We are amazed by all of the ideas shared at Word of Mouth Supergenius throughout the day’s 12 how-to classes, 12 real-world case studies, and 6 brilliant author sessions. (Live coverage available here.)

A big thanks to everyone who came and helped make the event so fantastic — and an extra thanks to those who shared so many great takeaways via Twitter. We’re highlighting 36 of our favorites here, but there are plenty more great here on Twitter.

1. danbaird2000 Favorite quote from #supergenius “Be the change you want, or react to the change you don’t.” –Hugh
2. shaifranklin Paull Young @charitywater: “An 8 yr-old girl can go out and tell the story better than I ever could.” #supergenius
3. lbbinc stacey kane talking about the “firefighters of fun,” ppl at the company who stop you from doing things fun #supergenius
4. nwjerseyliz #Supergenius Interesting to hear from Dell that their private users group is both “ravers” and “ranters” (people who liked & disliked Dell)
5. mumby Visitors are 3x more likely to purchase after reading reviews -ester lauder #supergenius
6. beehivepr Incredible success measurements for Gevalia as told by Dana Vogel, great social media merged with direct marketing story #supergenius
7. woodwardcarrie I keep thinking the guitar guy is going to bust out the “free credit report.com” jingle. #supergenius
8. Backbone_Media “You’re not what you say your brand is, you’re what people say you are..” @ramon_deleon #supergenius
9. TaraNahrup Makers Mark shares brand ambassador team guiding principles (reinforce ownership, empower, be interesting and reactive) #supergenius
10. jettemomant recognize that ur friends (consumers) really own the brand. Reinforce their ownership. From Todd Spencer. Makers Mark #supergenius
11. fitsngiggles Great tip: Keep it special. It’s human nature to want things that seem hard to get #supergenius
12. shaifranklin Todd Spencer @doeanderson: Exceeding expectations is a FULL-TIME job. #supergenius
13. mandaleebee Recurring #supergenius theme: @toddspencer: Treat your consumers/customers/etc as friends. Reinforce their sense of ownership in your brand.
14. OttoPilotMedia Customer service should be your primary investment for word of mouth marketing. #supergenius
15. David_Rogers “Advertising is the cost of being boring.” — T-shirt at Word of Mouth #Supergenius
16. adamstjohn Hsieh aka @zappos “ppl may not remember what you did or said, but they will remember how you made them feel”. #supergenius
17. mariayava @marteeeen: Small is the new huge. Do something boring and make it amazing. Join bobsled team, or join Jamaican bobsled team! #supergenius
18. daryllang Really fun marketing ideas in presentation by the WindsorONE lumber company. Favorite: Baseball card-style business cards. #Supergenius
19. greggweiss “Social media fire can only be put out with social media water” @Ramon_DeLeon of Domino’s Pizza #supergenius
20. danavan ALWAYS give a tell-a-friend form with simple messaging + made in USA! Make WOM EASY! (Windsor One) #supergenius
21. DesignLinesLtd Every company should do this. RT @gibsondm Don’t make your core values just a meaningless plaque on the wall. -@zappos #supergenius
22. thebrandbuilder Having a higher purpose than profits or being #1 in marketplace ironically creates both of these outcomes. – @zappos #supergenius
23. TaraNahrup @briansolis says content no longer king. Now it’s CONTEXT #supergenius
24. DrewNeisser “Don’t try to boil the ocean, start small” says @jbernoff on social media #forrester #supergenius
25. LindsayLebresco We have IT recovery systems, why don’t we have Customer recovery systems? Via Jeanne Bliss #SuperGenius
26. samdecker WOM words: relevance, resonance, salience, context, authenticity, credibility, connectedness, love, responsive. #supergenius
27. DanessaMyricks Powerful and true! RT @candidcomments: Give your readers the chance to really interact with you. Open up the two-way dialogue. #supergenius
28. pgillin Gen Mills’ Witt on blogger rltns: 1.Be authentic 2.Identify yourself 3.Reveal intentions 4. Follow FTC/WOMMA guidelines #supergenius
29. lbbinc brendan hart – Tracking & testing drives content & promotions strategy. Developing voice is key to building loyal followers #supergenius
30. tamar feedback is your guide to being awesome #supergenius
31. johnfschneider Memorable quote RT @ckieff: #supergenius Andy Sernovitz: “The difference between honesty and sleazery is disclosure.”
32. Agent94_ “Social moves faster than corporate.” Lindsay Lebresco, #supergenius
33. lmarino Call centers seek to minimize interaction with customers – wrong approach. Lane Becker, Get Satisfaction #supergenius
34. SuziCraig Awesome insight from @rohitbhargava ala Ogivily. “A great story is entertainment. A shareable story is retold.” #supergenius
35. AndreaMoe Execute extraordinary experiences everyday. @saulcolt said that! #supergenius
36. womel But I have to say, the office is just not as fun as #Supergeniusis. I wish every day could be a #supergenius day!

Word of Mouth Supergenius was a thrilling experience. Brilliant speakers, fantastic attendees, and the support of amazing partners and sponsors made for one awesome day.

And thanks to the help of our official (and truly talented) live bloggers — Howard Greenstein, Tish Grier, and David Polinchock — we’ve got great live coverage from the day’s 12 how-to classes, 12 real-world case studies, and 6 brilliant authors.

Introduction to Word of Mouth Supergenius

• Welcome to Word of Mouth Supergenius — with GasPedal’s Kurt Vanderah

Opening keynote

• Love or Marketing? How Word of Mouth Will Save Your Brand — with GasPedal’s Andy Sernovitz

How-to classes

• How to Create Buzzworthy Topics — with Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence’s Rohit Bhargava
• How to Create a Fan Community — with Fleishman-Hillard’s Spike Jones
• How to Create Word of Mouth on Zero Budget — with Thoora’s Saul Colt
• How to Inspire WOM with Customer Service — with Get Satisfaction’s Lane Becker
• How to Stay Out of Trouble: WOM Ethics, Policies, and Training — with GasPedal’s Andy Sernovitz
• How to Respond to Feedback, Posts, Comments, and Tweets — with Converseon’s Lindsay Lebresco
• How to Create and Promote Your Blog — with Marketing Savant’s Dana VanDen Heuvel
• How to Create Offline Word of Mouth — with Tour:Smart author Martin Atkins
• How to be Awesome on Twitter and Facebook — with National Geographic’s Brendan Hart
• How to Measure Word of Mouth — with BrandBuilder’s Olivier Blanchard
• How to Work with Online Reviews — with Yelp’s Kevin Lee
• How to Work with Bloggers and Influencers — with General Mills’ David Witt

Afternoon keynote

• Delivering Happiness — with author of “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose” and Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh

Real-world case studies

• WindsorONE — with WindsorONE’s Craig Flynn
• Domino’s — with Domino’s Ramon De Leon
• Fiskars — with Brains on Fire’s Geno Church
• Intuit — with Ant’s Eye View’s Kira Wampler
• PrintingForLess.com — with PrintingForLess.com’s Jessica Cooper
• Maker’s Mark — with Doe-Anderson’s Todd Spencer
• Dell — with Dell’s Caroline Dietz
• Estee Lauder — with Bazaarvoice’s Sam Decker and Estee Lauder Companies’ Marisa Thalberg
• Gevalia — with Kraft’s Dana Vogel
• California Tortilla — with California Tortilla’s Stacey Kane
• charity: water — with charity: water’s Paull Young

4:30 — Kurt Vanderah introduces California Tortilla’s Stacey Kane.

4:31 — “All I ever needed to know about customer engagement I learned from Howard Stern.  He built his audience one person at a time.” Stacey is talking about the process they used when deciding to introduce a new menu for California Tortilla and how she used Howard’s methods to accomplish her goals:

4:33 — Howard Pre-sold everything.

4:34 — So they pre-sold the heck out of it. Told customers to come in and get their old favorites before the menu changed.

4:35 — California Tortilla took down that 4th wall, so they let people know what was going on behind the scenes during the menu re-launch. They also gave away their recipes.

4:36 — They let their customers dictate their content and encouraged inter-fan conversation.  They wanted to name the new vegetarian burrito the vegito. So they did a poll to see what the new name should be. One customer came up with the name no meato burrito and he campaigned heavily to get people to vote for his name.

4:39 — They rewarded highly engaged customers with special status:

1.  Invited top 200 customers, Facebook Likers and Twitter followers to a VIP party

2.  Held a secret password day

3.  Awarded a “King of all Mayors” to person with most check-ins on Foursquare

4:42 — They dealt with discontent in a very public way, they didn’t delete negative comments.  After deleting the Thai Peanut burrito, they posted the recipe online so people could make it themselves.

4:43 — California Tortilla had one customer, Vicky Tucker,  who really complained about the Carribean Jerk chicken being taken off the menu. So, they are going to do a Vicky Tucker day at the store she goes to (it’s a surprise to Vicky) and let everyone have their fill of Carribean chicken burritos before they’re taken off the menu.

4:45 — The results:

• April up 10% (with no advertising)

• May up 7%

• June up 8%

Love this live coverage? It’s all thanks to the fantastically fantastic blogging of David Polinchock.

3:50 — Kurt Vanderah introduces Dell’s Caroline Dietz.

3:51 — Caroline: Trying to tell a different story than what you’ve already heard in the past.

I’ve been at Dell for 7 years. For the last 4 years, I’ve been solely on social media and community teams. Social media is a journey — you learn along the way. We wouldn’t be where we are today without that journey.

We need a listening and engagement engine.

You need to know what it looks like when you open up your employees to listening and engagement.

Give the company bigger ears and be willing to take action and drive.

Help people, focus on customer needs, have suggestions, and work on brand reputation.

3:54 — We have social support channels — on Facebook (new app recently launched), on Twitter @DellCares (about 2 months old now), and listening across the web.

We use Radian6 to monitor conversations on the wider web.

3:55 — When we launched the blog, we realized many people just wanted to give ideas or suggestions. Michael Dell told us to think about how we could harness millions of people’s ideas.

We launched IdeaStorm in 3 weeks during early 2006. Michael Dell’s support was key for this. You need business and operational support. We reached out to 25 online influencers before we started and asked people to give feedback.

The day we launched the site, we didn’t put out a press release. We offered it to influencers and just told them to share with their network. We launched on a Friday, and by Monday we had 1000 new ideas on the site. It spread like wildfire.

3:58 — Within that first week, we had 2000 ideas, and we hadn’t fully figured out how to respond to them. Put together operational pieces as early as you can.

How it works: post an idea, and the community votes on the idea — thumbs up or thumbs down. Comment, discuss, and then decide what Dell is going to develop. We share what we’re planning to ask people what they think.

We have about 10 hard-core community members who vote on almost everything that’s posted.

We put up a “storm session” to get customer feedback about backlit keyboards, got the customer feedback, and got information for our product process without focus group expense.

4:01 — Caroline: We get about 80% improvements, 12% unusable, 4% innovations, and 4% other. The 4% innovations is where we’re really focusing. (We have done a lot of the improvements).

If you’re thinking about doing this, be prepared for the initial spike and then potentially lower steady state.

4:03 – We provide regular updates on the Direct2Dell blog every 2 weeks.

Example: Linux community became passionate about having a Linux option for laptop purchases.

4:04 — Promoter engagement: not just people who are unhappy or having problems — we’re looking for people who are happy and are supporters. We engage by thanking, educating, encouraging, and participating. We take ideas and create smaller feedback loops.

We have a team of 6 and use Radian6 to monitor Dell promoters (after the Net Promoter score.)

Thank people. If they post about buying a Dell, we engage to give them extra information about their computer etc.

We Identify them, recruit them, and qualify them. Then we engage with them and activate them.

4:07 — Look into the data about the customers to identify who you want to invite to a small private community to get exclusive content — sneak peaks and VIP invitations. We also look at their social influence and reach. We look for amplifications. We create an ongoing relationship with this group. We can test announcements before we go to a wider audience. These people may come to the brand’s defense.

4:09 — June: CAP days – we flew our “ranters” (people who had problems) in and let them set the agenda. We listened to their issues regarding products, customer support, etc. At end of the day we asked what they thought. They loved it — no PowerPoint, all discussion. We admitted mistakes and let people rant. We had business leaders there to directly listen. We had a graphic facilitator and created a graphic we gave to all attendees to share through their social networks. “We helped Dell change.”

4:11 — For “ravers” — the real raving fans — we had the same kind of conference. We had different themes: environmental commitment, mobile space, and product ideas.

Results: We reached 2.5 million people in that first week. The intent wasn’t to generate buzz, but really to engage. We got the extra benefit of buzz online with customers telling people that Dell is listening.

1. Business was highly engaged — in the room, listening to feedback and following up.

2. Attendees had large social networks.

3. Third Party moderation by high profile outside bloggers.

We have a private community with a hashtag for follow-up and communications. The event isn’t the end — it is the start of the relationship.

Q&A

Q: Liz Pullen: With your private communities — are those only for ravers or ranters as well?

A: We started with 2 communities. Two weeks into it, we realized the Ranters weren’t as angry. We merged the communities. Not all are engaged. Some stayed and participated.

Q: Coleman company: How did you set up IdeaStorm via the legal team? How do you keep competitors from taking ideas?

A: The legal team has been very supportive. We sat down with the IP team. There’s language on the T&C of the site — once someone submits an idea, it is Dell’s property. It is very clear to customers — they must agree before they get an account. There may have been a few things that stumped legal initially, but nothing recently.

Q: Melissa, Metro Health: Regarding promoters — Aside from airfare, were they compensated?

A: Air, hotel, transfer, meal and that’s it. We met with the legal team and worked out a disclosure agreement that they had to sign, saying that they would disclose to their audience what they got. None had an issue with that.

Some people were disappointed they didn’t get a product. But we felt this was more credible.

Q: Mike from Cymfony — You got 4% of innovative ideas-did they come more from ranters or ravers?

A: We haven’t done that analysis but we’re going to do that now!

Love this live coverage? It’s all thanks to the hard work of the very talented Howard Greenstein.

4:30 — Cale Johnson introduces charity: water’s Paull Young.

4:31 –  How we’re using the power of birthdays to solve the world’s water problems.

4:32 — The organization is 4 years old. September 7, 2006. Scott Harrison’s birthday in NY. He was a night club promoter – getting paid to promote alcohol brands.

4:33 — He went to Africa with a charity organization. Then he threw a birthday party and asked people to fund wells in Uganda.

4:34 — In many places people get water from Jerry cans. Some people get water from the same puddle as cows (picture). 1 in 6 people don’t have access to fresh water. 80% of all disease is caused by unsafe water. ½ of schools in the world don’t have access to fresh water.

4:35 — Scott’s birthday-he took 100% of the donations and build 6 wells in Uganda. He visited, got a GPS, got the map coordinates, and showed everyone where the exact impact was for their donations.

4:36 — There’s 3 critical elements:

1. $20 gives 1 person clean water for 20 years. $5k for a well.

2. 100% of all donations go to the field. We even give back credit card fees into the charity fund. We get private donors to contribute the management fees. In 4 years we’ve raised $20 million.

3. We prove what we do. We show people direct ties to their donations.

4:40 — Each year in September, we have doubled the amount we raised. September 2008 we raised $1 million for Ethiopia.

4:41 — How can we expand from September only?

4:41 — MyCharityWater.org – lets anyone start a charity campaign. Lets you set up a campaign, set up donors to contribute, track progress, etc.

4:42 — Maggie gave up her Sweet 16 to build a well in Ethiopia. She raised $5,709. Her dad was a Reddit power user – he generated thousands of dollars from Reddit. The experience has changed her life.

4:43 — Alysssa.com, Alyssa Milano, got  donations from fans – $97K donations. We sent Alyssa a video about it.

4:43 — Last weekend, Seth Godin gave up his 50^th birthday. He’s raised $36K so far, with a goal of $50k.

4:44 — Riley Goodfellow ate rice and beans for a month and built 3 wells. Her parents and friends’ parents donated the money for food to build wells. She carries around a paper with 4.5K marks on it to represent how many kids die per day because of lack of fresh water.

4:45 — Over $2.5 million so far, 127,911 people served. Most people haven’t raised much – very long tail a few hundred dollars at a time. This is doing 30% of our revenue. Our 10 year goal – 100 million people. We need to fundraise 2 billion dollars.

4:46 — The average birthday is worth $1000. If we got 2 million  birthdays, we’d reach our goal. Word of Mouth is in our DNA. $500 well = 250+ people with fresh water.

4:47 — Storytelling – first charity to have over 1 million twitter followers. We never ask for money. We share pictures and point to good campaigns supporters are doing. This Septemeber – we’re looking to raise $1.7MM for the Central African Republic pygmies to get clean water.

4:48 — We have design excellence – we don’t look like the average charity. Picture of baby bottle with dirty water.

4:48 — We unleash the audience – lots of media for people to share. An example, Twestival raised over $250K for Ethiopia.

4:49 — Birthdays can change the world – can we have yours?

Q&A

Q:  Gigi from Chemical Heritage Foundation, “What platform are you using for your fundraising?”

A:  One of our supporters is the founder of Bebo. He helped us create the first iteration. We’re working on the 2^nd one. We want to keep it really simple. The hands-on piece is great – lets you thank your friends

Q:  Mary from Lutheran World Relief, “We’re doing similar stuff in many communities around the world. We also help people get fresh water. We love how you take the complex concept and keep it simple. How can you make the complex so simple?”

A:  Simplicty is key. An 8 year old can tell our story. We spend a lot of time and energy on it. We’re a marketing organization – the key is message. From the beginning we think about how we’re going to communicate and how we’re going to connect with people. It is much easier to explain “We’re using $1.7 million to help the Central African Republic – a specific area, a specific goal.” We have 3 creative staff out of our 23 total staff.

Q:  Danielle, “I work with the Salvation Army – how do you empower youth so well?”

A:  I wish I knew.  Honestly – it is just happening. We activate as many people as possible, but we try to make it easy as possible. Focus on the long tail – celebrities are great, but the scale of the thousands of people who raise small amounts is really important.

Q: “What is your takeaway from today?”

A: Tony Hsieh’s talk about happiness. How can I give every fundraiser and donor happiness? What can we do for donors and fundraisers to make them feel special?

Love this live coverage? It’s all thanks to the hard work of the very talented Howard Greenstein.

3:50 — Peter Waldheim introduces Bazaarvoice’s Sam Decker and Estee Lauder Companies‘ Marisa Thalberg.

3:51 — Sam kicked off the session that had some great information about how to really get buy-in at the corporate level.  Without the kind of buy-in that Sam and Theresa spoke about, I think that it’s very hard to get companies to commit the resources necessary to run the right programs.  They both had excellent tips for getting that buy-in done.

3:52 — Sam outlined:

1. Start with something measurable, whatever it is (hint P&L impact)

2. Make the program relevant to others’ day-to-day jobs

3. Establish a communication approach

3:55 — Peacocking — launching the turning point event that people in the organization can’t miss

Woodpecker — getting in front of people repeatedly on a day to day basis

3:56 — Marisa Thalberg from Estee Lauder started her portion of the program by reminding us the Estee Lauder herself used to say, “telegraph, telephone, tell a woman.” They were a company that understood social media long before social media existed as a buzz word.

3:58 — She explained that there were 3 main keys to getting buy-in:

1. Addressing concerns of others – Understanding what issues other people have and addressing them upfront go a long way in getting people to support what you’re doing.

2. Disproving worst fears — Other people will have many case studies to tell you why what you’re doing won’t work.

3. Demonstrating Success — Bring back the successes so that you can continue to build.  People were very nervous about adding reviews to their sites, but it turns out that visitors are 3x more likely to purchase after reading reviews.

4:05 — Theresa had one of the quotes of the day — “The shadows in the closet aren’t bad when you turn the lights on.” Giving people the right information will help them make the right decisions and will make all of the social media tools people are using seem less scary.

I also liked that Estee Lauder certainly thinks “oneline,” even if they don’t call it that.  Theresa talked about how online WOM is great to start collecting and then using for in-store, offline POS, etc.  I don’t think nearly enough companies are looking to connect their online and offline efforts this way (that’s what I call being “oneline”) More companies should be looking at how they can do a better job at connecting those experiences.

Love this live coverage? It’s all thanks to the fantastically fantastic blogging of David Polinchock.

3:50 — Bergen Anderson introduces Kraft’s Dana Vogel.

3:51 — “I know it’s late in the day, so everybody could use a cup of
coffee. That’s my joke!”

3:52 — A little about Gevalia, we’re direct to consumer. We’re not sold on the shelf, only through direct mail or print ads. As a subscription based direct marketing, we saw that customers were not staying as long as we’d like them to. We found the conversations about Gevalia were about SPAM—about Gevalia emailing too much,
appearing uninvited in their inbox.

3:54 — We’re also known as free coffeemaker company. Once they became customers they loved the product. But the service and the way people interacted was creating problems for business.

3:55 — We were also experiencing an aging customer base. What was needed was a transformation. We redid the website, rejiggered outreach, and more.

3:56 — In 2009 we hired Kinetic Fin, an agency that helped us use video to tell story of Gevalia. We didn’t have a big budget, but wanted to do more.

3:57 — We wanted to know how loyal our customers were, and wanted to know the love.

3:58 — We started to listen. We looked at the category we were in, and the words people used to describe us. What are two word uses to describe coffee? With and you. It’s not beans or Starbucks.  An insight:  coffee is
the centerpiece of people’s lives.

4:00 — We put up Facebook and Twitter profiles. Set up Beanchat and got an influential blogger to conduct the chat.

4:01 — We held a home tasting party in 12/09. Started asking customers about the brand and what they wanted from the company and the products.

4:02 — We solicited our own base to become fans of Gevalia on Facebook.

4:03 — Then we came up with a big idea:  Name A Coffee. Gevalia had a dark roast but wanted a robust one.  So they had to tell the story about the product to people who were spending lots of money on the product.   So we brought in a taster, 10vbloggers/influencers, taught cupping process, and chose a new roast.

4:04 — We sponsored a competition on Facebook where fans submitted a name for the coffee in
exchange for chance to win a home tasting party. The name with the most votes got the prize.

4:05 — The landing page included an embedded video, with core metrics tab to keep track of sales.

4:06 –  Shows a video of all the videos submitted.

4:07 — Social media has helped Gevalia listen to customers in way it never had before. This is a brand not in stores, not in shops, so it had been hard to listen to what customers wanted or what they thought about the brand. If you make social media engaging, people will come back.

4:08 — The submitted videos were played on YouTube for other fans and customers. Gevalia received 10 million contest impressions, 4,000 names for new coffee entered, 70,000 votes cast, and were the 3rd most popular contest on Facebook in the first half of 2010. There was a 77% increase in fan activity through the contest.

4:09 — And this was all on zero budget.

4:10 — Gevalia then worked on the game/sweepstakes for 1853 Heritage blend. They had
tremendous blogger outreach.  More than 50MM impressions.

4:11 — We formed the Coffee Squad because every 5 seconds someone posted that they were out of coffee. The coffee Squad responded to people who had these posts and offered to send free coffee. This brough a really great, positive response.

4:12 — We changed the conversation from a focus on marketing to a focus on community, flavors and people. Gevalia has highest “voice” among Kraft Beverage brands.

4:13 — We experienced a  2 -3 %  growth in Twitter and Facebook.

4:14 — This campaign was completely homegrown.

Q & A

Q: Sara Joy from Charming Shoppes, “You said you found woman who posted about needing
coffee.  How did you find her?”

A: Kinetic Fin found her via proprietary software. She had posted on Facebook.

Q: Chris Nolan, “What was measurable dollar value?”

A: A 50% increase in default traffic value but there’s no way to figure out default sales value. There was a big increase in traffic and sales though.

Q: Jesse, CEO of Co Tweet, “Do you plan to do any Facebook display advertising, combining planned media with social media?”

A: Yes, we will be using Facebook ad display and will be testing other kinds of display advertising. Yes, it will be managed within my group.

Q: Heather Thomas from Full Circle, “Did you change anything in advertising channels during your social media campaign?”

A: We allocated more money online than we traditionally do. We saw spam complaints showing up on pages 2-3 of Google, so putting the money towards online was important.

Q: BL Ochman, “You said  zero promotional budget, but how much did you spend?”

A: We had no print media and didn’t add the creative scope of our social media program. We did hire Kinetic Fin but there were no traditional media buys. We were able to mine from DTC database.

Love this live coverage? It’s all thanks to the amazing Tish Grier.

2:50 — Kurt Vanderah introduces Ant’s Eye View’s Kira Wampler.

2:51 — Was at Intuit for 6 years, until 3 months ago. Accountants not only buy from us, they’re responsible for recommending 40% of our business. I became responsible for figuring out how to measure this, and became our first WOM person, in charge of community, etc.

2:52 — Measurement is a journey. We need to set expectations when we start that we’re early and experimenting.

2:53 — If you don’t set a baseline, you won’t know how your efforts are going. If you do that, your efforts are scaled, predictable and resourced.

2:54 — You may not be scaling or driving results or you be too strict – matrix in her first slide.

2:55 — Channel health measures are critical. But imagine if you went to senior management and said “10 million people saw our ads.” And then you stopped. This doesn’t connect to business metrics. Senior leaders want to see how you connect these to your business impact. They want to know how to think about this vs. the other decisions they make as a leader.

2: 57 — There are 4 approaches to making a measurement connection –

2:57 — Table Stakes:

1. Behavioral

2. Claimed

2:58 — Sophisticated Approaches:

1. Testable

2. Datamining

2:59 –  Behavioral:  I’ll believe it when I see it.

2:59 — How many of you have put your Social media urls into your website analytics? Small percentage of the room.

3:00 — If you’re not putting your urls into your analytics suite then you haven’t started yet.  If you are working with a large company with a global suite vs business unit suite, some units will measure differently. Example: Anything “unclassified” was counted as WOM on Team A while with team B, only Facebook traffic was WOM

3:01 — Product adoption can be tracked via Social Marketing. An example is Dell Outlet Twitter codes. When page level analytics aren’t available, such as Amazon reviews, we don’t know the funnel. When Social Media is “Part of the process” – tough to measure. Sometimes channels are not big enough to drive statistically significant results.

3:02 — Example Behavioral campaign dashboard slide: Always tie to business results.

3:03 — Claimed: The opposite of behavioral, or I’ll believe it when the survey says it.

3:04 — Ask how social media or online reviews influence the purchase in a survey. Don’t think of social media or WOM, that is another entity. Many of us survey our customers all the time. Use that data to better understand things like the impact of social media on the purchase process.

3:05 — Amazon is a huge impact on sales. We had to have 100% reply rate on Amazon reviews. We had first product creator inline responses on Amazon. Quickbooks Pro 2010. Important because we showed that we cared about customers and answered questions immediately.

3:06 — A problem occurs when it is the right thing to do but the impact is unknown. We used data from 3 different customer surveys to triangulate impact of the reviews.

3:07 — We learned that the impact was 3-12% of sales impacted by reviews. This is a multi-million dollar impact. Our senior managers were able to use this in financial models.

3:08 — Testable: I’ll believe it when it is significant.

3:09 — A/B testing websites with engagement and functionality. When we included online engagement we saw increase in revenue. Showing a link to community would increase revenue vs. the page that didn’t have it.

3:10 — Message-test twitter message for reach, click through and conversion.

3:11 – Datamining: I’ll believe it when I regress it.

3:12 — We did matching community profile to customer data and saw that 30% of new community members bought an Intuit product within 24 hours of joining community.

3:13 — 2 things you can do tomorrow:

1. Classify all relevant Social URLs in your analytics tool
2. Ask customers about their purchase process and what influences it

3:14 — That will help you move social activity into the business process.

Q & A

Q: Laurie Marino from Thompson/Reuters, “Looking at Omniture I can see Twitter and Facebook traffic, but I can’t put my javascript code on those pages.”

A: Use Claimed when you can’t get page level analytics. Ask about the impact of social media on customer purchase. Use custom links. Use Coupon code. But this still doesn’t help with Universe or Funnel size. Use % of how many people online via Claimed data, and % use twitter, etc. Hoping that these guys are working on deeper analytics tools.

Q: “A lot of clients are smaller software companies – they’re trying to replace pay per click with social media.”

A: Go back to behavioral vs claimed. We can see how many people click on a link and the conversion rates. To be frank, the senior leaders only cared about the actual behavior – related to revenue. Often social isn’t the last step in a funnel – so I like both.

Q: Matthew from H&R Block, “How do you handle chicken and egg problem? Community members are more likely to adopt vs Adopters join communities.”

A: Testing is the best. What we saw in small business group, we were tracking engagement elements, to see how many people would engage. Versus control case without engagement elements, if we didn’t show engagement, we proved those people were less valuable from a revenue perspective.

Q: Trish from Mabels’ Labels, “We don’t have expertise to do regression analysis in house. What do you recommend?”

A: Google Analytics are used by many teams and small companies. This can help you with funnel management and conversion flow. Get interns in Grad Programs with analytical background. Working with a person on analytics – be clear about what questions you’re asking for from the data. Figure out what you’re trying to achieve and how can data help you figure out if you’re missing something.

Love this live coverage? It’s all thanks to the hard work of the very talented Howard Greenstein.

2:50 — Bergen Anderson introduces PrintingForLess.com’s Jessica Cooper.

2:51 — Jessica: My name is Jessica Cooper and I represent PrintingForLess.com. We print for 80,000 small to medium business customers.

2:52 — Let’s start with our story. We ship using FedEx exclusively as our vendor. They have totally blown us away in helping to meet customer deadlines. The time we labeled 200 packages wrong, we contacted FedEx, and they relabeled for us and even held an airplane. We’re now a FedEx customer for life.

2:54 — What does PrintingForLess.com do for customers? We invest in the customer experience, which is more than customer service. It involves every interaction a customer has with our business. From first interaction to getting the product, you create a ”wow” customer experience. You will save ad money and grow your business in an authentic way.

2:55 — What do we do about commitment to customer satisfaction? It’s in our mission statement — raising performance of American business by setting the standard for developing a truly great customer experience and by providing great place to work.

We became role models for other businesses.

2:57 — Make online personal. We want our customers to call us, so we put our phone number front and center on our website. A 3-4 person customer service team deals with leads to remarkable interactions.

Other things we do: when you call, you’re automatically routed to our team. No long waits or having to dial through.

2:58 — Offer free marketing consultations for small business customers.

Provide a true 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Give customers perks: new customers get cups, longtime customers get chocolates or other gifts.

All kinds of little things create the ultimate experience for customers and make customers talk about us.

3:00 — We try not to be boring, so we add personality to the company. We are a high-tech company in a small town. We are a dog-friendly workplace. We have the state’s first on-site daycare center for creating great work-life balance. We are committed to the environment — we use soy inks and wind power.

3:02 – Customers are proud of this. And it drives business for us. Commitment to customer service makes people spread the word to other customers.

We knew we had loyal raving fans. They receive 50+ email per month and we wanted to leverage them without looking like we are sending 50+ self-promotions.

3:05 — The “Flip project” started with our raving fans. We called them and asked if they’d be willing to participate in our program by recording how much you like company on video. We gave them Flip cameras ($70) and provided detailed instructions. We gave fun tips for filming and encouraged people to be creative. We kept instructions short and included a deadline. We persistently followed-up to get videos in on time, and thanked people for being involved by letting them keep the cameras.

3:07 — We got a wonderful response right away. In the first 4 months, more than 100 cameras were sent and 65 videos were completed. This generated more than 10,000 views on YouTube and increased overall frequency from video customers.

An internal morale booster: we separated ourselves from sea of other online competitors. All the videos of satisfied customers builts trust. The campaign also build buzz and garnered magazine coverage.

3:10 — Our campaign was successful because of authenticity — no scripts or guidelines. It was a simple campaign with a small budget. It took one person to manage it. Online videos create emotional connections. All it takes is happy, willing customers, which we already had.They were already raising their hands, we just gave them the means to tell their stories. Our most creative video was from Jason White at Mattress Safe. (shows video—it’s on YouTube and can be embedded.) Employees now know how they have impacted other lives. This is very important to them.

Q&A

Q: Jill from Paint Bar: What was the reason for not telling customers about the video cameras?

A: We didn’t want them to feel that we were paying them for a testimonial. We chose only those who said they loved PrintForLess.com, so we knew we’d get good feedback

Q: Brian from WindsorONE: Have you ever considered inviting people who love your product to the facility?

A: Yes, and we do invite people. It’s a challenge to get them to Montana, but we encourage on-site tours.

Q: When people sent in videos, was there a way to measure responses?

A: There was a way to measure how many saw them, and we measured how much customers were ordering.

Q: Jonathan Haley from Blackrock: Did you go out and promote videos?

A: That’s been a challenge. We used newsletters, our website, and YouTube. The challenge is once you have collateral, how do you get word out about it?

Q: Lee from H&R Block: You mentioned you could do a lot with few resources. How many people are doing social media?

A: Just one. It was one person’s idea, and then we added some help to follow up with the videos. We don’t preview them — once customers are done, they send us link and we’re done.

2:50 — Cale Johnson introduces Doe-Anderson’s Todd Spencer.

2:51 — Agency Doe-Anderson has a 40 year relationship with Maker’s Mark and Todd is speaking about their Maker’s Mark ambassador program.  This is a great example of a niche product that really engages with its target audience.

2:53 — Traditional marketing had companies speak to many to reach one.  Today, we speak to one to reach many.

2:54 — Guiding Principals:

1. Always treat our customers as friends.

2. Consumers own the brands and they wanted to reinforce their ownership.  They actually put 30 names on every barrel and have way for those people to talk to each other about their barrels.

3. Tell our friends exactly what we want them to do.

4. Be interesting and people will talk about it.  For example, they created a fake Maker’s Mark vending machine with the message “You Wish” on it.

5. Everyone in the organization must play a role and embrace the mission.

6. Exceeding expectations is a full time job.

7. Surprise and  delight is more powerful then a reward.

8. A peek inside the tent creates the conversation.

9. You have to keep it special. It is human nature to want things that seem hard to get.

10. You can’t be halfway in the game

3:05 — For 50 years, Maker’s Mark made one product and many ambassadors were asking for variations. They didn’t know what to do as they didn’t really believe in brand extensions. So, they created a product called Maker’s Mark 46 and decided to put it into the marketplace.

3:07 — It took 8 years to deliver 25,000 cases of Makers Mark and it took 8 weeks to deliver 25,000 cases of Maker’s Mark 46.  Amazingly, they didn’t spend any money on advertising to sell those 25,000 cases.

3:09 — For example, they invited 500 (100+ accepted) people to their distillery to sample the new product. Those people went home and made blog posts, etc. This helped to drive awareness and demand for Maker’s Mark 46.

David: This was a very well done presentation that showed Maker’s Marks’ clear results by developing creative ways to engage their audience.

Love this live coverage? It’s all thanks to the fantastically fantastic blogging of David Polinchock.