Social Media as a Customer Service Tool

Social media can be a powerful platform for customer service. Conversations take place in real-time (or close to it based on your company’s bandwidth) and organizations have the ability to catch issues before they escalate if they are actively monitoring their channels.

Using social media is part of my job, but even more it is part of my daily life as a general consumer. Therefore, I am impressed when a company responds or proactively engages with me on Facebook or Twitter in a transparent, relevant way.

Most recently I was pleasantly surprised by PostNet, a business services retailer offering copying, shipping, and finishing services. On Monday around 11 a.m., I checked in to FedEx Kinkos on Blake Street downtown using FourSquare. I was there to pick up a wedding-related project that had been dropped off two nights prior, and still ended up spending an hour waiting for a few things to be fixed. Needless to say, I was frustrated and shared my discontent via Twitter:

Less than 24 hours later, I was surprised to find the tweet below in my @Mention stream.

What does this tell us? Sure, PostNet seems to have a social media monitoring feed to track competitors like Kinkos. But what is more interesting to me is that they are taking it a step beyond just “watching” to actually reach out to people like me to introduce the company (which I had never heard of) and offer personalized service if I want to give them a try.

Yes, it is an aggressive approach and an organization needs to carefully think through any social media customer service strategy that includes engaging with people who talk about the competition—but in the case of the underdogs, it can be a powerful way to make your voice heard. 

What is your brand’s social media strategy for customer service? Or, is there an instance when you were pleased – or upset – by the way a company dealt with your feedback via social media?

~Alexis Anzalone

Get Grounded Program Makes a Difference

GroundFloor Media's Get Grounded program provides team members an opportunity to actively participate in causes they believe in by offering paid time off or cash grants in exchange for hours volunteered. In this short video, GFM team members Kristina Reilly and Jennifer Wills talk about their community involvement the benefit to the organizations they serve as well as to themselves in the connections they've made and the relationships they've formed.



Wondering how you can build a program like Get Grounded for your company, or how you can integrate community support into your business? Click here for more information about GFM Cares, our cause marketing practice.

For more information about the organizations mentioned in this video, follow these links:
Slow Food Denver
Cooking Matters Colorado
Cancer Cure

National Women's Health Week

With this past Sunday celebrating Mother’s Day, it is fitting that May 8 – 14, 2011, is National Women’s Health Week. I know from firsthand experience that between juggling kids, home responsibilities and work, my personal needs are often last on the list. And this includes looking after my own health.

National Women's Health Week is being coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office on Women's Health in conjunction with Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield. The hope is that National Women's Health Week will bring together communities, businesses, government, health organizations, and other groups to promote women's health.

Women have different health needs during various stages in their lives, but we all may face health concerns such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, weight management and stress. Yes, stress…and lots of it.

To borrow and adapt a phrase from one of my favorite Madonna songs (Express Yourself), “So come on girls, do you believe in your health? Now we’ve got something to say about it!” Let’s empower women to make their health a top priority this week. It may be time to schedule an annual physical, refine your weekly workout routine or start one, or get to bed early/find time for a nap. Okay, maybe a nap is not realistic, but getting to bed by 10 p.m. could happen with just a little planning.

Here’s what you can do to spread the word:

• Tweet and post on Facebook about the National Women’s Health Week, what you are doing for your own health or how you are encouraging friends to focus on their health: http://1.usa.gov/yOFew

• Use/follow the hashtags: #NWHW and #WomensHealth

Check out the following resources and share with your co-workers:

• A week-long email series covering important women's health issues; and a template to drop in the information and use as flyers.

• A poster promoting important health steps every woman should take as well as providing resources for more information.

Here’s to your health this week and for a lifetime,
~ Amy

GUEST BLOG: Social Media strategies should include branding elements

GroundFloor Media is proud to have partnered with Stu Swineford of Relish Studio on countless projects during the past 10 years. The Relish team is comprised of true graphic design and branding experts, and together we brainstorm and execute many integrated social media and communications projects for our clients. We are honored to have Stu share his insights on social media branding in GFM’s first-ever guest blog post.

Social media enables businesses to potentially engage a larger audience, but many businesses ignore an important element that could make or break their message cohesion—branding. When undertaking a social media campaign, it is important to focus on both the message and the creative Any time you create a consumer touch-point, an opportunity exists to reinforce and enhance your brand through design and focused attention to logo placement and brand standards.

Logo treatment and placement is the primary graphic element you can use to tie your messaging to your brand, and most of the major social networking platforms allow for logo treatments within their interface (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Yelp, etc.). There may be other opportunities to leverage your trademark either in background designs, in line with messaging or elsewhere within each platform, and businesses would be well advised to make use of these brand-centric opportunities. In most of the more popular social sites, logo placement within the interface is restricted to avatar-sized areas for branding so you may want to work with your designer to prepare an icon based on your logo if your standard branding elements do not lend themselves well to this small-format treatment.

Some social media sites allow for extended designs (e.g. Twitter) and treatments of both your logo and color palate (e.g., YouTube and others). We recommend leveraging these opportunities to their fullest in order to create an overall aesthetic that will reiterate to your customers that they are visiting your business property wherever they engage your brand via social media. Platform-specific background designs, color palate treatments and logo placements combine to enhance your brand and capture your audience. Utilizing all branding opportunities will create a professional feel that gives credence to your messaging as well as boost your market presence.

From messaging to digital strategies, GroundFloor Media and Relish Studios can together help ensure that what you say in the realm of social media looks as great as it sounds.

~Stu Swineford
Relish Studio
twitter.com/relishstudio
Facebook.com/RelishStudio

GFM Excited to Announce "On My Own Time" Art Exhibit

The team at GroundFloor Media has been painting, sculpting and crafting up a storm in preparation for the 2011 Colorado Business Committee for the Arts (CBCA) "On My Own Time" employee and family member art exhibit! See here for a video starring our own Kimmie Greene and Carrie Odberg introducing the program and providing a preview of some amazing pieces of art including pottery by GFM team member Wendy Artman and paintings by GFM family member Cathy Lester.



We hope you'll stop by our office between May 9 and May 20 to see our work on display!

We Got Osama Bin Laden, and Twitter Told Us First

The evening of Sunday, May 1, 2011, will be marked as a great day in our nation’s history. At 10:45 p.m. ET the major news networks broke through regular programming to confirm the news, and just before midnight on the east coast President Obama addressed the nation.

But, for anyone within arms reach of their computer, iPad or mobile device, confirmation came twenty minutes earlier when Keith Urbahn, the chief of staff for the former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, sent out the following 77 characters:

So I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn.

I’m connected to my Hootsuite iPhone app at the hip; so it’s ironic that I missed this unfold as I was on a plane to Denver from San Diego. However, as we drove home from the airport I was reading the updates from Twitter out loud as my fiancé was struggling to get a mobile news website to load so that he could read it for himself. Twitter was moving so fast, and the mix of official updates and raw emotion gave me goose bumps—as did the pictures people began posting to Facebook of President Obama addressing the nation. A few tweets that I can’t stop thinking about include:

9/11 widow on my flight. In tears. Comforted by entire cabin. Life altering event to see (@jimformanKING5)

So when Obama said last week he had 'better stuff to do' than talk about his birth certificate... Yeah. (@ewstephe)

As a New Yorker, as an American, thank you to the 2340 coalition soldiers (1400+ American) lost and 11,000+ wounded in the last 10 years. (@anildash)

Happy at the news tonight, but also feeling compelled to tweet variations of "let's remember most Muslims are peaceful & reasonable people." (@kristenhowerton)

In the weeks ahead the traditional news organizations will examine every aspect of the successful mission carried out by the incredibly brave men and women of American’s armed forces. Public relations industry outlets will explore the impact of Osama Bin Laden’s death on social media vs. broadcast and print mediums.

It’s an exciting moment to be an American, and to be a tiny part of the communications industry that will dissect and deliver the news around the world with the click of a mouse. 

~Alexis