Tweets Brands and Dollars

Tweets Brands and Dollars

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A recent Penn State study showed that about 20% of tweets were brand related whether good or bad. In order to see how this applied to my own behavior I took a look at the last 5 days of my Twitter updates and found that the stat wasn't that far off for me. 

Additionally, to take it a step further I wanted to calculate a rough estimate of the cost of the items I tweeted about. I left out large items or things that weren't realistic purchases for either people or companies. I'll leave it to the slideshare document to tell the story. As you'll see, it's quite amazing how much value small and large brands can be getting out of Twitter in terms of mentions and recommendations. 

Social Monitoring. Garbage In. Pretty Garbage Out.

If you've done a bit of of work in the digital marketing arena lately, then odds are you're familiar with the various social monitoring tools available to help bring metrics and clarity to a chaotic stream of data. The number of options is impressive, but realize that the majority of them also share the same weakness.

The reality is that we're in a f a "garbage in, pretty garbage out" situation. While the tools are becoming increasingly detailed and complex in terms of chopping up data, visualizing trends, and even gauging sentiment, the majority of them still are populated by the same simple back-end data: RSS. 

Challenges with data coming from RSS feeds:

1. Lots of unfiltered spam. Although tools are being implemented to block this out, certain categories like pharma and e-commerce are bombarded with keyword spam.

2. Repetition. In the age of the the retweet and digg link there is a vast amount of RSS data that is redundant. While it's important to know how much a message is being rebroadcast, by simply taking a feed vs. grouping items as original vs. repeat monitoring tools can often create a false sense of importance around a conversation.

3. Text Heavy. Text is core to how a RSS works. While social media channels are primarily text based, there are some big players like YouTube and Flickr that have the potential to distribute viral content in a visual manner which monitoring tools often cannot see. Obviously tagging exists, but this assumes that the someone took the time to implement tags (which often isn't the case.)

The only current solution to the above issues is implementing human power. Unfortunate most of us simply don't have the time or resources to delegate teams to do this kind of work. There has not been enough monetary justification to do anything above and beyond spot-checking the work of robots and algorithms. The point here is, take the output of social monitoring tools with a grain of salt. Understand the specific business needs you're trying to address before pulling piles of data from these tools.

If you're looking to expand on your ability to respond rapidly during a crisis, are you measuring the time and volume of your press releases? Are you correlating the growth of your following to the subsequent volume of rebroadcasts?

If you're launching a discussion forum are you tracking overlaps between the outside social web and your domain? Shortened URLS leading back to the forum?

Social Monitoring is an extremely young enterprise. It has its pitfalls but also has amazing opportunities. As brands are jumping into the social web (and naturally wanting the metrics to justify that decision) they need to remember that data streaming in is going to evolve and setting baselines and expectations now should be handled carefully. We're going to see monitoring start to focus more on quality not quantity as filtering improves and algorithms move closer to mirroring human analysis. Until (if) that happens, be careful when investing a great deal of money, time, and trust into clumps of data that have been reformatted into a somewhat more organized and visually appealing package.

The “Type" of Agency Used To Matter

The latest creation by Digital Agency Razorfish dubbed “Fluent” sparked an excellent discussion amongst myself and a few folks I know.

This debate goes in many directions, but the specific argument I want to explore in this post is, Does the “Label” of your agency matter anymore? And when I say label I mean, PR Agency, Interactive Agency, Media Agency, or Creative Agency, etc. There are instances where these things all happen under one roof and in other cases they happen separately. Regardless of which, these silos do exist and the core practice they have been focusing on for the past decade(s) have resulted in the “type” of agency they are now labeled to be.

I made a statement on Twitter that peaked the interest of some people, many of whom voiced their strong opinion around the subject of social media ownership.

"The Type of Agency is no longer relevant, it's the type of people that matter."

The debate over who "owns" social media in the agency world is far from being decided and I believe that moving forward, the debate will become a moot point altogether. With the help of a former coworker, I was helped to understand that the move that Razorfish was making with the Fluent report was one that positioned themselves to appear more qualified to lead social influence marketing and at the same time attract the talent that would best be equipped to do it. Ultimately for that to be true, there needs to be people in the agency who had the chops to produce that kind of report. My point is, those people could easily be working at any kind of agency whether it be traditional, interactive, or PR and those people might not be working at the same type of agency next year as they are now.

5 Years ago. Traditional Media and Digital Media were still very much in a silo and the economy was relatively fantastic. A half decade later, we are in a very different place. You’ve got a weakened economy (IE lower budgets that agencies have to work with/profit from) and a revolution in digital communication (which we can refer to as “social media.) You’ve also got all types of agencies receiving RFPs and many of those agencies are promising that they can deliver on what the client is asking for in the realm of social influence. Clients want to see all the responses they can get (regardless of agency type) so they can get the best plans for the most efficient cost. Agencies (again, regardless of type) are accepting the challenge of these RFPs because their overall budgets are tighter and they want to maximize their output and revenue.

What this means to me is, when it comes to social influence, we are now entering a point where type of agency isn't going to mean much, rather the ranks that fill it will.

I know what you're thinking. "But wait, didn't it ALWAYS come down to the people who worked at an agency?"

Yes. But I believe we are approaching a shift in terms of how prospective employees and clients look for agencies to work with. Instead of clients or job-seeking professionals looking to work with AGENCY X OR AGENCY Y because of its reputation, they are going to want to work with the agency where PERSON X, or PERSON Y built their footprint regardless of the type of agency it is. In other words, they will be looking at the people first, not the organization and especially not the type of organization.

Game of Risk: Brand Edition

If Brands were playing a game of Risk in the social networking space. What rules would they follow?

-Economic Variables (Dice) will effect the game.

-Other Brands want your territory.

-Sometimes you need to sacrifice some customers to gain others (Soldiers).

-If too many brands are in one territory, it dilutes everyone's strength.

-Wait for the right moment to launch a campaign (attack).

-Not all territories are worth the investment.

-Focus on a few territories first to grow strength then move to the next conquest.

-You can't leave territories to fend for themselves, you need to continue to grow or at least maintain their strength, or opponents will take over the space.

Reverse Engineering. Taking Apart a Behavior, Building an Insight

Progressive marketers are far beyond the point of realizing their foothold in the space of consumer communication is slipping. Every day, the role of creating, distributing, and learning falls more under the control of the consumer, which also means the tools for which they choose to take these actions are being created to cater to them, and not to us (marketers). Because of this reality, the task that marketers are now facing is finding the root of consumer behavior. A task which is very necessary in order to be able to reintegrate themselves into forums which not only were they not intended to be in, but in many cases, purposely pushed out of.

“Reverse engineering is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device, object or system through analysis of its structure, function and operation. It often involves taking apart and analyzing its workings in detail to be used in maintenance or to try to make a new device or program that does the same thing without copying anything from the original. (Wikipedia)”

In other words, when an engineer is asked to dissect a new technology in order to rebuild it (without any instructions) they are doing so because the end goal is to be able to recreate a product or experience that they were not originally intended to be a part of.

Applying this to the current digital landscape, we are seeing the same needs from marketers. Most of those tools were never built with the role of the advertiser in mind and this presents a great challenge to that group. How does a brand balance the original function of a communication tool while trying to become an active member of it? This is where the concept of “reverse engineering” can come into play.

Dissect a group of people’s core need for participating in a certain experience (digital or otherwise) and you’ll have a clearer understanding of (and yes, sometimes IF) you can become a part of it.

Looking at YouTube as an example:

1) Consumer Need: The ability to share themselves with potentially millions of others through site and sound.

2) Consumer Behavior: Millions of people are uploading their thoughts, talents, and parodies onto a video sharing network. Even more millions of people are watching those videos (the majority of which are user generated, not professional).

3) Why is this behavior occurring?: YouTube made video distribution easier (on a mass scale) than ever before. It didn’t require hosting a server or website, or being isolated to sending your large files across flaky channels. From a content consumer perspective, YouTube and sites like it offer the depth and variety that professional producers simply cannot match. The quality (for now) of the content is obviously not comparable but consumers are willing to look past it because the content is original, very controllable, and often more personal.

4) Augment Behavior to include Brand: In the case of YouTube, countless brands have tried to leverage this video distribution tool to spread their own content to millions. To have it go “viral.” But perhaps the best use of this network was not for a brand to spread its own content, but help consumers share their own. After all, the initial consumer need identified above was the desire for consumers to share themselves with the masses. Wouldn’t it make more sense to empower them in continuing this behavior rather than competing against them? If successful, this takes the process full circle and makes the brand-infused behavior become part of the original consumer need.

What is a success? When a brand can improve or change a consumer’s behavior so it still satisfies their initial needs. What is a MAJOR success? When a brand can radically change consumer behavior in a way that makes it virtually inseparable from the consumer’s perceived need.

Fans of Apple don’t buy new versions of iPods/iPhones because the device they currently own is no longer capable of playing music. Apple revised the need so that people associated their desire for portable music with the need for the experience to be easy, integrated, and most importantly for Apple, very reliant on their brand.

The above example, while something most brands will never be able to equally replicate, is something that shows how the concept of reverse engineering behaviors can help them strengthen the relationship between themselves and their consumers who are spending more time in a place that brands don’t yet fit into. Successfully being able to enhance a consumer’s experience turns the people you’re advertising to, into people advertising for you. And when a brand can best disassemble why consumers are engaging in a certain type of behavior from an emotional, educational, social level, they will also be equipped to build the insights needed to compliment those experiences and strengthen the bond between brand and consumers as they reconfigure the experience to include themselves.

Hard Hat Certified. Best Brands on Twitter

Along with the ongoing explosion of the Twitter Microblogging network (and the eyeballs that come with) come the brands that want to make their presence known with as many influential customers as possible. There are of course countless methodologies on how to judge the quality of a brands twitter account and I'm going to be adding my own into the fold.

The best 3rd party calculation tool I've seen thus far is Hubspots Twitter Grader. It bases its ranking on

• The number of followers you have
• The power of this network of followers
• The pace of your updates
• The completeness of your profile
• ...a few others

I wanted to take this tool even further and judge twitter profiles based on engagement, which I define as a ratio of listening to speaking. Many brands will score in the high 90s in terms of Twitter Grade and I wanted to go deeper to see if they are listening to their audience. The below list is a living document that I will continue to update. I highly welcome suggestions for additions as I know there will be hundreds if not thousands of profiles that are missing. The brands that are deemed "certified" are following at least 50% of their audience and additionally aren't flooding their feeds with automated posts through tools such as Twitterfeed.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Let me know if any of these are out of date or incorrect. I will update ASAP. If you would like to add the "Hard Hat Certified Logo" to your blog/profiles/etc, please feel free to snag the logo HERE

Brand	Twitter Name	Twitter Grader	Updates	Following vs. Followed	Twitter Hard Hat Certified
Accenture	Accenture	95	113	33%
Adrants	SteveHall	99.8	2,235	21%
Allstate	Allstate	52	11	73%
Alltop and Truemors	GuyKawasaki	99.8	13,873	103%	x
Amazon	Amazondeals	99.9	949	0%
American Apparel	AmericanApparel	94	26	108%
ASOS	ASOS_llana	73	48	157%
ATT	ATTNews	99.3	247	0%
Auction Direct USA	AuctionDirect	99.3	2,271	121%	x
Avaya	njkatz	64	242	92%
Bell's Beer	bellsbeer	98.6	35	99%
Best Buy	BestBuyCMO	99.7	630	56%	x
Bigelow Tea	Bigelowtea	86	76	168%	x
Bissel	WeMeanClean	94	54	175%
Blinkx	Kathy_Johnson	99.9	784	31%
Blippr	Blippr	90	306	91%	x
Borders	kevinertell	69	129	102%
Brightkite	Brightkite	100	2,693	3%
Business Week	BWBX	78	105	123%
Buy.com	Buy_Com	93	1,181	63%	x
Carls Jr.	Carlsjr	80	77	179%
Carnival Cruise	carnivalcruise	97.3	370	19%
Chicago 2016	chi2016	87	155	55%	x
Chicago Magazine	ChicagoMag	88	52	75%
Chicago Sun Times	Suntimes	99.6	9,649	113%	x
Chicago Tribune	ColonelTribune	99.8	2,435	80%	x
Circuit City	Circuit_city	94	202	53%	x
Cisco	digitalcribs	96.3	580	109%	x
Clutch Magazine	Clutchmagzine	98.4	160	125%
CME	CMEgroup	90	615	58%	x
CNN	CNNbrk	99.9	501	0%
Craigslist	craignewmark	100	2,011	2%
Comcast	ComcastCares	99.8	18,712	102%	x
Constructive Grumpiness	lenkendall	97.7	2,820	59%	x
C-Span	cspan	99.8	634	57%	x
Dawdle	SachinAG	93	1,187	81%	x
Dell	RichardatDell	99.7	3,417	104%	x
Delta Airlines	Deltaairlines	96	30	17%
Digg	KevinRose	100	1,347	0%
Direct TV	directv	96.5	139	29%
Disney	TheDisneyBlog	99.8	3,336	29%
Disqus	DanielHa	99.7	2,608	19%
Dunkin Donuts	DunkinDonuts	99.2	74	100%	x
EMC	emccorp	94	111	30%
Energizer	EnergiToGo	15	7	600%
ESPN	ESPN	99.7	14,966	112%
Fast Company	FC	99.9	1,660	24%
Firefox	MozillaFirefox	99.7	86	27%
Flip Video	flipvideo	64	13	66%
Ford	FordDriveOne	95.4	222	108%	x
Forrester	Forrester	99.7	445	66%	x
Garmin	JakesJournal	86	378	8%
GE	GE_Reports	85	60	57%
General Motors	Cbarger	93	273	74%	x
Get Satisfaction	satisfaction	92	30	3%
Grey Goose Vodka	GreyGooseVodka	91	73	184%
Grubhub	Grubhub	77	80	75%
Hardees	Hardees	82	242	170%
Harper's Magazine	Harpers	99.2	571	11%
Hayden Harnett	Hayden_Harnett	99.3	2,391	104%	x
Home Depot	HomeDepot	99.6	940	80%	x
Honda	Alica_At_Honda	95.7	151	129%	x
HP	HPHolidayCheer	95.5	86	199%	x
HR Block	HRBlock	97.6	291	128%	x
Hubspot	Hubspot	99.6	374	61%	x
Huffington Post	HuffPost	100	52,909	6%
Hulu	HuluDotCom	95.6	60	149%	x
IBM	AdamClyde	97.6	1,734	88%	x
Inc Magazine	incmagazine	89	50	45%
Intel	Kellyrfeller	99.1	1,080	91%	x
IZEA	tedmurphy	99.9	2,901	39%
Jason's Deli	JasonsDeli	91	353	160%	x
Jet blue	JetBlue	99.5	331	108%	x
Kerasotes Theatres	Kerasotes	97.3	519	194%	x
Kiva	kivacs	81	3	3%
Kodak	KodakCB	98.9	757	106%	x
Lenovo	dchurbuck	97.9	675	36%
LinkedIn	MarioSundar	99.9	3,651	26%
LittleDebbie	LittleDebbie	97.7	186	111%	x
LiveJournal	livejournal	75	24	0%
Marriot	marriottintl	99.1	673	37%
Marvel	agent_M	99.9	8,834	10%
Mashable	Mashable	100	12,429	9%
Mighty Leaf	Mightyleaf	98.9	326	89%	x
Microplace	Microplace	94	39	152%
Mint	dbillian	89	280	141%	x
Molson	ToniaHammer	97.5	955	67%	x
Monster	Vanina	98.8	1,337	14%
Motrin	MotrinMoms	79	35	99%
MSNBC	maddow	99.8	135	4%
MTV	MTV	99.6	61	1%
NASA	NASA	99.9	808	0%
National Wildlife Fed.	NWF	99.4	236	103%	x
Nielsen	nielsencompany	80	277	16%
Nike	nikeplus	93	42	42%
Nordstrom	Nordstrom	95	64	92%	x
NPR	nprnews	99.9	5,646	51%	x
NY Times	NYTimes	100	23,753	0%
Ocean of Tea	oceanoffancy	99.1	434	131%	x
Oracle	Oracle	99.2	325	13%
ooVoo	ooVooSupport	60	43	90%
Opera Browser	Opera	99.4	135	29%
Overstock	Overstockdotcom	98.1	932	132%	x
Pandora	pandora_radio	99.7	526	91%	x
Pleasedressme	pleasedressme	99.8	220	2%
Popeyes	PopeyesChicken	97.3	1,053	90%	x
Portfolio	Portfolio	97.9	11,639	35%
Quicken Loans	Quickenloans	92	332	114%	x
Quizzle	Quizzle	93	148	152%	x
Radian6	DavidAlston	99.8	1,678	89%	x
Revision3	Revision3	99.8	302	41%	x
Rubbermaid	bwdumars	93	871	90%	x
Salesforce.com	successforce	94	512	73%	x
Salvation Army	TSARedKettle	87	151	134%	x
Samsung	SumsungMobileUS	89	68	168%	x
SAP	MarilynPratt	98.6	1,838	60%	x
Seesmic	Seesmic	99.4	173	120%	x
Sephora	sephorablog	93	30	9%
Sittercity	sittercity	97.7	411	131%	x
Six Apart	Sixapart	99.7	376	77%	x
SmartyPig	Smartypig	98.6	283	121%	x
Sony	SonyElectronics	74	16	120%
Southwest Airline	Southwestair	99.7	1,041	89%	x
Sprint	SprintNews	95.1	199	0%
Starbucks	Starbucks	99.6	450	100%	x
State Farm	statefarmins	56	94	76%
Statesman	Statesman	99.7	2,222	94%	x
STA Travel	Statravelers	96.1	281	100%	x
Stumbleupon	gmc	97.7	79	16%
Sun Microsystems	Sumaya	99.5	1,527	88%	x
Suzuki	Suzukiscoop	86	194	209%	x
Sweet Leaf Tea	SweetLeafTea	99.1	336	63%	x
SXSW	SXSW	99.5	80	86%	x
Talent Zoo	TalentZoo	97.1	133	169%	x
Tesla Motors	TeslaMotors	98.8	179	102%	x
Texas Instruments	Txinstruments	88	108	184%
Threadless	threadless	99.9	518	0%
TJ Maxx	tjmaxx	99	306	48%	x
TravelZoo	travelzoo	98.6	416	134%	x
Trip Advisor	mizmaggieb	92	1,516	62%	x
TomTom	Birdman	95.1	2,454	81%	x
TV Guide	TVGuide	99.4	976	75%	x
Twitter	biz	100	2,921	1%
Tyson	Tysonfoods	97.8	248	103%
Urban Outfitters	UrbanOutfitters	81	24	258%
Veoh	dmitry	92	469	28%
Virgin Airlines	Thisishowtofly	99.6	67	15%
Wachovia	Wachovia	99.1	128	25%
Whole Foods	WholeFoods	99.6	849	107%	x
Wine Library	WLDaily	99.7	128	1%
Wired	Wired	99.3	697	0%
Women's Pro Soccer	Womensprosoccer	98.1	171	10%
Wordpress	Wordpress	99.1	63	0%
Yammer	Yammer_Team	99.4	480	110%	x
Yelp	Ruggy_yelp	81	172	78%
Zappos	Zappos	99.7	1,180	116%	x
ZD Net	zdnett	86	14,264	0%

Where to Drink the "Haterade"

There is certainly no shortage of venues on the web for consumers to complain or offer suggestions to the brands and the products/services they represent. The evolution of this behavior started with users complaining on simple message boards, in chat rooms, and various other archaic word of mouth formats that lived prior to the explosion of "social media." Soon enough, certain brands became so notorious for poor customer service that actual sites dedicated to bashing that brand started popping up (some excellent examples can be found in Joseph Jaffe's Join the Conversation). Specific sites being built contributed to the aggregator sites which gave consumers the power to sound off on essentially any known brand. Although entities such as Consumer Reports existed before, the consumers voice is now much more powerful collectively than that of an editorial staff.

Now we have come to a point where brands are finally acknowledging this mass of thought and feedback. They are building their own destinations that in many ways mirror the original complaint sites such as Dell Hell and instead position them as places for "ideation" and "improvement." There goal is to bring the conversation, as much as possible, out of the 3rd party sites and into a playground where they can watch and have the most prominent voice.

The above is only a small sampling of places to either voice their complaint or offer their advice. It is to iilustrate the various overlapping funnels that the consumer and brands can now engage in. These are very specific and do not include the thousands of other venues where ones opinions can be heard (Yahoo Answers, Twitter, Personal Blogs, Facebook, etc.)

Via Six Pixels of Separation, interestingly only a small percentage of consumers are actually complaining online.

According to a study conducted by Harris Interactive for Tealeaf Technology  ...it turns out that people complain a lot more in person (74%) or while on the phone with family and friends (50%) compared to leaving a rating or review on a Website (16%), an online message board (8%) or a Blog or online social network (7% - which also happens to be the lowest ranked).

Although the above statistic doesn't indicate the majority of consumers are drinking the "Haterade" online, it shouldn't be overlooked by brands. That 7% of individuals are creating complaints that do not go into a dusty wooden box on the desk of a CEO, they are complaints that are public and essentially everlasting. They have the potential to populate a brands search results, and spur further negative discussion.

The forward thinking brands that are building their own communities will neve be able to ensure ALL conversation about their product/services are under their own roof, but there are steps they can take to move it as close as possible to that direction:

1) Don't ignore any funnel of the consumer feedback environment. Have profiles on the GetSatisfactions of the World and monitor what people are saying and how they are sayining. Learn how your own consumer platform can give users the same chance to express themselves and how yours can be easier and more interactive.

2) Respond. Simple enough. But rarely done. In your responses, drive people back to your own community to get further assistance.

3) Make sure your community manager is scanning the web (hopefully using social monitoring tools) to find the niche sites and microblogs to find specific topics of discussion. Are there alerts or newsletters that can be catered to the entire customer base and one that drives to the brand based feedback venue?

4) Talk directly to the "loud mouths." If there is a person who is quite vocal in a negative fashion towards your brand, don't just try to fix the problem or silence them, offer them a job. Make them a community director on your own site. You would be surprised at people's willingness to get on top of a bigger soap box if they have a chance.

5) Optimize your SEO by being ACTIVE. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of posts about your brand every day. The combination of encouraging activity on your own site, as well as pushing out useful content will help bring a brand's voice higher on Google's result page than lets say...this.

Consumer Feedback Links:

Web Gripe Sites

Fortune 500 Brands that are Blogging

Massive Compilation of Brand Social Engagements

The Chicken or the Egg of Technology

When it comes to the process of grocery shopping, there are people who have a plan. There are others (me) who do not. Today as I was pushing my cart through the aisles and leafing through the Jewel circular trying to find sales and ideas for what products to buy, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be great to have a mobile application that could beam the highlights and sales for that specific isle I was in? Wouldn't it be incredibly useful if a bluetooth signal populated my Jewel-built iPhone application with items I may like based on my past purchases?"

As useful as such an entity could be, I soon afterwards came to the realization that there is simply not enough demand, or payoff for the grocery chain to implement such a system. After all, if I were the store I certainly wouldn't think a large percentage of my shoppers would utilize this tool even if there were a few lone nerds who would think it was incredible. Now if enough of those nerds convinced their friends, family, and others to adopt the mobile couponing program, then it would make more sense to make the investment. This cyclical thought led me to the idea below. When it comes to consumer/brand interaction does technology represent a "Chicken or the Egg" situation?

So where does this leave people like me? The Green Circle above that represents those early adopters who want to leverage their shiny new toys to make their life easier? This is the group of people that are left to wait for the brands or proprieters of services to catch up with our needs. They wait because there are not enough of us to make the accomodations economically feasible or beneficial. So what are some ways the time line can be shortened?

1. Don't just do local tests of new products and ideas. Do local tests of new products and ideas and promote the heck out it! The feedback received from a small test is obviously valuable, but the level of hand raisers you get by sharing that test is also a big step in ramping up an infrastructure for a new product. (Or killing it)

2. Listen to the feedback you didn't ask for. Whether offline or online, observe your customers. Watch or listen to their feedback and see how they are interacting with your product and what efficiencies and innovations can be drawn from their behavior. Look for sites like this one. Like GetSatisfaction.com, your own forums. 99% of the ideas you get from these venues will be free. How many R&D departments bill zero dollars per hour?

3. Give away free tools that get your customers hooked. The Cell Phone companies have mastered this art. Provide the tools needed for a service that your customers can't live without. When they are hooked, the system you have created will be your source of profit.

4. Create a use for a technology that is different from the intention of the creators and the public. Again to use an analogy from the mobile industry, American Idol is widely considered to be the reason that the adoption of text messaging grew at such an exponential rate and became second nature to cell phone users. Instead of pushing the value of being able to send messages to your contacts, AT&T created a voting system that first made its customers comfortable with the idea of texting. After that they naturally moved into the original "intent" of the service.

5. Reward those who put faith in your brand. Crack open a marketing textbook from this decade. You know that there are always going to be the "innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards." The bell curve is essentially even, but by rewarding those closer to the Y-Axis you are moving the curve in a more favorable direction to integrating your product/service with a technology.

Obviously, how quickly these strategies can be implemented vary depending on the product or service in question, but nonetheless its a big step for companies to stop and ask themselves, what can we do to make our most forward thinking customers happy? What can we do that will make them stronger brand advocates, and help them bring others on board? What can we do to make ourselves look better than the competition and hold of the tens or hundreds of budding companies waiting to steal our customers?