room through their iPhone?

A few weeks ago Jeffrey Hayzlett (the tweeting CMO of Kodak and the man often credited with helping turn Kodak around) and I were chatting through Direct Messaging on Twitter (which means that the conversation couldn’t be seen by others) and he mentioned that he would be in Israel soon. The conversation went on about us meeting up when he said “Tweetup?” and I said – “Great idea, consider it done.”

And so it was. I organized the evening at Pre HaGefen, a great wine bar in Neve Tzedek (4 Ahad Ha’am in Tel Aviv) that only serves Israeli wine. The place was on my list of considerations, but was tipped to the top with a special request from Ahuvah Berger. And it’s a good thing, my original first choice would never have held the 80 or so guests who came (thank you Yael Beeri for sending an invitation to the Tel Aviv Beeri Tweetup).

Now that the credits are done I can get to the most interesting (at least to me) bit – conversations of the evening. The following is a random synopsis since I had already had some wine and wasn’t exactly in taking notes form (don’t judge me – it was a tweetup, not a lecture.)

Kodak has two corporate Twitter accounts – but the rest are all people tweeting under their own name. Jeffrey believes in building the brand of the individual along with the brand of the company. By being personal, people build relationships with the individuals working at Kodak. This translates to loyalty to the brand and builds up the Kodak name.

Another thing Kodak has done to increase the self-branding of their employees is change the look of their business cards. Now the employee photo is smaller, the twitter and facebook information are available under the photo (or should I say “avatar”?) and the entire back of the card is left for a personal photo of the employee. Leading one to ask, what about legal? Well, the worst case scenario is you find out who is an idiot, fire them and issue a press release.

Kodak has also created content that is helpful to their customers. They have the blog and have distributed a PDF of Social Media Tips which has been downloaded countless times. The Social Media Tips PDF is especially good, as it has never been advertised, yet it has been used by thousands.

What happens when a company gives you something completely unrelated to their product, but it was something that you totally needed – and they give it for free? The company builds reciprocity with you. Say I’m a professional print shop who needs to use social media to connect with my customers and don’t know where to start. “Here, have a guide from us”, says Kodak. I appreciate the help so much, Kodak is in the front of my mind the next time I want to buy a large plotter or printer. It’s mixing customer service with marketing – and it’s the best way to build loyalty to last the long term.

Did you know that 80% of Kodak sales are B2B (business to business)? Or that the Kodak small video camera is now selling more than the Flip camera? (And yes I will be ordering one when I go to the US next month.)

Jeffrey is notoriously blunt with haters – Unfollow works just fine. He doesn’t feel the need to justify his life to anyone (some followers give him flack about his love of hunting, for example), and quite frankly – fair enough. Kodak was one of the favorite “every mistake that could possibly be made” cases during my Kellogg MBA and this man is one of the many credited with turning Kodak around. You know what? More companies could learn from him. I know I have.

So many people, so many social networks. So much information. So much chaos.

Let people opt-in. They’ll thank you for it.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.