The Thank You Economy

Gary Vaynerchuk

To my family and friends, but especially toLizzie and Misha, the two girls who make me

want to breathe.

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings tobe seriously considered as a means ofcommunication.”—Western Union internal memo, 1876

“The wireless music box has no imaginablecommercial value. Who would pay for a messagesent to nobody in particular?”—an investor in response to David Sarnoff’spush for radio, 1920

“While theoretically and technically television maybe feasible, commercially and financially it is animpossibility.”—Lee De Forest, radio pioneer, 1926

“Visionaries see a future of telecommutingworkers, interactive libraries and multimediaclassrooms. They speak of electronic townmeetings and virtual communities. Commerceand business will shift from offices and malls tonetworks and modems. And the freedom of digitalnetworks will make government more democratic.Baloney.”

—Cliff Stoll, author, astronomer, professor, 1995

“If I had a nickel for every time an investor told methis wouldn’t work…”—Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon

Contents

EpigraphPreface

Part I. Welcome to the Thank You Economy

1 How Everything Has Changed, Except HumanNature

2 Erasing Lines in the Sand3 Why Smart People Dismiss Social Media, and

Why They Shouldn’t

Part II. How to Win

4 From the Top: Instill the Right Culture5 The Perfect Date: Traditional Media Meets

Social6 I’m on a Horse: How Old Spice Played Ping-

Pong, Then Dropped the Ball7 Intent: Quality versus Quantity

8 Shock and Awe

Part III. The Thank You Economy in Action

9 Avaya: Going Where the People Go10 AJ Bombers: Communicating with the

Community11 Joie de Vivre Hotels: Caring About the Big

and Little Stuff12 Irena Vaksman, DDS: A Small Practice Cuts

Its Teeth on Social Media13 Hank Heyming: A Brief Example of Well-

Executed Culture and IntentConclusion

Part IV. Sawdust

More Thoughts On…

Part V. How to Win in the Thank You Economy, theQuick Version

Notes

AcknowledgmentsAbout the AuthorOther Books by Gary VaynerchukCreditsCopyrightAbout the Publisher

PREFACE

I’ve been living the Thank You Economy since a daysometime around 1995, when a customer came intomy dad’s liquor store and said, “I just bought a bottleof Lindemans Chardonnay for $5.99, but I got your$4.99 coupon in the mail. Can you honor it? I’ve gotthe receipt.” The store manager working the floor atthe time replied, “No.” I looked up from where I wason my knees dusting the shelves and saw the guy’seyes widen as he said, “Are you serious?” Themanager said, “No, no. You have to buy more to getit at $4.99.” As the man left, I went over to themanager and said, “That guy will never come back.” Iwas wrong about that; he did come back. He cameback a couple of months later—to tell us he wouldnever shop with us again.

Now, I wasn’t any nicer than this manager, norhave I ever been a softie when it comes to business.However, though I was young and still had a lot tolearn, I knew deep in my gut that he had made thewrong call. The manager believed he was protectingthe store from a customer trying to take advantage of

it; all I could see was that we had missed anopportunity to make a customer happy.

Make no mistake: I’ve always seen business as away to build a legacy, and a way to make peoplehappy, but I’ve also been in the game to makemoney, not just to spread sunshine and rainbows. I’mthe kid who ripped people’s flowers out of their yardsand sold them back to their owners. My incentive tomake that customer happy wasn’t purely altruistic; itwas that happy customers are worth a lot more thanany other kind. It was grounded in my belief at thetime that a business is only as strong as its closestcustomer relationships, and that what thosecustomers said about our business beyond our fourwalls would shape our future.

I didn’t write The Thank You Economy toencourage businesses and brands to be nicer totheir customers. I wrote it because what I believedwas true back then is turning out to be even truertoday. I’m intuitive that way. It’s why I knew I shouldsell all my baseball cards and go into toy collectibles;why I launched WineLibrary.com in 1997 whennobody thought local liquor stores belonged online;why I decided to go all in on Australian and Spanish

why I decided to go all in on Australian and Spanishwines in 1999 when everyone else was stillobsessed with France, California, and Italy. It’s how Iknew to use Twitter from the get-go, and that videoblogging was going to be a big deal. And it’s why Iknow I’m right now.

I want people who love running businesses andbuilding businesses as much as I do—whetherthey’re entrepreneurs, run a small business, or workfor a Fortune 100 company—to understand whatearly adopters like me can already see—that wehave entered a new era in which developing strongconsumer relationships is pivotal to a brand orcompany’s success. We have been pushing ourmessage for too many decades. It’s no longerenough that a strong marketing initiative simplyfunnels a brand’s one-way message down theconsumer’s throat. To have an impact, it will have toinspire an emotionally charged interaction.

Just as open, honest communication is the key togood interpersonal relationships, so is it intrinsic to abrand or business’s relationships with its customers.People embraced social media becausecommunicating makes people happy; it’s what we

do. It’s why we carved pictures into rocks. It’s why weused smoke signals. It’s why ink won. And ifsomeone ever develops a tool that allows us tocommunicate telepathically, we’ll be all over that, too.How businesses will adapt to that kind of innovation,I have no idea. But they will, I’m sure. At least, theones I am associated with will.

In the meantime, companies of all stripes andsizes have to start working harder to connect withtheir customers and make them happy, not becausechange is coming, but because it’s here. Imaginehow many more people would have heard that we’dlost an unhappy customer’s business if the man whocouldn’t get his coupon redeemed at Wine Library allthose years ago had had a cell phone loaded with aTwitter and Facebook app. What’s more, thechanges we’ve already seen are just the first littlebubbles breaking on the water’s surface. Theconsumer Web is just a baby—many people readingthis right now can probably clearly remember theworld pre-Internet. The cultural changes social mediahave ushered in are already having a big impact onmarketing strategies, but eventually, companies thatwant to compete are going to have to change their

approach to everything, from their hiring practices totheir customer service to their budgets. Not all atonce, mind you. But it will have to happen, becausethere is no slowing down the torpedo-like speed withwhich technology is propelling us into the Thank YouEconomy. I, for one, think that’s a good thing. By thetime you’re done with this book, I hope you’ll agree.

PART I

Welcome to the Thank You Economy

CHAPTER ONE

How Everything Has Changed, ExceptHuman Nature

Think back on the last time someone did somethingnice for you. I don’t mean just holding the door open;I mean watching your dogs while you were away forthe weekend or driving forty minutes to pick you upat the airport. How did you feel afterward? Grateful,maybe even damn lucky to know someone whowould go out of his way like that for you. If given thechance, you’d be sure to reciprocate. You might noteven wait to be given a chance—you might just dosomething to make him happy, and show yourgratitude, because you could. Most of us recognizethat to have someone like that in our life is a gift, onethat shouldn’t be taken for granted.

In fact, no relationships should be taken forgranted. They are what life is all about, the wholepoint. How we cultivate our relationships is often thegreatest determinant of the type of life we get to live.

Business is no different. Real business isn’t done inboard meetings; it’s done over a half-eaten plate ofbuffalo wings at the sports bar, or during theintermission of a Broadway show. It’s done throughan enthusiastic greeting, with an unexpectedrecommendation, or by offering up your cab whenit’s raining. It happens in the small, personalinteractions that allow us to prove to each other whowe are and what we believe in, honest moments thatpromote good feelings and build trust and loyalty.Now imagine you could take those interactions andscale them to the hundreds, thousands, or evenmillions of people who make up your customer base,or better yet, your potential customer base. A lot ofpeople would insist that achieving that kind of scaleis impossible, and up until about five years ago, theywould have been right. Now, though, scaling thoseinteractions is not only possible—provided you usethe right tools the right way—it’s necessary. In fact,those companies and brands that refuse to try couldjeopardize the potential of their business, and in thelong term, even their very existence.

Why? Because when it comes down to it, the onlything that will never change is human nature. When

given the choice, people will always spend their timearound people they like. When it’s expedient andpractical, they’d also rather do business with and buystuff from people they like. And now, they can. Socialmedia has made it possible for consumers tointeract with businesses in a way that is often similarto how they interact with their friends and family.Early tech adopters jumped on the chance toregularly talk to businesses, and as time goes by,more and more people are getting excited by theidea and following their lead. You may not have seenthe effects of this movement yet, but I have. I seethem every day. Trusting relationships andconnections formed via social media are quicklybecoming two subtle but rapidly growing forces ofour economy. It is imperative that brands andbusinesses learn how to properly and authenticallyuse social media to develop one-to-onerelationships with their customer base—no matterhow big—so that they make an impact in theirmarket, now and in the future.

Social Media Is More than Media

For the record, I dislike the term “social media.”It is a misnomer that has caused a boatload ofconfusion. It has led managers, marketers, CEOs,and CMOs to think they can use social networkingsites to spread their message the same way theyuse traditional media platforms like print, radio,television, or outdoor, and expect similar resultsand returns. But what we call social media is notmedia, nor is it even a platform. It is a massivecultural shift that has profoundly affected the waysociety uses the greatest platform ever invented,the Internet. Unfortunately, when the businessworld is thinking about marketing via socialnetworking sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter,Foursquare, and DailyBooth, it’s thinking aboutusing social media, so that’s the term I’ll use, too.

Great News Is in the Eye of the BeholderFinally, a way to really connect with our customers,an opportunity to hear what they want, what theythink, how things went, how our product worked, orhow it didn’t! At last, a chance to create personaland creative campaigns that do more than shove our

message down our customers’ collective throats!Don Draper would have dropped his whiskey glassin joyful delirium if you had told him that his agencydidn’t have to run focus groups anymore to find outwhat people wanted. Think of all the money thatbrand managers could have saved over the decadeson test marketing and other classic researchtechniques which, in all these years, haven’t donemuch to improve a new product’s risk of failure,estimated at 60 to 90 percent; they’d be lookingcross-eyed at today’s social media marketingskeptics for not recognizing great news when theyhear it. But, shockingly, a lot of people don’t want tohear it. If it’s true that one-to-one is quickly becomingone of the most important ways to reach customers,then it means a massive number of businesses areeventually going to have to undergo a total culturaltransformation to compete. That’s a thought mostcorporate execs are going to meet with about asmuch enthusiasm as Dwyane Wade would if he weresuddenly faced with undeniable proof that basketball

was dead and ice hockey was the only game left.*

Yet let’s remember it wasn’t so long ago that the few

people who owned home computers used themalmost exclusively for word processing and videogames. In 1984, you’d get stuffed in your locker forgloating over your new Apple Macintosh; in 2007 youcould score a hot date by showing off your newiPhone. Culture changes, and business has tochange with it or die.

Why I Speak in AbsolutesBecause if I give you an inch, you’ll run a mile

with it. When I said in 1998, “You’re dead if youdon’t put your business on the Internet and get inon ecommerce,” was that true? No. But boy, canyou imagine trying to be in business in 2010 withzero Web presence? I’d rather shock you intopaying attention, and admit later that businessrarely requires an all-or-nothing approach, thantake the chance that you won’t take the situationseriously enough.

Unfortunately, a lot of business leaders andmarketing professionals can’t see that change is

here. (Not coming. Not around the corner. Here.)They look at the business being done on Twitter,Facebook, myYearbook, and Foursquare, and saywith contempt, “Prove it.”

My pleasure. In this book, you’ll read about anarray of big and small companies, in a variety ofindustries, that were proud to share how theysuccessfully improved their bottom line by leveragingand scaling the relationships made possible bysocial media. When looked at as a whole, theseexamples offer undeniable evidence that there isfinancial gain for any size company that is willing toopen the lines of communication with its customersand market to them in a personal, caring way thatmakes them feel valued. There’s no reason why anycompany couldn’t make these efforts and achievesimilar results. Social media makes the Internet anopen, level playing field where any limits to how faryou want to spread your message and your brandare self-imposed.

The secret to these companies’ success is that atsome level, they figured out how to put into practicea number of the ideas I want to explain in this book:

The building blocks necessary to create apowerful, legacy-building company cultureHow to re-create the perfect date whendeveloping your traditional and social mediastrategiesUsing good intent to set everything in motionDelivering shock and awe to your customerswithout investing a lot of money, just a whole lotof heart

In addition, they weren’t held back by fear or thearguments many leaders use to dismiss theeffectiveness of social media. In this book, I’ll tacklethe most common of those arguments and explainwhy they don’t hold water.

Consumer expectations are changingdramatically, and social media has alteredeverything about how companies must—MUST—relate to their customers. From now on, therelationship between a business and a customer isgoing to look very different from the way it haslooked in the recent past.

The Heart and Soul of the Matter

How do people decide they like each other? Theytalk. They exchange ideas. They listen to each other.And eventually, a relationship forms. The process isno different for building relationships with customers.If your organization’s intentions transcend the mereact of selling a product or service, and it is braveenough to expose its heart and soul, people willrespond. They will connect. They will like you. Theywill talk. They will buy.

A survey of parents preparing for the fall 2010back-to-school shopping season found that 30percent of them expected that social networkingwould affect their purchases; another survey,conducted in early December 2009, revealed that 28percent said their buying decisions had beenaffected by social networking, with 6 percentadmitting to being influenced by a friend’s Facebookstatus about a product and 3 percent beinginfluenced by a friend’s tweet. By the time you’rereading this book, the percentages will bedramatically higher. More and more, people aremaking business and consumer decisions based onwhat they see talked about on social media

platforms. The thing is, people don’t talk about thingsthey don’t care about. So it’s up to you to make themcare, which means you have to care first.

When I first started tweeting, I had no brandrecognition; no one knew who I was. To build mybrand, I started creating conversations aroundwhat I cared passionately about: wine. I usedSearch.Twitter (called Summize.com back then)to find mentions of Chardonnay. I saw that peoplehad questions, and I answered them. I didn’t posta link to WineLibrary.com and point out that I soldChardonnay. If people mentioned that they weredrinking Merlot, I gave them my Merlotrecommendation, but I didn’t mention that theycould buy Merlot on my website. I didn’t try toclose too early, like a nineteen-year-old guy; Imade sure to invest in the relationship first.Eventually, people started to see my commentsand think, “Oh, hey, it’s that Vaynerchuk guy; heknows Chardonnay. Oh cool, he does a wineshow—let’s take a look. Hey, he’s funny. I like him;I trust him. And check it out: he sells wine, too.

Free shipping? Let’s try a bottle of that….” That’swhat caring first, not selling first, looks like, andthat’s how I built my brand.

That’s what I mean about revealing yourcompany’s heart and soul. There’s only so low youcan go on price. There’s only so excellent you canmake your product or service. There’s only so far youcan stretch your marketing budget. Your heart,though—that’s boundless. Maybe it doesn’t soundrealistic to expect anyone to be that emotional inbusiness, but hey, how many people thought theywould be tending to a virtual farm three years ago?Meanwhile, at its peak Farmville saw 85 millionplayers.

Now, I realize that your reality isn’t boundless;scaling one-to-one relationships and hiringemployees to help you costs money and time. But inthis book, I’ll show you that when you spend moneyon social media, you’re not actually investing in aplatform—you’re investing in a culture, and inconsumers who can ultimately become yourambassadors. We’ll examine the return on

investment and talk about how to make every dollarcount. Ideally, though, your goal should be “NoInteraction Left Behind,” because what pays off mostis your willingness to show people that you care—about them, about their experience with you, abouttheir business.

It’s not as hokey as it sounds. In fact, it is exactlyhow the business world used to run. I believe that weare living through the early days of a dramaticcultural shift that is bringing us back full circle, andthat the world we live and work in now operates in away that is surprisingly similar to the one our great-grandparents knew. Social media has transformedour world into one great big small town, dominated,as all vibrant towns used to be, by the strength ofrelationships, the currency of caring, and the powerof word of mouth. In order to succeed now and in thefuture, it’s going to be imperative that we rememberwhat worked in the past.

When Caring Meant BusinessIf you’re lucky enough to spend any time around anyeighty-or ninety-year-olds who still have their wits

about them and their memory intact, you’ll inevitablyhear them remark how much the world has changedsince they were young. Most elderly people caneasily identify many ways in which the world haschanged for the better, but they often express morethan a hint of regret for a time when things movedmore slowly, when people knew their neighbors, andwhen strangers and friends alike were expected totreat each other with courtesy and respect (even ifthey didn’t feel like it). They’ll also reminisce abouthow retailers and local businesses made it a point toknow your name and make you feel like family whenyou walked in. As well they should have. Whether youlived in a small town or one of the small-towncommunities re-created in city neighborhoods, itwas entirely possible the businessowners/managers had known you your whole life.

Back then, there was no need to encouragepeople to buy local. Local was, for the most part, allthere was. If your mother bought her meat at ButcherBob’s, it was pretty likely that you shopped atButcher Bob’s, too. Butcher Bob knew your family,knew your tastes, and knew that during the coldmonths he should reserve a hambone for you to

flavor your weekly batch of split-pea soup. HowButcher Bob treated you when you walked into hisstore was as crucial as the quality of his groundbeef. It wasn’t that you only had to walk three blocksover to see what rival Butcher Bill had to offer in hiscase. It was that if you weren’t happy with the serviceyou received—if, for example, Butcher Bob refusedto reimburse you for the freshly ground chuck thatyou brought home only to discover it wasn’t so fresh—you’d vent your outrage to the PTA, or a tradeunion meeting, or the country club. That was ButcherBob’s worst nightmare, if the PTA, trade unions, orcountry club members represented a big chunk ofhis customer base. To lose one disgruntledcustomer could often mean losing ten of his or herfriends and relatives. In the smaller, tight-knitcommunities of yesteryear, ten people representeda lot of revenue. Businesses lived and died by whatwas said via word of mouth, and by the influencepeople had with one another. That meant everyperson who walked through the door had to feel asthough he or she mattered. Unless he was the onlygame in town, the butcher, the baker, the candlestickmaker—heck, everyone who had to deal with

customers—had to be as friendly, accommodating,and, when necessary, apologetic as the other guy, ifnot more so.

This was an era when businesses could stay infamily hands for several generations. Often, thebusiness wasn’t just a way to make money; it wassomething the owners and managers closelyidentified with and in which they took pride. Whenthe business was relatively new, the people who ranit often cared as though their life depended upon itbecause, well, it did. The business was their ticket tothe American dream. This is what was going tolaunch their children’s future. They were in it for thelong haul; it would be their legacy. And in the end,when they retired, they were probably still going tolive among all the people with whom they had donebusiness for many years. Their customers weren’tjust walking wallets; they were friends and neighbors,so business owners cared about their customers. Alot.

Word of Mouth Loses Its VoiceThat world our grandparents and great-grandparents

knew, the one where relationships and word ofmouth could have a direct impact on an individual’spersonal and professional reputation, and on thesuccess or failure of one’s business, began todisintegrate around the time when ordinary peoplelike Butcher Bob bought their first car, in the yearsbetween the mid-to-late 1920s and the post–WorldWar II boom. Around the middle of the last century, awhole lot of social and economic forces converged,and people took advantage of their affordable carsand the new highways built for them to head out tosuburbia. As time went on, Americans startedfleeing even farther, to exurbia. The countryside waspaved with parking lots and lined with strip malls toserve the burgeoning commuter society. For many,t h e sign that you’d arrived was that you hadmanaged to put as much distance as possiblebetween yourself and everybody else, preferably witha gate.

These decades that brought greater distancebetween friends, family, and neighbors coincidedwith the rapid rise of big business. Butcher Bobretired just in time to avoid being crushed by thenewly built Safeway supermarket chain, which would

eventually include over two thousand stores acrossthe country. If the company that treated Great-Grandma like royalty even when she was only buyinga two-dollar hat had grown and prospered, in allprobability a corporation gobbled it up. Eventually itsreason for being became less about delighting theladies with the newest fashions, or building a legacy,and more about satisfying quarterly returns andimproving stock options. The prioritization of profitover principle quickly took over American corporateculture and is what shaped the perspective of allranks of many of today’s business leaders. Mosthave never known anything else. They’re just playingthe game as they were taught.

If You Don’t Care, No One WillWhat happened next is almost forgivable. Almost.After all, consumers seemed to have rejected old-world values and abandoned small-town orcommunity-oriented businesses. Plus, in the wake ofa variety of social and cultural upheavals, mannerstook a nosedive. It was definitely time to ditch someof the fussy formalities society had long been

saddled with, but manners—real manners—indicatethat we care about other people’s feelings, andabout their experience when they’re around us. Itwas almost as if big business looked around, tooknote of the increasingly relaxed social norms, andthought, “Well, shoot, if they don’t care, neither dowe.” If people were going to expect very little, little iswhat they were going to get.

Companies started unloading anything that didn’timmediately and directly track to pumping up theirbottom line. It wasn’t just about replacing the hatswith cheaper, more modern fashions. Nor did itmean simply phasing out little extras that made acustomer feel like royalty. It meant power bombinganything that showed the company cared about thecustomer experience at all. Supermarkets stoppedhiring teenagers to load bags and carry them to thecar. Gas station attendants disappeared except inNew Jersey and Oregon. And if you wanted to speakto a company about their product or service, youcould press 1 to spell your name, press 2 to place anorder, press 3 for more options, or press the star keyto return to the main menu. As the 1980s rolled intothe 1990s and companies relied increasingly on

automated call centers, we were ushered into acustomer service dark ages.

People griped and moaned, but there was nothingthey could do. Some even swallowed the companylie that eliminating the unnecessary, time-consuming,expensive perks that customers used to take forgranted—such as the privilege of speaking to a livehuman being—made it possible to keep pricesdown. We loved talking to you, but our loss is yourgain. Enjoy the savings!

The Internet only made everything worse. For allits globalizing properties, it allowed us to take ourisolationism even further. Now we didn’t even haveto go to the mall to do our shopping or the megaplexto see a movie. No matter where we lived, in fact,with the click of a mouse we could bring the world—or rather, the world as we wanted to see it, with aselection of entertainment, politics, and mediacherry-picked to meet our individual tastes—straightto us without ever having to speak to another livehuman being. We could order our groceries online.We never had to leave the house. We couldconceivably become a community of one.

For business, our Internet love affair was a gift

from the gods. Online startups exploded and thetarget markets for existing companies dramaticallyexpanded. Businesses could now point proudly totheir websites and assure their customers that thelines of communication would never close. In theory,the website made them available 24/7. In reality, witha few exceptions, these corporate websites merelymade it that much easier to truly pander to the ideaof service without actually providing any. In fact, itmade it possible for them to virtually avoid dealingwith customers altogether. Now people could wasteeven more time clicking around on websites in afruitless effort to find a phone number or the name ofsomeone to speak with. When all that was availablewas an email address, they could send out aquestion, complaint, or comment into the ether andwait God knows how long until receiving a totallybland, formulaic, and useless reply. In the event theycould dig up a phone number, they wasted millions,maybe even billions of hours per year on hold, orbeing transferred from one helpless or hapless repto another. As companies outsourced their customerservice, customers struggled to make themselvesunderstood by script-reading foreigners. They

understood by script-reading foreigners. Theyseethed, but as usual, there was nothing they coulddo.

Corporations had nothing to fear. Their customerbase was no longer in the local zip codes within afive-or even fifteen-mile radius—it was the entirecountry, and in some cases, the whole world. Sowhat if one person got her panties in a bunch? Or ahundred? How many people, realistically, were goingto take the time to find sites like Paypalsucks.com,read them, post on them, and tell their friends? Howmany friends could they possibly tell, anyway? It justwasn’t worth the time, money, or effort to handleeach customer, whether satisfied or disgruntled, withanything other than a token bit of goodwill. The ROIdidn’t justify doing things any other way.

Small-Town Living Moves OnlineThen, around 2003, in the midst of this high-tech,digital, impersonal world, a new train startedbulleting across the online landscape. It was nothinglike the trains our great-grandparents might haveridden, but for all its shiny digital modernity, inessence it closed the vast distances created over a

near-century of car culture, cheap land, andtechnology. Many of us still lived far apart from oneanother, but we were about to be connected in atotally small-town way.

The train was Web 2.0, now known as socialmedia. It rode along the rails of the Web atbreathtaking speed, every one of its cars a powerfulplatform designed with the express purpose ofgetting people to talk to one another again. Thesilent, anonymous, private Internet suddenly turnedextremely chatty, personal, and revealing. Small-town living moved online as people eagerly soughtout each other’s latest news. Our morning socialmedia browse to check in on what everyone hasbeen up to became the equivalent of the old-timers’early morning stroll to the diner for pancakes andcoffee. We check Facebook and comment on afriend’s photo of her new shoes (which we knowwithout asking are Kate Spades and were bought atNordstrom’s because she said so in her statusupdate) the same way we once would haveremarked, “You look lovely in that hat, Margie,” as wepassed by our neighbor. We click “like” upon seeingour friend’s status update announcing his kid’s

college graduation the same way we’d have noddedapprovingly upon seeing that little Timmy had finallygotten the hang of his Radio Flyer scooter. We tweetan article and accompany it with some curses for thecity management clowns bungling up yet anotherpublic works project with the same energy we’d useto rattle our newspaper and vent our frustration to allthe other folks lined up next to us at the diner counterreading their paper, sipping their coffee—plain,black—and chewing on a doughnut.

Social media allowed us to become more awareof the minutiae in each other’s lives, of what wasgoing on, of what people were thinking and doing,than ever before. In the 1940s, we’d have found outabout the progress of our neighbor’s new wall-papering project or model ship during run-ins at thebus stop or the Piggly Wiggly. In 1990 we might nothave known about these projects at all. And in 2010,we can not only know about them, we can seepictures and video chronicling their progress and getinformation about the retailers and service providersinvolved. In the beginning, a lot of people saw thebanality of the topics flying around and wonderedwho could possibly care that Jeff in Boulder had

found a half-eaten bag of Snickers in the pantry, orthat Liz in Miami was heading out to the beach for arun in her new Pumas. But people did care. Societyjumped on the chance to re-create the regularexchanges of personal news and thoughts that usedto be a staple of those smaller, relationship-basedcommunities.

A Full-Circle Power ShiftStill, most businesses, save for some ambitiousentrepreneurs, didn’t see any upside to jumping onthat train. Where could it possibly go that could be ofuse to them? Many leaders failed to see—some ofthem still fail to see—that the game they all learnedto play has finally started to change. (Those changesare going to be insane in five years!) By allowingdialogues to occur and relationships to grow on adaily basis, for free, between people living as farapart as Des Moines and Osaka who might neveractually meet in person, social media represents agigantic power shift back to the consumer.Consumers have more direct, daily contact withother consumers than has ever been possible in the

history of the planet. More contact means moresharing of information, gossiping, exchanging,engaging—in short, more word of mouth. Now, Jeff’sfriend on the other side of the country, whom hehasn’t seen in six years and who has fast-forwardedthrough every television commercial since getting hisfirst DVR in 2003, might see Jeff’s post about thehalf-eaten Snickers, remember how much he likesthat candy bar, and pick one up that afternoon whilewaiting in the supermarket checkout line. That’s aplausible scenario that Great-Grandma could neverhave foreseen.

How the New Word of Mouth Is DifferentWord of mouth is back. When society cut the closepersonal and business ties that existed in older,smaller communities, people became like antsscattered around on a picnic table—really busy,really strong, but too far apart from one another toget much accomplished as a unit. Now, the Internethas matured so that the power of social media canallow all the ants to collectively gather under thetable, and they’re strong enough to haul it away if

they so choose. Any businessperson who can’t seethe repercussions of that much potential word ofmouth has his or her eyes closed. For example, evenif Martha isn’t that interested in agriculture or thesubject of genetically modified food, the fact that herfriend in Hamburg is might be enough to make herpay attention when spotting a post on a socialnetworking or microblogging site (Twitter,Posterous, Tumblr) about the activities of somecompany called Monsanto. Maybe she reads theattached link and starts to form an opinion, and thenreposts or retweets so that her two hundred friendscan see why she feels the way she does. She thenenjoys the heated conversation that ensues with thetwenty-five people who reply. Of those twenty-fivepeople, eighteen repost and retweet the originalarticle, with a personal message attached, to theirrespective friends. According to Facebook, as of2010, the average Facebook user has 130 friends,and the average Twitter account holder has 300followers, which in total add up to a potential 7,740people who suddenly have Monsanto’s name flyingin front of their eyes. That doesn’t even factor in the175 people who had access to Martha’s original

post but didn’t say anything to Martha about it. Somesaw it, some didn’t. But of those who did, who knowshow many silently reposted it to people who mightthen, in turn, have reposted it? Think about howmany thousands of people that represents. And,many of them did it immediately from thesmartphone that goes everywhere they go. There’sno more lag between the time someone hears,reads, or sees something and the time that personcan get back to a computer and shoot out an emailto a dozen friends. News and information that hadalways traveled fast, whether being transmitted inolder, tiny communities via front porch or windowledge or in larger ones by balcony, fire escape,phone, or email, is now traveling across the world inreal time. A crucial difference between the spread ofinformation and opinion then and now, though, is thatthe recipients of that information and opinion moreoften care about the individual sending it to them.Middlemen, pundits, and spokespersons no longerhave a near-monopoly on the widespreaddistribution of a brand or a company’s message.

We talk more passionately about things we careabout than about things toward which we are

ambivalent. We listen more closely to people wecare about than to people we do not know. And now,we are talking and listening in unprecedentednumbers, and our opinions and purchasingdecisions are being affected and influenced even aswe stand in the store aisle and weigh our options.

A few months ago I was at Best Buy, and Iwatched as a teenager used his Facebook statusto request recommendations on a Nintendo Wiigame. He got feedback in real time, and used it todecide what to buy. Recommendations andcontextual social search are the future. Is it anywonder I’m not bullish on search engineoptimization’s (SEO) long-term potential?

Businesses that aren’t able or willing to join theconversation will likely see their balance sheetssuffer, and catch hell from Wall Street. That’s thebest-case scenario. Worst case, they aren’t going tobe in business much longer.

Power to the PeopleFinally, when faced with bad service or unfairpolicies or plain old indifference, there is somethingpeople can do. Now if customers have a complaintthat they can’t get resolved via traditional channels,they can post a frustrated status update or tweet thatcould get passed along forever. Suddenly, everyonewho’s ever had a problem with a company cancompare notes, work him-or herself up into arighteous frenzy, and build enough animosity viaword of mouth to create a real PR nightmare. AT&Tknows something about how this happens. GiorgioGalante, who took AT&T to task on his blog called

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish*, wrote two

emails to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson. The firsthe wrote after the company’s customer service repswere unable to authorize his request for an earlyiPhone upgrade; the second was to express hisdissatisfaction with AT&T’s data rates. In reply,Galante received a voice mail from someone on theAT&T Executive Response Team threatening legalaction should he try to contact the CEO again. Hefinally received (and accepted) an apology from a

senior VP, but by then the damage had been done—the story had spread all over the Internet, and evenCNN tried to interview him (a request that hedeclined). How many of the people following Galantedecided right then and there that the second Verizongets on the iPhone, they’re switching, or that maybetheir Droid phone wasn’t so bad after all? Too manyfor AT&T’s taste, I’m sure.

This example perfectly reflects the magnitude bywhich word of mouth has exploded. Five years ago,it wouldn’t have mattered that this guy was upset. Hewould have told four people. So what? Maybe, if hewere a heavy hitter, he would have told some fellowboard members, one of whom could have mentionedit to a journalist friend, who would have written a storyabout it and forced the company to take thecomplaint seriously. But this would have been ararity. The odds were that maybe one out of everymillion times someone complained about acompany, the newspaper would pick it up. If therewas a particularly juicy angle to the story, thechances were ten million to one that Nightline wouldpick it up, as in the case of Mona Shaw, whobecame a literal heavy hitter when she stormed her

local Comcast office and smashed a customerservice representative’s computer and workspacewith a hammer. But now? You don’t have to have ajuicy angle. You just have to care enough to talkabout your experience, and everyone you know isgoing to rally, just as your friends in the PTA, thetrade union, or the country club would have rallied ifyou’d vented your outrage at Butcher Bob’s cheatingways. The story potentially makes its way ontohundreds of influential blogs, and suddenly AT&Thas got a massive headache.

Everything is in reverse. Before, it made somefinancial sense for big business to simply ignorepeople they considered whiners and complainers.Now, dissatisfied, disappointed consumers have thepower to make companies feel the pinch. What ashame that that’s what it’s going to take to makesome executives take social media seriously! Itmeans they’re using it only to react to the potentialharm it can do to their business. There’s so muchunbelievable good it can do, though, especially whencompanies use it proactively. Social media is agreat tool for putting out fires, but it’s an even bettertool for building brand equity and relationships with

your customers. Once you stop thinking about it as atool for shutting customers up, and rather as a toolfor encouraging customers to speak up, and for youto speak to them, a whole world of branding andmarketing opportunities will unfold.

The Thank You EconomyAt its core, social media requires that businessleaders start thinking like small-town shop owners.They’re going to have to take the long view and stopusing short-term benchmarks to gauge theirprogress. They’re going to have to allow thepersonality, heart, and soul of the people who run alllevels of the business to show. And they’re going tohave to do their damndest to shape the word ofmouth that circulates about them by treating eachcustomer as though he or she were the mostimportant customer in the world. In short, they’regoing to have to relearn and employ the ethics andskills our great-grandparents’ generation took forgranted, and that many of them put into building theirown businesses. We’re living in what I like to call theThank You Economy, because only the companies

that can figure out how to mind their manners in avery old-fashioned way—and do it authentically—aregoing to have a prayer of competing.

Note that I said you have to do it authentically. I amwired like a CEO and care a great deal about thebottom line, but I care about my customers evenmore than that. That’s always been my competitiveadvantage. I approach business the same way Iapproach every talk I present—I bring this attitudewhether I have an audience of ten or ten thousand.Everybody counts, and gets the best I have to give. Alot of the time, we call people who do a consistentlygreat job “a professional,” or “a real pro.” I try to be apro at all times, and I demand that everyone I hire orwork with try to be one, too. All my employees haveto have as much of that caring in their DNA as I do.How else do you think I outsell Costco locally andWine.com nationally? It started with hustle, sure. Ialways say that the real success of Wine Librarywasn’t due to the videos I posted, but to the hours Ispent talking to people online afterward, makingconnections and building relationships. Yet I couldhave hustled my ass off and talked to a millionpeople a day about wine, but if I or any of the people

who represent Wine Library had come off asphonies or schmoozers, Wine Library would not bewhat it is today. You cannot underestimate thesharpness of people’s BS radar—they can spot asoulless, bureaucratic tactic a million miles away.BS is a big reason why so many companies thathave dipped a toe in social media waters havefailed miserably there.

At Wine Library, we don’t just pull out the charmwhen a big spender walks in, or when someone isunhappy, and we don’t reply to inquiries with carefullyworded legalese. We try not to calculate that onecustomer is worth more than another, and thereforeworth more time and more effort, even as werecognize that a big customer can bring a lot to thetable. How can you ever know who is potentially abig customer, anyway? Maybe you’ve got acustomer who spends only a few hundred dollarswith you a year. What you can’t see is that thecustomer is spending a few thousand elsewhere,maybe with your competitor. You have no way ofknowing that the customer’s best friend is thebiggest buyer in the category. Now, what if you wereable to build a relationship, make a connection, tilt

the person’s emotions toward you, and capture 30,60, or even 100 percent of what he or she spends?Your small customer would become a lot bigger.That’s why you have to take every customerseriously. This is a basic business principle that hasbeen talked and written about a great deal, andsome companies take it seriously. But the playingfield is so different now from, say, 1990, thatcompanies can no longer treat it as a nice idea towhich they should aspire. Valuing every singlecustomer is mandatory in the Thank You Economy.

If there’s a problem, we at Wine Library never tellourselves that once we handle this issue, we’ll neverhave to deal with the person again. We talk to everysingle person as though we’re going to wind upsitting next to that person at his or her mother’shouse that night for dinner. We make it clear that wewant to help in whatever way we can, and thateveryone’s business matters to us. And we mean it.

Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we losebecause someone else established the relationshipfirst. For the most part, everyone has more than oneplace to find what it is you’re selling. I’ve had peopletell me that though they like what I do and live in my

tell me that though they like what I do and live in mytown, they buy from the other guy’s liquor storebecause he’s been good to them. I say, “I’m cheaperand I have a way better selection and I’ll be good toyou, too! Heck, I’ll be better!” but I can’t win, becausea relationship has already been formed. I cancompete on price, I can compete on convenience,and if they’d give me the chance I’d compete oncaring, too. But they’re not going to give me thatchance unless the other guy slips up. And even thenthey’d probably give him a second chance, becauseforgiveness is the hallmark of a good relationship. If Ikept pounding I might be able to win a percentage ofmy competitor’s business, but the little guy in townwill keep his consumer’s market share with realcaring and service.

Anyone working for a big company might beskeptical that a large business, or even a strictlyonline business, can form the same kind of friendly,loyal relationship with customers as a local retailer.I’m saying it’s already been done because I lived it. Ibuilt my online company the same way I built thebrick-and-mortar store. But it works only if everybodyat the company gets on board, which is why unless

you are building a new company from the ground upand can install caring as your business’scornerstone, you have to be willing to embark on acomplete cultural overhaul so that, like a local mom-and-pop shop, every employee is comfortableengaging in customer service, and does itauthentically. Your engagement has to be heartfelt,or it won’t work.

A Gift to Customers and CompaniesPeople want this level of engagement from thecompanies with which they do business. Theyalways did, but they lost the power to demand it.Now they have it back, and they’re indulging in thatpower. Even the best of what formerly passed forgood customer service is no longer enough. Youhave to be no less than a customer concierge, doingeverything you can to make every one of yourcustomers feel acknowledged, appreciated, andheard. You have to make them feel special, just likewhen your great-grandmother walked into ButcherBob’s shop or bought her new hat, and you need tomake people who aren’t your customers wish they

were. Social media gives businesses the tools to dothat for the first time in a scalable way.

Platforms like Facebook and Twitter give back tobusinesses, too, in the form of real-time feedback.Companies can see for themselves when theirlackluster advertising or weak marketing getspanned or ignored, and how their creative,engaging, authentic campaigns get praised andpassed along. Even industries that have longresisted paying too close attention to metrics, suchas newspaper editorial departments, are turning toonline tracking tools to help them allocate resourcesand shape online content in blogs and podcasts.There doesn’t need to be any guessing about howpositively or negatively the public is responding to abrand when it’s in the news or on TV—the public’sreaction is often right there in black-and-white onFacebook, while the cameras are still rolling. In theThank You Economy, social media allows us to getfresh, visceral, real-time feedback, not stale focus-group opinions. It blows my mind that so manycompanies resist social media. The fact thatcustomers are open to speaking with them, not justto complain or to praise them but to initiate dialogue,

offer opinions, and provide feedback, is fantastic!They should be on their knees with gratitude for thetremendous opportunity they now have to quickly(and cheaply) adapt and improve their strategies.

Exceed Expectations or LoseBefore, people were satisfied if you sent them an e-newsletter and the occasional 10-percent-off couponin the mail. That was considered great customerengagement. Anything more was unheard of. Now,the standards have been raised by companies likeZappos, which will spend as much time on the phonewith you as you need, and Fresh Direct, a New Yorkonline grocer that wraps your produce in bubblewrap and tucks an extra bunch of asparagus in withyour order just to thank you for being such a greatcustomer. Some retailers are known for charmingtheir customers with thank you notes, like Hem inAustin, Texas—which also offers you wine or beer todrink while you shop—who sends them out a fewdays after you make your purchase. But how manyonline companies do it? Not many, which is whyWufoo, an online HTML form developer, gets so

much blog coverage when its customers receivehandwritten thank you notes, sometimes crafted outof construction paper and decorated with stickers.What’s extra special about the Wufoo notes is thatthey don’t appear to be triggered by any particularpurchase; they’re sent out randomly to longtimecustomers, just to say “Thanks for doing businesswith us.”

Now, it is true that the more you give, the morepeople want. It breaks my heart that I want to fly firstclass now. It’s so much nicer, and now that I knowwhat it’s like, I want it all the time. I could travel thatway regularly, but I don’t, because I don’t want to bethat guy. The real question is, though, why can’teveryone on the plane get first-class treatment, eventhe passengers who are not paying for biggerseats? I think they eventually will, because they’regoing to start demanding it. Not the perks—thewarm nuts and Champagne, or even the biggerseats and leg room—but the respect? Thekindness? Absolutely. All businesses, not just theairlines, need to start treating their consumers asthough they’re big spenders. My own father wasworried about creating that kind of expectation at the

liquor store, because where would it end? And whatwould happen if we stopped offering more? I had towork hard to convince him that if we didn’t do it,someone else would. We built the first-classcustomer philosophy into the business, and peopleraved about us. They came back, they raved somemore, their friends came to check us out, they ravedabout us, and through great customer service andword of mouth we built a large, loyal fan base. (Ohman, Wine Library would be so much bigger today,though, if the Thank You Economy had been in fullforce when we got started!) We’ll talk later aboutwhat to do when people make unreasonabledemands, but for the most part, the kind of servicepeople are learning to expect isn’t that shocking;companies just aren’t used to having to give it.

Now, people expect you to give a damn aboutthem. Not only that, they expect you to prove it. Andthe only way to prove it is to listen, engage, givethem what they want when you can, and, when youcan’t, give them an honest answer why. They justwant to be heard and taken seriously. That’s all.

Engagement Is Not a Four-Letter Word

Tall order? Yep. A lot of work? Heck, yes. Butcompanies no longer have a choice. I know that formany business leaders, investing in “engagement” isthe same as eating a mouthful of cotton candy—ittastes sweet, but leaves you with a whole lot ofnothing. However, I’m going to show that there is nomore risk in allocating resources to perfecting yoursocial media strategy than there is in screaming“Buy My Stuff!” on television, radio, in print, or onoutdoor media. Then we’ll focus on what needs to bein place for any company, whether big or small, B2Bor B2C, cool or conventional, to use social mediacorrectly to build one-to-one relationships. If you’vealready experimented with social media and it didn’twork, there are only two possible reasons: yourproduct or service isn’t any good, or you’re doing itwrong. We’re going to assume your problem is thelatter.

If there are any shortcomings in your brand orproduct, they might be starkly revealed once youstart implementing social media correctly. Don’t

let this possibility stop you. Listen to yourcustomers’ suggestions and complaints (as wellas their praise), and take the opportunity to fix theproblem; then use social media to show the worldhow you’ve changed and improved.

I’ll introduce some shining examples of whatsocial media done right looks like, and what it canhelp companies achieve in an economy where anearnest, well-timed “thank you”—whether it’s in theform of a handshake, a comment, or a sample—isworth as much to a business as a Platinum Amex.I’m going to show you how incredibly far the effectsof a sincerely expressed “How may I help you?” or“What can I do for you?” or “You are too kind.” or “I’mso sorry. What can I do to make this right?” or,perhaps most important, “I am so happy to hear fromyou!” can take your business in a world where wordof mouth travels more quickly and holds more powerthan it ever has before. Succeeding in the Thank YouEconomy is not about simply being nice and sellingin an inoffensive way. Anyone can do that. It’s abouttaking every opportunity to show that you care about

your customers and how they experience your brandin a way that is memorably and uniquely you.

What Caring Looks LikeImagine you are the CEO of Super Duper Fans, Inc.,sitting in your local coffee shop, and you overhearone patron say to another, “You know, you really getwhat you pay for. I’m trying to go green by not usingmy A/C so much, so I went out and bought a bunch offans. I didn’t want to spend a fortune, either, so Ibought those Super Duper fans, the ones with thatgreat ad on TV.”

“Ooh, with the monkey? Yeah, I’ve seen them;they’re hilarious!”

“I set them up and two are already broken.Figures, right? Piece of junk.”

Any executive or manager or sales rep who caresabout the company and believes in what it doeswouldn’t hesitate to approach the table, introducehim-or herself, defend the product, apologize for anyinconvenience, and ask for another chance to provehow great the Super Duper fan really is. You mightoffer to replace the defective models (throwing in

free shipping and delivery, of course) and include a30 percent coupon for any other Super Duperproduct. You’d do it in a heartbeat, and not out of thegoodness of your heart, not because you’re a niceperson, but because you care about your companyand want everyone who does business with you tohave a great experience.

Now explain this to me: if you care enough aboutyour brand to react with this kind of interest andconcern were you to overhear this conversation inperson, why wouldn’t you respond similarly if youread these same comments online? If there areconversations about your brand or your product orservice category happening in coffee shops andbeauty parlors and subways, they are most likelyalso happening on Facebook and Twitter and on allsorts of popular blogs and forums, and you can“hear” them all. These conversations were alwayshappening before the advent of social media, ofcourse, but there was only so far they could go. Inaddition, all a business could do if it became awareof these conversations was to eavesdrop. Now thetalk and word of mouth about your company or brandcan go on indefinitely, but you have a tremendous

advantage the businesspeople before you didn’thave: you and your entire team can participate inand propagate it. To ignore that option is to becomea lonely fly on the wall—witness to everything that issaid about you, powerless to do anything about it. Allyou’re setting yourself up for is a face-to-face with aflyswatter.

Get on BoardIf you’re an entrepreneur, you surely already know I’mtelling the truth because if you’re having any success,it’s extremely likely you’re already engaging with yourcustomers online and offline with equal intensity andenthusiasm. I hope my ideas and the examples inthis book will inspire you to take your business to thenext level, and give you ways to help others trying tomake it.

If you want to become CEO one day, youabsolutely have to get on board this train. Bringingabout a massive cultural shift within a companytakes a lot of time and finesse if you’re going to do itwell. You’ll likely be competing against others whohave been incorporating TYE principles into every

aspect of how they do business from the day theyopened their first Twitter account. The person whogets started the soonest has the advantage, thoughnot because of the number of fans and followers theymay have. I’m not sure what those people whopromise to donate a thousand bucks to Haiti (if theycan get a hundred people to follow them on Twitter)think they’re accomplishing. Just give the thousandbucks to Haiti, you jerks! It’s not the number offollowers you have or “likes” you get, it’s the strengthof your bond with your followers that indicates howmuch anyone cares about what you have to say. Inthis game, the one with the most real relationshipswins.

Mid-level managers who love what they do andwant their company to compete and thrive and crushit have got to get this book onto their CEO’s desk.Individuals can certainly adapt many of the lessons inthis book to buff their own personal brand and evenimprove the way their department communicatesand responds to the people and organizations withwhich they do business. But for a whole company tosuccessfully enter the Thank You Economy, manysmall, practical steps and processes must be

implemented that ultimately add up and result in acomplete cultural transformation. Each baby step iseasy to take, but only a total commitment to changeover time from the top brass will ensure that the babysteps gain enough strength and speed to lead into arun. Unfortunately, many CEOs are afraid ofimplementing change, even when it’s for the bestlong-term good of the company. That sounds harsh,but it’s unfortunately true, and for good reason. I’mconvinced that if company leaders didn’t have toworry about stock prices or bonuses or theirnumbers, every one of them would be investing insocial media by now. It just makes sense that thebetter you know your consumers, the better you cantailor your marketing to them, and the more likelythey are to buy from you. But many leaders can’tafford to worry about the long term, because theirsurvival (and their bonus) depends on short-termresults.

On a recent flight, I read an article by an editor-at-large for the Harvard Business Review (I know, Iknow, Mr. “I don’t read anything” reads stuff from theHBR…insert your one-liner about me here) thatperfectly crystallized the dilemma faced by even the

most well-meaning CEOs: “Wall Street Is No Friendto Radical Innovation.” The article reported theresults of a study from the Wharton School that foundthat even when it was clear that an industry wasabout to be rocked by massive changes, Wall Streetanalysts primarily gave a thumbs-up to companystrategies that relied on old technology, and seemedto ignore or minimize the validity of more daringattempts to take advantage of new technology. WallStreet puts CEOs in a near impossible situation, asdescribed by Chris Trimble, on the faculty at TuckSchool of Business at Dartmouth: “I’ve had CEOs tellme that ignoring Wall Street is the only way to do theright thing for the company’s long-term future. Theychoose to invest in innovation, take the short-termpunishment (in the form of a declining stock price),and hope that the punishment is not so severe thatthey lose their job.” So what are people trying toconvince their CEO that social media matterssupposed to do when the metrics that they need tojustify social media initiatives just aren’t availableyet?

Start. If you already have started, take a secondlook at what you’re doing. Try on a new pair of

look at what you’re doing. Try on a new pair ofglasses and reevaluate. Be prepared. Stay alert tonew ideas and innovations. Do whatever you can tobring the Thank You Economy sensibility into yourcompany, so that when you’re finally able toimplement initiatives, the foundation will already beset.

Companies can certainly survive without socialmedia. Maybe your competitors can afford to(over)spend on traditional platforms, or have a lot ofbrand equity built up thanks to amazing content. Butif they do nothing with social media, and you dosomething, you will eventually have the potential tosurpass them, not thanks to any one platform—andnot overnight; it’s a marathon, not a sprint—butbecause you acknowledge that culture andconsumer expectations can and will change. That inand of itself means that you are more adaptable andflexible, and therefore have a better chance ofsurviving and flourishing in the Thank You Economy.

One more time: if you succeed with social media,it won’t be because of the platform; it will bebecause you acknowledge that culture andconsumer expectations can change. You are more

adaptable and flexible than your competitors. If youapply social media correctly, your customers will buymore, they will be more loyal, they will spread yourmessage, and they will defend you should you everneed them to. All of this adds up to your increasedchance of surviving and flourishing in the Thank YouEconomy.

You know the business world has changed. Youcan feel it, can’t you? Go to a shopping mall, a movietheater, a stadium, and look at what the masses aredoing. For better or for worse, half if not more of thepeople are walking around with their heads down,their fingers sliding and tapping over their handhelddevices.

Though girls ages fourteen to seventeen can stillout-text anyone, averaging about a hundred textsper day compared to boys of the same age, whotext about thirty times per day, texting isn’t just forkids anymore. As of May 2010, 72 percent of theadult population were texting, at a rate of aboutten texts per day. What do you think the numberwill look like by 2013?

When they’re home, they’ve got those samehandheld devices at their side, plus they’re glued totheir iPads and computers. Most of them are not justreading AOL’s homepage anymore, I guarantee you.They’re engaging with the content and their friendson Facebook and Twitter and Foursquare, Digg andReddit, and a slew of websites you’ve probablynever heard of. So why are you buying banner adson AOL.com or Yahoo.com? Many of the brands thatwere relevant even five years ago no longercommand respect or excitement because they’velost touch with their customers by continuing to talk tothem almost exclusively via traditional marketingplatforms. The customers aren’t there in nearly thenumbers they once were. They’re on social media;you need to follow them, and talk to them, there. Ifyou wait for your competitors to do this, and they doit right, they will steal any advantage you might havehad right from under your nose.

For example, Zagat was the original consumerreview destination, the “burgundy bible” for foodies,a twenty-year-old golden brand that never should

have had to fight for relevance or survival. Yetbecause it was so slow to recognize that customerexpectations and desires were changing, thecompany has had to roll up its sleeves and startswinging to defend itself. Zagat’s story is a greatexample of how resistance to change and pooranticipation skills can hurt a giant in an industry. Onthe other hand, they’re also an example of howcompanies can make a comeback once they figureout how to harness the innovation they once fumbled.To get a feel for the battle they’ve been waging, allyou have to do is compare their timeline with thoseof one of their biggest competitors, Yelp.

1979: The Zagats hit upon the idea of collecting

opinions from their friends and their friends’friends of New York City restaurants tocreate an informal yet reliable restaurantguide. Over the next two decades, TheZagat Review becomes an internationallyrecognized force in the culinary world, withover 100,000 contributing surveyors and aloyal readership.

1999: Zagat launches its website, but only paidsubscribers can read full reviews.

2004: Former PayPal employees JeremyStoppelman and Russel Simmons launchYelp from a San Francisco Mission Streetoffice. The decidedly hip site offers freeaccess to user reviews of restaurants, dayspas, and other local businesses.

2007: Yelp reports five million unique visitors.January 2008: The Zagats try to sell their

business for $200 million. There are notakers.

May 2008: Yelp reports ten million uniquevisitors.

June 2008: The Zagats take the business off themarket.

July 2008: Yelp releases the Yelp for iPhoneapp. The application is free.

November 2008: Zagat releases the Zagat toGo iPhone app. It costs $10.

July 2009: Zagat holds steady as one of the topten iPhone apps in the travel category.

August 2009: Yelp, which is still free, reports

over 25 million unique visitors.September 2009: Zagat.com, which charges a

$25 annual membership fee, gets about270,000 unique visitors per month, and is“trending downward.”

December 2009: Yelp turns down a $550 millionoffer from Google, and a $700 million offerfrom Microsoft. “Yelp has the chance tobecome one of the great Internet brands,”says Stoppelman. “That for me is the chanceof a lifetime.”

January 2010: Modeling Foursquare, Yelp addsa “check in” feature to its app upgrade.

February 2010: Zagat teams up withFoursquare. Foursquare users can earn a“Foodie” badge when they check in to Zagat-rated restaurants, and receive menurecommendations from the Zagat collectionof reviews.

August 2010: Zagat is ranked the most-followedb ra nd on Foursquare by Osnapz, with65,000 followers.

August 2010: Zagat integrates Foodspotting,

which allows people to post photos andcomment about the foods they love ratherthan read and write full-blown reviews, intothe Zagat To Go app.

If Zagat had kept an eye on the innovation horizon,

Yelp never would have been able to cut into theirmarket share in the first place. Yet as you can see,Zagat has swung hard and gotten in a few good hits.It is possible for brands, websites, and newbusinesses to take market share from sleepinggiants, and even become market leaders, but if thesleeping giant awakens and uses the brand equity ithas created over the years, it can absolutely getback in the game. This is good news for any largerorganization that is only now recognizing that itneeds to make social media a priority. Ideally,however, any giants who are awakening will adjustbecause they understand what is happening aroundthem and want to adjust, not because, like Zagat,they have been backed into a corner and have noother choice.

It’s Not About Social MediaAs I said in Crush It!,

Social Media = BusinessThe thing to keep in mind at all costs, though, is

that the Thank You Economy is much, much biggerthan social media. Social media’s arrival was simplythe catalyst for a revolution that was already brewingin the minds of consumers sick to death of feelingisolated, unappreciated, and ignored. The ThankYou Economy explains how businesses must learnto adapt their marketing strategies to takeadvantage of platforms that have completelytransformed consumer culture and society as awhole. If this were 1923, this book would have beencalled Why Radio Is Going to Change the Game. Ifit were 1995, it would be Why Amazon Is Going toTake Over the Retailing World. I’m not proposing anall-or-nothing approach—there is still a place forbrick-and-mortar businesses in a world whereAmazon exists, and traditional media is still relevantand valuable. (Probably didn’t think I’d say that, huh?Wait till you read chapter five.) But there are toomany businesses that are still holding back,

watching the social media train rush by, convincedthat if the destination is so great, another train willcome along soon enough. They seem to think that itwill be going more slowly, and the ride will be safeand steady, and they’ll be able to catch up witheveryone else who jumped on early. They’re wrong,though. The next train, when it shows up, will begoing full speed to some other equally exotic andunknown place. Social media is here to stay, buteventually, some technological innovation will beinvented that will give intrepid travelers, the oneswho understand that these trains of change are theonly trains coming, another chance to move wayahead of the risk-averse. (I think anyone payingattention can see that mobile platforms are the nextkey to picking up market share…please tell me thatyou have a mobile strategy…) What will not change,however, is the culture—the expectation—ofcommunication, transparency, and connection thatsocial media revived. We live in a world whereanyone with a computer can have an onlinepresence and a voice; whatever follows next willsimply make the power of word of mouth that muchmore powerful. The proliferation of blogs, with their

invitation to comment, and the transparency ofFacebook and Twitter, has marked an economicturning point. People thought they had seen amassive cultural shift when the public adopted theInternet into their daily lives, but the bigger shiftoccurred when the Internet began to allow for two-way conversation. Learn how to implement a cultureof caring and communication into your business,scale your one-to-one relationships, and watch yourcustomers reward your efforts by using their new andmassively powerful word of mouth to market yourbusiness and your brand for you.

CHAPTER TWO

Erasing Lines in the Sand

In 1997, shortly after I launched WineLibrary.com, Iwas invited to a conference hosted by a localchapter of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerceto talk about online selling. It was my first speakingengagement, and I was pumped. I sat in the wings,trying to stay calm, as the speaker before me walkedout onstage. He wore a tie. He had VP credentialsand a fancy PowerPoint presentation. And the themeof his talk was that dotcom retail was a crock. Itwasn’t practical, and it would never take off because,as the data on his PowerPoint slides revealed,nobody in Middle America was buying, nor wouldthey ever buy, on the Internet. Mr. PowerPoint askedthe audience, “How many of you have heard ofAmazon?” A solid number of people raised theirhands. He went on to ask if they really thoughtpeople would abandon the relationships they’d builtover the years with their local bookstores, or evenbypass super-stocked Barnes & Noble. They didn’t.

bypass super-stocked Barnes & Noble. They didn’t.It would be another two years before CEO JeffBezos would be named Time’s Person of the Year,his name underscored on the cover by the subhead“E-commerce is changing the way the world shops.”It would be another four years before Amazonreached its first quarterly net profit. Mr. PowerPointcompared the company’s rising market share to itsnonexistent profits and said that one day we wouldall look back and say, “Remember Amazon?”

My short-term dream at the time was to becomethe Amazon for wine, and the audience I was aboutto explain that dream to was staring at thisPowerPointing clown’s charts and graphs as if theywere carved stone tablets brought down by Moses.As he finished up, he said, “This kid’s now going totell you how he’s going to sell wine on the Internet.How many of you here would ever buy wine on theInternet?” Only one or two people out of sixty orseventy raised their hands.

You know if this had happened in 2010, the talkwould have been recorded and I could have posted itto show everyone what a jerk he was. But believe itor not, even though he called me a kid, he did earn

my respect for calling me out. I like people withcompetitive spirit and bravado; they bring out thefight in me. Not that I won any battles that day. Iwalked out onstage and opened my talk by saying,“With all due respect to Mr. PowerPoint, he has noidea what he’s talking about. He is going to be onthe wrong side of history. I feel bad for him.” I went onto tell my story, and gave my audience my best, mostheartfelt argument as to why the Internet would be toretailers what the printing press was to writers. Tothe end, they remained a very skeptical, uninterestedcrowd.

Entrepreneurs have a sort of sixth sense that tellsthem when big change is afoot. The Time magazinearticle that accompanied Bezos’s Person of the Yearaward describes it best:

Every time a seismic shift takes place in oureconomy, there are people who feel thevibrations long before the rest of us do,vibrations so strong they demand action—action that can seem rash, even stupid. Ferryowner Cornelius Vanderbilt jumped ship whenhe saw the railroads coming. Thomas Watson

Jr., overwhelmed by his sense that computerswould be everywhere even when they werenowhere, bet his father’s office-machinecompany on it: IBM.

Jeffrey Preston Bezos had that sameexperience when he first peered into the mazeof connected computers called the World WideWeb and realized that the future of retailing wasglowing back at him.

Looking back, I can’t hold Mr. PowerPoint’sskepticism against him, nor can I blame theaudience for dismissing most of what I had to say.Most people’s DNA simply doesn’t allow them anentrepreneur’s anticipation skills. They don’t seepotential in the unknown, they see a threat to theircomfort zone, so their knee-jerk reaction is to draw adeep line in the sand between themselves andanything new or unproven, especially when it comesto technology. Close to 90 percent of Americansown cell phones, but people my age can stillremember when many questioned the need to be,and even the wisdom of being, reachable by phoneat any time. Just four short years ago, we actually

used those phones for talking, not texting. And no

one was playing Farmville on Facebook.* How many

of today’s more than 500 million Facebook users

swore they’d never use the site?* There’s a reason

the divide between innovators—people who eagerlyembrace new technology—and the majority hasbeen described as a chasm.

Most businesspeople spend far too long on thewrong side of that chasm, hiding behind tiredsayings like “You can only manage what youmeasure.” That’s how my nemesis won back in1997. He had numbers from sources the audiencetrusted; any numbers I might have been able to pointto came from research that still hadn’t made its wayto the mainstream. No matter how strongly I couldfeel the vibrations of the future, without hard numbersfrom old-school sources indicating that the Internetwas going to change how Americans thought aboutbuying and selling everything from books and wine totoilet paper and asparagus, I couldn’t win over thecorporate mindset.

Corporate America loves ecommerce now, ofcourse, but business leaders and brand managers

and marketers have simply drawn new lines in thesand, this time putting distance between theircompanies and social media, all the whiledesperately clinging to the security they still believenumbers can provide. Unfortunately, if you wait untilsocial media is able to prove itself to you beforedeciding to engage with your customers one-on-one,you’ll have missed your greatest window ofopportunity to move ahead of your competitors.

Resistance Won’t Kill You Right AwayWhat should the horse-and-buggy driver have donewhen he noticed the automobile? Should he havewaited until he was down to three fares per day toconsider that maybe he needed to make a change inhow he was going to make a living, or should hehave quickly sold the horses? Sell the frigginghorses, of course! Company leaders may not seetheir lack of participation in social media reflectedon their P&L statement, but I promise that, unlesssomething else sinks their company first, they will.Just because you ignore a threat doesn’t mean itdoesn’t exist. Will you die if you smoke? Not

necessarily. Not everyone who smokes dies of lungcancer, and if smokers live long enough, there areplenty of other things that can kill them. Likewise,you’re not going out of business tomorrow if you’renot on Facebook and Twitter and blogging andcreating content and building community. But the riskthat your business will die before its time growsbigger every day that you don’t use social media.You think Barnes & Noble and Borders didn’t seeAmazon coming in 1997? Of course they did. But thenumbers distracted them, and the numbers said thatAmazon was nowhere near making a profit, andBarnes & Noble and Borders were still the number-one-and-two book retailers in the country. Even ifsome Borders and Barnes & Noble execs couldsense that change was coming, they probablypreferred to believe the story the numbers told them.To doubt the numbers would have meant revampingand hustling like crazy, and it is so much easier to dothings the way they’ve always been done before. B.Dalton, owned by Barnes & Noble, didn’t go out ofbusiness in 1999. It didn’t happen in 2001, or even2003. It didn’t happen until January 2010, when thelast store finally closed. But it did finally happen, and

it didn’t have to. Like the guy who quits smoking onlyafter being diagnosed with lung cancer, by the timeB. Dalton realized that Amazon was a force to bereckoned with, it was too late.

No big company loses to a little company if theyare totally committed to winning the fight. There is noreason why mammoth companies like Barnes &Noble or Borders could not have spent real moneyand hired the right people to come at Amazon witheverything they had. Barnes & Noble went online in1997, but they didn’t go in 100 percent; they couldn’thave, or Amazon wouldn’t have taken over so muchof their market. They should have done the samething I do every time a new liquor store that could bea threat opens up near me—pound the competitor’sface in with advertising and marketing dollars (evenif they’re not opening up close to me, you can bet I’mpaying close attention to what they’re doing). Barnes& Noble should have come at Amazon the way Foxand NBC came at Google, when they developed atrue rival, Hulu, to combat Google’s YouTube.

Right now, I’d say that social media is a bit like akidney—you can survive with only one, but yourchances of making it to old age are a lot better with

two. Eventually, though, I think social media will beas important to a business as a strong heart.

CHAPTER THREE

Why Smart People Dismiss Social Media,and Why They Shouldn’t

I’ve talked to a lot of corporations about the benefitsof social media over the last six years, and most ofthe reasons I’ve heard as to why leaders don’t wantto invest in it hinge on fear. As I’ve discussed, WallStreet doesn’t make it easy for companies to takemany risks. Maybe there was some risk in the earlydays, but at this point the risk anyone is avoidingexists only in his or her own head. I know that can behard to believe when you’re staring at headlines thatread “Most Brands Still Irrelevant on Twitter,” and“Social Networking May Not Be as Profitable asMany Think.” It’s possible that for now thoseheadlines and others like them are technically true,but if they are, in almost every case, the reason isthe same—most of the companies alreadyattempting to use social media platforms aren’tusing them correctly. I mean, just because you can’t

dribble well or get the rock in the hoop doesn’t meanthat there’s a design flaw in your basketball. And thereason they’re not using them correctly is generallybecause they aren’t fully committed to it; they stilldon’t get that intent matters. It is true that you need touse social media because otherwise yourcompetitors will get ahead of you. Yet how we speakand behave when we’re going through the motions ofcaring is vastly different from how we speak andbehave when we care from the bottom of our hearts.Our intent affects the force of our actions, so if aleader has simply got a case of monkey see,monkey do (where people throw themselves andtheir companies into social media solely becausetheir competitor is doing it) and her intent isn’t toinfuse every aspect of her business with Thank YouEconomy principles, of course she’ll never reap thefull benefits. She’s like a competitive swimmer whohangs around the edge of the pool for a month,carefully dipping her toes and analyzing the water,and who then complains that her swim times aren’timproving.

Overall, there are eleven excuses I’ve heardcompanies use again and again to justify their

refusal to fully commit to and invest in social media,and I want to dissect them all. If you’re a skeptic, Ihope you’ll find some new information here that willpersuade you that the time to act has come. If youare eager to get your company to connect on adeeper level with its customers but are meeting withresistance, I hope these pages will provide freshtalking points and facts you can use when presentingthis issue to the heads of your company ordepartment. One thing is absolutely certain—untilleaders erase this particular line in the sand, they willbe severely hampered in their attempts to guide theircompanies smoothly and successfully into the ThankYou Economy.

1. There’s no ROI.Brand managers and company leaders areobsessed with numbers because the numbersmatter a great deal, if not to them personally, then totheir superiors, their stockholders, and the financialand business media. I get that. But let me ask this:what is the return on investment for any kind ofcustomer caring? Is there a formula that calculates

how many positive interactions it takes to pay off in asale or in a recommendation? No, but until now goodmanagers and salespeople have killed theircustomers with kindness anyway, because evenwithout hard numbers to quantify the ROI, theyinstinctively know that earning a customer’s trust iskey.

Now, Nielsen has numbers that prove the linkbetween generating trust and making a sale isn’t justtheoretical. When Nielsen conducted a study on whatdrives consumer trust, the results were clear: almost70 percent of people turn to family and friends foradvice when making purchasing decisions. Wherehave people been talking to their family and friendslately? Facebook reports that 60 percent of thepeople online are going to social networks, with halfreturning every day. If there is ROI in friendship andfamily, there has to be ROI in social media. “Weoften forget the symbiotic relationship between trustand ROI,” says Pete Blackshaw of NM Incite, a jointventure of McKinsey and Nielsen, and also author ofSatisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, AngryCustomers Tell 3000. “If consumers trust otherconsumers more than they trust traditional

advertising, and the platforms to convey their trustedrecommendations are now reaching billions, the ROIshould start to enter the ‘no brainer’ zone. There’sclearly nuance in the executional elements, andsome social media techniques or tactics will clearlydrive more ROI than others, but the big pictureshould be obvious.”

When faced with two equal choices, people oftenbuy for no other reason than they associate onechoice with someone they know. My friends shop atWine Library, and they go out of their way to do so.Most of my acquaintances from high school shop atWine Library, too. There is a Dell consumer out therewho buys Dell because he has an uncle who worksthere. There are plenty of people who never stoppedbuying their gas at Exxon after the Valdez spill, ormore recently, from BP, even though they were upsetby the environmental catastrophes those companiescaused, because they have friends or relativesconnected to them. Social media, which allowspeople to see their family and friends’ preferencesand interactions with brands, allows for many morechances for people to make the personalassociations that can lead to buying decisions.

The ROI of a company’s engagement with acustomer scales in proportion to the bonds of therelationship. The ROI of your relationship with yourmother is going to be much higher than that of theone you have with a good friend. Both, however, aremore valuable than the one you have with anacquaintance, which trumps the relationship youhave with a stranger. Without social media, you andyour customer are relegated to strangers; with it,depending on your efforts, you can potentiallyupgrade your relationship to that of casualacquaintances, and even, in time, to friends. Thepower of that relationship can go so far as to converta casual browser into a committed buyer, or a buyerinto an advocate.

Every company should be bending over backwardto transform customers into advocates—they areincredibly valuable. According to an IBM study ofonline retail consumer buying patterns:

Advocates’ share of wallet is 33 percent morethan that of customers who aren’t advocates.Advocates spend about 30 percent moredollars with their favorite online retailers than

non-advocates do.Advocates stick around longer, provingthemselves less likely than other customers toswitch to a competitor even if it offers similarproducts at similar prices.Advocates have significantly higher lifetimevalue than regular customers, for not only dothey spend more now, they are more likely tokeep spending, and even increase theirspending, as time goes on.

Advocates are bred, not born. According toNielsen, consumers are generally more motivated toreach out to a company with a complaint than withpraise. However, they are willing to publicly praise acompany when given the opportunity to do so. Socialmedia allows companies to provide ample promptsfor consumers to remember why they like a brand,and inspire them to say so publicly, whether on thecompany website or via social networking channels.Through an exhaustive consumer-engagement studythat focused on moms online, Pete Blackshaw foundthat when brands started investing in meaningfulinteractions and conversations with mothers, the

mothers were 30 percent more likely to becomeadvocates. In other words, they were willing to writefavorable online reviews about the product,essentially doing the brand’s marketing for it.According to Blackshaw, marketers consider onlinereviews among the most coveted form of consumerexpression, because they tend to show up close tothe “purchase event,” and because their clicks andlinks result in higher search results. The studyshowed, in addition, that mothers who became “highparticipator moms”—answering questions fromother mothers, providing information, and creatingonline content about the product or brand—savedthe brands 15 percent on call support. Overall, thenumbers show that there is significant ROI inengaging with customers and strengthening yourrelationship with them. Blackshaw, who hasconsulted with hundreds of Fortune 1000 brands,says this is especially true in the early phase of anew product launch. “The early reviews can be asimpactful as a $10 million media buy in shapingearly perceptions, even among the traditional media,who increasingly lean on social media as a ‘cheatsheet’ to understand what’s really going on with

brands.”Even if only a small percentage of your customers

become true advocates, there is tremendous ROI intreating your customers as well as possible.According to Jason Mittelstaedt, chief marketingofficer of RightNow, a customer service consultingfirm that published the Customer Service Impact2010 Report, 85 percent of U.S. consumers saythey would pay 5 percent to 25 percent more toensure a superior customer experience. In addition,76 percent of consumers say they appreciate it whenbrands and companies take a personal interest inthem. In other words, advocates and non-advocatesalike say they want superior service, and they’rewilling to pay for it. Can there be any doubt thatengaging one-on-one with customers, making eachand every one feel valued and heard, constitutes asuperior experience?

Consider these statistics pulled from theCustomer Experience Impact 2010 Report aswell:

40 percent of consumers switched to buyingfrom a competitor because of its reputation forgreat customer service.55 percent cite great service, not product orprice, as their primary reason forrecommending a company.66 percent said that great customer servicewas their primary driver for greater spending.

It’s very logical: There is proven ROI in doingwhatever you can to turn your customers intoadvocates for your brand or business. The way tocreate advocates is to offer superior customerservice. In the Thank You Economy, a keycomponent of superior customer service is one-to-one engagement in social media. It’s whatcustomers want, and as we all know, the customer isking.

2. The metrics aren’t reliable.The tools for tracking and measuring social mediainitiatives are becoming increasingly sophisticatedand reliable. After all, this data is coming from

Nielsen. If you place television ads, you’ve probablybeen making enormous financial decisions basedon the Nielsen ratings for years, trusting them to tellnetworks who is watching what shows so thenetworks and cable stations can charge you afortune to place your brand in your targetdemographics’ line of sight. And by the time you’rereading this book, you’ll be able to rely on metricsbearing the Nielsen seal of approval for your onlineads, as well. In September 2010, Nielsen announcedthat it was launching a cross-media metrics tool thatwill measure a campaign’s effectiveness online, withratings data comparable to that already offered forTV. One of its first partners to test the new tool?Facebook. In the press release, Steve Hasker,Nielsen’s president of Media Products, said, “Thisnew system will provide marketers with a betterunderstanding of their ROI, and will give mediacompanies a much needed tool to prove the value oftheir audiences.”

But what about engagement? The new tool fromNielsen measures the effect of online ads, notwhether all that time a company spends talking tocustomers online translates to sales. Well, in 1990,

how many execs imagined they’d be spendingmoney to post banner ads on that thing called theInternet? Placing product in video games? It wasunthinkable. How about paying for SEO? SEO, whatthe heck is that? Now, you put a lot of money into

SEO.* Everything we count on today to tell us how

our marketing efforts are working was once brand-new and risky. And then it wasn’t. So it will be withsocial media and the metrics that accompany it.

In 2010, Ad Week reported that Vitrue, a socialmedia management company, had calculated that amillion Facebook fans were worth $3.6 million in“equivalent media” over a year; $3.60 per personinterested enough in your brand to friend you up isnot chump change. If that number had come fromNielsen, everyone in the marketing and advertisingindustry would have treated it as gospel. The metricsalready in existence are being refined with incrediblespeed, and the fixed standards execs crave so muchare on their way.

Will there still be ways for consumers to game thesystem? Of course. But the vast majority of peopleon Facebook and Twitter are actually living within the

medium. If they’re not there, the conversation stops.If they get distracted or lose interest, theconversation changes. The data businesses cancollect about what their customers are talking about,with whom they’re talking about it, and how often, isfar less ambiguous than it’s ever been. Theproblems in accurately measuring impressions thatplague traditional media will continue for online ads,but the data about consumers’ experience and theirperception of your brand is right there to collect withevery tweet, button, heart symbol, comment, andshare. Even better, by engaging one-on-one, youcan ask for clarification, request details, and reallydelve into why your customer feels the way he or shedoes.

Every media platform has loopholes. When I firstsuggested buying Google ads, my father wasn’tconvinced it was a good idea. How would we knowthat real people had clicked through? What if it wasjust our competitors making us think the ads wereworking and driving up our budget? Well, I didn’tknow. But I was pretty sure that my competitors weretoo busy with their own marketing to spend the kindof time it would take to sabotage mine. Google

claimed to have an algorithm to prevent fraud, and itseemed to me it was in Google’s best interest toprotect me. Believe me, I wasn’t in business to losemoney. But I was thinking long term, and long-termthinking requires that you look at all the options,including the ones that might take a little time to payoff. All media-buying decisions are based on besteducated guesses, so it makes no sense for peopleto hesitate to use a new tool, especially one withsuch a low cost of entry.

3. Social media is still too young.The wait-and-see approach, the one mostcompanies have used while considering when toinvest in traditional platforms, won’t work for socialmedia. First-to-market in this hyper-fast world hasimpact. Companies can no longer just spend moneyand get in on the game. Before, it wouldn’t havemattered if, hypothetically, Nike (which wasn’tfounded until the mid-1970s) had taken one look atthe radio when it was first invented and said,“Cripes, this is going to be big, it’s going to be incars!” and gotten a $3 million head start over

Adidas. Six years later, once Adidas had lookedaround and said, “Darn, Nike was right!” andpounded the platform with a $4 million campaign, itwould have been even with, if not ahead of, Nike. AllAdidas would have had to do was spend a lot ofmoney to push its message out and the consumerwould have swallowed it, because there was somuch of it they could hardly see anything else. Itcould have trumped the other company’s longerpresence on the platform with volume, a pushplatform. Companies can’t buy volume in socialmedia, though, so today, those six years Nike wouldhave had on Adidas would count a great deal,because those are six years that Nike would havebeen going into the trenches, talking to people andinviting them to talk back, creating an emotionalbond and solidifying its relationship with theconsumer. Adidas wouldn’t be able to come out ofnowhere and magically create relationships wherethere aren’t any, and it would have a hard timepulling customers away from Nike because theywould be emotionally attached.

Adidas would not be locked out, though. If itsleaders channeled their efforts in the right direction

and created a campaign that really communicatedwith people and made consumers feel as thoughAdidas cared more about them and their businessthan Nike did, they could still close that emotionalgap. It could take a little while, but it would definitelybe doable.

For once, I’m begging businesses to take theeasier path. Embarking on one-to-one customerengagement offers significant long-term rewards, butthe company will also experience immediatebenefits—greater brand awareness, stronger brandloyalty, increased word of mouth, improvedunderstanding of customer needs, and better, fasterconsumer feedback—and suffer very fewdrawbacks, if any. Meanwhile, the drawback toresisting social media engagement is clear: thelonger you wait, the farther the competition can pullahead.

Jumping on social media platforms early givesyou a tremendous advantage, because people aremore engaged early on as they explore all thepossibilities of the medium; there’s more chatter,more overall usage, and less noise to break through.You don’t have to shout and turn cartwheels to be

heard. Being first on the scene is not all that counts,and you can certainly catch up later, but your cost ofentry will be significantly higher, and you will workconsiderably harder.

The kind of impression you’re trying to make can’tbe bought the way it could on the traditional mediaplatforms. This isn’t just about hitting someone withan image so many times it sears your brand nameinto the person’s brain. It’s about buildingrelationships, and relationships take time. Thetwelve months you wait to get in on this is twelvemonths that your competitor will have spentconnecting and building goodwill and trust withcustomers who could have been your customers. Onthis platform, it’s not just the thirty or sixty seconds ofa well-placed spot that have value—all time hasvalue, just as it does in the real world.

During my first three and a half years of highschool, I was so consumed by my baseball cardbusiness and my job at Wine Library, which was thencalled Shopper’s Discount Liquors, I hardly eversocialized with my classmates. Then, around springbreak of senior year, I realized that I was about tomiss out, and that I had one last chance to make up

miss out, and that I had one last chance to make upfor it. So I threw myself into the social scene. I havean outgoing personality and a good sense of humor,and I became more popular pretty quickly. But do Ihave the same connection to high school friends asclassmates who invested all four years into buildingrelationships with each other? Absolutely not. Real,lasting friendships take emotional investment, and Itook too long to decide to invest. Social mediarelationships and personal relationships work exactlythe same way—you get out of them what you put intothem. You can’t buy them, force them, or make theminto something they’re not ready to be.

The longer you hesitate to build a presence onthis platform, the more you will struggle to make itwork for you. That’s why so many brands, especiallycelebrity brands, are having a hard time with it. Manybig names are not jumping onto Twitter andFacebook because they fear that if they do it now,they could hurt their brand more than help it. What ifthey launch and their numbers aren’t impressive?What if they don’t attract the huge flock of followers

or fans they think they have?* Though as I keep

repeating, the number of people with whom you have

connections is far less important than the quality ofthose connections, it’s just a fact that most of theworld looks at those numbers and judges you forthem. Low numbers could hurt a brand. If thisplatform worked like TV or radio, a celebrity or anestablished brand might just buy someone else’s fanbase to make themselves look better, much the waycompanies buy up smaller companies or databases.But that’s just it; this platform doesn’t work at all likeyesterday’s platforms. Even if you could take oversomeone else’s fan base to boost your numbers,those numbers exist only because of the relationshipthat’s been built, a relationship entirely dependentupon a sustained authentic interaction betweenbrand and customer. Rihanna can’t buy KanyeWest’s fans; Blue Bell can’t buy Ben and Jerry’sfans. Amazon can buy Zappos, but it can’t buyZappos’ fans. Amazon could do what manyacquirers do—fold the newly acquired company intothe parent company, adapt the Zappos businessprocesses to match their own, take over the Zapposwarehouses, suck all the soul out of it and leavenothing intact but the logo. Amazon would have thecustomers, sure, but it would not have the customer

relationships. If Zappos were no longer the Zapposthey knew and loved, the customers would abandonship, and ultimately Amazon would gain nothing fromthe acquisition. Fortunately, Amazon gets that thekey to Zappos’ success is to leave it alone and keepits soul intact, so it will probably reap the benefits itwas looking to buy.

You can catch the leader in your space only if youget in the pool. So what if some people notice yournumbers are a little low? I believe we’re dawning onan era when more people will recognize the value ofquality over quantity, but until then, the effect of lownumbers on your brand will feel like a bee stingcompared to the hemorrhaging gunshot wound it willfeel like if you do nothing. Get in, and then startswimming better and faster than anyone else. Youdo this by being more genuine and more caring, bycreating better content, by keeping your thumb onthe pulse of the space, and by being more engaged.By being better. You have to act like the guy who fallsfor the girl who just got dumped by the love of her life.How the heck are you going to get her to let him go,and make her see that you’re worth ten of that dude?With an unbelievable amount of patience,

persistence, and understanding. Do it right, withgenuine feeling, and there’s a chance that one dayshe’ll look at you the same way she used to look athim.

People want to have close relationships with theirbrands. It still sounds a little weird today, but one dayit won’t. The right time to start building thoserelationships is right now.

4. Social media is just another trend that willpass.

One reason why business and marketing leadersmay be slow to accept social media is that for all thetalk about how fast the business world is alwayschanging and how speed is of the essence,platforms have historically remained remarkablysteady. Newspapers and magazines have beenluring us with attention-grabbing headlines andalluring pictures for hundreds of years. It wasn’t until1922 that radio gave companies a new platform withwhich to experiment, and then businesses had towait more than two decades before TV gave themanother opportunity in the late 1940s and ’50s. After

that, forty years went by before the Internet arrived.Given how spoiled they’ve been by the

predictability and stability of the one-way platformsthey’re used to, it’s no surprise that most businessand marketing leaders have been skeptical aboutthe viability of social media as the next big one. Butthere’s a saying in the NFL: speed kills. Ten yearsago, a five-foot-eight, 180-pound player would neverhave been drafted. Now, a really short, shifty, fastrunning back like Noel Devine can go into the firstround. That’s how much the league has changed in adecade, and it has totally changed the game. Socialmedia has changed the game in even less time,making levels of communication that would havebeen unthinkable ten years ago the norm today. Thegrowth and technological shifts we are experiencingtoday have a faster and greater impact on businessthan they used to. You can’t expect any product’spenetration to follow the same pattern that, say, theWalkman did thirty years ago.

Some marketing planners don’t dismiss the ideaof social media so much as they mistrust the stickingpower of any particular platform. After all, in 2006MySpace was hot, and within three years Facebook

had overtaken it in terms of users and engagement.Why wouldn’t Facebook suffer the same fate whenthe next hot platform comes along? Well, if it’s not asgood as the new thing, it will suffer the same fate asMySpace (though it should be noted that MySpace isnot anywhere near dead yet, attracting 65 millionunique users in September 2010, according to themarket research company comScore). But itwouldn’t matter. If users one day abandon Facebookin favor of something better, they won’t be jumpingoff the train, they’ll simply be moving to a new car.Move with them. The relationships you’ve worked tobuild won’t evaporate so long as you follow yourcustomers and keep up the caring. There have beenplenty of lifelong friendships that started whensomeone from New York met someone from Floridawhile vacationing in Las Vegas. Before socialmedia, they exchanged phone calls, and sent lettersand holiday cards. Now they friend each other up.What happened in Vegas never has to stay in Vegasunless you choose to let the relationships you beginthere die.

5. We need to control our message.

I would love to see that companies have recognizedthe stupidity of this argument by the time this book isin print, but I have a funny feeling many still won’t. Alot of companies resist building a Facebook wall,blogging, or starting a Twitter or YouTube accountbecause an irate customer might post negativecomments. So what? Would you prefer that thecustomer post them somewhere else where youhave absolutely no way to reply? Or somewhere youcan’t even find? If you’re that afraid of your customer,you might want to take a closer look at how you’redoing business.

You can’t control the message; that ship hassailed. Yes, things can go crazy-mad online, andcompanies have suffered from out-of-controlnegative word of mouth. But it’s highly unlikely thatwhen companies sink under the weight of a mistake,it was entirely because of that mistake. If they folded,it was because there was something fundamentallywrong with the business model or with managementthat resulted in too many repeated problems. Theone that brought the company to its knees wasn’t theonly straw, just the final one that broke its back.

Small or midsize companies might fear that theywouldn’t survive a big faux pas the way a juggernautmight—like Tylenol, which suffered a blow almostthirty years ago when someone put cyanide in itspills and placed contaminated bottles back in stores—but they needn’t worry.

Overall, problems can be fixed if you catch them intime. If you plead your case quickly and sincerely,you’ll gain back the customers’ trust, as Ann Taylordid. When Ann Taylor LOFT introduced their silkcargo pants on their Facebook page in the summerof 2010, a wave of online customers complained thatno one except a giraffe-sized, skinny model couldpossibly look good in them. To prove them wrong,LOFT employees of all heights and sizes postedphotos of themselves wearing the pants. Theresponse was extraordinary: tons of comments fromwomen thanking LOFT for listening, some evenadmitting that they might wear the pants. Thiscustomer couldn’t be swayed, but her commentillustrates why it is in a brand’s best interest tonurture customer relationships:

I love LOFT and I sooooo appreciate you taking

the time to “listen” to our comments and showthese pants on “real” women. I hope you willcontinue to do this in the future. However, I stillmaintain these pants are UGLY. They dont evenlook like capris on #2. I did want to say thankyou though and to let you know I shop at Loft,but these pants are FAIL. ;)

The customer still hates the pants, but now LOFTknows they’ve still got their evangelist out there, andthere’s a good chance that she’s spreading theword.

When I first started working for my dad, any time acustomer called or came to the store to complain, itwould ruin his life. The man would go red in the face,he would get upset, he’d just want to go home. Hewas just crushed, which is a great testament to howmuch my father cared about his customers (and Irespect and love him so much for being that way). I,on the other hand, was ecstatic when one of theseunhappy customers called, because now that I knewthere was a problem, I could try to fix it. I wouldspend the rest of my life fixing things for thatcustomer if I had to. And it always worked, even

when dealing with some of the toughest SOBs I haveever met. More than once I had to go to someone’shome and orchestrate a dinner and pour the wine—all for free. In this case, the cost of what I put intogetting that customer back was rarely close to theyearly, maybe even lifetime, value of the customer(which is, by the way, the huge advantage thatcompanies that aren’t trying to hit quarterly numbershave over publicly held companies). But I wascreating a culture, and I was establishing my brand. Iwanted my employees to absorb my vibe andmission, and layer it over everything they did. It’spossible that I lost eight hundred bucks bringing aparticularly difficult customer back into the fold. Butevery time I did something like that, I won, because Iwas strengthening the DNA of my employees andmy company, which paid off in the long run.

I would never put myself out of business, so I lostonly what I knew I could afford to lose. Anyone canscale that kind of service and attention. What’s greatis that now it’s far cheaper to cater to your customersthis way than it used to be. Back then I had to go tosomeone’s house and pair wines with food fordinner, which kept my efforts local. Now I can make a

personalized video on YouTube for free and send itto anyone, anywhere, with a bottle of wine or a $100credit. There are so many more channels we cannow use to communicate our good intent directly toour customers, with a personal, individuallycustomized message that is impossible to achievethrough TV or print.

You can fix anything unless you’re doingsomething grossly wrong. If you’re putting rat poisonin your pickles or using child labor, no matter howcheap or convenient you are compared to yourcompetitor, you’re eventually going to lose. But if theonly issue for the pickle company is that the new lidis too hard to twist off, or the new and improvedflavor of your dill pickles is making people gag, youcan do something about that.

I suspect that even BP has a prayer, and theirscrewup in the Gulf is one of the worst man-madeenvironmental disasters we’ve ever seen. Peoplewere pissed off at Exxon for a while back in the1980s, too—remember, when the Valdez ranaground and sprung a leak off the coast of Alaska?Exxon took a hit, but it’s not hard to find one of theirgas stations almost anywhere in the country, even

though there have always been plenty of other oilcompanies people could choose to buy from torefuel their cars. Tylenol is still going strong almostthree decades after its cyanide scare, and it willcertainly survive the two recalls it announced in2010. People still go to see Hugh Grant movies.Over time, if a company or brand handles itsdisaster management plan properly, most peoplewill forget, and even forgive.

Business leaders consistently underestimate twothings. First, they underestimate people’s willingnessto forgive. They are afraid to put up fan pagesbecause they think any negative comment is equal toa 60 Minutes private investigation showing thewhole world how much they stink. Very rarely is thatthe case, and if you are honest with your fans,followers, and customers, and allow them to seeexactly what steps you are taking to make thingsright, the only feature 60 Minutes will be interested indoing on you will be for your savvy social mediaskills.

Second, they underestimate people’s bullshitradar. That’s why it never works when a brandlaunches an effort that effectively tries to trick people

to retweet, like a “Fan me up and I’ll donate to Haiti”campaign, or tries to make something go viral. Youcan’t make something go viral. All you can do is putout fantastic content. If it’s that good, it will go viral allon its own. (And I’ll say it again: just donate to Haitiand shut up!)

The best thing you can do for your brand and yourcompany is to make sure that you put the truth outthere for anyone who wants to hear it. You wantnegative comments to show up on your fan page.The person who posts a negative comment is acustomer you can talk to. The customer you shouldbe scared of is the one who has a bad experience,doesn’t say a word, and never returns. Thinkingabout that person should keep you up at night. Youhave no idea how to get the person back, and youmight not even realize that you’ve lost a customer.The person who says to you on Twitter, “I bleepinghate you!” is an awesome customer to have. If youcan give alienated customers what they want, theywill come back to you stronger than ever. Every time.

Giving people what they want doesn’t translate tocaving every time someone makes an unreasonabledemand or threatens to tweet out something ugly.

demand or threatens to tweet out something ugly.You have to listen to your customers, but you don’thave to do what they tell you to do. Even if you can’tsatisfy every desire, you can make it clear that youwish you could. You can express regret thatsomeone is dissatisfied with the outcome of yourexchange. You can try to offer an alternative. (For amodel example of how a CEO should talk to anunhappy customer, see the email note from JohnPepper of Boloco, in Chapter 4.) Many times peoplelash out because they feel as though it’s the only wayto get some attention—the squeaky wheel gets the

grease, after all.* Hear them, make the call, and

explain why you made it. As long as you always takethe high road, you will minimize the impact of theirdissatisfaction on your business. Negativity launchedonline out of spite will be easily spotted as such ifyou keep your own tone polite and your messageclear and consistent. Don’t bother to get into adebate, even if you’re right. It’s not worth the effort,and again, you won’t win.

The best problem you can have is offering suchgreat service that you wind up spoiling yourcustomers. Mine expect a tremendous amount from

me, as well they should. Sometimes they ask for toomuch, and when they do, I address it. For example,some of my local clients recently informed me thatthey were annoyed that Wine Library would offer freeshipping on our sister site Cinderellawine.combecause it means nonlocals can get a better deal onit. But I explained to them, you get the store. Thecustomers in San Francisco (who sometimes buy alot more than the locals) don’t get to attend the freewine tastings, they can’t stop by anytime to seewhat’s new or talk to my staff, and they can’t nibbleon the free cheese samples and other goodies wemake available. I firmly believe that all the perksbalance out and that everyone who shops with megets a great deal. After I explained my position,some of my local customers saw my point, and theissue was resolved. Not everyone was satisfied withmy answer, but I am certain everyone appreciatedthe fact that I made an effort to respond in as muchdetail as possible. I treated the dissatisfied peoplethe way they should have been treated—likevaluable customers!

Had they wanted to, they could have badmouthedme or my store all over Facebook and Twitter. But

they didn’t, because I kept the conversation civil andhonest. And if they had, I wouldn’t have worried toomuch about it. What’s brilliant about social mediaplatforms is that no matter what someone elsechooses to say about you, you can put the facts outthere, on your fan page, on your blog, and in yourtweets. People can track events and dialogue asthey unfold. Everyone can see the exchange andmake his or her own judgment call. As long as youstay on message, and remain honest, polite, and asaccommodating as possible, you’ll have nothing tofear from someone with a grudge. Good mannersare about treating your customers with respect at alltimes. You may not be able to control the messageanymore, but you can absolutely control the tone inwhich the message gets played.

Controlling their message and their imageexplains why so many—too many—companies stillrefuse to allow their employees to publicly blog andtweet about their work. I understand their fear, but it’sunwarranted. In fact, there might be no better way toknow for sure that you’re making smart hiringdecisions. Allow your employees to talk freely, letthem say what they want, because then you will have

a much clearer picture of who your employees areand how they feel about your company. If they postsmart, thoughtful posts, that’s worth something. Ifthey post smart, thoughtful, negative posts, that’sworth something, too, if you’re open-minded enoughto talk to them about why they feel the way they do.And if you discover that they’re vulgar, or rude, or justplain stupid, and you take a closer look and realizethat their work isn’t as good as it should be, youdon’t want them to be working for you.

6. I don’t have time to keep track of what everyJoe or Jane says, and I can’t afford/don’t want

to pay someone else to do it.Anyone who takes a dismissive attitude toward anycustomer is heading for disaster. Joe and Jane havethe power, and what Joe and Jane say matters. Youcannot reserve your care and attention for your best,most profitable, most desirable customers anymore.You have the tools at your disposal to scale that kindof caring across the board, to everyone who evenlooks your way, and your customers expect you touse them. Your big spenders and casual browsers

are all living in the same ecosystem, one wherenews of how you treat one customer can easilyspread to hundreds of other current and evenpotential ones. That’s a big, big deal.

If you are a one-person company and you want togrow your business, you’re going to have to maketime to track conversations yourself because yousimply can’t afford not to. Being a part of theconversation is as important as having a website.Doing it yourself is actually ideal. If you establish thetone and voice of your brand to your satisfaction,you’ll create a solid foundation for someone else tobuild upon when you do eventually delegate the task,or share it with someone else. Because eventually, ifyou do this right, you will need help. There was atime when companies thought they needed only oneperson in the IT department, and as the companygrew, and as the importance of IT’s expertise grew,so did the department. You’ll start out with oneperson in the Social Media department, andeventually, when you see the returns on yourengagement come in, you’ll hire ten. It will be thegreatest department in your company—a group ofpeople spending their time advocating for something

they love, caring about the people who love or evenhate the brand. I can’t think of a better job. If I didn’thave my entrepreneurial strand of DNA, I’d bepumped to get paid to be an advocate of the NewYork Jets every day.

If you’re a midsize or large company, or if youcan’t handle all the responses yourself and need todelegate, you probably don’t have to hire someonenew. Now is the time to take a hard look at how youallocate your resources. It is highly likely thatsomewhere you are squandering money. Maybeyou’ve got a lazy stock boy, or managers who knockoff early to head out to the golf course every Friday,or a CMO who is still stuck in 1998. You could hire abetter, hungrier CMO for less money and use theleftover budget to start your new Social Mediadepartment (which will be totally different and

separate from your Customer Service department).*

Get lean and efficient. Consider firing anyemployees who aren’t bringing 100 percent of theirefforts to the job, and replace them with people whowill care as much about your company as you do. Ifyou see time being wasted, that’s time that can be

turned toward interacting with customers andbringing something of real value back to thecompany. All that time spent trying to coordinate tenpeople’s schedules so they can be in the same roomfor a meeting? Figure out a way to eliminate theendless back and forth, or better yet, eliminate themeetings. Too many meetings are simply a way tospread out the responsibility for making decisionsand provide safety in numbers should things gowrong. Make all the people in your company,including yourself, take ownership of their decisions,make it easy for them to use their judgment withouthaving to run for approval every time, and you’ll savecountless hours that can now be spent tracking Joeand Jane.

7. We’re doing fine without it.That is a losing argument if I ever heard one. If you’reof a certain age, you know you once did fine withoutcopy machines, voice mail, computers, and cellphones, too. You’ll adjust.

How do you know you’re “fine,” anyway, if you’renot in the trenches, listening to your customers and

asking them what they think? Remember, too, thatthe customer who doesn’t say anything can often bea far more dangerous threat than the one whoscreams and yells. Everything can be fine until all ofa sudden it’s not. If you rely on numbers to predictthe health of your company, you’re responding toshifts and events that have already happened. If yourely on comment cards or surveys for feedback,you’re still only getting a one-time reply. But if you’reengaging with your customer in real time, having aconversation in which you can ask follow-upquestions, you can get clarification and details. Youcan tackle any issue that arises before it developsinto something more problematic. Social media isgreat for putting out fires, but putting out fires all thetime is stressful and hard; keep the sparks fromflying in the first place.

Any company that gets so complacent it thinkseverything is “fine” deserves to go out of business—it literally means its leaders have stopped caring. Acompetitive company is always on the offense.Always. Always. Always.

8. We tried it; it doesn’t work.

This one makes me want to tear my hair out, itfrustrates me so much. It shows a total lack ofpatience, which makes no sense in a businesssetting. A lot of business leaders have been willingto give a social media initiative a shot. They postedcomments and tweeted like crazy for six months or,worse, six weeks, and they didn’t see any results.Web traffic didn’t increase enough; sales didn’tspike; content didn’t go viral. Faced withdisappointing results, they patted themselves on theback for trying something new and then slammed thedoor shut. If they’re progressive, they chalked up thefailure to getting in too early on an immatureplatform, but most are convinced the platform ishype, and not worth the effort. They’re like peoplewho have never seen a bicycle who try to pedal withtheir hands, then toss the thing aside, declaring it awaste of time and impractical for transportation.

Social media is a long-term play, which is why themajority of the companies that have tried it havefailed to reach their potential. The fault doesn’t liewith company managers and leaders, however. It’snot anyone’s fault, really. The problem is that the

system on which most corporate decisions aremade is broken. As the Wharton study that wediscussed in chapter one made clear, untilmanagers and leaders are rewarded for long-terminstead of short-term thinking—or, at least, inaddition to short-term thinking—there will be noincentive to be patient. You can’t reap the benefits ofsocial media’s word of mouth without a ton ofpatience, as well as commitment and strategy.

9. The legal issues are too thorny.My industry, liquor and wine, is highly regulated, and Iknow how many challenges there can be when acompany tries to embark on something new. Youhired your legal department to protect you; its job isto be conservative and risk averse…to keep thecompany as safe as possible. That’s why changehas to come from the top. Only the CEO or anotherleader of the company can sit down with the legaldepartment and say, “This company is embracingsocial media. Instead of focusing heat-seekingmissiles on perceived fatal flaws in this, let’s figureout how to take an acceptable risk and make it

possible.” If you work in the medical, pharmaceutical,or financial sector, you’re likely not going to be ableto achieve the kind of openness other industriesenjoy. But leaders owe it to themselves and to theirbrand to push the envelope as hard as they can. Ihave had the privilege to do some consulting inthese sectors, and I can tell you that how far thatenvelope gets pushed always comes down to theDNA of the company. Every legal department has itsown DNA, but so does every CEO, and in the end,the company should reflect the DNA of its leader, notits lawyers. Set the ball in motion from the top, andallow the caring philosophy to infiltrate every level ofthe company. Of course, ethics and legalconsiderations matter in social media (maybe morethan ever, thanks to its inherent transparency). But toallow yourself to be pressured to give up before youeven start, without exploring every possibility, isinexcusable, especially when consumers feel so shutout of a lot of these industries. First movers in thesesectors will reap some really substantial wins.

10. It takes too long to pay off.

This is a tough one to argue. Although we’ve seenevidence that there can be short-term payoffs, thebenefits to engaging with customers often take awhile to materialize. I can’t tell brand managers orVPs or CMOs who have numbers to hit that theyshould sacrifice the numbers for the long-term goodof the company. No matter how much managers andleaders may philosophically agree that interactingwith their customers is a good thing, without proofthat investing in engagement is reliably going to payoff with increased profit and better quarterly returns,most won’t get behind it. How can they, when theircompensation is directly tied to quarterly results?The long-term benefits of engaging with customerswill almost always lose out to the short-term reality,which is that people want to keep their jobs.

It’s unlikely a lot of people are going to read thisbook and say, “You’re right. We’re dropping all ourother media plays and we’re just going to care likehell.” But the fact is that social media is a marathon—you cannot reach the finish line without patienceand determination. That’s why diversification is soimportant. I know there is a place for traditionalmedia in a well-planned marketing budget, but in

today’s marketing mix, it’s overpriced. Let merepeat: In this environment of heavy contentconsumption, I believe that most traditional media isoverpriced. If you should see any billboardsadvertising this book, know that I got a reeeeeeeallygood deal. Carve out 3 or 5 or 10 percent of whatyou’d normally apply to traditional media andallocate it toward social media. Find more cash byreducing the enormous waste of time and moneyoften spent on producing postmortems that explainwhy your campaigns aren’t working the way youhoped they would only so you can sink more moneyinto those same old platforms. You’ll see that whendone right, social media is one of the most effectiveand least expensive platforms you can use.

A small company might be able to win the warrelying on social media alone, but a larger companyshould think of social media as the Navy SEAL unitof its armed forces. Small, targeted, and hugelyeffective when deployed, it doesn’t go out to win thewar on its own, but without it, the troops are at ahuge disadvantage.

Say you spend $750,000 on a media buy,focusing on a well-defined, geographically limited

target group, and see your sales rise 4 percent. Yourenew the buy for another $750,000, this time seeinga 2 percent boost. Then you retreat and spend sixmonths on a new campaign before launching itagain, to the same target group, to the same tune of$750,000. Every time you want your audience tohear your message, it costs you another seriousamount of cash.

Compare that to spending $750,000 to launch awell-thoughtout, on-target, strategic social mediacampaign—blogging, commenting, tweeting greatcontent and inviting interaction everywhere you can.You thank the heck out of every person who sayssomething positive about you. You address everycomplaint. You answer every question and correctevery misunderstanding. You see sales rise by 2percent. You keep the ball rolling. You never retreat;you just keep fine-tuning your message and adaptingto the needs of your customers. You give them whatthey want. You don’t spend any additional moneyother than the salary of the people in charge of thecampaign. Six months later, profits continue to riseas consumer loyalty solidifies. You grow by 13percent. And still, the only additional cash you spend

percent. And still, the only additional cash you spendare the raises you offer your staff and the salaries ofthe new hires you bring in to strengthen your socialmedia presence.

An ad or a Today Show appearance or an NPRinterview is a one-shot deal. You ride the wave ofattention it brings you for a while, but then yougenerally have to throw money around to keepinterest alive. When done right, social media, thoughit takes more up-front time to build a database ofemails, fans, and Twitter followers, ultimatelyprovides you with a never-ending opportunity to talkto consumers as often as you want, or better yet, asoften as they invite you to.

11. Social media works only for startup, lifestyle, or tech brands.

A concrete company does not have the same cachetto work with as an apparel company, I’ll grant youthat. But you can sell only to your customer base,anyway. The concrete company’s mission isn’t to getas many people as possible to buy concrete, it’s tog e t as many people who need concrete to buyconcrete. And the biggest challenge, the one that

offers the most potential for growth, is to reachpeople who don’t yet know they need concrete. Sodon’t limit your conversation to concrete. Building,expansion, remodeling, real estate, parking,wherever concrete gets used—that’s where youshould be listening and talking.

People are mistaken to think that it’s only startups,entrepreneurs, or tech companies that can makesocial media work for them (many do a piss-poor job—a study showed that 43 percent of the fastest-growing tech brands in the UK who are on Twitter

have never replied to a tweet).* Being small is an

advantage, because an individual can really shape abrand with his or her own style and personality. But alarge company can scale one-on-one to the masses,because it has the resources to train enough peopleto engage in every conversation.

It’s true that some products are sexier than others,but it’s also true that if there weren’t a need for yourproduct, you wouldn’t be in business. I don’t give awhole lot of thought to dental floss, but I might if youcan make me start caring more about my teeth. Andeven if I don’t give you an opportunity to talk about

dental hygiene, chances are good that my dentist isout there talking about it online. Engage with her,and your dental floss may well wind up in my take-home bag the next time I go in for my six-monthcheckup. (Incidentally, in chapter twelve you can seea real-life example of how Dr. Irena Vaksman, adentist in San Francisco, uses social media to makea visit to her office something patients might actuallylook forward to.)

If you’re not passionate enough about what yourcompany does to find fuel for conversation everyday, for hours on end, with as many people aspossible, maybe you’re in the wrong business. Gogeneral if you have to. Not everyone can be theLakers, but anyone can talk basketball. When Istarted out, I didn’t have the name recognition ofRobert Parker, or the clout of Wine Spectator, so Ididn’t talk about Gary Vaynerchuk or Wine Library—Italked about Chardonnay. Social media gives youthe opportunity to take your business to its fullestpotential. Grab it.

The Answer Is Always the Same

I think we’re entering a business golden age. It tooka long time for people to recognize the value ofintellectual capital, whose intangible assets don’tshow up on a spreadsheet, couldn’t be tracked, andcouldn’t be expressed in dollars. Now it’s widelyunderstood that intellectual capital is part of thebackbone of every organization, and worthprotecting. While the ability to form relationships hasalways been considered a subset of intellectualcapital, social media has catapulted that skill into awealth-building category. In the future, thecompanies with tremendous “relationship capital”will be the ones to succeed. Society is creating anecosystem that rewards good manners, high touch,honesty, and integrity. Ten years from now, everycompany will have a Chief Culture Officer on staffand, if big enough, a team dedicated to scaling one-on-one relationships. All of the issues discussedabove will have been resolved one way or another.The metrics and the standards that might seemexperimental or suspicious now will be wellestablished and accepted, just like the ones we’veused for so many years to measure traditionalmarketing platforms.

In the end, no matter what obstacles a companyfaces in the Thank You Economy, the solution willalways be the same. Competitors are bigger?Outcare them. They’re cheaper? Outcare them.They’ve got celebrity status and you don’t? Outcarethem. Social media gives you the tools to touch yourconsumer and create an emotion where before theremight not have been one. It doesn’t matter if you’renot small or cool or sexy—people can get pumpedup about the craziest stuff. I mean, really, who couldhave predicted the guy in a trench coat pulverizingiPhones in a blender? (Seriously, if you haven’t seenit, check out willitblend.com. It’s fantastic!)

There is one thing that the speaker at the 1997Chamber of Commerce dotcom talk got right: in theend, it is the businesses that have establishedstrong relationships with their customers that willcome out on top. It’s unfortunate that so manycompanies had to fall by the wayside while theThank You Economy took shape, but now that it’shere, the playing field is becoming shockingly equal.

PART II

How to Win

CHAPTER FOUR

From the Top: Instill the Right Culture

I can point to the date when the Thank YouEconomy’s existence became a matter of publicrecord. It was July 22, 2009, a Wednesday. That’sthe day it was announced that Amazon had boughtZappos for $1.2 billion.

Jeff Bezos is a hell of a smart guy, yet I heardmore than one venture capitalist insider mutter thatZappos pulled a coup. There’s just no way the onlineretail company was worth that much money, theysaid. But Zappos wasn’t overpriced, and Bezosknew exactly what he was doing.

It seems to me that anyone who knows Bezos’strack record and still criticizes this acquisition issomeone for whom numbers tell the entire story. I, onthe other hand, don’t care what the numbers say,because I know that no company’s whole story canbe read in the black-and-white columns of a P&Lstatement. And I think Bezos knows that, too. I thinkhe looked into the future, and the future was Zappos.

he looked into the future, and the future was Zappos.Here was a company that, according to off-the-record sources, was outselling Amazon on somenon-footwear products that Amazon sold for less.There are only two things that will convinceconsumers to pay more for something when theycould pay less. One is convenience, and the other isan outstanding customer experience. A lot ofcompanies can play the convenience card, but veryfew companies, including Amazon, do customerservice like Zappos. By dominating in bothcategories, they were the only retail threat toAmazon, and they’re only going to get bigger andbetter as their customer relationships deepen andtheir word of mouth continues to spread. No oneoutcares like Zappos. This wasn’t a buy based onnumbers; it was a buy based on culture and trends.That’s why Bezos is a visionary. I think he sees thatculture is the next playing field, just as he saw thatecommerce was the next playing field. He wouldn’tspend almost a billion dollars on anything but thefuture.

He doesn’t explicitly say this in the YouTube videothat he made to explain the buy. What he does say

is, “I get all weak-kneed when I see a customer-obsessed company, and Zappos certainly is that.”He also makes the point that he believes Amazonand Zappos are compatible because they bothobsess over customer service (though as TonyHsieh points out in the letter he wrote to Zapposemployees to announce the deal, they do it indifferent ways). Specifically, what he says is, “Whengiven the choice of obsessing over competitors, orobsessing over customers, we [Amazon] alwaysobsess over customers.”

Bezos hasn’t asked for my advice, but I’m goingto give it anyway. If he or anyone else wants todominate in the Thank You Economy, there’s onemore obsession that has to take root that isn’tmentioned in his video. Success in the Thank YouEconomy hinges on obsessively caring about thecustomer, yes, but a great caring culture stems fromthe top of a company and cascades through it like awaterfall. If you want that culture to flow outside of thecompany to the customer, and then get carried evenfarther by word of mouth, you have to be sure thatyour messengers live and breathe it the same wayyou do. Therefore, the dominant obsession for any

leader running a company in the Thank YouEconomy shouldn’t be the competition, nor should itbe customer service. It should be your employees.

One-to-One ManagementZappos has an amazing work environment. There’sfree food in the cafeteria, a library, and a lot of happyemployees. I’m willing to bet that most of thecompanies that are praised for outstandingcustomer service also fall pretty high on the scale ofgreat places to work. It’s got to be awfully hard foremployees to give phenomenal customer servicewhen they’re not phenomenally satisfied with theirjobs. Zappos’ perks, however, and those that areoffered at other companies, such as casual Fridaysor a glass keepsake on one’s fifth anniversary, aren’twhat actually lead to employee satisfaction. I thinkit’s safe to say that Vaynermedia is a great place towork, but we’re twenty people crammed into a tinyspace, and we don’t give out free snacks or evenknock off early on summer Fridays. I work my staff tothe bone. Still, I know they’re happy, because whileperks might make employees think harder before

deciding to leave, there are only two things thatmake employees really, really happy and make themwant to stay.

The first thing that makes an employee happy isbeing treated like an adult. That means that untilpeople prove that they can’t be trusted, they shouldbe allowed to manage their job as they see fit. Thesecond is feeling that his or her individual needs arebeing met. This is rare. To achieve this kind ofsatisfaction among staff would require businessleaders to engage at the same one-on-one level withtheir employees as with their customers. Until now,not many companies have been up to the challenge.It does sound daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. It’smerely a matter of establishing a truly caring cultureat the top, and applying Thank You Economyprinciples internally as well as externally.

For example, at Vaynermedia, we recentlyestablished a new vacation policy: there is none. Thepolicy is, take as much or as little vacation as youwant. At first it threw everyone off a little. What wouldbe considered too much vacation? Then my stafffigured out that I was serious, and that they would notbe judged by how much vacation they took. Some

have taken a solid amount; some have taken none.What matters is that they all get to decide forthemselves how much time off they need in order toperform their job at the highest level when they areworking, which means caring their face off for ourclients, for each other, and for the brand. I don’t seehow I can make that call for them. Some people havekids; others don’t. Some people have family thatlives nearby; others have to travel long distances tovisit loved ones. Some people just need a little moredowntime to recharge than others.

I do have some basic rules. I’m passionate aboutteam building, so I don’t hire anyone who wants towork from home on a regular basis. We need to beavailable when our clients are working, so projectmanagers need to be in by 9:00 and the executionteam should be in by 10:30 a.m. But within thoseparameters, I let my staff manage their timethemselves. What difference does it make what timethey leave, or how much vacation they take, so longas they are there when I, their colleagues, or theirclients need them, they are doing their job 110percent at all times, and they’re meeting theirobjectives?

I care more about my employees than I do aboutmy customers, and I care more about my customersthan I do about breathing. I am a naturally touchy-feely guy, and at work I’ve been like a mother hen(one with a huge competitive streak, for sure),constantly checking in on my employees, talking tothem, and, when I can, making sure they have thelatitude and resources to solve whatever problemsthey encounter. I’ve made it a priority to know what’sgoing on professionally, and often personally, witheveryone on my staff. The constant dialogue, whichhelps me confirm that my employees feel they arebeing allowed to position themselves to succeed,has made it easy for me to see which people aren’tpulling their weight or who isn’t the right person forthe job. Thanks to the communication facilitated bythe open, trusting, caring culture of the company,however, it has been extremely rare for me to haveto let anyone go.

Unfortunately, the employees of Wine Library haveprobably benefited more from this kind of attentionthan those at Vaynermedia. I’ve had to travel muchmore since launching Vaynermedia, and it’s beenimpossible to get as close to each individual

impossible to get as close to each individualemployee, to get a true sense of who the people areand what they need. I do my best—I’m probably anAll Star player right now. But at Wine Library, I was aHall of Famer. I want to be the same way atVaynermedia, and I have every intention of doing soas soon as possible.

So as you can see, even I, who run relatively smallcompanies, can find it difficult to keep up with thekind of one-on-one employee service required by theThank You Economy. How could it possibly beincorporated into a larger company? Somecompanies are proving that it’s possible. Zapposhas done an outstanding job of creating anemployee-centered company culture, and there areothers who have made some smart moves andexperimented successfully with giving theiremployees free rein, such as Best Buy, with itstwittering Twelpforce. Eventually the companies inthe best position to dominate will adapt many ofthese companies’ ideas, and then take them evenfarther. I predict that one day every company willhave, along with a CEO, CFO, COO, and CSO,someone with a title like CCO—Chief Culture Officer

—whose job will be to keep track of the needs ofevery single employee at the company. Not keeptrack of every employee; that would still be HR’s job.Keep track of their needs, and meet them to the bestof the CCO’s ability, not through empty pep talks andtoken gifts but through individualized goal setting,strategizing for the future, and constant confirmationthat the employee is satisfied. I’d love a job like this.If I didn’t want to buy the New York Jets, I’d bepestering every Fortune 500 company who wouldlisten to let me create the position of CCO so I couldshow them what a major difference someone in thatrole could make to their bottom line. Everyone knowsthat turnover costs a company a fortune; a CCO’ssalary could easily pay for itself just from the amountof money saved in lowered recruitment andretraining resources. What companies don’t realizeis how much extra money they would earn ifemployees loved them so much, they took it uponthemselves to work harder and longer than theywould otherwise. With a CCO on staff to help makesure each worker has a reason to feel that way abouthis or her employer, companies could findthemselves manned less by dedicated staff centered

around a job, and more by passionate armiesdevoted to a cause.

But for a mid-to-large company, being an effectiveCCO would require getting to know a massivenumber of people on an individual level, wouldn’t it?Absolutely. It would be doable if all the other culturalbuilding blocks to a Thank You Economy companyhad been established.

Cultural Building BlocksPutting those building blocks in place could occuronly once the company’s leadership dedicated itselfto making it happen, of course. If a leader were soinclined, here’s how it could be done:

1. BEGIN WITH YOURSELF. Since culture stems from thetop of a company, one would hope that the top exechas a good sense of who he or she is. Strong self-awareness makes a strong culture possible.Remembering who you are and the qualities thathave made you successful until now, whether you’rea CEO, an executive, or a mid-level manager, is

extremely important as you work toward developing,sustaining, and spreading the company culture. Itwon’t happen if you try to wear anyone’s hat but yourown. If you’re buttoned up and formal, don’t try tobecome hip and casual. If you’re a conservativecompany, be a conservative company; just be aconservative company that puts its employees first,and its customers ahead of everything else. There’sa way to do that without installing a foosball table orallowing people to wear flip-flops to the office. I hateit when companies give their offices a face lift andopen a lounge or floor where employees can playNintendo Wii and eat free Twizzlers, as if toannounce, “See how young at heart we are? Weknow what the kids want!” Self-aware leaders don’twaste a lot of time or money trying to be somethingthey’re not.

In addition, leaders have to commit to the ThankYou Economy before they can tell others to do so.Only once it is ingrained in your overall vision andstrategy can you successfully spread it through yourcompany or department. The Thank You Economy isbased in authenticity, and authenticity has to beginwith you.

2. COMMIT WHOLE HOG. No one can be expected toturn over a sizable portion of the company’smarketing budget to customer service–enhancingsocial media initiatives overnight, but the mentalcommitment can be made in a millisecond. Themental commitment is probably even more importantthan the financial commitment, especially in the earlystages of preparing a company for the Thank YouEconomy. After all, there are going to be speedbumps and wrong turns and flat tires along the way.But if the leaders of the company are unwavering intheir determination to create a culture of supersizedcaring, none of those setbacks will slow thecompany down for long. At the same time that you’reweaving care-your-face-off cultural DNA into thecompany, you can closely analyze your spending soyou can take a practical approach to finding themoney you need to implement creative, authenticsocial media initiatives. Stop blindly spending,reexamine your staff, start haggling harder for thebest deals, and revisit the agencies and vendors youwork with. The money is there; it’s just being spent in

the wrong place.

3. SET THE TONE. As soon as leaders commit tobuilding a caring culture, they need to send a strong,direct message about their intent. Employees shouldbe able to feel the difference immediately, and theyshould be able to look to their leaders for examplesof the kind of care, concern, and one-on-oneinteraction with customers that will be expected ofthem.

John Pepper, the CEO of Boloco, a Boston-based burrito chain, has done this brilliantly.Internally, he and his cofounders have made it clearthat the welfare and future of Boloco’s employeesare paramount, from providing health care to all full-time and most hourly employees to offering Englishand Spanish classes to all staff in an effort toimprove in-house communication and allow non–English-speaking workers to rise to roles of greaterresponsibility. His employees can also look to himas a role model. His engagements on social mediaoffer plenty of examples of the kind of personal,caring interaction he expects them to engage in with

customers. For example, by searching Twitter for theword “Boloco,” he caught someone sitting rightoutside a store located on the Boston Commons,complaining that the music was set too loud. Healerted the manager, who immediately lowered thevolume and then came out to make sure the musiclevel was set to the customer’s satisfaction.

What followed next should prove the impact of theThank You Economy.

The happy customer sent out a new tweetpraising Boloco for its customer service.Many of her followers started twittering aboutwhat had just happened.She then wrote an entire blog post about herexperience, which you can read about in herpost, “Music, Burritos, and the Impact of aTweet,” on her blog, Rachel Levy: SocialMedia and Marketing.The story got retold in a book.A lot more people have now heard of Bolocoand its awesome burritos.

Would you care to put a dollar amount on the

earned media Boloco gained through one great actof customer service? (I hope it’s a lot, because thatwould mean many people had bought this book!)

More dramatically, Pepper sets the tone bysidestepping around the corporate-speak walls mostleaders hide behind. You can see it in the way heanswers customer comments from the heart. Aperfect and praiseworthy example is the letter hewrote to a customer who was disappointed thatBoloco had taken his favorite burrito off the menu.

–—Original Message–—

From: John Pepper[mailto:pepper@boloco.com]Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 8:31 P.M.To: BenSubject: RE: Boloco.com: customerresponse

Ben,First of all, thanks for your note. We always

appreciate hearing from customers…even ifwe’ve done something that doesn’t make them

happy, it helps us a great deal.We worried a lot about Roasted Veggies

and what the reaction would be. The reasonthey disappeared in the first place is becauseso few people actually ordered them, and theamount of prep time and waste (because they’dsit too long and we’d have to throw them out)stopped justifying keeping them on the menuyears ago…but because of the few, andoutspoken, customers who lived on them, wekept them in place. You are now the 7th personthat has written about this loss since we tookthem off three months ago (not including ahandful of our employees who are also quiteupset).

From a purely business standpoint, it didn’tmake any sense to keep the Roasted Veggies.From a customer loyalty standpoint, however,your note (and the others like it) makes mewant to get them back on the menu tomorrow!The challenge we always have is balancing thetwo…you would be amazed at the number ofrequests we get on a weekly basis from ourcustomers—obviously, we can’t accommodate

everyone, but we do listen to everyone, andconsider what they say carefully.

I don’t know how this will turn out in themonths to come. I know I can’t promise they willreturn unless we start hearing overwhelmingfeedback that they must. We’ve taken items offin the past and had no choice but to bring themback (ie. Buffalo chicken is best examplewhere it felt like a riot was about to take place)…so far, this hasn’t been one of those items.

I hate to even suggest trying the tofu, if youare in fact a vegetarian. My wife is, and that’swhat she gets religiously. It’s not your standardtofu, it has spice, flavor, and people love it!

Other vegetarians will get the fajitas, though Iagree with you [they] are far different than theRoasted Veggies.

And finally, others will just get any of theitems we sell “as is,” which is to say withoutchicken or steak. Most of our menu items startvegetarian, and only when you add chicken orsteak do they become otherwise.

I am sorry I don’t have the answer you arelooking for. To try and make up for this, and to

give you a few visits on us to possibly findsomething else that gets you excited, send methe 16 digit code on the back of your Bolococard (you can pick one up if you don’t have one,and send it to me then) and I’ll add someBurrito Bucks on there for you to use. It’s theleast we can do, and maybe you’ll findsomething that works. If not, we will hope thatsomething we do in the future brings you backto our restaurants—we have sincerelyappreciated your business and hope we’ll finda way to earn it back soon.

Cheers,John

This letter is:

PERSONAL Not a whiff of corporate speak.Pepper mentions his wife, offers otheralternatives, and sounds genuinely sorry thecustomer is unhappy.HONEST He doesn’t make any promises hecan’t keep, and explains the practical andfinancial reasons why the unpopular decision

financial reasons why the unpopular decisionhad to be made.ACCOMMODATING He offers a way for thecustomer to try some other options on themenu, free of charge.

I read this letter, and the one written by Tony Hsiehto announce the Zappos/Amazon deal to Zappos

employees,* and I wonder why so many business

leaders have such a hard time being real. Imaginehow a customer would feel if he got a letter like thisfrom a CEO, instead of one packed with stiff, formal,empty jargon. Pepper is walking the Thank YouEconomy walk, and from Boloco’s success and loyalcustomer following, it’s clear that his efforts toproperly set the tone are flowing downhill, out thefront door, and into the streets. Pepper is surelyspot-on when he says, “I know people are saying,‘I’m going to go to Boloco because I know they careabout my business.’”

4. INVEST IN EMPLOYEES. If you’re a social mediachampion at your company, but no one is listening to

you yet, take heart; your time is near. Think about allthe people on staff at the television studios in theearly 1990s who noted the success of MTV’s TheReal World and fought to convince their companiesthat there was a huge opportunity in reality TV. Theyhad to wait until the summer of 2000 to be provenright with the explosive success of Big Brother andSurvivor. I doubt that you, on the other hand, willhave to wait eight years to see businesses fullyadopt and accept social media into their marketingstrategies. The company you’re currently working formay take that long, but I would hope that if you’re aforward-thinking, ambitious person, you’ll havejumped ship long before then and taken your talentssomeplace where they are appreciated.

If you’re a company leader, and youphilosophically agree with Thank You Economyprinciples but your company is still not ready toimplement social media strategies, look around.Who keeps asking you when the business is goingto have a Facebook page? Who keeps forwardingblog posts and articles about companiessuccessfully using social media to reach theircustomers? Even if you don’t understand the social

media trend, those people do. And they not onlyalready know your company, they already careenough to be thinking of ways to help it grow. Even ifthis whole social media thing were to wind up beinga load of nothing (which isn’t going to happen), anyperson willing to put him-or herself on the line likethat is one of the most valuable in your company. Donot let such employees get so frustrated by yourrefusal to listen to new ideas that they decide toleave. Too many leaders invest insufficiently in theiremployees for fear of losing out when thoseemployees leave. Any investment you make in youremployees will be safe if they believe that you reallycare about them and their future. Create a culturethat rewards people who show that they care. Seekthe input of people who have shown a tendency totake risks and share big ideas. Prove that you valueyour employees above all else by giving them thefreedom to ask for what they want, to experiment,and to be themselves.

It’s okay if you put this effort into employees andthey still choose to leave for bigger and betterpositions at other companies. You want ambitiouspeople on staff, and it’s inevitable that ambitious

people will be on the lookout for new opportunities.Even if they leave, your efforts will not have beenwasted, for you will be developing your company’sreputation as a place where people in your field cangrow their careers. That’s the kind of reputation thatattracts the best and the brightest, which is exactlywho you want working with you. Besides, if you’vereally built a company that values its staff, manyemployees will try to return, bringing with them moreexperience, stronger skills, and a broaderperspective, because they miss their old workenvironment so much.

When people are happy, they want to make otherpeople happy. Therefore, if success in the ThankYou Economy is contingent on making yourcustomers so happy they could cry, you have to dothe same for your employees.

5. TRUST YOUR PEOPLE. I’m pretty good at recognizingone of my own, so the employees I hire tend to bepeople who share a lot of my DNA. That’s one of thereasons why I know I can give them so muchfreedom—most of them are built like me, and share,

or at least do their best to keep up with, my over-the-top work ethic. Creating a Thank You Economyculture will become easier and easier as you beginhiring people who share your commitment to caring.It will be easy to spot the people already on staff whocan’t adapt or just don’t get the concept, and as theyleave you will replace them with others who shareyour DNA. An NBA team doesn’t hire people whocan’t shoot a basketball. An exec wouldn’t hire adisorganized administrative assistant.

When you know without a doubt that you’ve madegood hires, it’s easy to give employees the freedomthey need to give the kind of one-on-one customerservice that will resonate in the TYE. Create a cultureof openness. Let your employees blog and tweet asmuch as they like, the way the Twelpforce does atBest Buy. And let them be themselves. Authenticityis a huge part of what makes social media initiativeswork. In addition, allowing your employees to useTwitter, YouTube, Quora, Facebook, and blog poststo talk about your brand and their work not onlyprovides them a venue for expression, it gives you,or your CCO, another window through which you cansee how they do their job. Combine those

observations with the ones you make about theirperformance on the job, and you’ll quickly knowwho’s a superstar and who needs some moretraining. In addition, you’ll know how they feel abouttheir job, and that is no small issue. There’s a reasonemployees become dissatisfied or frustrated—takethe time to find out what it is, and work with them toresolve the situation.

Employees have to be held accountable for theiractions, of course. If someone tweets out, “I hate thisjob and my boss is a weasel,” well, yeah, that can’tbe overlooked. But it doesn’t necessarily mean thatperson gets fired. He might; he might not. It would alldepend on the conversation that ensued, which doesnot begin, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”but with a more reasonable, “Tell me why youtweeted that.”

Even if you decide it is a fireable offense, youremployee should know that you understand why hedid what he did. One year, the day before Christmas,I asked one of my top guys how he was doing. Helooked me right in the eye and said, “I bleeping hatethis place and I hate you.” Well, I hadn’t seen thatcoming. Did I appreciate getting cursed out by an

employee? Not at all. But I knew him well, whichmeans I knew that there were circumstances in hislife that might make his already hot temper flare up.We talked, and together we figured out a way torearrange his workload so that he didn’t feel as if hisback was against a wall. He was a stock boy backthen, making less than ten dollars a day; today he isone of Wine Library’s top executives.

This event happened several years ago. Had itoccurred more recently, it’s possible that instead ofblowing up in my face, privately, this employee mighthave tweeted out his frustration to the world. Totallyunacceptable. But I probably would have handled thesituation the exact same way. I believe in secondchances, and if I have done my job and gotten toknow my employees and what drives them, I shouldbe able to work with them to make sure somethinglike that never happens again.

Too many companies are afraid of openness, butif you’re doing everything right internally, and hiringthe right people, there shouldn’t be anything to fear.We are a capitalist society, but the majority ofbusinesses are taking a communist approachtoward allowing their employees to use their voice

toward allowing their employees to use their voiceon social media. They don’t want the wrongmessage to get out, but if they create the rightinternal culture, it’s unlikely there will be a wrongmessage.

But there’s still a risk, right? What if someonedoes say something he or she shouldn’t, somethingthat could negatively affect you or your brand?There’s very little an employee can say to hurt yourcompany that you can’t fix if you act with speed andgood intent. Much of the negative fallout frombusiness disasters can be traced more directly tothe boneheaded way a snafu was handled than tothe actual mistake, misunderstanding, or even crime.Most consumers are smart enough to know that onerogue employee doesn’t represent an entire largecompany, and a sincere apology from the top, onethat acknowledges the harm done and that offersevidence that it won’t happen again, goes anexceedingly long way.

Best Buy normally deserves praise for the way ithas empowered its staff by allowing employees totweet, but it still has some work to do. A managerfound a popular satirical animated video pitting EVO

versus iPhone 4 on YouTube, and realized a storeemployee had created it. Though the video didn’tmention Best Buy, other less popular videos theemployee created did, and the company felt that thepopular video was criticizing the iPhone. Anxious toprove that they expected their employees to respectall of the brands they carried, they asked theemployee to quit. He refused, so they suspendedhim while figuring out how to handle the situation. Inthe meantime, the story got out, was reported by theblogosphere, and all of a sudden Best Buy founditself looking stupid and defending itself. In the endthey didn’t fire the employee, but unsurprisingly, hequit.

Were Best Buy’s actions enough to impact theirstock price or the balance sheet? Not at all. But theygot some negative earned media that didn’t makethem look very good to their high-tech consumerbase, and that’s never a good thing. You would bestunned by how many customers and employeeshave changed their attitude toward the Best Buybrand as a result of the poor way they handled thesituation.

6. BE AUTHENTIC. Corporate execs could learn a lotfrom Jim Joyce, the umpire who blew a perfectgame for Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarragaduring the 2010 season after incorrectly ruling thatCleveland Indians’ Jason Donald was safe on firstbase. It was a mistake, a big one that must havebeen a terrible blow to Galarraga. And yet Galarragahimself couldn’t hold the mistake against Joycewhen he saw how genuinely distraught the umpirewas at having robbed the player of a historic game.“I say many times: Nobody’s perfect,” Galarragasaid. “Everybody makes a mistake. I’m sure he don’twant to make that call. You see that guy last night, hefeels really bad. He don’t even change. The otherumpires shower, eat. He was sitting in the seat [andsaying], ‘I’m so sorry.’”

As was to be expected, fans were outraged,some, unfortunately, taking their fury to an uglyextreme by threatening Joyce’s family, “but as wordspread of Joyce’s admission, apology and anguish,he and Galarraga became shining examples ofsportsmanship and forgiveness.”

By the next day, Detroit fans applauded theumpire crew as they arrived on the field for that day’sgame against the Indians. Joyce’s humility andauthenticity, his genuine remorse, and hiswillingness to speak from the heart—“I tooksomething away from him…and if I could, I wouldgive it back in a minute”—quickly turned publicopinion around. For that matter, we can all take acue from the other player in this story, Galarraga,who made a point of shaking the ump’s hand as hehanded over the lineup card, behaving graciously ina situation when many would have let theirdisappointment get the better of them.

Only a few weeks after Joyce botched the call, hewas voted baseball’s best umpire in a poll of onehundred Major League players, published by ESPNThe Magazine Baseball Confidential. Over histwenty-two years in the majors, he has built such astrong, well-respected, authentic personal brand thateven a massive mistake like the one he made withregard to Galarraga could not destroy his career.Legacy trumps everything. Any business, whether inbusiness twenty-two years or twenty-two days, wouldbe well advised to take a page from this umpire’s

rule book.People can smell BS even across an oil-slicked

Gulf. With the power of social media to spreadarticles, images, videos, and audio recordingsaround the world in minutes, authenticity, and thelong-term relationships that can result from authenticinteraction with consumers, will almost always be thedeciding factor in how a brand or company survivesa false step in the Thank You Economy.

Empower PeopleI like to imagine that midsize and large companieswill open something that I would love to call the GiveA Crap department (I actually have another name forit, but I try to leave the really bad curse words for myonstage talks). For the purposes of this book, I’ll callit the Social Media department, headed by acommunity manager, and populated by a small armyo f champion carers dedicated to interacting andengaging with every customer they can find. But inthe Thank You Economy, big companies behave alot more like small companies. In small companies,employees often serve multiple roles and it’s

expected that they will pitch in wherever they areneeded. So, like the staff of a small mom-and-popshop, every big business competing in the ThankYou Economy would empower all of their employeesto provide phenomenal customer service, and notstrictly relegate that task to the Social Mediadepartment. Customer service could now look likethe business analyst who works in the Vitamin Wateraccounts payable department; at the park on aSaturday, he sits down on a bench just as a guytakes a swig from a Dragonfruit flavor Vitamin Waterand says to his buddy, “I love this flavor.” The analystwhips out his card and says, “I’m so glad you like it.Email me and I’ll send you an online code for a freecase. Thanks for enjoying our beverage!” If theanalyst worked for a company that didn’t have theresources to offer free product, a simple “I work forVitamin Water. I’m so glad you like our product.Thanks for drinking it.” will still knock anunsuspecting customer’s socks off. It’s still so rarefor anyone to be personally acknowledged by abrand that the impact of such a simple, politegesture on a customer’s buying habits could behuge. When it comes to customer care in the Thank

You Economy, there is little difference betweenonline and offline behavior. It’s all public. Anytimeyour brand or product is mentioned or used is anopportunity to say “Thank you,” as well as “You’rewelcome,” “I’m sorry,” “How so?” “Is that how youreally feel?” “Tell me what happened,” “How can I fixthe problem?” or “Allow me.”

Now wait a minute, you’re thinking. There are acouple of obvious reasons why such a strategywould never work.

1. It’s nice for customers to feel appreciated andcared for, but how does giving away free stuff payoff?

Well, what if each employee were given his or herown marketing budget, say $200, which could bespent however the employee wished on providingfabulous moments of customer service? You couldtrack who used their budget, and how, and thenadjust. Margot is spending her budget on peoplewho become return customers, which means one oftwo things: she really knows how to make a potentialcustomer feel that she cares about their business, orshe’s very good at recognizing individuals who reallydo need your product or service. The money Dan

spends, however, seems to be bringing in friends orone-shot purchases. Now you know that you shouldincrease Margot’s budget and decrease Dan’s. Or,if you want Dan to do a better job, offer an incentivethat for every return customer, the employee whothanked the customer and brought in the businesswill get a percentage of the purchase, or a smallbonus.

It could work.2. Even if it did work, it could result in people

staging product placement opportunities just sothey could get free services and merchandise. Or,on the flip side, it could result in a horrible backlashagainst what could be perceived as sneakymarketing tactics.

Maybe. It’s possible that if businesses adoptedsuch a strategy we’d all feel as though we couldn’ttrust anyone’s opinions anymore, and that every timea stranger sat down next to us we’d have to worry heor she was eavesdropping. I don’t think that willhappen, because I think it is an infinitesimalpercentage of companies who would actually go tothis extreme to prove they’re listening to theircustomers. But if it did happen, it would take a long,

customers. But if it did happen, it would take a long,long, long time. And by the time the public startedgetting annoyed, you, who are always looking aheadto new opportunities to show your customers youcare, would have adapted and moved on. You wouldhave already seen what was happening and figuredout a new way to interact with consumers. You’ll dothe same thing with Facebook and Twitter. Whenthose platforms stop working as well as they do now,it won’t matter to you because you’ll already havejumped onto the next social media train car, or someother yet-to-be-invented platform. The platforms youuse are incredibly important to successful socialmarketing, but they will always be a close second toyour intent and your message.

Cultures change. Societies change. An affairbrought down Gary Hart’s 1988 presidentialcampaign but was not enough to keep Bill Clintonout of the White House in the early nineties, only afew short years later. Clinton had to swear that hedidn’t inhale, but Barack Obama’s frank admissionto pot and cocaine use during his college years waspractically a non-issue. Of course other factorsaffected the outcomes of these men’s political

careers. But there can be no denial that based onthe public’s response, or lack thereof, to thesepieces of news that somewhere along the way oursociety and our culture experienced a shift. Whatseems radical or frightening or impossible or over-the-top one year is ho-hum the next. Perhaps thecaring business culture I foresee in the Thank YouEconomy seems extreme. If so, it’s only for now.Those of you who think I’m dreaming too big, comeback to me in a few years and we’ll talk. I’ll be polite.I won’t say “I told you so.” Well, maybe I will.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Perfect Date: Traditional MediaMeets Social

If you live in the New York area, you might have seenads for Crush It! on a billboard located right next tothe Meadowlands, where my beloved New York Jetsplay football, and on a few taxi tops zooming aroundthe city. You might have wondered why I bothered,especially since I have pointed out more than oncethat in the past, billboard advertising has brought meabout 10 percent of the results that I got from

tweeting.* Well, I’ll tell you why. Even though the

viewership and absorption rates in traditional mediaare way, way down from where they used to be, theystill carry some cachet and can offer some results.To many, you’re not a legitimate brand unless youhave a presence on those platforms. So when Ifound myself in a position to barter consulting time inexchange for some ad space on top of a taxi for mybook, I didn’t think twice. As for the billboard, it said,

“Ask me how much I paid for this billboard,” andlisted my email address. In one fell swoop, I got topromote my book, create an opportunity fordialogue, and gauge people’s interest in thequestion. To anyone who followed through, I gave theanswer: I spent fifteen hundred bucks on a billboardfor which many brands spend ten thousand.

I’m not that much more of a brilliant negotiatorthan some of the people buying billboards and adsfor other brands, but I had two things going for me.First, I had a great relationship with the rep that soldme the billboard space. I’ve worked with him before.He’s a terrific guy, full of hustle, very persistent, andhe pays close attention to what I’m up to andcontributes lots of ideas to help me. By now, though,I know the billboard game, so I knew what to ask for,and I knew when to back down and when to presson. Because we have such a good relationship, wewere able to work together to come up with amutually acceptable deal. Second, I cared like crazy.Compare the mind-set of an account manager at anad agency, whose big-brand client gives her $5million to spend, $300,000 of which is allocated forbillboards, with that of a small-business owner who

feels as though every dollar she spends on media iscoming from her own pocket. The small-businessowner is going to fight much harder for the best deal.How much a person cares factors a great deal inhow that person does business. That’s not to saythat account managers and the other peoplecompanies hire and trust to manage aspects of theirbusiness don’t care about their clients. Many do.Many care a lot. But it takes a special person toadopt a sense of ownership and identification withhis or her client. If you believe you’ve got someonelike that in your court, hang on to that person with allyour might.

The second reason why someone like me, whobuilt his brand almost entirely via social medianetworks and has compared traditional media to thePony Express, used traditional media to advertise abook about building brands via social medianetworks, is this: I wanted to talk to as many peopleas I could. I can reach a hell of a lot of people bycaring them to death online, but I recognize thatsome people just aren’t there yet. Those peoplematter to me. I want to go where they go. I wouldadvertise in every magazine, from Fortune to

People, if I felt they were charging me the right pricefor their ad space. I am certain that the right price isnot $35,000 for a full page. That’s a figure calculatedupon circulation numbers, but not upon actualreadership. There is no way you can tell me thatevery person who picks up the magazine is going tosee the actual page upon which my ad appears. Ibelieve the pricing should reflect that reality, and Ibelieve that every company that buys advertisingshould demand fairer pricing.

Until that day comes, however, the majority ofcompanies are simply going to have to get lean andmean; the only way to get rid of love handles is bytrimming some fat. If you haven’t done it yet, you’vegot to find a way to reallocate some money in yourbudget toward social media, because it is utterinsanity for any company not to have a Facebookand Twitter presence in 2011. There are somebrands that might be able to get away with marketingthemselves exclusively on social media, but there isnot a single company out there that cannot benefitfrom adding social media to its marketing strategy.What’s more, a brand that plays exclusively on thesocial media field is doing itself a disservice by not

social media field is doing itself a disservice by notexamining the potential of traditional media. Whenused to their fullest potential, the two platforms cancomplement each other in amazing ways.

Extend the ConversationIf you were on a date, and there was some seriouschemistry, you wouldn’t let it end at the restaurant.You’d probably suggest continuing your conversationover drinks or coffee or an ice-cream cone. Youmight take a walk, duck into a bookstore, or stop inat the retro vinyl shop. If you’re on a fabulous date,you don’t want the night to end, and you’re going totry to find any way you can to keep the conversationand connection going.

Combining traditional and social media can allowyou to do the same thing when talking to peopleabout your brand. Denny’s, for example, had a greatTV date with its customers during the 2010 SuperBowl. It ran three commercials announcing that for afew hours on the following Tuesday, you could comein for a free Grand Slam breakfast. The ads werefunny and creative—chickens freaking out over howmany eggs they were going to have to lay for the

event—but what a missed opportunity to leverage allthe people watching the ads with their laptops openin front of them! All Denny’s had to do was say, “Goto Facebook.com/Denny’s right now, become a fan[an option that was supplanted by the “Like” button],and receive a coupon for an additional free largeOJ.” Hundreds of thousands—maybe millions—ofpeople would have gone to the site, spent some timeengaging with the Denny’s brand, and gotten theircoupon, and Denny’s would have had data that theycould use and reuse for years. So, Denny’s spentabout $10 million to produce three ads and gaveaway a lot of free product. They gave their customera nice experience and more than likely gained somenew customers, too. But had Denny’s establishedrelationships with their customers on a socialnetworking site, they would have stretched the valueof those $10 million. By clicking “Like” on a brand’sFacebook page, customers show their willingness tooffer data about themselves that allows the brand tocommunicate directly with them and tailor itsmarketing in an extremely personal, customized way.As the consumer-brand engagement shows up in theconsumer’s newsfeed, the message spreads even

farther through the social media ecosystem with noadditional effort by the brand. If Denny’s hadextended the conversation, the date might haveended with an invitation for a nightcap instead of achaste kiss at the door.

Reebok, on the other hand, invited its audience infor a drink with its television ad for Speedwicktraining T-shirts. It featured Stanley Cup championsSidney Crosby and his Pittsburgh Penguinsteammate Maxime Talbot as they paid a visit toCrosby’s childhood home in Nova Scotia. The adshows Crosby and Talbot heading down to thebasement, where they admire the dent-riddledclothes dryer that caught every puck Crosby didn’tget into his practice net. The two start shootingpucks into the open dryer—first to get nine in wins.Talbot is leading 3–1 when the screen abruptly goesblack and the words “See who wins atFacebook.com/reebokhockey” appear. Only bybecoming a fan could viewers find out who won.

The ad showed off the brand in an entertaining,even personal way, inviting hockey fans into the innerlife of a favorite player. Then it drew them in evenfurther by giving them a reason to follow the brand to

Facebook. And follow they did. In a short amount oftime, Reebok saw their numbers jump by the tens ofthousands. In and of themselves, numbers meannothing—it’s the quality of one’s followers and fansthat really matters, not the quantity. But in this case,Reebok had both, and the numbers representedtens of thousands of people who gave Reebokpermission to remarket to them. In turn, they have thepotential to fan Reebok’s message out to millions ofpeople through status updates, comments, and otherforms of engagement. Three years ago, all of thoseNHL fans would have seen the ad, and their datewith Reebok would have ended in sixty seconds. In2011, however, Reebok can keep that date going foras long as they can keep the engagementinteresting and worthwhile to their fan base. Now thatis marketing money well spent.

Learn to Play Ping-PongWhen traditional and social media work welltogether, as they did for Reebok, it’s like a friendlyPing-Pong match. Instead of spiking their traditionalmedia and ending the match, Reebok hit the ball

back over to social media. Ping. Then they gavesocial media a chance to return the shot. Pong.Anyone can do it. Develop creative work that allowsthe platforms to rally, to work together to extend yourstory, continue the conversation, and connect withyour audience. Demand more from your ad agency.It’s not enough to simply throw a Twitter or Facebooklogo at the bottom of your ad, or showFacebook.com/yourbrand at the end of your TVcommercial. That’s about as exciting and useful assaying “We have a phone!” or “Found in moststores!”

What you might do instead is post a creativeimage or text, including your actual address onFacebook and Twitter, that piques the consumer’sinterest enough to go there to see what else youhave to say. Pull the viewers in, and keep theconversation going for as long as you can.

Layering social media on top of traditional mediato extend the story is the most practical, executable,and measurable marketing move you can maketoday. It should therefore be a relatively easystrategy to sell to your team or to your clients.

CHAPTER SIX

I’m on a Horse: How Old Spice PlayedPing-Pong, Then Dropped the Ball

Unless you were living under a rock, you probablysaw at least one of the Old Spice commercialsstarring Isaiah Mustafa that began airing the dayafter the 2010 Super Bowl. With this campaign,Procter & Gamble, Old Spice’s parent company,showed the world how a brand can play a kick-assgame of media Ping-Pong.

First, it started with outstanding content, spoofingevery stereotype of masculinity they could come upwith through clever writing and picture-perfectcasting. As soon as a bare-chested Mustafa finishedgliding around from one paperback-romancescenario to another, reassuring women that even iftheir man didn’t look like him, they could smell likehim if they stopped using lady-scented body wash,millions of people rewound their DVRs and watchedthe ad again. And again. Then they started talking

about it on Facebook and Twitter and making spoofvideos on YouTube.

Thanks to the TV ad, millions of people—women,especially—now felt something for Isaiah Mustafa,and were linking his manly abs to the Old Spicebrand. So, five months and a second TV spot later,when P&G marketers used Twitter’s promoted trendad platform to ask Old Spice followers on Twitterand Facebook, as well as users on Reddit and Digg,to submit questions for the Old Spice Man, theyreplied enthusiastically. People voted for theirfavorite questions, and the winners receivedpersonal replies from the Man himself. Old SpiceMan also initiated contact with celebrity influencers,including George Stephanopoulos, Alyssa Milano,Rose McGowan, and Kevin Rose, who, notcoincidentally, happen to have large Twitterfollowings. The Internet went wild as people foundout they could talk directly to the man who could ridea horse backward and catch a birthday cake whilesawing through a kitchen. Over the course of twodays, Mustafa taped about two hundred real-timevideos responding to fans’ questions.

Play to the Emotional Center, but Not to theMiddle

Corporate America and many private businesseslike to live in the middle. The middle is safe. Themiddle is often quantifiable. And you can reach a lotof people in the middle, as you can see in thisillustration:

Yet very little in the middle is often memorable,and what is memorable is what sticks. Stories and

ideas that catch us off guard, make us pay attention,and show up where we didn’t expect them—thoseare sticky. Sticky stories are the ones that getcarried forward, permeating the barrier around themiddle and reaching far more people than you’ll everfind in that limited space.

You can use a traditional media platform such astelevision, but marketing victories lie in the extremes,

the things that make people look up from their iPadsor BlackBerrys and say, “What the heck was that?”Quality content is king. Always. But from now on,quality content must be followed up with qualityengagement. You had better be ready and waiting toengage your consumers online when they startgoogling and tweeting and facebooking to find outmore about the awesome content they justexperienced, because that’s how our consumerculture works now. Anyone marketing in the ThankYou Economy has to stay aware of where the cultureis going, and go there.

The Old Spice campaign wasn’t cheap. Theproduction values were high for video, the actor costmoney, a team had to keep track of all of thosementions of Old Spice zipping around the Internet,the scripts were being written by four writers as fastas the questions came in, and the whole thingstarted with a multimillion-dollar TV ad buy. And yet,the company decided to spend additional money onpromoted tweets, a brand-new and completelyunproven Twitter advertising channel. What thatindicates is that someone in the company, or atWieden and Kennedy, the ad agency they were

working with, understood one of the major Thank YouEconomy principles: it is worth casting a line intomicro-trend ponds; they are less crowded, lessnoisy, and less expensive than the bigger ones inwhich everyone else is fishing. In the TYE, thesesmall ponds will appear with greater and greaterfrequency. The likelihood is that they will dry upquickly, too. But when used properly, micro trendscan provide a fresh channel by which brands can telltheir story to a new audience. First-user advantagematters more now than it ever did.

Did the Campaign Work?It depends on whom you ask. For example, sales ofOld Spice Body Wash, which were already on therise, rose sharply—by 55 percent—over the threemonths following the first aired TV commercial, thensoared by 107 percent (a statistic that included me,because I bought my first stick of Old Spice during

that time*) around the time the response videos

began showing, but some seem to question whetherthe uptick might have been due to a two-for-onecoupon promotion rather than a well-integrated

social media campaign. There are two things we doknow to be true, though:

1. The earned media was fierce. Practically everymarketing and tech blogger, and almost everymedia and news outlet in the country, coveredthe story. The value and reach of that mediacoverage has to be worth far more than a bunchof full-page print ads in Maxim or Cosmo.

2. Old Spice’s YouTube channel reported morethan 11 million views and over 160,000subscribers. Eleven million impressions—notthe worst number I’ve ever seen. And, Proctor &Gamble now has data on 160,000 people theydidn’t have before, and they can use that data toremarket to those consumers. How much is itgoing to cost them this time? Zero.

Could a smaller brand with a lesser budget havepulled off the Old Spice campaign? Yes and no. Ifthe talent was there, absolutely. However, we can’tunderestimate the weight of the millions of dollarsthe company spent in creating opportunities for the

public to form an emotional attachment to the OldSpice Man. But Old Spice could have spent twicewhat it did, and if the talent hadn’t been as strong,nor the writing as smart, the ad would have beenforgotten as soon as it had run, assuming it waseven noticed at all. A brand that spent only $30,000and got fewer fans wouldn’t necessarily lose if itinvested in a relationship with each fan. Follow-through counts for a lot in the Thank You Economy.

Tony the Tiger, are you paying attention? Howabout you, Ronald McDonald? Why aren’t moreiconic brands leveraging the opportunity to talk to thepeople who love them? That said, it’s not about thebudget, it’s about the creativity and the caring. Anybrand, big name or no name, can benefit fromposting personal videos; it doesn’t need to have theproduction values of Old Spice. Any brand can writefantastic, surprising content. Big brands don’t have amonopoly on making social media that sticks.

To recap how Old Spice brilliantly executed one-on-one engagement:

It established brand equity on TV with fantasticcontent.

Ping.

Then it extended the compelling story toFacebook and Twitter

Pong.And to Digg, Reddit, and several other smaller

pondsPing.Whose users went to the big YouTube pond to

see the videosPong.Where they experienced a level of a brand’s

personal attention and engagement that has rarely, ifever, been seen before

Ping.And then tweeted and commented like crazy

about itPong.Which garnered coverage for the campaign on

television, in print, and on radio, making Old Spice,your grandfather’s brand of deodorant, nationalnews.

The Huge MissThe Old Spice campaign is considered a huge

social media win, one that hundreds of social mediaexperts have praised, but here’s where the storytakes a bit of a surprising turn. I was sure that OldSpice planned to use the information it has on its

almost 120,000 Twitter followers* to start engaging

with each and every one of them on a personal,meaningful level. Every one of those people shouldhave received an email, thanking the followers forwatching the videos and offering them a reason tokeep checking in. I’d love to be proven wrong, but Idon’t think that happened. As of September 2010,almost two months after Old Spice ambushedTwitter, the Old Spice account has tweeted onlytwenty-three times, and not one of the tweets talks orinteracts with an actual person or user of the brand.Ad Age published an article that begins “Old SpiceFades Into History…” If I were captain of that ship,you can bet that ten thousand tweets would havegone out since July 14, the last day of the responsevideo portion of the campaign. To me, it looks likeOld Spice is a sprinter stuck in a traditionalmarketing mind-set, not a marathon runner living inthe Thank You Economy.

So the answer to the question of whether thiscampaign worked depends on whom you ask.Ninety-nine percent of the market would probablysay that it was a social media win—it caused buzz, it

resulted in a fantastic amount of earned media,* and

ultimately, sales did spike. Ninety-nine percent ofmarket, however, doesn’t realize that we’re in aThank You Economy, and it is using old mediastandards to tally up its victories. So yes, thecampaign did win—it won the same way a traditionalcommercial wins. But it could have won more if OldSpice had seen the initiative through.

Old Spice thought when the campaign was donethat they were done. Huge mistake. A social mediacampaign in the Thank You Economy is never done!The Thank You Economy rewards marathon runners,not sprinters. All P&G needed to do was sprinkle alittle bit more pixie dust by humanizing their businessand ensuring long-term relationships with theircustomers, but they gave up. In doing so, they turnedwhat had all the markings of a superb social mediacampaign into a one-shot tactic.

Old Spice saw a major spike in sales and brand

awareness, but there are plenty of brands that havedone great marketing, spiked for a while, and thendisappeared off the consumer radar. The brand hadan opportunity to continue the conversation with all ofthose people who connected with them, and theysquandered it. They left their customers behind,limiting the full impact the campaign could have hadon the brand. I’m sure there are more than a fewpeople who were miffed when they could no longerinteract with it. Worse, though, are the many, manymore who simply forgot about the brand, and abouthow much fun they had interacting with it. It will costOld Spice a lot to reengage those people.

I’m in utter shock. On one hand, I am devastatedto see this turn of events and want to call Old Spiceand beg them to let me help get them back on track;on the other hand, they’ve given me a greatopportunity to show you how a brand can sabotage agreat social media campaign.

I was going to buy another stick of Old Spicewhen I used up my first one, but the wind has beenknocked out of my sails. I mean, what their silenceon Twitter tells me is that they’re through with me.They’re glad that I, and thousands of others, spent

our money with them, and now they’re just going tosit back on their laurels, enjoy the spike in revenue,and move on to a new campaign.

I hope one of Old Spice’s competitors is readingthis right now. Old Spice had a huge chance to turn120,000 strangers into acquaintances, and maybeeven friends, but as of this writing P&G made itpretty clear their interest in their customers goes onlyskin deep. Now is the competitor’s chance to showpeople how a brand really cares about its currentcustomers, and the ones it would like to know.

When I started Wine Library TV, I was the onlygame in town, and I built a pretty loyal following byconstantly engaging and conversing. Later, Iwatched some competitors try spamming orotherwise reaching out to my customers and fans,trying to poach my business. They failed, becauseI already had my customers’ hearts. As mybusiness grew, however, and it became harder toprovide the same level of one-on-oneengagement my fans were used to, I could see onTwitter that some relationships were starting to

form between certain of my customers and mycompetitors. When I stopped working as hard onmy relationships with those people, a new guywas able to come in and steal them from me. It’sno different from the married woman who comeshome from having a fun night of after-work drinkswith a colleague to find her husband so immersedin his video game he can’t even break away toask her about her day. Is it any wonder that sheeventually falls for the other guy? As it goes in life,so it goes in business. You have to keep workingat every relationship in your life, whether personalor professional.

Maybe I should give Old Spice the benefit of thedoubt; it’s possible they’ll have gotten back in thetrenches between now and the time you read thisbook. I hope so. Even if they do, though, they willhave lost out on a ton of potential long-termbusiness, and will have to work much harder toregain the momentum they once had.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Intent: Quality versus Quantity

In Crush It!, I talked a lot about my belief thatembracing your DNA, zeroing in on your passion,and living that passion day in and day out were thekeys to creating a fulfilling, happy personal andprofessional life. Since then, I’ve realized that there’ssomething else that counts. In fact, it may be thesingle biggest differentiator in this new economy:good intent. I strongly believe that if your intentionsare good, it shows, and it draws people to you.Good intentions create a pull. Now, you can probablythink of many examples of individuals who were ableto fake good intentions to get what they wanted. But Ithink that the Thank You Economy, which hasbrought us platforms like Facebook and Twitter thatemphasize transparency and immediacy, has givenconsumers better tools to spot and expose acompany’s or brand’s hidden agendas and badintentions, as well as tools to recognize, and reward,

good ones.If you’ve ever considered embarking on a social

media campaign, or even tried an initiative or two,what was your intent? Was your goal to get someoneto click through or click the “Like” button? Or was it tobuild your online identity and foster a connectionbetween yourself and the consumer? If your answeris the former, you’ve just hit upon the reason whymost campaigns fail to meet their potential.

“What’s wrong with getting people to clickthrough?” you might ask. “What’s wrong with usingsocial media to drive traffic to my site or store?”Nothing. But if the only reason you’re on YouTube,Tumblr, Twitter, or any other vibrant onlinecommunity, is because you’re trying to attract morefollowers and fans than the other guy so you canmarket your message to that user base, you’replaying the wrong game and you’re going to lose. Ifyour view of social media is so tunnel-visioned thatall you care about are the number of fans or retweetsor views you’re garnering, you’re missing the wholepoint. Success in social media, and business ingeneral, in the Thank You Economy will always haveto be measured with an eye toward both quality and

quantity. You can throw meaningless tactics aroundto increase your numbers, but even if they work andyour online numbers look impressive, you won’t havegained anything of true value because you didn’t putanything of true value out there. All the numbersprove is that you’ve made contacts, not connections.A successful social media campaign is one thatplays close to the emotional center; the farther awayyou stand from that center, the farther away yourcustomers are going to stand, as well. Their valuewill therefore be worth less in the long run than itwould have been had you engaged with them in sucha way as to make them want to come close. Thesecore principles that factor into the lifetime value of acustomer are cornerstones of the Thank YouEconomy.

Social media works best when you evoke anemotion in the people to whom you’re reaching out. Itpulls. When you place a traditional ad, whether it’son TV, radio, print, billboard, or banner, you’respending a lot of money to hold on to themicrophone and say your piece over and over andover again. You’re pushing your way into theconsumer’s consciousness. Some people try to use

social media the same way, by pushing salespitches and gimmicks. Their efforts might get somebrief attention, but the message will fade and itcertainly won’t have long-term value; it’s just notworth thinking about. If you’re going to launch acampaign, it has to be one that evokes an emotion—positive or negative—so that people feelcompelled to share. Give them something to talkabout, unleash the power of word of mouth, andallow them to pull you into their consciousness.Letting the consumers decide for themselves thatthey really want to know you, versus persuading themthat they should, can make a very big difference inthe kind of relationship that ensues. It’s like whenparents decide they’ve found the perfect girl for theirson. He’s not going to ask the girl out if they badgerhim to death, and even if he did, the poor girlprobably won’t stand a chance because he’s onlydoing it to get his parents off his back. But, if theyhave a party, and they make sure the girl is there,and they are right about this being a perfect match,those two kids are probably going to find each other.Then they can go out on one of those perfect dateswhere the conversation never stops. Use social

where the conversation never stops. Use socialmedia campaigns to create an opportunity forengagement, not to force it.

Day-to-Day IntentThe same intent that fuels any successful socialmedia campaign also has to be behind the day-to-day engagement a brand pursues via socialnetworking sites. Your intent should be twofold: wateras many plants as possible, and put out every fire.When you’re tending to online relationships, everyengagement should be answered with emotion, fromthe heart. You may as well get good at it now,because very soon it will be an extremely importantpart of your marketing mix, and quite possibly theonly approach that actually works. That does notmean you have to write a sappy love letter toeveryone who praises your brand. Emotion doesn’thave to be wordy; it just has to be authentic.

One company that has been getting their gamedown is Quirky, Inc., a website for inventors. Whenthey first launched their Twitter stream, they used it toreach out to their community and attract newcomersto their site, but their one-way feed made it look asthough all they cared about was pushing theirproduct. How was that going to bring anyone to theemotional center?

Then Quirky started posting content intended topull people in, not push their message out. Theyturned every outreach or mention they saw into aconversation, engaging with people who wanted toengage with them. The difference is amazing.

Since changing their approach, Quirky says,“We’ve had tons of (often amusing) back-and-forthson the Twitter machine on everything from productfeedback to favorite Simpsons episodes. Now,we’re not letting any tweet go un-tweeted back!” ForQuirky, a company built on crowdsourcing productideas, increased product feedback is an importantbusiness function. In addition, the increased chatteroptimizes their overall data collection process.Customers are going to talk about a businesswithout that business’s involvement, but when abusiness interacts with its customers, the extradiscussions that ensue can reveal valuable data. Anycompany should be able to see how it could benefitfrom that kind of engagement.

When doing damage control, or putting out fires,you’ve got to loosen your grip and share themicrophone, and listen, then respond appropriately,

and then listen again. You have to listen even whenyou really don’t feel like listening anymore. Thinkabout it this way—no issue has ever been resolvedwhen someone left the room in the middle of theconversation.

One thing that’s daunting to many about socialmedia is that it requires you to throw away the script.The rules of engagement force you, or the person towhom you have entrusted your brand’s voice, toimprovise, and be willing to go wherever theconsumer leads you. That’s a scary proposition for alot of businesses and brands, and I can understandwhy. Corporate leaders are obsessed with stayingon message, as they should be, and their scripts arecarefully crafted to make sure that message isrepeated no matter what situation arises. Theproblem is, of course, that they can’t possiblyforesee the details of every possible customerinteraction, a reality that is becoming increasinglyproblematic for them as social media increases thefrequency with which consumers want to speakdirectly to brands.

Some companies want to be able to say theyhave a social media presence, but they’re sofrightened of the legal issues that could arise withone stray, unfiltered post that they demand thatany company Twitter feeds or Facebook updatesbe vetted. In some organizations, getting legalapproval for a tweet can take twelve to thirty-sixhours. Are you kidding me? By the time thatvetted post finally makes it to the customer, theconversation and the relationship have sailed.

Customers are unpredictable, and forcing a scriptupon the brand reps they’re turning to for help is likehanding a firefighter a single bucket of water,instead of a hose connected to a hydrant, as he triesto save a burning building. In fact, a formal, safescript only adds fuel to the fire once customersrealize that the responses they’re getting have nocontext for the current situation. The most passionatecustomer service rep in the world couldn’t inject soulinto a canned response written two years, or eventwo months, earlier.

You have to learn to trust the people you hire to do

this job (or do a better job of hiring people you cantrust). You have to let your reps be themselves. Don’tforce them to channel your lawyers or your boardmembers or your PR department (or worse, hire yourPR department to engage for you). Otherwise, assoon as the conversation goes off script, they’ll belost. And when that happens, you’ll lose yourcustomer, too.

Ninety-five percent of the worst social mediaengagement I’ve seen was produced by PRcompanies that were hired to manage a brand’sprofiles, pages, or blogs. Please, companies,stop hiring PR firms to do your communitymanagement. PR is in the push business; theysend out press releases and book appearancesand work B2B. They’re used to talking witheditors, writers, and producers, not the public.They have no idea what’s going on in thetrenches, and they’re awkward and shaky whenthey try to go there. The only reason PR claimsthey can do it is because they see which way thewind is blowing, and it’s not toward them. They’ll

say anything to avoid losing your business. The adagencies do a better job than the PR companies,because they are in the business of thinking aboutwhat the consumer wants, but ideally, try to hirepeople internally for this job. Select the employeeswho know your business well, and care about it asmuch as you do, and can demonstrate quick,creative thinking, flexibility, and compassion.Those are the people you want representing yourbrand to the masses. If you don’t feel as thoughyou have the knowledge in-house, hire a companyto get the ball rolling and train your staff, then handthe reins off to your team.

You think the guy who holds the record for thelongest customer service call at Zappos—five hours!—was working with a script? The script is meant topush the message out. Your intent should be to pullthe heartstrings, but not in a manipulative way.Simply talk, and listen. Talk. Listen. By creating theexpectation that you’ll listen, you create moreengagement, which increases virality, and word ofmouth, and a sense of connection to your brand. You

may not be able to quantify the effects of connection(yet), but I promise you it plays out when consumersare reaching into their pockets. A sense ofconnection is why people show up at my booksignings, and why I feel a bond with my fans eventhough I may never meet them in person. It’s whysomeone who wasn’t thinking about snacks spots apack of Skittles, remembers the exchange she hadwith the brand a few days ago, and throws two packsinto her cart.

Push tactics aren’t all bad; they can be effectivewhen used in moderation. But the intent of pushtactics must be to create a pull opportunity, for that’swhat creates emotional bonds between consumersand brands. And sometimes, if you use someimagination and pull hard enough, you can createsomething really special.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Shock and Awe

What if you’re actually doing a good job of caringpeople’s socks off? You’ve got the rules ofengagement down pat, so to speak. You’reresponding to comments, tweets, and reviewswherever you spot them, and inviting people to sharetheir thoughts and ideas with you. You’re seekingopportunities to join or create conversations aroundtopics and niches that are well within the generalscope of your product or service, as well as thosethat may be only tangential to it. You’re solvingpeople’s problems and thanking them when theyacknowledge that you’ve done something right.You’re even thanking them when they tell you thatyou’ve done something wrong. You’re initiatingsmart, thoughtful, creative tactics that have goodshort-term payoff, and this will also pay off in the longrun because their intent is to strengthen theemotional connection already in play thanks to allyour other efforts. Always you’re being yourself,

your other efforts. Always you’re being yourself,minding your manners, speaking from the heart, andthinking creatively. What more could you possiblydo?

A lot.If you ask phenoms to share the secret to their

success, many will often reply that it was payingattention to the little things. The athlete got up earlyevery morning for an extra hour of training; the high-end restaurateur made families feel welcome withearly-bird hours and adult-quality kid food served incharming frog-shaped dishes; the car wash ownerprovided Wi-Fi. What’s remarkable about the littlethings is that the positive impact they have on aperson’s performance or a customer usually faroutweighs the effort or cost it takes to implementthem.

In the Thank You Economy, the same can be saidfor the big things. Most people usually think the bigthings are initiatives that only big companies caninstigate, because it is assumed that to pull them offtakes tremendous coordination and budgets. Butbecause, as we’ve discussed, the successfulnavigation of the Thank You Economy requires

businesses to reconsider their resource allocation,the big things are actually within every company’sreach.

What does a big thing look like? 50 Cent knows.YouTube user Pierce Ruane, a fuzzy-lipped,supremely geeky Canadian teenager whoseYouTube profile lists him as Pruane2forever but whoalso goes by the name of Sexman, posted aYouTube video calling the rapper a media whore forpromoting Vitamin Water and sex toys. When headded, “What else is he going to do—50 Centdiapers for your little gangsta?”, Ruane receivedalmost a million hits. Rather than ignore the kid, oreven take offense, 50 Cent flew him to New YorkCity and posted a new YouTube video of the two ofthem hanging out together, all friendly-like, on abalcony overlooking Manhattan. The video isn’t allthat exciting, but the fact that it even exists isextraordinary. 50 Cent was smart. He saw how wordof mouth was spreading Sexman’s message anddecided to take control of it by showing that he maybe a media whore, but he’s a good sport, too. Plus,it’s going to be hard for Sexman to diss 50 Centanymore, now that the public has seen him grinning

like a kid on Christmas morning while kickin’ it nextto the rap superstar.

50 Cent simultaneously nipped a problem in thebud, made a Canadian teenager and his fans smile,and reaped some good earned media. The publicoften forgets that celebrities are human, too. 50 Centhas gotten some negative press for bad behavior,but with this one move he humanized himself, andprobably made a lot of people feel better aboutthinking he’s cool.

But why wait until there’s a problem? What ifHershey’s, for example, randomly chose a fewpeople it regularly engaged with on Facebook orTwitter, and invited them and their immediate familyfor an all-expenses-paid visit to Hershey Park? Thetickets wouldn’t be connected to a contest or any callto action—they would simply be gifts. Maybe thatdoesn’t sound like very good ROI—several thousanddollars in airline tickets, park attractions, food, andhotel expenses, all to make a very small number ofcustomers happy. But that’s a very nearsighted view.The long view is in the earned media opportunities,such as when the Philadelphia Enquirer gets windof what Hershey’s did because of all the blogging

and tweeting the customers do when they share theirexcitement. It also doesn’t take into account what Icall the RCV—relationship context value—of theinitiative. A few one-time expenses can pay off in alifetime of loyalty from the people who are touchedby the company’s generosity. First off, Hershey’s hasjust provided its customers with one heck of a dinnerstory. Second, many of those customers—certainlythe original fans who were online often enough thatHershey regularly engaged with them—are going totweet and post pictures and stories even as they’rewalking through the park. Then, once they’re home,when a friend says, “I can’t wait to take the kids toDisney someday,” those customers have everyreason in the world to say, “Have you thought aboutHershey’s? We had the best time!” and then tell theirstory yet again. Last, as those customers have morechildren, or grandchildren, it stands to reason thatthey would want to take those kids to Hershey Parkand relive some good memories.

It’s hard for some execs to wrap their headsaround the idea of spoiling customers like this,because a large number of people who runcompanies are salespeople at heart, not marketers;

companies are salespeople at heart, not marketers;if they can’t immediately close the deal, see a unitsold or an uptick in profit, or if they don’t believe thescale of the initiative is powerful enough to move theneedle, it doesn’t feel worthwhile. But we don’t doshock and awe because we’re saints. While the bestthing about shock and awe is how great it can makecustomers feel, not to mention the pleasure we getfrom spreading some happiness, we do it becausethere is always a win. It has tremendous value andcan create more business because of the additionalclicks, opinions, reviews, tweets, and status updatesthat ensue as a result. The advantages of that kind ofdata collection should make sense to any businessleader.

The money spent on shock and awe can havemuch more value than a Facebook ad or even anSEO manager’s salary. Big companies, with theirbig marketing and advertising budgets, can doamazing shock and awe, of course. A nationalelectronics retailer can take the $4 million budgetthat it normally would have spent on an outdoorcampaign, radio spot, and TV commercial, andinstead use it to contact everyone on Twitter who

turns twenty-one on April 21. The tweet might say,“Now that you’re of age, you need a grown-up phone.Happy birthday!” and include a coupon for 50percent off an iPhone 4. That kind of move wouldn’tbe easy, but it would be worth far more than $4million worth of earned media.

What’s cool is that you can scale shock and awe,and still create a magical, chemical reaction. Forexample, what if you made a list of the twenty or thirtycustomers who support your business the most, andsent each of them a handwritten thank you note witha rose, or some other small gift? This would be alow-cost yet high-impact move. Maybe that sounds alittle cheesy, but it’s working every day for smallbusinesses around the country right now. You couldhave done something similar in 1999 and gotten agreat response from your customers in the form ofincreased loyalty, and even some word of mouth. Butthe difference between then and now is the muchgreater distance that word of mouth can travel viablog post, tweet, picture on Flickr, and status update.The effects of shock and awe go significantly farthernow, plain and simple.

Rarely does the media spend weeks following

and analyzing amazing television ads or viralmarketing campaigns because of how much moneywas spent on them. It pays attention because there’ssomething about the content of the campaign that ishaving an impact on people. It’s not the money thatmakes these efforts shocking and awesome, it’s thecare and creativity involved. Right now, there is afortune in word of mouth that can be created when aveterinarian sends a handwritten condolence card toclients whose pets have died, along with a book ofpoetry, hand-drawn sketches of the pet, and noticethat a donation in the pet’s name has been made tothe Humane Society. The same can be said for ahardware store owner or key employee who makesa personalized video for every customer who buys abottle of Goo Gone, asking if the product worked,and offering additional muck-removing tips. Andthere could be thousands of dollars of earned mediato be gained if a bakery were to send out a birthdaycake to everyone on their Facebook Fan page for awhole week straight. Sure, this kind of effort wouldtake a lot of coordination and many hours of backand forth with customers via email to gather homeaddresses and convenient delivery times. There

would be a hefty initial up-front expense on product,too. But can you imagine the amazing earned mediaand RCV opportunity? These are examples of small,thoughtful gifts that add up to one amazing customerexperience that can get talked and written about,and have much more value to a brand than theywould have had even five years ago. What’sinteresting to think about is that as incredible andpossibly even impractical as some of these ideasmay seem, one day they’ll be as ordinary as freeshipping is to us today.

No Time Like the PresentIf you are heavily into gaming or active on socialnetworking sites, you now might be so flooded withvirtual gifts that they’re starting to lose some of theirimpact. But remember three years ago when yourfriends on Facebook first started sending them? Yousaw that you had received that little virtual gift boxwith the bow and you smiled; it meant that someonehad thought of you and taken the time to send yousomething to make you happy. Companies shouldbe trying to re-create that feeling with their

customers every day, especially now that discountsand the promise of free shipping are such ho-humenticements that they barely factor in to mostconsumers’ purchasing decisions.

The reduced impact of the virtual gift, which I thinkwill only get worse in the next five years, brings up agood question: what will happen when people startgetting fifty text messages on their birthday fromevery brand or company they’ve ever come across? Idon’t think that will happen, because I believe thatonly a very small percentage of companies willseriously put shock and awe into play on a regularbasis. But let’s say I’m wrong, and a lot ofcompanies realize that they can get a heck of a lotmore mileage from a single act of shock and awethan from ten billboards. Maybe 2 percent of allcompanies might give it a shot over the next fiveyears. Once they saw the results, another wave ofcompanies might follow through, but it wouldprobably take about ten years before more than halfof all the companies in the United States wereactually implementing shock and awe. If that doeshappen, it will be time for the companies who wereshock-and-awing their customers all along to

readjust. According to MailerMailer’s metrics reportreleased in July 2010, people opened their emails20 percent less in 2009 than they did in 2007, for atotal open rate of about 11 percent. Naturally, thatreality has led companies to change the way theyuse email to reach their customers. They have alsochanged their approach to banner ads, becausepeople aren’t clicking them the same way they didwhen banner ads first appeared on their computerscreens around 1994. At that time, banner ads couldsee a click-through rate as high as 78 percent;today, banner ad CTR is estimated to be about 0.8percent. Businesses invest in technology and thenadjust the way they use it all the time. Why wouldn’tyou expect to do the same with social media?

A lot of people are having fun registering theiropinions by clicking on the “Like/Dislike” buttonsthey find on many brands’ Facebook pages, but theirenthusiasm won’t last forever. However, justbecause an initiative that works today won’tnecessarily work at the same level in the future is noreason to ignore the opportunities it offers you toengage with customers right now. Any data youcollect helps paint a picture of your customers’

needs, wants, and interests. Though you may needto redirect your efforts when it stops working as wellas it does now, your effort to connect with yourcustomers at an emotional level should remainexactly where it’s always been—at 110 percent.

PART III

The Thank You Economy in Action

CHAPTER NINE

Avaya: Going Where the People Go

When most people think “sexy,” voice-mail software,desk phones, and routers don’t usually come tomind. Functional, effective, and, ideally, completelyunnoticed by the outside world, communicationssystems are the Spanx that support companies sothey can perform with confidence and at their best.Avaya, known for developing high-performing, evenbulletproof business communications applications,systems, and services, sells some decidedlypractical, unsexy products. Yet it is proving that aB2B company can use social media with the samesuccess as a cool lifestyle or retail company.

The Thank You Economy at WorkAvaya’s main goal on Twitter has been to keep upwith its consumers’ technical questions and to headcomplaints off at the pass. Originally engaging inone thousand interactions—replying to questions,

addressing comments, et cetera—per week, thesocial media team now fields almost four thousand.They also developed a product that can alert thecustomer service department when disgruntledtweets need to be addressed. The companyestimates that by adopting this method, they’veavoided losing approximately fifty customers, at anaverage cost of sale to replace them of about$10,000.

One day, a tweet gave Paul Dunay, Avaya’sglobal managing director of Services and SocialMarketing, the chance to prove that paying closeattention to the consumer conversation on socialnetworking sites could pay off big. Like all tweets,the one that changed Avaya’s game was short andsimple: “shoretel or avaya, need a new phonesystem very soon.” Dunay replied almostimmediately, “We have some highly trained techswho can help you understand your needs best andhelp you make an objective decision. Give me acall.’” Thirteen days later, Avaya had made aquarter-million-dollar sale to the tweeter, who thentweeted, “…we have selected AVAYA as our newphone system. Excited by the technology and

benefits….”*

What Avaya Did RightIT SHOWED UP. The $250,000 sale might not havehappened if Avaya hadn’t been on Twitter. Anynetworking or sales expert will tell you that if you wantto make the connections that will close a deal, thefirst thing you have to do is show up. Connectionsare still being made at happy hours and “On theHorizon” breakfasts, but they’re increasingly beingmade online, too. Avaya showed up where fewothers, if any, in its niche were even looking, and itwalked away a winner. Avaya was aware. Avayacared. Avaya closed the deal in thirteen days.

Too many B2B companies are still avoidingsocial media because they don’t believe theircustomers are part of the social mediademographic. Over 60 percent of Americans usesocial media (and many more by the time you readthis); a sizable portion of those users surely makesB2B decisions. By now, it seems pretty obvious thatanyone old enough to use a computer should beconsidered part of the social media demographic.

IT SHOWED UP FIRST. The companies that successfullymake the move into social media ahead of theircompetitors not only gain in market share andearned media (for example, Burger King estimatesthat it earned back over $400,000 in earned mediafrom a less than $50,000 investment in its BKWhopper Sacrifice, a Friend Facebook campaign),they also gain in brand equity. They are recognizedfor their vision and innovation, for being smart andtech savvy. Such qualities can go a long way towardleading someone looking for B2B opportunities tobelieve that working with that kind of forward-thinkingcompany is a winning proposition. Avaya’s efforts inproviding outstanding customer service have beenrewarded two years in a row with a J. D. PowerAward for Outstanding Customer ServiceExperience, as well as an induction into theTechnology Services Indus try Association STARAwards Hall of Fame. Both honors should carry a lotof weight within Avaya’s industry.

IT REMEMBERED THAT BEHIND EVERY B2B TRANSACTION,THERE’S A C. The C in a B2B exchange—usually apurchasing manager, a purchasing agent, or a buyer—wants the same thing as any other consumer whenmaking buying decisions: outstanding products andservice, and the reassurance that someone isthinking about how to best meet the person’sbusiness needs. When deciding whether to try a newbrand, purchasers usually talk to friends andcolleagues they trust. Before, they might have madea couple of phone calls or sent out a few emails.They might have floated some questions to a friendwhile sharing Cracker Jacks during the seventh-inning stretch at a baseball game, or panted themout during a run on the treadmill. Today, though, theycan get feedback and advice a lot faster and from agreater number of sources by simply posting theirthoughts on Facebook or Twitter. More and more ofthe individuals who make important B2B decisions,or any consumer decisions, are using thoseplatforms to get the advice and feedback they need.For example, the social media department caughtan opportunity to provide some basic support to afrustrated client. The client was so impressed with

frustrated client. The client was so impressed withthe service he received that he became a vocaladvocate. To thank him, the company decided tosend him some Avaya swag. When they contactedhim for his mailing address, they discovered he wasthe CIO of a major investment bank in New York.Every interaction matters. Every relationship hasvalue.

CHAPTER TEN

AJ Bombers: Communicating with theCommunity

If you go to the AJ Bombers website, you can see along list of tweets scrolling down the right side of thepage. There’s a lot of talk about burgers. TheCaesar seems to be particularly popular. Peoplewant to know how they can get a burger card. At onetime, there was a discussion about who’s goneelectric shaver over blade. The conversation seemsto be endless between AJ Bomber fans, maybebecause AJ Bombers, a Milwaukee burger jointstarted in March 2009 by Joe and Angie Sorge,makes it a priority to keep the conversation going.

Joe, AJ Bombers’ front man, has been doing hisbest to keep people talking from day one. First, heand his wife opened a restaurant that critics laudedfor its food and ambience in one of those cursed“revolving door” locations where chefs’ dreams ofculinary stardom usually come to die. They did it by

keeping their prices recession proof—$4.50 for abasic cheeseburger with lettuce and tomato, $7.50for the Bomber, the same but stacked with a fried,stuffed mushroom. They did it with an awesomepeanut delivery system, in which bartenders load upcolorful bomber airplanes with peanuts, and thenlaunch them on rails attached to the ceiling wherethey travel across the restaurant to smack into atarget on the wall and dump their cargo into a bin.And they did it by figuring out that the best way to getcustomers to care passionately about their businessis to let the customers help them build it.

The customers have input over almost everyaspect of the restaurant brand. They build menuitems, determine price structures and hours ofoperation, suggest promotions, and even guestbartend for charity events. How does Joe Sorgedare give such control of his brand over to hiscustomers? Two reasons. The first is that one-to-onerelationships make life more fun. The second is thatin a Thank You Economy, it pays off. Big.

Knowing his customer base has always been apriority for Sorge. The idea that you have tocreate a welcoming atmosphere in a restaurant

is a no-brainer, but at AJ Bombers, onlinecustomers get as much attention as anyonesitting at a four-top.

The last line in that last paragraph is in boldbecause it’s that important. I am convinced thatthe biggest disconnect for business leaders lies intheir understanding of how they should treatcustomers they meet face-to-face, and how theyshould treat the ones they meet through theircomputer, iPad, or phone. There should be nodifference. Customers or potential customers canhave some powerful emotions when they’reconsidering using your product or service. They’reimagining what it might do for them, what theycould make with it, how it could make their life orjob easier, how it could affect their relationships orfamily. Those emotions exist whether theconsumer is interacting with you face-to-face, orvia chat, IM, blog, Twitter, or Facebook, or in aforum.

By the way, tech companies often err in theother direction by forgetting to talk to customers in

the “real world.” Companies such as Groupon orMicrosoft seem like disembodied, untouchableentities, but they have real-life customers andshould try to meet them occasionally. They needto look for ways to bring their customers together,for example, by throwing a party to mark animportant anniversary, or hosting a video-streamed town hall meeting where customers cancome together to discuss issues they’d like to seeresolved. They could even pick up the phoneevery now and then and speak directly to acustomer, just to say hello and make sure there’snothing more they could be doing to improve thecustomer experience.

The companies that understand how togenuinely connect with their customers, online andoffline, are the ones that will emerge over the nexttwenty-four to thirty-six months, putting significantdistance between themselves and theircompetition.

From the beginning, Sorge used social media toreach out and build connections with burger lovers

throughout Milwaukee, finding out what they like andwhat they don’t, and asking them how he can betterserve their needs. He pays close attention to Yelp

reviews,* expressing thanks for the raves, and for

every negative one, apologizing and inviting thedisgruntled customer to come back to the restaurant,

on the house, to try something else.† More than once

that offer has been extended multiple times until thecustomer is truly satisfied with his or her meal. Insome cases, the unhappy customers who havetaken advantage of Sorge’s offer to keep comingback until the restaurant “gets it right” have beenconverted to regular guests who often let Sorgeknow ahead of time when they’re planning to comein.

Sorge’s approach to negative reviews reflects hisdeparture from typical business thinking. In his view,mistakes and snafus aren’t something to hide;they’re a great opportunity to get more informationon how to do better next time, and to connect withpeople. When one Friday the restaurant’s main grillwas on the fritz and couldn’t be fixed in time for thelunch rush, he set up a live Ustream.com at the front

door so that everyone could see what the problemwas and what was being done to fix it. He handedout free peanuts and beer. To this day, he meetspeople who tell him that it was seeing the Ustreamvideo that compelled them to remember AJBombers the next time they had a craving for aburger.

That kind of open communication worked well forthe Sorges. For the first six months AJ Bombers wasin business, the restaurant was at breakeven. In therestaurant world, where 60 percent of all newestablishments close within the first year, that’s notbad. But how to get beyond breakeven?

Eyes on the Tech HorizonSorge had always communicated with fans viaTwitter, sending out hundreds of tweets per day. Heramped up his efforts to bring all of those fanstogether to share in the AJ Bombers experience. Hestarted hosting events such as a hugely successfulHoliday Tweetup, a day of free beer and food at therestaurant in partnership with other local businesseswho offered stuff for free. Then, while looking for

additional ways to engage his customers, he noticedsomething about his Twitter followers. A lot of themwere starting to use Foursquare, the geo-socialnetworking platform that lets people earn points and“badges” by checking in at favorite locations andsharing their movements with others.

So:

He started offering incentives for Foursquareusers to visit the restaurant: free peanuts if youchecked in, and a free burger to anyone whochecked in enough times to become the“mayor” of the joint. That got people in the dooron a returning basis.He launched a “tips and to-dos” page, whereany customer could post messages aboutwhat to order, how to get the best deals, andwhatever general thoughts they wanted toshare. The incentive? A free cookie.For what would become the first of manyspecial events, he also created an opportunityfor Foursquare users to earn a highly prizedSwarm Badge—granted when more than fiftypeople check in to the same location—by

inviting them to a fund-raiser on a Sundayafternoon. A flash mob of 161 Foursquareusers descended upon AJ Bombers, kickedup a great time, posted videos, and tweetedfuriously about the event, and more thandoubled the restaurant’s Sunday sales.

Sorge talked to his customers and built acommunity, and in May 2010, he saw firsthand howthat effort gets repaid in a Thank You Economy.Sobelman’s, another standout local burger place,reached out to Sorge and asked if they could partnerup to convince the Travel Channel’s Food Wars tocome to Milwaukee and let them duke it out in aBattle of the Burgers. No problem. Sorge rallied thetroops and they bombed Food Wars’ email, Twitter,and Facebook accounts until the Travel Channelagreed to send a crew over to film the episode. Canthere be any question of the enormous value of yourrestaurant being featured on a national televisionprogram whose entire audience is foodies?

Only seven months after figuring out that caringenough to invite dialogue, input, and feedback frompatrons would encourage them to feel a sense of

ownership over the business, AJ Bombers haddoubled—doubled!—their revenue.

What AJ Bombers Did RightThey speak their customers’ language. If Joe andAngie Sorge had opened their restaurant ten yearsago, they still would have succeeded. They’ve gotthe instincts and the hustle and the heart, no doubt.But it would have taken years to build the kind ofsupportive community they have now, and it wouldhave cost untold marketing dollars. They could havehad a party, spent a ton of money on invitations andstamps, and they would have gotten twenty people inthe door and reached a hundred people, maybe twohundred, from residual word of mouth. Today, theycan get over a hundred people in the door and reachthousands who aren’t anywhere near the joint, butwish they were. What the story of AJ Bombers’success tells us is that in our word-of-mouth society,if you know your customers well enough, and canspeak their language, you can create tremendousopportunities for growth.

They’re not afraid to try something new. AJ

Bombers ignored traditional marketing like directmail and newspaper ads—all those staples mostlocal businesses rely upon—in favor of a platformthat became available in Milwaukee only in October2009. At the time of the swarm event, there wereonly three hundred to four hundred Foursquare usersliving in the area; AJ Bombers managed to bring aquarter of them through its doors in one day andincreased revenue for that day by 110 percent. AnyCMO at a consumer branding company would havesworn up and down that there wasn’t enough marketpenetration for Foursquare to mean anything toanyone. Yet in a small environment, which Milwaukeeis in comparison to New York or Los Angeles, microhas power. It’s time to start looking at early techadopters as a micro group, maybe even your mostvaluable consumer, because if you can get them onyour side, they’ll do a lot of work for you. You put inthe heart and the sweat, and they will reward you withuntold amounts of earned media in the form of press,talk, and visibility.

AJ Bombers rewards the right people. What’smost exciting to me about what they do is how theyreward their customers for caring. They could have

bought a billboard ad or created a radio campaignor bought TV time and tried to blindly broaden theirbase. Who would have gotten the money? The adplatform, of course—the billboard company, theradio station, the networks. The way AJ Bombersdoes business, who gets their money? The customerwho takes a chance on them. That’s a textbookmove in the Thank You Economy. When AJBombers throws a party and hands out free burgersand beer, they’re spending the money on theirguests that they would have forked over to atraditional ad platform. It’s a whole new way ofthinking about where to spend your marketingbudget. It should be pretty easy, actually. I mean,really, whom would you rather spend money on, ago-between or the people your business issupposed to serve? It will make those people farhappier than any radio ad, and it will cost you farless. For now, these platforms are not matureenough to command as much of a markup astraditional platforms to get to the consumer. Thereinlies the opportunity. Instead of Clear Channel orLamar or Viacom getting 40 percent of the action,the new emerging platform—Gowalla, Foursquare,

or whatever is around the corner—will get 5 percentof the action, maybe 10 percent. These numbers arebased on where we are now, but I am sure themargins could become even more attractive whenyou take into account the ROI of the dedicated teamof people you hire to get in the trenches to care foryour customers. The day is coming when companiesare going to fill warehouses with armies of peoplewho are passionate about their brands, who careabout the people interacting with the brands, andwho are eager to spend hours telling their story.

Given that, every company can invite theircustomers to the party. However you do it, whetherit’s with a real get-together with music and food or alive video on Ustream, you need to show them amemorably great experience so that they say, hey,no one else has ever cared enough to reach out tome this way. You have the choice to spend $3,000 or$5,000 or $10,000 on a weeklong ad campaign thatmay or may not register with your audience, or tospend the money on an event (one that combines thetwo goals of interacting with your consumers andshowing them a great time) or campaign that notonly brings a lot of joy to people, but whose effects

only brings a lot of joy to people, but whose effectsspill over as people talk and share and post pictures.When put in those terms, which sounds like theriskier investment?

The Cost of FreeYou might wonder how AJ Bombers makes anymoney when Joe Sorge gives away so much forfree. Sorge answers that question in an interviewwith Forrester Research, “This restaurant inparticular has become ‘their’ restaurant, they AREthe business.” AJ Bombers creates constantopportunities for customers to care about it, andpeople spend money at places they care about. Forexample, the flood of guest-generated informationon the “tips and to-dos” page caused the sales ofone of the restaurant’s most popular items, “TheBarrie Burger,” to rise 30 percent. The Barrie Burgerwas created by a customer named Kate Barrie, andis topped with a bizarre-sounding blend of bacon,cheese, and peanut butter. A peanut butter burger.It’s no wonder some people might hesitate to orderit. But once they could see for themselves the ravescoming straight from the mouths of people who had

just stuffed one down their gullet, the comments gavemore customers the courage to try it. And like it. Andcome back for more.

Offering things for free is a well-known tactic usedin lots of industries to bring in customers, butFoursquare has allowed AJ Bombers to extend thelife of that tactic indefinitely. If you’re not aFoursquare kind of person, you might not get whypeople would covet the title of mayor atestablishments they visit often, or check in to earnbadges. It doesn’t really matter if you get it, though,does it? The fact is, they do. And since anyone canusurp a mayor’s spot, it takes commitment to hold onto the position. What could be a simple one-shotmove turns into a fun, profitable, sustainable game ofone-upmanship, a test of loyalty, and a sign of beingin the know.

It might sound crazy, but online gaming, too, isincreasingly becoming a part of a lot of online users’identity. When moms are spending real money tobuy virtual cows on Farmville, you know games havereached a tipping point. More than 200 millionpeople play free online games on Facebook. Targetnow sells Facebook credit gift cards, and 7–Eleven

did a promotional team-up with Zynga, maker ofsuch games as Farmville and Mafia Wars. Again,you might not see the point of playing these games,but a lot of consumers do. Go where they go.

Do I think that every restaurant should give awayfree food every time they see a complaint ornegative review on Yelp? No. There will be peoplewho will try to eat all year for free by gaming thissocial phenomenon. You have to put a cap on that, ofcourse. It can be hard to figure out a complainingperson’s intent—are the complaints legitimate, or isthe complainer playing games?

What you can do, however, is keep good metricson the client who says something negative aboutyou. If a customer posts on Yelp that he had a terribleexperience at a restaurant, the restaurant managercan respond appropriately, tag him with a systemlike Open Table, which tracks online reservations,and run a report six months later to see whether thatcustomer has returned and how much money he hasspent.

Scaling One-to-One

AJ Bombers is a one-store location, but this kind ofcustomer reward strategy is not limited to small,local businesses. Starbucks has scaled this kind ofconsumer reward to a national level, andMcDonald’s, Einstein Bagels, and KFC have allgotten into it. The Thank You Economy works whenyou build a sense of community around your brand,not when you simply sell to it.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Joie de Vivre Hotels: Caring About theBig and the Little Stuff

The name of Joie de Vivre, California’s largestboutique hotel company, says it all. Executivechairman and founder Chip Conley could havenamed it after himself (Conley Hotels does soundstately), or he could have named it after Eddy Street,the address of his first hotel, near San Francisco’sseedy Tenderloin district. He could have given it aname that nodded to the company’s California roots.Instead, the name he gave his company is foreign,and kind of hard to pronounce. Yet it’s perfect.Bringing “the joy of life” to customers is exactly whatConley’s company tries to do every day. You’d thinkthat was par for the course for anyone in thehospitality business. But it’s easy to imagine thatwhen customers experience a Joie de Vivre hotel,they realize something has been missing every timethey’ve stayed anyplace else. It is a company that is

doing its damndest to perfect the art ofcustomization, something people can experiencefrom the moment they start looking for a place to laytheir head for the night.

One-on-One Shock and AweWhen travelers arrive, they’re met at the front deskby a host whose profile is posted on a card. Itdescribes a little bit about whoever is working thatday, and offers his or her take on what visitorsshould avoid during their visit so they don’t wasteany time. It’s a great way to start a conversation andset the tone for the visitor’s stay, implying, “We lovewhere we live and want you to love it, too.”

From then on, it’s anyone’s guess what pleasantsurprises a guest might enjoy. The hotel collects asmuch information as possible about each visitorwhen he or she makes a reservation, and thecompany encourages, even challenges, employeesto use that information to take every opportunity togive a guest a memorable experience through aninitiative called the DreamMaker program. Many doit through small kindnesses, such as arranging for a

cake when they learn someone is celebrating abirthday, or greeting honeymooners with a bouquetof flowers and a bottle of Champagne. Employeesvote for best DreamMaker of the month, however,and the employees who earn that coveted title arethe ones who find ways to deliver an over-the-topexperience. For example, Jennifer Kemper, areservations manager at the Hotel Durant inBerkeley, shared this story about how a mother’slove inspired her to create an extra-special welcomebasket:

I met Mrs. Z for the first time in mid-September.She had asked to speak to a managerbecause she was trying to arrange an extendedstay and we had some sold-out dates. She toldme that lately she had been staying at differentarea hotels but the Durant was the only placeshe felt at home. I noticed her eyes welling upand asked her if she was ok. She then told mewhy she had needed to stay here so long andso often. Her 20-year-old son was dying ofcancer and was still trying to continue as a UCBerkeley student. She had been coming up to

help take care of him during his chemotherapysessions. Being a mother of a son I completelyempathized and felt my eyes, too, welling up. Itouched her hand and said that I would makesure she was comfortable here.

A few days passed and I had been thinkingof her and decided she was the perfectDreamMaker candidate. So I went down toTelegraph Ave. in Berkeley and found thisquaint herbal and tea store. I found a ceramicdragonfly mug with a built-in strainer andsteeper, and then I bought her a tin of freshchamomile tea that had beautiful dried flowersin it. As a final touch, I bought her threesunflowers to brighten up her room. I wrote acard that said, “For a loving mother whodeserves to relax. Your family is in our thoughtsand prayers.” She came down the next day andthanked me, and again we both had tears in oureyes. She said she told her whole family aboutthis special gesture, one that touched both herand me. Mrs. Z continued to stay with us untilher son graduated from UC Berkeley.

Dream making can be pure fun, too. At theShorebreak in Huntington Beach, TJ Ransom, aguest services clerk, spoke to a bride whosebachelorette party was going to take place at thehotel. A local, he knew all the restaurants and barowners in the area. When the party checked in, theywere surprised to be sent out on a scavenger huntthat took them to five of the most popular bars intown, where they were received with VIP seating, around of drinks, and a bachelorette-party game.Upon returning to the hotel, they found their roomdecorated in the bride’s wedding colors, platters ofchocolate-covered strawberries, and a cheese plate.

Word of Mouth WorksCan you imagine how many times Mrs. Z and herfamily talked about Jennifer’s thoughtfulness? Howmany tweets and photographs and videos viaTwitter, Facebook, or Tumblr do you think thatbachelorette and her friends sent throughout theirincredible night, courtesy of TJ? What if one of thebridesmaids had a friend who worked for ABCNews, and one of her friends was a journalist looking

for a fun segment for 20/20? How many blog postsabout random acts of kindness, or pre-weddingrituals mentioning the hotels likely got written? Howmany times were the posts shared and circulatedthroughout these people’s online communities? I’dbet my left big toe these stories got a lot of attention,and will be remembered the next time anyone whoheard them has to travel to California. What thesehotel employees did to bring some joy to theirclientele would have been appreciated andmeaningful at any time, but the impact of theiractions had far, far greater reach and consequencebecause of the Thank You Economy.

The face-to-face customer care and the personaltouch that Joie de Vivre exhibits so brilliantly at theirhotels extends to their online presence. Joie deVivre developed Yvette, the industry’s first onlinematchmaking service, to help travelers choose whichof its diverse hotels will provide them with the mostsatisfying “identity refreshment,” as Conley calls it.Each of its thirty-four hotels has a distinctpersonality, and based on your answers to five easyquestions, Yvette can recommend the one that mostreflects your own. An urbane traveler might be

guided toward the glamorous Galleria Park, whilesomeone with a yen for tea-pots might love to stay atthe B&B-style White Swan Inn. There’s something foreveryone. Along with a suggested list of hotels,Yvette makes an introduction, photo included, to afew locals who have provided tips on things to doand places to go for travelers seeking a truly off-the-tourist-track experience. Chip Conley happens to beone of them. That’s right—the company’s founderwants to show you around town. Pretty cool.

Ann Nadeau, Joie de Vivre’s corporate director ofmarketing, has a funny reply to the question of whatpercentage of their marketing budget is allocated tocreating word of mouth: “How can I put HUGE in apercentage? Our marketing budget is so tiny wedepend on word of ‘mouse.’” Staging incrediblecustomer experiences at the hotels and on theirwebsite is one way to get people talking, but theeffort to engage with customers is equallyimpressive behind the scenes.

There is a four-person social media team basedin the company’s home office that is dedicated tobranding efforts. Along with each hotel’s generalmanager, they engage and respond to customers on

manager, they engage and respond to customers onYelp, Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Yahoo Travel,and other social networking channels. In addition,they are responsible for coordinating with everyhotel’s dedicated Social Media Champions, ofwhich there are one or two responsible for dailypostings on Twitter and Facebook. TheseChampions also participate in company-wide “socialmedia summits,” where they can share bestpractices and ideas with each other so that eachhotel maximizes its one-on-one reach.

To keep tabs on how well its social media effortsare working, the company relies upon daily updatesand a scorecard system from Revinate, whichmonitors and manages online reviews and socialmedia sites exclusively for hotels. It also pays closeattention to TripAdvisor consumer reviews andratings. It should come as no surprise that as of thefirst quarter of 2010, two-thirds of the Joie de Vivrehotels were listed in TripAdvisor’s top ten for theirgeographical area.

The company offers social media classes to allinterested employees through their in-houseprofessional development program called JdV

University. Presentations on social media areregularly made at general manager meetings.

Like other companies we examined that areheavily invested in and benefit hugely from socialmedia, Joie de Vivre used it to help weather therecent severe economic downturn, which devastatedmuch of the hospitality industry. In summer 2009,Joie de Vivre started offering exclusive deals onhotel rooms to Twitter followers on Tuesdays, andFacebook fans on Fridays. The first season theTwitter Tuesdays and Facebook Fridays werelaunched, the company booked over a thousandrooms that otherwise would have remained empty.With very little investment, the program continues toprovide a steady stream of revenue that goesstraight to the bottom line.

What Joie de Vivre Does RightTHE MESSAGE COMES FROM THE TOP. Setting the toneand establishing a cultural foundation of empathyand excellence is essential to success in the ThankYou Economy. The message that one-on-oneengagement and customer service is a top priority

has to originate from the very top of the company.Chip Conley gives his employees ample trainingopportunities, the freedom to think creatively andfrom the heart, and continually demonstrates andreinforces his commitment to providing apersonalized, one-on-one experience with as manyguests as possible.

ITS INTENT COMES FROM THE RIGHT PLACE. The companyseems to work extremely hard to balance itsbusiness intent—to grow a profitable business—withintent from the heart—to provide travelers with aunique, customized, memorable hotel experience.For example, while any staff member can select anyvisitor to be a candidate for the DreamMakerprogram, employees are encouraged to target loyalcustomers or individuals who might have a lot ofword-of-mouth potential.

IT HIRES CULTURALLY COMPATIBLE DNA. Providing theseword-of-mouth–worthy experiences on a regularbasis is possible only when a company can tap

extremely rich reserves of creativity, care, andempathy. That’s why any leaders or managersdetermined to excel at customer service have tomake sure their employees share the same DNAthat they do, and believe in the company’s missiondown to their bones. If they don’t, they should bereplaced when the opportunity arises. The differencebetween the performance of a company populatedby people who really care and one populated bypeople who care because they’re paid to is thedifference between Bruce Springsteen and MilliVanilli.

IT USES “PULL TACTICS.” A strategy of caring usuallyout-shines tactics, but when they’re used with theright intent, tactics can help a brand achievegreatness. Joie de Vivre uses tactics in a specificand brilliant way. The intent of most tactics, andadvertising campaigns as well, is to entertain,inform, or scare the consumer enough that he or shepays attention. Overall, Joie de Vivre’s tactics aredesigned to remind consumers why they should careabout the brand and amplify their positive feelings

toward it. The individual tactics that are truly deal-oriented benefit people who have already publiclyexpressed an affinity for the brand. Many are alsodesigned to get people who work for the company atevery level to think with their hearts as well as theirheads. To work for this company is to be challengedon a daily basis to be the best human being one canbe.

Now, I’m a huge fan of Joie de Vivre hotels, but inmid-September 2010, I noticed they were “pushing”a little more than I’d like to see. In fact, for three daysstraight in early September, they tweeted only fourtimes, and each tweet was about pushing roomdeals instead of creating dialogue with customers.They’re usually so good at connecting emotionallywith customers; I hope that in the future we see fewerpush tactics and more tweets that pull their guests inso they can experience the Thank You Economy theJoie de Vivre way.

Joie de Vivre has figured out that it’s the big andthe little stuff that matter most to building a brand’sidentity. The stuff in the middle is important for acompany’s survival, of course, but it’s the one-on-one initiatives that lie at either extreme—the nit-pickydetails and the big, grand gestures—that make animpact, and make people talk.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Irena Vaksman, DDS: A Small PracticeCuts Its Teeth on Social Media

There are a lot of people who list going to the dentistas one of the most frightening, unpleasantexperiences they can imagine, but I’m betting thatfew of them are patients of Dr. Irena Vaksman, adentist with close to a decade of experience whorecently opened a private practice in San Francisco.I’ve never met Dr. Vaksman, and as far as I’m awareno one I know has ever had her poke at his or hermolars. But I know that Dr. Vaksman’s patients loveher, and her staff, and her spa-like office, and theamazing “movie goggles” they can wear to distractthem during procedures, because they tell me so—on Yelp and on Facebook.

Some people might still think it’s a little jarring tosee medical practitioners marketing themselves onsocial networking sites, but Dr. Vaksman is simplytrailblazing where other doctors are eventually going

to follow. When over half the adult population ofonline users are at least occasionally turning toonline reviews and commentary to inform their healthcare decisions, it makes sense that theprofessionals providing health care should be there,ready to talk to them as well. According to a 2009Pew Research Center report, 61 percent of adultslook online for health information. Of those, 59percent have done at least one of the followingactivities:

Read someone else’s commentary orexperience about health or medical issues onan online news group, website, or blogConsulted rankings or reviews online ofdoctors or other providersConsulted rankings or reviews online ofhospitals or other medical facilitiesSigned up to receive updates about health ormedical issuesListened to a podcast about health or medicalissues

Besides her information on Facebook, you can

also find Dr. Vaksman on Twitter, YouTube, andLinkedIn. She uses all of these channels to shareinformation, educate the public, and make herselfavailable to her clientele whenever they have aquestion, comment, or concern.

The Ideal IntentAccording to Robert Vaksman, Dr. Vaksman’shusband, a lawyer who is also the business’s socialmedia manager, his wife opened her practice withone clear goal: to provide the ideal patientexperience. That experience would necessarilyinvolve providing the most knowledgeable, current,and technologically up-to-date standards of dentalcare. It was also contingent on her ability to establishstrong one-on-one relationships, possible only bytaking enough time during every visit to build rapport,by getting to know her patients well, and by provingthat she cared not just about their teeth but abouttheir overall well-being. Yet in order to provide thatoutstanding care, she first had to get new patients inthe door.

Using Social Media to DifferentiateAs it so happened, social media, which provides theperfect platform for establishing close business-to-consumer relationships, was also the platform thatwould help Dr. Vaksman differentiate herself fromthe thousands of other already well-establisheddentists in the dense San Francisco urban area (aswell as in the high-rise medical building where herpractice is located). Besides establishing apresence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, andLinkedIn, she became the first dentist in the city tooffer a Groupon, and the experiment brought newpatients to the five-month-old practice in droves.Unfortunately, the response was a little too good;Robert compares trying to handle the overwhelmingflow of patients to drinking out of a hose. Thepractice was inundated with calls for appointments,and some patients who didn’t get the exceptionalcustomer service that Dr. Vaksman intended toprovide posted their frustration online. As Robertexplained, “The significant volume immediatelyexposed our weakness on the front desk, which is avery critical point in our relationship with our patients,

as we only have one shot at our first impression.” Yetwhat some businesses might have perceived as anegative social media experience, Dr. Vaksman andRobert saw as a fortuitous one; it gave them a wayto quickly pinpoint where they needed to makeadjustments to their staff and their appointmentprocedures. Small businesses often have an easiertime reacting and adapting than big ones, but moreand more it is becoming crucial for big businessesand brands to improve their response times andadapt quickly, too.

Handling Criticism, and Converting ItHow a business or brand handles criticism in apublic forum is more important than how it handlespraise.

Dr. Vaksman seems to understand somethingthat I brought up in the early chapters of this book—the complaining customer who uses social media isa better customer to have than a silent one. You cantalk to a customer who bothers to complain. If youthink it’s warranted, you can apologize. If you wish,you can explain yourself or ask for a second chance.

At the very least, you can make it public record thatyou do not take anyone’s dissatisfaction lightly. Theplatform that gives consumers such tremendouspower in the Thank You Economy also gives brandsthe chance to save customer relationships. You cansee the end results of Dr. Vaksman’s engagementwith dissatisfied patients on Yelp. Twice, people whocomplained about their experience posted updatesannouncing that Dr. Vaksman’s staff had worked toresolve their issues. The fate of Dr. Vaksman’sbusiness rests on her ability to do a stellar job and toearn people’s trust. Based on the primarily glowingonline reviews, and the evidence that she issuccessfully converting disappointed customers intohappy ones, it looks as though she is doing both.

Often, there are two kinds of consumer reviewers—the ones consumers write when they have a terrificexperience and the ones they write when they have aterrible one. Any doctor who isn’t supremelyconfident that he or she is offering the best careavailable has no business on Facebook or Yelp, oreven Citysearch or Angie’s List. Any bad service ormediocrity is asking to be exposed on those sites.And though some patrons might agree with

reviewers that a restaurant serves lousy food, butreturn anyway because it’s cheap and the one mostconveniently located for office happy hours, very,very few patients are going to put themselves in adoctor’s hands if the testimonials they read aren’toverwhelmingly positive, as they are for Dr.Vaksman. Social media is a perfect environment formedical practitioners smart enough, and goodenough, to leverage what its platforms have to offer.

The Power of First to MarketHow do I know about Dr. Vaksman, anyway? We liveon opposite sides of the country, and I’ve neverneeded a dentist (knock on wood) during any of mytrips to the West Coast. The national awareness heryoung business has attracted is a result of twoimportant Thank You Economy truths that I frequentlytalk about: 1) the earned media value of being first tomarket is priceless, and 2) the quality of your fansand followers is vastly more important than thequantity.

It Takes Just One Customer

If Irena Vaksman had not established herself on all ofthose social media sites, Loïc Le Meur probablywould never have mentioned her unless someone heknew asked him to recommend a dentist. But LoïcLe Meur is very interested in social media—he is aninternationally known entrepreneur, the developer ofthe social software app Seesmic, and was rankedby BusinessWeek as one of 2008’s twenty-five mostinfluential people on the Web. So when Le Meurfound out that his new dentist had a social mediapresence, he thought that was worth writing about,and he posted some thoughts about it on his blog.Like most of Dr. Vaksman’s other patients, he wascomplimentary and pleased with the thorough carehe received and with the office’s use ofsophisticated, state-of-the-art technology. He didquestion, however, whether Dr. Vaksman was usingher social networking sites properly, and whethershe even needed them at all. After all, it’s not easy tokeep up with multiple Web presences, and Le Meurwondered how much a dentist could find to talkabout. Once again, when faced with criticism, theVaksmans took the opportunity to open up adialogue, and wrote in to explain their social media

strategy and their plans for the future. The resultingconversation gave readers incredible insight into Dr.Vaksman as an entrepreneur and a medicalprofessional. You can see the whole exchange atLoïc Le Meur’s website.

From there, TechCrunch picked up the story, anddecided to feature Dr. Vaksman in an article abouthow small businesses are using social media. Inaddition, Robert Vaksman was invited to participatein the TechCrunch Social Currency CrunchUp laterthat month. All of that exposure happened becausethe Vaksmans weren’t afraid to try something new;they didn’t draw any lines in the sand.

It should be noted that being an early social mediaadopter isn’t the only reason Dr. Vaksman is gettingso much attention. No one would have paid her anymind if the majority of the comments left on her sitesweren’t incredibly positive. But they are, praisingeverything from the courtesy of her staff to thethoroughness of her cleanings and exams to hercaring manner. Such good reviews probably explainwhy Facebook users make up approximately 19percent of Dr. Vaksman’s website traffic. Thecombination of an unbelievable customer

experience plus the power of word of mouth has ledto what appears to be a very solid beginning for thisyoung business.

Crawling Before You Run Is OkayLooking over Dr. Vaksman’s sites, I’m in agreementwith Loïc Le Meur—she could do more: offer moreengaging, more creative content and add to theconversations about toothbrushes, toothpaste,cavities, root canals, braces, bad breath, oralcancer, tooth whiteners, and other dental topics thatmust be being discussed somewhere in the socialmedia space. In his response to Le Meur’s post,Robert Vaksman says, “We fully intend to be morevocal on Facebook—and our other venues. Perhapswe should have done so sooner, but we wanted tofirst focus on building a great-looking, branded andconversion-friendly online presence.” I think walkingbefore you run is a great strategy, but I look forwardto seeing what happens for the business when theVaksmans intensify the pace of their social mediacampaigns.

What Dr. Vaksman Is Doing RightShe launched with good intent. Dr. Vaksman startedher business with the express goal of providing themost personal, thorough, and technologicallyadvanced care possible.

Shock and awe. Patients rave about the moviegoggles they can wear. They rave about thesoothing, spa-like atmosphere of the office. Theyrave about the twenty-third-floor view out the window.They rave about the tooth-by-tooth consultation theyget from the dentist. There seems to be a lot to raveabout.

Setting the culture. When the Groupon deluge ofnew patients revealed that some of the front-deskstaff didn’t quite get how high her standards ofservice were, she replaced them.

If You’re Small, Play Like You’re BigDr. Vaksman is showing the marketing world thatwhat works for the big boys like Best Buy can scaledown to the little guys, too. Maybe your significantother isn’t your business partner and can’t devote hisor her time to managing your social media so you

can focus on what you do best. No matter—hiresomeone who can. It’s not too soon for smallbusinesses to start hiring social media managers (orcommunity managers, as I like to call them). My dadthought I was nuts in 1999 when I insisted that weneeded to hire a Web developer; nothing in hisexperience told him that it would be prudent for alocal liquor store to prepare for online commerce.Luckily, I didn’t have to pull my last card—the “We-just-went-from-three-to-ten-in-a-year, how-can-you-not-let-me-take-this-chance?” plea—because I wasblessed with a father who trusted me and gave mean enormous amount of freedom to do what I thoughtwas right as long as I could explain my reasoning. Ithink a lot of small businesses are havingconversations like that right now. If you’re not goingto be your own community manager, yes, it will costyou to get one. But you’re going to have to do iteventually, so you might as well start figuring out howto budget for it now. If you have ten or moreemployees, you might be able to save some moneyif you can figure out whose time would be betterspent on social media. Look for the new angles, andfind new ways to approach your marketing

strategies. Innovate or die.Even if you’re a small medical practice (or small

business of any kind) and not living in the midst of atechnophile environment like San Francisco, youshould establish your social media presence. Thecustomers in your area may be a little slower to getonline than they might in other parts of the country,but they are coming. If people in San Francisco aretalking to their dentist online, soon people inKentucky will, too. In fact, they probably are already.

You never know, you know? You never know whatplatform is going to explode. You never know whichcustomer is going to mean the most to yourbusiness. The only way to prepare for alleventualities is to take some chances, and no matterwhat, treat every customer, online and in person, asthough he or she is the most important customer inthe world.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Hank Heyming: A Brief Example of Well-Executed Culture and Intent

What do you call a lawyer who tweets?Smart.Heyming is an attorney who has used social

media tools to build his practice within a global lawfirm, grow his personal brand, and communicate withhis clients and the startup community. There mightbe many blogging, tweeting, skyping, Quora-contributing lawyers practicing on either coast, but inRichmond, Virginia, Heyming stands out as anexample of how implementing and acting uponproper culture and intent can reap great rewards inthe Thank You Economy.

Taking Advantage of the CultureCulture has a lot to do with Heyming’s success. Heis fortunate to work for a company that appears tounderstand that we are living and working in a world

where a culture of trust and transparency propelsbusiness forward. In Heyming’s words, TroutmanSanders, where he works, is “enlightened,” which isnot a term most of us are used to hearing inconnection with a global law firm. As we’vediscussed, lawyers are generally risk-averse andconservative when it comes to adopting anytechnological innovation that increases a company’sor brand’s exposure to outside commentary. Whilethe new crop of law school graduates may find ittotally normal to have their lives, thoughts, andopinions open for scrutiny on Facebook and Twitter,in general lawyers in their mid-forties and up are stillleery of social networking sites, and it’s reasonableto believe that lawyers in their mid-forties and up areat the helm of a large number of big law firms. It’sprobably even reasonable for many of them to benervous about letting their employees speak freelyonline—even attorneys who know their stuff canmake boneheaded mistakes in judgment likeanyone else; they have been reprimanded, fined,and even fired for posting information about casesor complaining about clients and judges online. Theculture at Troutman Sanders seems to be unusually

trusting for a large law firm. According to Heyming, itactively encourages its attorneys to pursue creativeand innovative ways to build their practice. I can’t saywhether the firm has incorporated all of the culturalbuilding blocks we discussed in chapter four, but ifHeyming has as much freedom as he seems tohave, the firm has got an impressive handle ontrusting their employees, which is not a claim manycompanies in less conservative fields can say. I givethem props for that.

Starting with Good IntentHeyming has created and spread his own culture aswell. His passion is guiding and advising startupsfrom conception to money-making maturity. When hemoved to Virginia from Southern California, he wasfrustrated by how small and diffuse theentrepreneurial community was. At first hecomplained about it; then he decided it was up tohim to nurture a solid network of local entrepreneursand venture capitalists that would help him foster athriving client base. So during his free time, hestarted offering pro bono or sharply discounted

advice to startups. An entrepreneur himself, heknows how vulnerable young companies are as theytry to gain their footing. “Once a company is up androlling and has a few rounds of financing under itsbelt, it can typically throw a stick and hit alawyer/accountant/consultant. But, when they are juststarting out and are cranking code in their parent’sbasement, they barely have money for ramen, muchless advisors. This is where I see an opportunity toboth build the ecosystem and, ultimately, helpmyself…I am a firm believer in ‘doing it right.’” Headds, “Today, this ecosystem is dependent on socialmedia and connectivity. The founders I work with liveand breathe Twitter and Skype, so I live and breatheTwitter and Skype. I work when they work—even ifthat means doing a Skype video conference at11:30 at night so we can talk to the team member inHyderabad.”

Culture + Intent = Word of MouthHeyming insists that it does not take a lot of time tooffer fledgling startups his services, and hisinvestment is quickly paid off once the companies

get financing and he can start charging them likeregular clients. The reward he has earned from hiswork has far outweighed any risk he might encounterby spending resources on companies that maynever fly. In fact, his larger paying clients, many ofwhom started out as small startups, generate 90percent of his workload even though they make uponly 30 percent of his client base. Some of hisclients are venture capital funds, and they, too,recognize that it’s in their best interest for Heymingto help grow their entrepreneurial community.Everybody wins: Troutman Sanders, which givestheir attorneys free rein to build their practices asthey see fit; Heyming, who gets to make moneydoing what he loves to do in a way that he loves todo it; the startups who just need a break; and theventure capitalists looking for their next investmentopportunity.

Of course, there are startups that never goanywhere, but Heyming has no reason to think of thetime spent with clients who don’t make it big as abad investment. Entrepreneurs are idea people, andthey usually have more than one; they often comeback to him with new ventures. At the very least, idea

people love to talk to other idea people, whichmeans the word of mouth from entrepreneurs whomhe tries to help often brings him new business.

In addition to the word of mouth spread by hiscurrent and former clients, paying and nonpaying,Heyming builds business by tweeting and blogging.He says he is contacted almost weekly by foundersand investors who are inspired or intrigued bysomething he wrote.

What One Lawyer Can Do, Anyone Can DoOverall, the details of Heyming’s path to success inthe Thank You Economy are not that different fromthose of any of the other business owners orcompanies we spoke to for this book. He succeedsbecause he doesn’t draw lines in the sand whenfaced with the unfamiliar or unproven; he gets that atits core. Work is always about giving—efficiency,entertainment, relief, free time, peace of mind,opportunity, comfort—to other people; he caresdeeply about his clients and recognizes that theirsuccess is his success. I think when Heymingdescribes the practice of law by saying “at base our

practice is built around relationships,” he could betalking about any field or industry, including yours.

The Big PictureNo one is perfect, and I see ways in which each ofthe companies I’ve profiled could adjust and improvetheir social media initiatives. Then again, I’m wellaware that there are things I could do to improve myown efforts. Sustaining relationships and leveragingsocial networks is challenging work. Yet the thingthat strikes me about the individuals who are leadingthe companies and brands profiled in this book istheir excitement. They work like animals, and theeconomy is still wobbly, but when they talk abouttheir work, you get the definite sense that all they seeare doors of opportunity flying open every day. It’s asthough social media has given all its users an equalplatform on which they can build not just theircareers, but their dreams.

Conclusion

It’s not your imagination; marketing really has gottenharder. Markets are splintering, eyeballs are shifting,attention spans are waning, and the amount ofinformation people are trying to absorb continues to

multiply.* Where we consume media, and where and

how we interact in person and online has changed atan astounding rate, and it is continuing to morph andexpand every day. The only way brands andbusinesses are going to be able to adapt to andovercome these challenges is by conducting a virtualdoor-to-door campaign to win over their customers’hearts and minds. That’s a lot harder and more time-consuming than bombarding the market with a one-size-fits-all message. Yet those companies that arewilling to get in the social media trenches with theircustomers will see that word of mouth can alloweach individual engagement to have an impacthundreds of times greater than itself. If marketerscommit to Thank You Economy principleswholeheartedly, reallocate their marketing resources

properly, and find ways not only to take advantage ofthe best that social media and traditional mediahave to offer but also to actually play them off eachother, they will see an incredible return on anyinvestment they make.

Anyone waiting for the marketing landscape tostabilize before incorporating social media into hisor her business strategy is living in a fantasy world.We’re riding a really, really fast train; the changeswe’ve seen mark only the beginning of thetransformations yet to come. Stable isn’t going tohappen any time soon.

So what to do? As always, it’s about hustle.Unfortunately, marketing has gotten harder at a timewhen many marketers have gotten softer. We’vegotten used to running short sprints, not marathons,and we’re not built for the endurance game. That’sas true for many corporate-level marketers as it is formany entrepreneurs. Our great-grandparents werebuilt for it. Whether they ran their own businesses orput in thirty years of service to a big company orfactory, they were used to working their tails off withfew of the technological innovations we can’timagine working without. They’d never heard of

work-life balance, and they knew better than toexpect instant gratification. We crave both, but I thinkthese will be luxuries in the Thank You Economy. Thestars in this business era will be those who areconsumed with their work (and happy about it) andhave the patience to pursue one small victory at atime. This new economy offers tremendousopportunities to develop huge markets, strengthenbrands, or build lasting businesses, provided youwork for them with the intensity of Rocky Balboatraining for his Cold War showdown in the snow-covered Soviet countryside. You’re in trouble only ifyou find that pill too hard to swallow.

The Thank You Economy has radically altered ourcustomers’ expectations, and businesses are goingto have to get creative and personal in order to meetthem. As we do, consumer expectations will change,and the marketing initiatives we put out that mightnow be met with “Wow!” will eventually be met with“Meh.” The key, then, is to start thinking ahead. Allbusinesses must innovate to survive. Social mediagives us the opportunity to figure out what peoplewant before they even know they want it. Usingsocial media to talk to customers is like getting

access to the most honest focus group that’s eversat around a conference table and not paying a dimefor their input. We have to listen, participate in theconversation, ask questions, and solicit feedback.We have to be more involved, and more attentive,and more interested, than we have ever been. Wehave to be better.

Part of being better will entail making sure thatyou’re weaving strong strands of Thank YouEconomy DNA, along with your own, into your brandor company. Then it’s about focusing your sights onaspects of your marketing strategy that until nowmight have been treated as secondary concerns.

The lifetime value of a customer, for instance, isgoing to become a bigger consideration. TheInternet has given customers an incredible number ofplaces to spend their money, as well as new toolsthey can use to spread your message farther andwider. Social media allows you to get to know yourcustomers well enough to gather a true idea of whattheir long-term value to your brand might be.Developing a powerful emotional connection couldbe all it takes to convince them to consolidate theirspending with you. Plus, now that purchasing

spending with you. Plus, now that purchasingdecisions are directly affected by consumers’relationships to the people they communicate withon their social networking sites, staying aware ofwho your consumers know and who they talk toregularly will become increasingly important. Everyinteraction you engage in with them will have thepotential to spread through their network via word ofmouth. When businesses realize that they need tofocus on investing in customers, not platforms, theywill see amazing returns on that investment.

Earned media, too, will become increasinglyrelevant. Just as there was a golden age of radio, agolden age of television, and one for movies, socialmedia platforms have brought us into the golden ageof earned media. Consumers are tired of being soldto. An op-ed article, blog post, or positive consumerreview—the kind of free press that is often anorganic result of a well-executed, engagingmarketing campaign that allows traditional andsocial media platforms to work together—will go along way toward making the marketing initiative youactually pay for stick longer and travel farther in thepublic’s consciousness. It’s bound to get harder to

get earned media—now that plans like Facebookcampaigns are gaining in popularity, the mainstreampress won’t always fall all over itself to write aboutthem—but while it lasts, it will be powerful, powerfulstuff. Of course, the best of the best will always grabthe press’s heartstrings, especially as technologycontinues to move forward to allow outstandingmobile and augmented reality campaigns.

Brands should also do everything they can to gainfirst-mover advantage. Marketers have to keep theirfinger on the pulse of the culture and keep an eye onthe incoming trains. Smart marketers shouldn’t everget too comfortable in their seats. Brands andbusinesses that can see the potential of emergingplatforms will always have an edge over theircompetition. The brands that show up first on theseplatforms—the ones launched by people like formerFacebook or Google employees—and take the firstcrack at building relationships with the earlyadopters they find there will see theirforesightedness pay off.

Unless Wall Street undergoes a miraculoustransformation and starts rewarding companies fortheir long-term strategies instead of almost

exclusively for their short-term results, putting energyinto hard-to-measure marathon plays such aslifetime customer value, earned media, andemerging markets will feel like a struggle, and evena risky proposition, to a lot of companies. The ironyis that when executed properly, these marathons canreap dividends in a relatively short amount of time.

The companies that soar in 2011 and beyond arethose that will figure out a way to balance the short-term demands of Wall Street or investors with thelong-term demands of the Thank You Economy.Their leaders will begin by weaving strong strands oftheir DNA, laced with good intent, into the top layerof their companies, and allow it to infiltrate everylayer of their business. They will accept that thecustomers have most of the power and be glad togive it to them. They will hire individuals and createnew departments dedicated to building long-termrelationships with customers and potentialcustomers. They will stop relying solely upon straight,traditional marketing channels to spread theirmessage, and instead allow their content to bepassed back and forth (and sometimes around andacross and through) as many platforms as they can

reach. They will treat their business as an extensionof themselves, and care, care, care.

People much smarter than I am have stated that

we are living through a third industrial revolution.* But

anyone who has been paying attention will realizethat I’ve been saying the same thing (in my ownstyle), for half a decade. The Thank You Economy isnow, it’s here, it’s relevant, and I believe its scalemay be bigger than any of us can even fathom. Andit’s still very early.

This is such an incredibly exciting time to be inbusiness. I know I’m right about the Thank YouEconomy—once you’ve tasted Champagne, youknow it the minute you taste it again. It may take alittle longer than I anticipate for the total culturaltransformation to take hold, but ten years from now,I’m going to be on the right side of history. I imploreyou to be there with me. We will one day dust off thebones of companies that fossilized because theydidn’t think it could “scale,” or because they didn’tthink it was worth the effort, or because they couldnot stop drawing lines in the sand. The day yourecognize that the Thank You Economy exists, and

you begin to take the steps necessary to executeproperly within it, will be the day you ensure yourbusiness or brand a place in the future.

PART IV

Sawdust

More Thoughts On…

Starting ConversationsIf you’re a big brand like Coke or SunChips, yourbrand is being talked about and you need toaddress the topic head-on. When you’ve got thatconversation covered, you can spread out to talkmore generally about beverages, refreshment,summer, et cetera. But if you’re Sally’s OrangeSoda, no one is talking about you, so you need to dothe reverse—create a general soda conversationfirst. You need to jump into every relevantconversation you spot, much like I did when I talkedto people about Chardonnay and Shiraz in the earlydays, long before I responded to @garyvee’s. Oncethose conversations are up and running, you canstart to talk specifically about Sally’s Orange Soda.

The Difference between the Power of Word ofMouth and AdvertisingIn mid-2010, National Public Radio officiallychanged its name to NPR to reflect its presence

online and on digital devices. In an article for TheNieman Journalism Lab about how NPR ismeasuring the value of their Twitter followers andpeople who “like” it on Facebook, Justin Ellis writes,“It…makes sense that NPR wants to monitor itsemerging platforms as they try to transform into adigital media company. Facebook and Twittercombined now account for 7–8 percent of traffic toNPR.org, an amount that has doubled in the lastyear.” More and more people are finding their way tothe NPR website through links they see on Twitterand Facebook because of the social context thatsurrounds those links, a context created whenconsumers opt to receive NPR updates through theirnewsfeeds, or when they see the content because itwas posted by a friend. You’ll pay attention to orinterpret a comment about an NPR story from yourmother or a coworker whom you respect fardifferently than you would if you found the articlethrough a Google search. That social context andconnection gives the content weight and importancethat it wouldn’t otherwise have. The differencebetween how people respond to search engineresults or a banner ad versus how they respond to

Twitter or Facebook feeds parallels the differencebetween how people respond to advertising andhow they respond to word of mouth. One is arandom, faceless encounter that is easily forgotten;the other is a meaningful exchange worth passingalong and sharing with others.

How Fear Blocks InnovationIt’s becoming more unusual for a big consumerbrand to really innovate and create a great product.Vitamin Water didn’t come from Coke; Pom didn’tcome from Pepsi. Too many big companies getstuck in the muck of their own fear and short-termconcerns, which prohibits them from taking risks andfollowing through on great, creative thinking. They’retoo wrapped up in meetings and procedure andstock value, or worst of all, the politics of keepingtheir jobs, whereas smaller, scrappier companiesare often still ruled by passion and have the freedomto experiment.

AgendasThere are a lot of people with a vested interest in

making sure that brands don’t start using socialmedia. You can point out plenty of weaknesses insocial media metrics, but you can find just as manyin traditional media. The reality is, however, thatbrands will eventually be able to track everyconsumer online—there is no truer metric. Whatwould happen if brands started demanding the samemetric standard from traditional media? What if theyrealize that they can spend their money moreefficiently and effectively online than on television?There is a lot of marketing and advertising money—not to mention thank-you-for-doing-business-with-usgifts like baseball-game tickets, shows, fancydinners, trips to Cancún, and cases of Dom P—atstake, and a lot of people will denigrate socialmedia’s influence for as long as they can so they cankeep their hands on it. In addition, those gifts areoften exchanged between people who genuinely likedoing business together. This means that even ifanother agency were willing to give them a betterdeal, they’d still spend their money with the agencythat has treated them preferentially over the years.To say that business isn’t personal is ridiculous.P.S., you can start to create some of these

relationships on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.Who said social media isn’t B2B?

Changing StrategiesI usually see parallels between marketing andinterpersonal relationships, but lately I can’t shakethe thought that there are also parallels between howwe market and advertise and how we wage war. Theworld wars were fought with blanket fire—big planesdropping many bombs from the sky, battleships,tanks. Everything was big and meant to overwhelmthe enemy. Then we got into Vietnam, and wecouldn’t use the same tactics—we had to fight one-on-one. More recently, in Iraq and Afghanistan,troops went from village to village, tribe to tribe,trying to stabilize dangerous regions all whilewinning the trust and the hearts and minds of thepopulace. I’m not passing any judgment on how wefought these wars, nor do I believe that the decisionswe make in the marketing world can compare to thedecisions the leaders of our armed forces mustmake every day or to the sacrifices made by ourtroops. I do think, however, that just as our strategies

on the battlefield had to change, so have ourstrategies in the business world. There was a time inbusiness when we had to fight big, and so it wasnecessary to rely on a big platform like television. TVwas a tank; radio was a fleet of planes. Now that weare trying to go local, it’s been a real struggle forsome companies; big isn’t going to help them win.Carpet-bombing Afghanistan wasn’t going to get usanywhere, nor will spending $44 million exclusivelyon a TV campaign, some billboards, and radiospots.

Defending Social Media Throughout My CareerI was the baby-faced kid at the conference tablesurrounded by wine experts and old-timers whothought my video blogs were a joke, even anembarrassment to the industry. Even when itbecame clear that my methods were yieldingprofitable results for Wine Library, my family liquorbusiness, and I started getting media attention as Iproved my entrepreneurial chops, I faced constantskepticism and condescension. I got used to it along time ago, and I actually enjoy the debate. I’m not

scared to defend and debate the value of thisemerging shift in the Web, because “I told you so”may be one of the most delicious flavors in the world.Now, if I’m wrong, I’ll deserve the “told you so,” but Iwon’t be sorry that I said my piece. Too many peopleare scared to share their visions and thoughts inpublic or even in board-rooms. Having a strongvision is important for your personal brand. Don’t beafraid to say what you think. Ever. That said, don’tforget to listen, either.

Drawing Lines in the SandI think it’s sad when someone who says he or shewants a fruitful career refuses to try something newbecause the numbers don’t seem promising. Iunderstand that people crave security, but I don’tunderstand the complete lack of curiosity Isometimes see. Every time you draw a line in thesand, you’re robbing yourself of a learningexperience that could serve you well in the long run.Lines in the sand will only box you in.

The ROI of Emotions

The ROI of a social media user is deeply tied to thatuser’s sense of community and the emotionalattachment he or she associates with a product. Youcould offer me a Jets T-shirt for eighty bucks and aCowboys T-shirt for a dollar, and I would still neverbuy the Cowboys shirt. My emotional attachment tothe Jets is that strong. A teenager who loves VitaminWater enough to follow the brand on Facebook isn’tgoing to be satisfied with a gift card from Snapple ifVitamin Water treats her better whenever sheinteracts with them online. She may be appreciativeand grateful for the gift, but the second she has herown money she’s going to spend it on the brand thatmeans something to her. The heart wants what theheart wants. Snapple might get the initial purchase,but Vitamin Water has the relationship, which willtranslate into far greater revenue in the long run.Those who are willing to look (and there are toomany marketers who are not) are witnessing thehumanization of business; it will have one of thegreatest impacts on commerce we’ve ever seen.

How Nielsen Ratings Work

Let’s review how the ratings system works. Selectingfor demographics that best represent the country asa whole, a computer program randomly targetshouseholds with television sets and asks theinhabitants to monitor their television-watchinghabits. Only about 50 percent of households agreeto participate, so the ratings companies then have totry to replace the uncooperative homes with homesthat best match the same demographic makeup. In2009, there were about 114,900,000 householdswith televisions. Of those households, only about25,000 homes were monitored. That means 99.9percent of American households were completely

ignored.* This is not necessarily news to the

marketing, advertising, and media-buyingcommunity.

The sample does get broader during the sweepsmonths of November, February, May, and July, whenNielsen asks about two million people to submitdiaries. Paper diaries. Sent through the mail. Youdon’t have to be a psychologist to think of anynumber of reasons why these diaries might notaccurately reflect a person’s TV-watching habits. On

top of that, only about 50 percent of the diaries canbe used, because so many are never returned or arefilled out improperly. A quick search on the Internetwill hit many articles written by Nielsen participantsrevealing, albeit sheepishly, that they thought aboutfudging their reports and altering their TV-watchinghabits (and some of them actually did). Thoseconfessions are just from the raters who bother toshare their experience; how many others could beout there?

Nielsen admits there are weaknesses in itsprocess. In 2009, the company released a reportthat stated its ratings might have been inaccurate byas much as 8 percent. The reason? Participantsweren’t using their People Meters correctly.Ultimately, no matter what corrections andadjustments it makes, Nielsen still has to rely on theaccuracy and honesty of the individuals in the mere25,000 homes it is monitoring. Someone has topush the button identifying herself as the viewer;someone has to remember to mention that shespent ten minutes during a half-hour programchatting with the Girl Scout who came to the door.

In addition, as we all know, television-watching

habits have changed drastically in the past fewyears. Nielsen issued a 2010 report stating that 59percent of people watch television and surf theInternet simultaneously, 35 percent more than thenumber of people who did so in 2009. Thirty-fivepercent more in twelve months! Nielsen assures usthat it has systems in place to account for the swell incable and digital channels, DVRs, and the fact thatpeople are watching TV on their iPhones andplaying around with all kinds of multimedia while thetelevision plays in the background. I would love toknow what kind of technology could make trackingso many platforms possible, but that information isproprietary and confidential to Nielsen, and I canunderstand why. Still, if this is how social media wastracked and I tried to sell it to a room full ofexecutives in 2011, don’t you think they might pointout some big holes in the system?

It’s important to remember that The NielsenCompany was not always the only game in town. Inthe 1940s and ’50s, Nielsen competed against fiveother ratings companies: Videodex, Inc., Trendex,Inc., the American Research Bureau, C. E. Hooper,Inc., and The Pulse, Inc. The Claude E. Hooper

company was the market researcher during theradio golden age and became enough of apresence in TV, until Nielsen acquired it in 1950, thatit was common for television series producers to askeach other, “How’s your Hooper?” But Hooper sold,the other guys disappeared, and advertisers, adagencies, and media buying companies put theirfaith in Nielsen.

What Touches PeoplePeople laugh at me because I get so pumped aboutthe New York Jets. Well, how is that any sillier thanstanding in line for nine hours to get the first copy ofthe newest book in the Twilight series? Or six hoursfor the new video game, Sneakers Smart Phone?Now that brands are touchable, there’s no reason tothink that with some creativity, they can’t create thesame emotions as a sports team or a pop cultureevent. The brand that touches and creates the mostemotion wins.

Campbell’s knows this to be true. In a completerevamping of their marketing strategy, they areinvesting heavily in biometric tools—measuring skin

moisture, heart rate, breath, and posture, forexample—to help measure the subconscious,emotional reactions consumers have to theirproducts. This research resulted in big changes tothe look of their condensed soup cans, which theyhope will evoke more emotional reactions fromshoppers.

The Broken Corporate GameThe CEO of BP left with a multimillion-dollar bonus.He’s in charge during the worst environmentaldisaster of all time, and he leaves with moneyspilling out of his pockets. When a leader’s worst-case scenario doesn’t look that bad, there’s noreason that person should care desperately aboutthe fate of his or her company. If that CEO’s contracthad said that the stock price needed to be at acertain level or he would lose everything, he wouldhave treated the whole oil-well situation differently.When the worst-case scenario is pretty, you’re neveras scared or antsy as you should be. Period!

Playboy Corporate America

Corporate America is rewarded for hookups andone-night stands, and that’s how much respect mostcorporations show toward their customers. Don’thate the player; hate the game.

BillboardsThere is no chance in heck that as many people asthe companies tell you are viewing billboards areviewing billboards. People are so distracted withtheir mobile devices they’re barely looking at theroads, much less looking at billboards. Oprah is rightabout this one—cars should be no-phone zones. I’mscared to share the road with other drivers!

I Like TVJust to make it really, really clear: I am a fan oftraditional media; I just have issues with the creativework and the pricing. I see what people are puttingout there in print, on radio, and on TV, and I don’tbelieve they are pushing the creative envelopeenough. And, because of the massive changes inviewership, I don’t think I should have to pay for thismedia as if it were still 1994 and radio, TV, and print

were the only mediums getting people’s attention.

Surveys and Customer CardsWhen you ask a consumer to fill out a survey orcomment card, you’ve already influenced the answeryou’re going to get. As soon as people are asked fortheir opinion, they filter their replies. Maybe they’reafraid of getting someone fired. Maybe they want tosound smart. Maybe they don’t want to hurt thefeelings of the person asking the question. Maybethey are mean. But on social media, you’re seeingpeople’s unfiltered conversations, reactions, andopinions. That’s a gold mine of information for thebrand brave enough to look for it.

“Most Brands Still Irrelevant on Twitter”While I was writing this book, Ad Age published anarticle called “Most Brands Still Irrelevant on Twitter:Marketers Are Certainly Tweeting, but Users AreBarely Listening.” Maybe someone at your companysent this around saying, “See, I was right to insistthat we not waste our time on Twitter.” I’d like to pointa few things out about this article:

1. The article actually explains the problem: “Whilemarketers such as Dell, Comcast, Ford andStarbucks have been, at times, cleverparticipants on Twitter, the majority of marketersuse it as a mini press release service. Only 12%of messages from marketers are directed atindividual Twitter users, meaning marketers stillsee it as a broadcast medium rather than aconversational one.” So you see, it’s not thatTwitter doesn’t work; it’s that most brands aren’tusing Twitter correctly. It’s like saying that atrumpet is broken because the first hundredpeople who try to play it suck. You can’t have arelationship with someone if you won’t shut upand let him or her get a word in edgewise.Brands have to realize that it’s not all aboutthem. When they do nothing but push product,there’s no reason for the consumer to sayanything back. It’s like that friend you have whoalways talks about herself and never asks howyou’re doing. Eventually, she gets tiresome, andyou lose interest in keeping up the friendship.

2. “Brands only engage 18%.” Well, whose fault is

that?3. Twitter is four years old, and we should treat it

like any four-year-old. Give it a little time to growup and mature before dismissing it.

Getting StartedYou don’t have to be Michael Phelps, but for God’ssake, put on a bathing suit!

Jeff Bezos’s Missed OpportunityBezos bought two of the few companies that havemost interested me—Zappos and Woot. Woot.comis a site that sells one cool, discounted electronicitem per day. When the item runs out, the sale isover, and everyone has to wait until midnight of thefollowing day, Central Time, to see what newawesome thing is on the market. When Wootlaunched in 2004, I said, “Shoot, I should have builtthat! I soooo get it!” It’s the site that inspired me tobranch out of wine retail. Amazon bought it in June2010, but it should have bought the company threeor four years ago. I’m a little surprised that it tookBezos so long to see Woot’s potential, since the

single-option, restrictive buying trend seemed soobvious. And I am really disappointed in myself fornot taking action and launching a startup around thesame idea. I made a half-assed effort with a sitecalled Free.WineLibrary.com, but it didn’t take off. Ittook me until 2009 to get the formula right withCinderella Wine. Kudos to the founders of Grouponand Living Social for running headfirst into theopportunity and executing so successfully.

ApologiesLeBron James was apparently counting on thepublic’s capacity for forgiveness when he decided itwould be a good idea to announce on live nationaltelevision that he was dumping his hometown team,the Cleveland Cavaliers, to play for the Miami Heat.Talk about stabbing the people that love you in theback! Still, Cleveland will probably eventually forgivehim. But if he were smart, he’d have taken note of hisfans’ anger, put together another live TVappearance, and say, “I had my reasons for going toMiami, but Cleveland, I’ve been a jerk, and I’m sorry.”And if his handlers or agents had been smart, they

would have been watching Twitter while LeBronmade his announcement, seen the public reaction,given him a talking-to during a commercial break,and allowed him to express his regret on the spot forupsetting so many people. That would have beennews! In any scenario, however, his apology wouldhave to be genuine. There’s never a time when realdoesn’t work.

Hiring and FiringI value good teamwork more than almost anything.Though I rarely fire anyone, over the years I’ve had tolet go of five of the most talented employees thathave ever worked at Wine Library, because they justcouldn’t play nice with the other boys and girls. Thatwas culturally unacceptable in my company.

Leadership and CultureBill Parcells is the best coach of all time. Screw PhilJackson—I could have won a few championshipswith Jordan, Shaq, and Kobe on my teams. Parcellsis the greatest coach in history because he went to arotten New York Giants team and won two Super

Bowls; went to the New York Jets, who had won fourgames in two years, and in two short years got themwithin one game of the Super Bowl; went to thePatriots, who were one in fifteen, and took them tothe Super Bowl; went to Dallas and made them aconsistent playoffs contender; and then to Miami,where he coached the biggest turnaround in oneseason in NFL history. He wins through buildingteam morale, hiring the right people, and instilling theright culture. He brings his DNA. In this new worldwhere people can communicate more freely with notjust customers, but with employees too, the BillParcells style of leadership will become more andmore necessary.

TalentCompanies that resist the Thank You Economy aregoing to see an exodus of talent. The people whounderstand where the culture is going but don’t getsupport from their companies are going to find thecourage to leave for new pastures. In communistsocieties, people resist covertly. They’resuppressed; they fight the system; and as soon as

they can, they leave.One day these companies are going to realize

that they have to get on board. They’re going to lookinternally for the leaders to take them there andexecute, and find that the people they need bailedout of frustration a few years earlier. They didn’tappreciate what they had until it was too late.

Communism in Corporate AmericaThe economy and our culture are inextricably linked,to the point that, in my mind, they are one and thesame. If you understand the culture we’re in rightnow, you understand that there’s nothing anemployee can say that will irreparably damage yourbusiness, especially if you fix it quickly. That’s whatcapitalism understands and communism doesn’t.

Tony Hsieh’s Letter to His EmployeesWhen Amazon acquired Zappos, even the way theacquisition was announced was culturally significant.Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, wrote an incrediblypersonal letter to Zappos employees explaining thedetails of the transaction, what it meant for the

company, and how it would affect their jobs.

Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009From: Tony Hsieh (CEO—Zappos.com)To: All Zappos EmployeesSubject: Zappos and Amazon

Please set aside 20 minutes to carefully readthis entire email. (My apologies for theoccasional use of formal-sounding language,as parts of it are written in a particular way forlegal reasons.)

Today is a big day in Zappos history.This morning, our board approved and we

signed what’s known as a “definitiveagreement,” in which all of the existingshareholders and investors of Zappos (thereare over 100) will be exchanging their Zapposstock for Amazon stock. Once the exchange isdone, Amazon will become the onlyshareholder of Zappos stock.

Over the next few days, you will probablyread headlines that say “Amazon acquiresZappos” or “Zappos sells to Amazon.” While

Zappos” or “Zappos sells to Amazon.” Whilethose headlines are technically correct, theydon’t really properly convey the spirit of thetransaction. (I personally would prefer theheadline “Zappos and Amazon sitting in atree…”)

We plan to continue to run Zappos the waywe have always run Zappos—continuing to dowhat we believe is best for our brand, ourculture, and our business. From a practicalpoint of view, it will be as if we are switching outour current shareholders and board of directorsfor a new one, even though the technical legalstructure may be different.

We think that now is the right time to joinforces with Amazon because there is a hugeopportunity to leverage each other’s strengthsand move even faster towards our long termvision. For Zappos, our vision remains thesame: delivering happiness to customers,employees, and vendors. We just want to getthere faster.

We are excited about doing this for 3 mainreasons:

1) We think that there is a huge opportunityfor us to really accelerate the growth of theZappos brand and culture, and we believe thatAmazon is the best partner to help us get therefaster.

2) Amazon supports us in continuing to growour vision as an independent entity, under theZappos brand and with our unique culture.

3) We want to align ourselves with ashareholder and partner that thinks really longterm (like we do at Zappos), as well as dowhat’s in the best interest of our existingshareholders and investors.

I will go through each of the above points inmore detail below, but first, let me get to the top3 burning questions that I’m guessing many ofyou will have.

TOP 3 BURNING QUESTIONSQ: Will I still have a job?As mentioned above, we plan to continue to

run Zappos as an independent entity. In legalterminology, Zappos will be a “wholly-ownedsubsidiary” of Amazon. Your job is just assecure as it was a month ago.

Q: Will the Zappos culture change?Our culture at Zappos is unique and always

evolving and changing, because one of ourcore values is to Embrace and Drive Change.What happens to our culture is up to us, whichhas always been true. Just like before, we arein control of our destiny and how our cultureevolves.

A big part of the reason why Amazon isinterested in us is because they recognize thevalue of our culture, our people, and our brand.Their desire is for us to continue to grow anddevelop our culture (and perhaps even a littlebit of our culture may rub off on them).

They are not looking to have their folks comein and run Zappos unless we ask them to. Thatbeing said, they have a lot of experience andexpertise in a lot of areas, so we’re very excitedabout the opportunities to tap into theirknowledge, expertise, and resources,especially on the technology side. This is aboutmaking the Zappos brand, culture, andbusiness even stronger than it is today.

Q: Are Tony, Alfred, or Fred leaving?

No, we have no plans to leave. We believethat we are at the very beginning of what’spossible for Zappos and are very excited aboutthe future and what we can accomplish forZappos with Amazon as our new partner. Partof the reason for doing this is so that we canget a lot more done more quickly.

There is an additional Q&A section at theend of this email, but I wanted to make sure wegot the top 3 burning questions out of the wayfirst. Now that we’ve covered those questions, Iwanted to share in more detail our thinkingbehind the scenes that led us to this decision.

First, I want to apologize for the suddennessof this announcement. As you know, one of ourcore values is to Build Open and HonestRelationships With Communication, and if Icould have it my way, I would have shared muchearlier that we were in discussions withAmazon so that all employees could beinvolved in the decision process that we wentthrough along the way. Unfortunately, becauseAmazon is a public company, there aresecurities laws that prevented us from talking

securities laws that prevented us from talkingabout this to most of our employees until today.

We’ve been on friendly terms with Amazonfor many years, as they have always beeninterested in Zappos and have always had agreat respect for our brand.

Several months ago, they reached out to usand said they wanted to join forces with us sothat we could accelerate the growth of ourbusiness, our brand, and our culture. When theysaid they wanted us to continue to build theZappos brand (as opposed to folding us intoAmazon), we decided it was worth exploringwhat a partnership would look like.

We learned that they truly wanted us tocontinue to build the Zappos brand andcontinue to build the Zappos culture in our ownunique way. (I think “unique” was their way ofsaying “fun and a little weird.” :)

Over the past several months, as we got toknow each other better, both sides becamemore and more excited about the possibilitiesfor leveraging each other’s strengths. Werealized that we are both very customer-

focused companies—we just focus on differentways of making our customers happy.

Amazon focuses on low prices, vastselection and convenience to make theircustomers happy, while Zappos does it throughdeveloping relationships, creating personalemotional connections, and delivering hightouch (“WOW”) customer service.

We realized that Amazon’s resources,technology, and operational experience had thepotential to greatly accelerate our growth sothat we could grow the Zappos brand andculture even faster. On the flip side, through theprocess Amazon realized that it really was thecase that our culture is the platform that enablesus to deliver the Zappos experience to ourcustomers. Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon) madeit clear that he had a great deal of respect forour culture and that Amazon would look toprotect it.

We asked our board members what theythought of the opportunity. Michael Moritz, whorepresents Sequoia Capital (one of ourinvestors and board members), wrote the

following: “You now have the opportunity toaccelerate Zappos’ progress and to make thename and the brand and everything associatedwith it an enduring, permanent part of peoples’lives…You are now free to let your imaginationroam—and to contemplate initiatives andundertakings that today, in our moreconstrained setting, we could not take on.”

One of the great things about Amazon is thatthey are very long term thinkers, just like we areat Zappos. Alignment in very long term thinkingis hard to find in a partner or investor, and wefelt very lucky and excited to learn that bothAmazon and Zappos shared this samephilosophy.

All this being said, this was not an easydecision. Over the past several months, we hadto weigh all the pros and cons along with all thepotential benefits and risks. At the end of theday, we realized that, once it was determinedthat this was in the best interests of ourshareholders, it basically all boiled down toasking ourselves 2 questions:

1) Do we believe that this will accelerate the

growth of the Zappos brand and help us fulfillour mission of delivering happiness faster?

2) Do we believe that we will continue to bein control of our own destiny so that we cancontinue to grow our unique culture?

After spending a lot of time with Amazon andgetting to know them and understanding theirintentions better, we reached the conclusionthat the answers to these 2 questions are YESand YES.

The Zappos brand will continue to beseparate from the Amazon brand. Althoughwe’ll have access to many of Amazon’sresources, we need to continue to build ourbrand and our culture just as we always have.Our mission remains the same: deliveringhappiness to all of our stakeholders, includingour employees, our customers, and ourvendors. (As a side note, we plan to continue tomaintain the relationships that we have with ourvendors ourselves, and Amazon will continue tomaintain the relationships that they have withtheir vendors.)

We will be holding an all hands meeting soon

We will be holding an all hands meeting soonto go over all of this in more detail. Pleaseemail me any questions that you may have sothat we can cover as many as possible duringthe all hands meeting and/or a follow-up email.

We signed what’s known as the “definitiveagreement” today, but we still need to gothrough the process of getting governmentapproval, so we are anticipating that thistransaction actually won’t officially close for atleast a few months. We are legally required bythe SEC to be in what’s known as a “quietperiod,” so if you get any questions related tothe transaction from anyone includingcustomers, vendors, or the media, please letthem know that we are in a quiet periodmandated by law and have them emailtree@zappos.com, which is a special emailaccount that Alfred and I will be monitoring.

Alfred and I would like to say thanks to thesmall group of folks on our finance and legalteams and from our advisors at MorganStanley, Fenwick & West, andPricewaterhouseCoopers who have been

working really hard, around the clock, andbehind the scenes over the last several monthsto help make all this possible.

Before getting to the Q&A section, I’d alsolike to thank everyone for taking the time toread this long email and for helping us get towhere we are today.

It’s definitely an emotional day for me. Thefeelings I’m experiencing are similar to what Ifelt in college on graduation day: excitementabout the future mixed with fond memories ofthe past. The last 10 years were an incredibleride, and I’m excited about what we willaccomplish together over the next 10 years aswe continue to grow Zappos!

—Tony HsiehCEO—Zappos.com

Compare this letter to some of the stiff, jargon-filled letters most CEOs send out to their companieswhen they make big announcements. They may aswell have been written by HAL, from 2001: A SpaceOdyssey, for all the genuine personality,compassion, and concern they project. Very few

employees feel safe after receiving one of those, yetI imagine that most of the Zappos staff who readHsieh’s letter believed that the decisions made onbehalf of the company were made with the rightintent. And good intent, as we’ve discussed, goes along, long way.

How Innovation Feeds CultureYou can never lose by going out on a creative limb.Even if your campaign doesn’t result in the sales youmight have hoped for, your company culture willbenefit from having tried. Talent wants to followtalent. Any creative team who sees that you triedsomething innovative will keep you in mind whenthey’re ready to job hunt.

Choosing a Community ManagerPut the best people in charge of social media, notthe people you don’t know what else to do with.Teams don’t pick the chubby, out-of-shape guy first ifthey want to win; you shouldn’t pick the second-rateplayer to do something that requires smarts,empathy, and flexibility.

Viral Ping-PongPeople like surprises. When somebody who isknown for his or her television or film appearancesshows up on Diggnation, a popular video blog, orstarts tweeting great content, it becomes noteworthy;it’s like suddenly getting a peek inside the head ofsomeone you’ve always wanted to get to knowbetter. It can work the other way, too.

If Hallmark ran a TV commercial for Mother’s Dayand featured a bunch of popular online charactersand their moms, like Kevin Rose, iJustine, and TonyHsieh—or if these Web celebrities did a “Got Milk”print campaign—I’m sure the ads would go crazyviral. Seeing those personalities on television or inprint would take the public by as much surprise as ifthey saw a fish walking down the street. There are alot of impressions to be made if brands would takeadvantage of the reciprocal relationships betweentraditional and social media.

The Interplay between Traditional and SocialMedia

There’s still a perception that traditional mediaworks—that people see it—and social mediadoesn’t. What a lot of people fail to realize is howmuch traditional media is seen because of socialmedia. The 2010 Grammys experienced a 35percent hike in viewership since 2009, and was themost watched Grammys event since 2004. Creditcould be given to the stellar mainstream lineup, or anincrease in country fans, or various promotions, butI’m sure social media had something to do with it,too. When Pink started spinning, wet and nearlynaked, in a Cirque du Soleil–style harness whilesinging “Glitter in the Sky,” Twitter went nuts, leadingpeople to think, “Huh, maybe I should tune in.”

People who weren’t planning to watch theGrammys saw that their friends were watching theGrammys and saw that there was some crazy stuffgoing on at the Grammys, and tuned in. We used todo that. We’d be watching something awesome onTV and pick up the phone and say, did you see that?If we were super advanced, we might have three-waycalling and be able to talk to two friends at the sametime! But what were we going to do then—hang up,dial another friend, and another? Of course not! Withone click, we now can tell everyone we know to gettheir butts in front of the TV before they miss theawesome show.

TacticsIntent will make your tactics work better. Your re-

tweet tactic will work really well if you care like crazyfor a year before you try the tactic, and even better ifwhat you do isn’t really a tactic at all; it’s just whatyou do. It’s like when you’re nice to someone andthen you ask the person a favor…that person is a lotmore likely to do something for you if you’ve been agreat friend and neighbor than if you’ve ignored himor her the whole time you’ve lived next door to eachother.

I use tactics, too, but my engagements far, faroutnumber them. Tactics are like dessert. Dessert isgreat unless you eat it with every meal, every day.

Earned MediaIn the spring of 2010, Vaynermedia facilitated acampaign between the New Jersey Nets and thegeo-location site Gowalla. The goal was to raisebrand awareness and bring more fans to the games.The Nets dropped 250 pairs of virtual tickets aroundsports venues, including sports bars and gyms, nearthe Nets’ arena in New York and New Jersey;anyone who checked in with Gowalla could find thetickets and redeem them for real ones to the final

home game of the season. Virtual merchandise thatcould be redeemed for real team memorabilia wouldalso be awarded to people who checked in at thegame.

Business insiders wrote that the Gowallacampaign was a failure because only 15.2 percentof the Gowalla winners made it to the game, but theywere mistaken. First of all, we knew there would bechallenges to getting people in the seats: the Netshad had a lousy season, the game was on a Mondaynight, and the arena is extremely hard to get to viapublic transportation, which is the only way manyNew Yorkers travel. Given those obstacles, a 15.2percent conversion rate wasn’t too bad. Second,what the critics didn’t realize is that by writing aboutthe campaign, even if only to criticize, they made itwork by extending the story. It also got a lot ofpositive attention from ESPN and bloggers. Last, theparticipants themselves had a great time and helpedmake the campaign work. Their numbers may havebeen small, but many of them tweeted and sentphotos of the event throughout the evening, andcontinued talking about their experience for daysafter the game.

Some people suggested that Gowalla might havegotten something out of the campaign, but not theNets. The Nets did enjoy added business, though,and on top of that, they could now claim to be abrand that’s willing to push creative boundaries. Only“B”-playing businesspeople would look at thatcampaign and dismiss it as a waste of time.Forward-thinking, creative individuals saw theinitiative and thought, “There’s a brand I want to workwith.” People who care only about the numbers oftenmiss the most interesting part of the story. In the end,Gowalla and the Nets each got exactly what theywanted from the campaign.

Squeaky WheelsSome people recognize that in these early days ofsocial media, complaining will get them someattention. It can be frustrating to interact with thesesqueaky wheels, especially when you suspectthey’re just trying to get attention or free stuff or tohear themselves talk, but you have to take the highroad. You can’t ignore these people; you have tocare, no matter what. That said, you have to be a

good judge of when it’s time to move on.

The Biggest Mistakes Companies Make withSocial Media

1. Using tactics instead of strategy2. Using it exclusively to put out fires3. Using it to brag4. Using it as a press release5. Exclusively re-tweeting other people’s material

rather than creating your own original content6. Using it to push product7. Expecting immediate results

Anyone Who Cares About Legacy Must Takethe TYE SeriouslyMr. Buffett, if you want everything you’ve built to lastlong after you’re gone, make sure that yourcompanies are introducing Thank You Economysensibility into their business practices. Actually, anyinvestor would do well to heed the same advice. Ifyou’ve inherited a family business and you want it to

be strong for generations to come, it’s up to you tostart shaking things up and instilling TYE culture fromthe top.

Fish the Small PondsFacebook is not the only significant social mediaplatform, but many people think they have to fish inthe big ocean and ignore the pond. The ponds arerich sources of revenue. Before we launchedVaynermedia, AJ and I were going to start a fantasysports site. Had we chosen that path, we probablywould have spent much of our money on Facebookads, but we also would have spent countless hoursengaging in the fifty most prominent fantasy sportsblogs and forums. They wouldn’t have had as manyeyeballs as Facebook, but those eyeballs wouldhave been a committed, dedicated potentialaudience. It is time for companies to allocate to theponds some of the money they’re pouring into thebig oceans.

Why Big Companies Focus on Big PlatformsRight now in big companies there are four people or

perhaps six people on staff making decisions with a$40 million budget. They spend their money onagencies, bringing in consultants, paying outsidepeople to come in and execute their campaigns. Ofcourse they have to focus on the big platforms—theyneed a huge payoff to justify all the money they’respending. So what you hear in these meetings is“Let’s get this one platform right before we do thenext one.”

It’s going to take a lot more people. You can’thave just one person flying a plane and droppingsixty bombs; you need a lot of people on the groundgoing one-on-one. Businesses have to quitoutsourcing everything and start building up theirinternal teams around these new platforms.

Why People Respond to Social MediaI’m not saying that business leaders don’t know howto run their own businesses; I’m saying that they cando an even better job. Eventually, the marketingshifts that merely give them an advantage now aregoing to be prerequisites for success. We connecton a human level, and consumers are going to

expect that kind of connection when they deal withyou. A lot of people who have been in the hospitalwill complain that they sometimes didn’t see theirdoctor for days, and then when she came in she wasaloof and academic and studied her patient like aninteresting case, not a human being with feelings. It’sthe nurses that often make people feel better whenthey’re in the hospital. When patients leave, they’reoften eternally grateful to the doctor or surgeon whosaved their life or made them feel better, but theyoften hold deep-felt affection and gratitude to thenurses who brought them extra pillows and took thetime to explain things, who altered their regular shiftsto make sure they were on the floor when theirpatient came back from a procedure. When thesepeople talk about their experience, they’llrecommend the doctor, but they’ll rave about thehospital nurse and the care they received. Theyneeded the doctor for her expertise; they loved thenurse for her compassion and care. Brands that winin the Thank You Economy will figure out how toprovide both—what consumers need and what theywant.

PART V

How to Win in the Thank You Economy,the Quick Version

Care—about your customers, about youremployees, about your brand—with everythingyou’ve got.Erase any lines in the sand—don’t be afraid ofwhat’s new or unfamiliar.Show up first to market whenever possible,early the rest of the time.Instill a culture of caring into your business by:

Being self-awareMentally committing to changeSetting the tone through your words andactionsInvesting in your employeesHiring culturally compatible DNA, andspotting it within your existing teamBeing authentic—whether online or offline,say what you mean, and mean what yousayEmpowering your people to be forthright,creative, and generous

Remember that behind every B2B transaction,

there is a C.Speak your customers’ language.Allow your customers to help you shape yourbrand or business, but never allow them todictate the direction in which you take it.Build a sense of community around your brand.Arrange for traditional and social media to playPing-Pong and extend every conversation.Direct all of your marketing initiatives towardthe emotional center, and to the creativeextremes.Approach social media initiatives with goodintent, aiming for quality engagements, notquantity.Use shock and awe to blow your customers’minds and get them talking.If you must use tactics, use “pull” tactics thatremind consumers why they should care aboutyour brand.If you’re small, play like you’re big; if you’re big,play like you’re small.Create a sense of community around yourbusiness or your brand.Don’t be afraid to crawl before you run.

Don’t be afraid to crawl before you run.

PSSSSSST!

Hey…

Thank you for reading. Here is my email:gary@vaynermedia.com. Let me know if I can beof help.

NOTES

A survey of parents: W. David Gardner,“Facebook, Twitter Influence Purchases,”InformationWeek.com, July 27, 2010.http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/web_services/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226300075.another survey, conducted in early December2009: Bilal Hameed, “Facebook, Twitter InfluencesUp to 28% of Online Decisions,” StartupMeme.com,December 14, 2009.http://startupmeme.com/facebook-twitter-influences-up-to-28-of-online-buying-decisions.Meanwhile, at its peak: Eric Caoili, “FarmvilleSheds Another 9 Million Users in Latest FacebookRankings,” Gamasutra, June 10, 2010.http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/28913/FarmVille_Sheds_Another_9_Million_Users_In_Latest_Facebook_Rankings.php.As the 1980s rolled into the 1990s: Emily Yellin,Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us (New York:The Free Press, 2009). 80–81.In the event they could dig up a phone number:Yellin, 73–74.According to Facebook: Rick Burnes, “TwitterUser Growth Slowed from Peak of 13% in March2009 to 3.5% in October,” Hubspot Blog, January19, 2010.http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5496/Twitter-User-Growth-Slowed-From-Peak-of-13-in-March-2009-to-3-5-in-October.aspx.In reply, Galante received a voice mail: NilayPatel, “AT&T Warns Customer That Emailing theCEO Will Result in a Cease and Desist Letter,”Engadget.com, June 2, 2010.http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/02/atandt-warns-customer-that-emailing-the-ceo-will-result-in-a-cease.He finally received (and accepted) an apology:Giorgio Galante, So Long and Thanks for All theFish. http://attepicfail.tumblr.com.If there were a particularly juicy angle to thestory: Yellin, 5.Even industries that have long resisted: JeremyW. Peters, “Some Newspapers, Tracking ReadersOnline, Shift Coverage,” New York Times,September 5, 2010.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/06/business/media/06track.html?_r=1&emc=eta1.What’s extra special about the Wufoo notes:Examples of Wufoo cards: Drew McClellan,“Marketing Tip #75: Handwritten Notes Are Magic,Drew’s Marketing Minute, July 14, 2010,http://www.drewsmarketingminute.com/2010/07/marketing-tip-75-handwritten-notes-are-magic.html. Also seeGene, “Wufoo Loves Their Customers,” PeriodThree Blog, March 13, 2009. http://blog.period-three.com/2009/03/13/wufoo-loves-their-customers/.They choose to invest in innovation: Julia Kirby,“Wall Street Is No Friend to Radical Innovation,” USAirways Magazine, July 2010, 17–18.Though girls ages fourteen to seventeen can

still out-text anyone: Shane Snow, “The Rise ofText Messaging,” Mashable.com, August 2010.http://mashable.com/2010/08/17/text-messaging-infographic/.As of May 2010: Amanda Lenhart, “Cell Phonesand American Adults,” Pew Internet and AmericanLife Project, September 2, 2010.http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Cell-Phones-and-American-Adults/Overview.aspx.Over the next two decades: Nina and Tim Zagat,“Nina and Tim Zagat,” Slate.com, June 1, 1999.http://www.slate.com/id/29583/entry/29585.The decidedly hip site: Heather Maddan, “Castingthe Net,” SFGate.com, June 18, 2006.http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/18/LVGO9JDMdv1.DTL&hw=yelp&sn=001&sc=1000.Yelp reports five million unique visitors:Yelp.com, Press Page, “Company Announcements.”http://www.yelp.com/press/announcements.The Zagats try to sell their business: Paul Tharp,“Zagat-about-’em,” NY Post.com, September 8,2009. http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/zagat_about_em_FyHeEMEeS2WHoNCUhv1UAK.Yelp reports ten million unique visitors:Yelp.com.The Zagats take the business off the market:Tharp, “Zagat-about-’em.”Zagat holds steady as one of the top ten iPhoneapps: Jillian Reagan, “Zagat Me, Baby!,” The NewYork Observer, July 7, 2009.http://www.observer.com/2009/media/zagat-me-baby-new-mobile-app-will-tell-you-where-eat.Yelp, which is still free: Yelp.com.Zagat.com, which charges a $25 annualmembership fee: Tharp, “Zagat-about-’em.”“Yelp has the chance”: Peter Burrows, “Hot TechCompanies Like Yelp Are Bypassing IPOs,”Businessweek.com, February 2010.http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_07/b4166023271880.htm.Modeling Foursquare, Yelp adds: John C. Abell,“Yelp Takes on Foursquare in latest iPhone AppUpgrade,” Wired.com, January 19, 2010.http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/yelp-iphone-foursquare.Foursquare users can earn a “Foodie badge”:Jenna Wortham, “Foursquare Signs a Deal withZagat,” New York Times, February 9, 2010.http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/foursquare-inks-a-deal-with-zagat.Zagat Integrates Foodspotting: Zagat.com, PressCenter. http://www.zagat.com/About/Index.aspx?menu=PR192.Every time a seismic shift: Joshua Cooper Ramo,“Why the Founder of Amazon Is Our Choice for1999,” Time, December 1999.“Most Brands Still Irrelevant on Twitter”:Michael Learmonth, “Study: Most Brands StillIrrelevant on Twitter,” AdAge.com, July 27, 2010.http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=145107.“Social Networking May Not Be”: Charles HughSmith, “Social Networking May Not Be as Profitable

as Many Think,” DailyFinance.com, July 20, 2010.http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/media/social-networking-maynot-be-as-profitable-as-many-think/19560291.When Nielsen conducted a study: “Friending theSocial Consumer,” Nielsen Wire, June 16, 2010.http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/friending-the-social-consumer.According to an IBM study: Maureen StancikBoyce and Laura VanTyne, “Why Advocacy Mattersto Online Retailers,” IBM Institute for Business ValueDistribution, November 18, 2008.Blackshaw deck, “Are Consumers Willing to Engageand Be Spokespeople for Our Brands?,” 2.Blackshaw deck, “Loyalty Is No Longer Enough,” 3.Ibid.According to Jason Mittelstaedt: Lora Kolodny,“Study: 82% of U.S. Consumers Bail on Brands AfterBad Customer Service,” TechCrunch, October 13,2010. http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/13/customer-service-rightnow.Blackshaw deck, “Are Consumers Willing to Engageand Be Spokespeople for Our Brands?,” 3.In the press release, Steve Hasker: “NielsenUnveils New Online Advertising Measurement,”News Releases, Nielsen.com. http://en-us.nielsen.com/content/nielsen/en_us/news/news_releases/2010/september/nielsen_unveils_newonlineadvertisingmeasurement.html.In 2010, Adweek reported that Vitrue: BrianMorrissey, “Value of a ‘Fan’ on Social Media:$3.60,” Adweek.com, April 13, 2010.http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3iaf69ea67183512325a8feefb9f969530.It wasn’t until 1922: “KDKA Begins to Broadcast1 9 2 0 , ” A Science Odyssey: People andDiscoveries, PBS.org,http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dt20ra.html.http://www.adi-news.com/comscore-twitter-overtaken-myspace-for-the-third-spot-among-social-networking-site-facebook-still-on-top/25263.To prove them wrong: Leslie Goldman, “AnnTaylor LOFT Ditches Models for Real Women,”iVillage.com, June 21, 2010.http://www.ivillage.com/ann-taylor-loft-ditches-models-real-women/4-a–213041.“I love LOFT and I soooo appreciate”: LOFT,“How LOFT Is Wearing Our Favorite New Pant,”Facebook, last updated around July 2010.http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=183697&id=26483215676.She then wrote an entire blog post: www.rachel-levy.com/music-and-the-impact-of-a-tweet.“Ben, first of all, thanks for your note”: “ThisCEO Sucks Less: John Pepper of Boloco,” TheConsumerist.com, January 25, 2006.http://consumerist.com/2006/01/this-ceo-sucks-less-john-pepper-of-boloco.html.“I say many times”: John Paul Morosi, “Joyce,Galarraga Make Up After Blown Call in Near-PerfectGame,” June 3, 2010, FOXsports.com.http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/Jim-Joyce-Armando-Galarraga-make-up-after-blown-call–

060310.As was to be expected: Tom Verduci with MelissaSegura, “A Different Kind of Perfect,” SIVault,SportsIllustrated.com, June 14, 2010.http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1170587/3/index.htm.By the next day: Ibid.Only a few weeks: “Joyce Tops Survey; PlayersNix Replay,” ESPN.com, June 13, 2010.http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5281467.For example, sales of Old Spice Body Wash:Noreen O’Leary and Todd Wasserman, “Old SpiceCampaign Smells Like a Sales Success, Too,”Brandweek.com, July 25, 2010.http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/direct/e3i45f1c709df0501927f56568a2acd5c7b.but some seem to question: Joseph Jaffe, “Sugarand Old Spice,” Adweek.com, July 27, 2010.http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/community/columns/other-columns/e3i45f1c709df050192d35f3e8e86cc5a79.Ad Age published an article: Edmund Lee, “OldSpice Fades Into History While Samsung, Ikea,Twitter Scale Viral Chart,” AdAge.com, September23, 2010. http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=146030.When YouTube user Pierce Ruane: “Rapper 50Cent Invites Dorky YouTube Fan ‘Sexman’ to NYC toHang Out,” Gawkk.com. http://www.gawkk.com/in-nyc-with-50-cent/discuss.According to MailerMailer’s metrics report:Anthony Schneider, “Open Rates and Click RatesAre Declining,” Email Transmit Info Center, July 29,2010.http://infocenter.emailtransmit.com/2010/07/open-rates-and-click-rates-are-declining.They have also changed: “Web banner,”Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banner_ad.At that time, banner ads: Frank D’Angelo, “HappyBirthday, Digital Advertising!” AdvertisingAge.com,October 26, 2009.http://adage.com/digitalnext/article?article_id=139964.Today, banner ad CTR: Dirk Singer, “HappyBirthday Banner Ad…Bet You Wish Click ThroughRates Were Still 78%.”http://liesdamnedliesstatistics.com/category/click-through-rate.Over 60 percent of Americans: AndreaLarrumbide, “Cone Finds That Americans ExpectCompanies to Have a Presence in Social Media,”Cone Inc., September 25, 2008.http://www.coneinc.com/content1182.for example, Burger King estimates: ErikQualman, “Social Media ROI: Socialnomics,”YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypmfs3z8esI&feature=player_embedded#!In the restaurant world: Kerry Miller, “TheRestaurant-Failure Myth,” Businessweek.com, April16, 2007.http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/apr2007/

sb20070416_296932.htm.A flash mob of 161 Foursquare users: PamelaSeiple, “Restaurant Owner Increases Sales by 110%with Foursquare Swarm Badge Party, Hubspot Blog,March 8, 2010.http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5697/Restaurant-Owner-Increases-Sales-by-110-with-Foursquare-Swarm-Badge-Party.aspx.At the time of the swarm event: Ibid.“This restaurant in particular”: Augie Ray, “Wordof Mouth and Social Media: A Tale of Two BurgerJoints,” Augie Ray’s Blog, March 28, 2010.http://blogs.forrester.com/augie_ray/10-03-28-word_mouth_and_social_media_tale_two_burger_joints.For example, while any staff member: Kathryn M.Kantes, “Joie de Vivre and the Art of the Hotel,”Hospitality.net, March 5, 2010.http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4045696.search?query=joie+de+vivre%2c+dream+maker%2c+word+of+mouth.According to a 2009 Pew Research Centerreport: Pew Research Center, “61% of Americanadults look online for health information,” PewResearch Center press release, PewInternet.org,June 11, 2009. http://www.pewinternet.org/Press-Releases/2009/The-Social-Life-of-Health-Information.aspx.But Loïc Le Meur is very interested:BusinessWeek Tech Team, “The 25 Most InfluentialPeople on the Web,” BusinessWeek.com,September 2008. http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/09/0929_most_influential/1.htm.You can see: Loïc Le Meur, “Does My DentistReally Need a Facebook Fan Page, You TubeChannel, and a Twitter Account?”, Loïc Le Meur, July9, 2010.http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2010/07/does-my-dentist-really-need-a-facebook-fan-page-youtube-channel-and-a-twitter-account.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+loiclemeur+%28Loic+Le+Meur+Blog%29.From there, TechCrunch picked up the story:Leena Rao, “How Social Media Drives NewBusiness: Six Case Studies,” TechCrunch, July 17,2010. http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/17/how-social-media-drives-new-businesssix-case-studies.While the new crop of law school graduates:John Schwartz, “A Legal Battle: Online Attitude vs.Rules of the Bar,” New York Times, September 12,2009.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/13lawyers.html?_r=1&hp.Even attorneys who know their stuff: Ibid.In an article for the Nieman Journalism Lab:Justin Ellis, “Twitter Data Lets NPR Glimpse aFuture of App-Loving News Junkies,” NiemanJournalism Lab, October 8, 2010.http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/10/twitter-data-lets-npr-glimpse-a-future-of-app-loving-news-junkies.Selecting for demographics: Lyn Schafer Gross,“Ratings,” The Museum of BroadcastCommunications.http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=ratings.In 2009, there were about 114,900,000: “114.9

In 2009, there were about 114,900,000: “114.9Million U.S. Television Homes Estimated for 2009–2010 Season,” Nielsen Wire, August 29, 2009.http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/media_entertainment/1149-millionus-television-homes-estimated-for-2009-2010-season.Of those households: “TV Ratings,” Nielsen.com.http://en-us.nielsen.com/content/nielsen/en_us/measurement/tv_research/tv_ratings.html.The sample does get broader: Gross, “Ratings.”A quick search on the Internet: There are manyconfessions to pick from: Christopher Lawrence,“Life on the Couch: Being a Nielsen family seriousbusiness,” Las Vegas Review Journal, March 22,2009. http://www.lvrj.com/living/41647782.html; “TheNielsens,” “Confessions of a Nielsen Family,” NewYork Daily News.http://www.frankwbaker.com/nielsenconfessions.htm;Anonymous, “My Life as a Nielsen Family,” Slate,July 15, 1997.http://www.slate.com/id/3809/entry/24393/; JamesC. Raymondo and Horst Stipp, “Confessions of aNielsen Household,” American Demographics,March 1997.http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4021/is_n3_v19/ai_19165304/pg_2/; and Mary Beth Ellis,“Confessions of a Nielsen Viewer,” MSNBC.com,March 27, 2006.http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/11716703.In 2009, the company released a report: MichaelSchneider, “Fox Wants Answers from Nielsen,”Variety.com, May 18, 2009.http://www.variety.com/article/VR111800392,4.html?categoryid=14&cs=1http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118003924.html?categoryid=14&cs=1.Nielsen issued a 2010 report: “Americans UsingTV and Internet Together 35% More than a YearAgo,” March 22, 2010.http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/three-screen-report-q409.In the 1940s and ’50s: Television Obscurities,Nielsen “Black Weeks,” February 9, 2009.http://www.tvobscurities.com/articles/nielsen_black_weeks.php.it was common for television series producers:Jim Cox, Sold on Radio (North Carolina: McFarland,2008). 46. http://books.google.com/books?id=RwVkMMLqMdkC&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=%22How%27s+your+Hooper%3F%22&source=bl&ots=qUfAze9xT0&sig=,GNOC0Q7nTJ4gILmjquxsJPdRboU&hl=en&ei=pQOhTKL-N4L88AbZmsyNAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCYQ6AEwBA#v=onepageq=%22How%27s%20your%20Hooper%3F%22&f=falsehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._E._Hooper.In a complete revamping of their marketingstrategy: Ilan Brat, “The Emotional Quotient of SoupShopping,” WSJ.com, February 17, 2010.http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052748704804204575069562743700340.html.“Most Brands Still Irrelevant on Twitter”:http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=145107.Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009: Tony Hsieh, “CEO Letter,”Zappos.com, July 22, 2009.http://blogs.zappos.com/ceoletter.The 2010 Grammys experienced a 35 percenthike:http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118014540.html?categoryid=14&cs=1&nid=4749.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many people helped make this book what it is, but Iwant to especially thank Debbie Stier, StephanieLand, and Marcus Krzastek. These three are asmuch the backbone of this book as I am.

I also want to thank everyone at HarperBusiness,VaynerMedia, the amazing people at the BrooksGroup, and all my friends who took the time to readfor me.

Many thanks to all of my family and friends for theirsupport, especially my mom, Tamara, and dad,Sasha, who are always in my corner. Without mydad’s courage, I would not be in this wonderfulcountry, or where I am today. Also thanks to myamazing sister, Elizabeth, whom I truly admire; mywonderful brother, AJ, who is my best friend forever;my wife and daughter, who make me never want toleave in the morning, and always want to rush home;and my grandmother Esther—I love you.

I’m also grateful to my extended family—mybrothers-in-law, Alex and Justin, who are just thebest; my wonderful sister-in-law, Sandy, whom we

just welcomed into the family; and my amazing in-laws, Anne and Peter, who are truly golden people.Peter, I hope all your friends and businessacquaintances read this book.

Thanks to Bobby Shifirn and Brandon Warnke,who are my friends for life. To all the Vayniacs andsupporters of what I do, you mean the world to me!

Can I thank Stephanie Land one more time? Bestghost writer in the world. I adore her.

About the Author

Gary Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur who hasrevolutionized the way people look at interacting withtheir communities. While building his family’s localliquor store into a national industry leader, heobserved the extraordinary potential of what he hasdubbed the Thank You Economy. As a consultant, heintroduced those same principles into the businessworld at large, with successful applications in sports,consumer packaged goods, and retail. Askmen.comnamed Gary to its list of the Top 49 Most InfluentialMen of 2009, and he was included inBusinessWeek’s list of the Top 20 People EveryEntrepreneur Should Follow.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusiveinformation on your favorite HarperCollins author.

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Credits

Jacket design by Owen Song, Kneadle, Inc.

Copyright

THE THANK YOU ECONOMY. Copyright © 2011 by GaryVaynerchuk. All rights reserved under Internationaland Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Bypayment of the required fees, you have been grantedthe non-exclusive, non-transferable right to accessand read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part ofthis text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or storedin or introduced into any information storage andretrieval system, in any form or by any means,whether electronic or mechanical, now known orhereinafter invented, without the express writtenpermission of HarperCollins e-books.FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataVaynerchuk, Gary.The thank you economy / Gary Vaynerchuk. 1st ed.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references.ISBN: 978-0-06-191418-8 (hbk.)

ISBN: 978-0-06-209000-3 (B & N edition)ISBN: 978-0-06-191424-9 (pbk.)1. Customer relations. 2. Social media. 3. Branding(Marketing) 4. Internet marketing. 5. Management. I.Title.HF5415.5.V396 2011658.8’12—dc222010052581

EPub Edition © January 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-203644-5

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* In the early drafts of this manuscript I referred to LeBron Jameshere, but as you sports fans know…things change.

* In the time since I first started writing about this story, Galanteappears to have taken down his blog.

* If you’re reading this and it’s 2014, could you email me howmuch actual money you’re spending on virtual goods?

* You know, I don’t think I want that to be a rhetorical question. Ifyou were one of those people, I’d love to know. Email me andconfess at gary@vaynermedia.com.

* You might want to rethink that money you’re putting into SEO, bythe way. I’m not a huge fan of SEO, and I think its value as a brandawareness tool is going to weaken as platforms develop thatleverage the relationship between a business or brand and aninformation seeker. Remember the kid I watched in Best Buy whoused a status update to get the information he needed from hisfriends to pick a video game.

* The only people who have to fear low numbers are those whohave artificially inflated their value and popularity.

* The excessive attention we pay to squeaky wheels is contributingto a lot of misses right now. I know I was guilty of doing it when Iwas getting started with social media. We need to make sure thatwe focus on the emerging advocates for our brands, especiallymicro-celebrities, and not get overwhelmed by the smallpercentage of problems we sometimes have to handle.

* It blends skills from the PR department and marketing, but itshould remain its own department.

* It doesn’t matter that the study was done in the UK. Plenty of U.S.brands are guilty of using their Twitter accounts as nothing morethan digital cork-boards, too. See “Tech Companies Miss the Pointof Social Media,” Techeye.net, August 5, 2010.http://www.techeye.net/internet/tech-companies-missthe-point-of-social-media.

* A copy of the letter is included in the Sawdust at the end of thebook.

* See Crush It!, page 60.

* When I saw the ads and heard about the campaign, I respectedthe hustle it took to put the whole thing together, but it didn’t occurto me to run out to buy a stick of Old Spice. Rather, I walked intothe pharmacy to buy something else, saw Old Spice on the shelf,remembered how much I’d liked the videos, and decided to givethe product a try.

* As of July 2010, the number of Old Spice Twitter followers hadincreased by 5400 percent since January of the same year.

* Unfortunately, it’s going to be a lot harder for social mediacampaigns to attract earned media by 2012 or so, once the publichas become used to communicating directly with brands. As withalmost all attention-grabbing efforts, you have to constantlyreinvent and top yourself to make an impact.

* For more details about Avaya’s social media efforts and thisstory, read Casey Hibbard’s article, “It Pays to Listen.”http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/it-pays-to-listen-avayas–250k-twitter-sale/

* If you are in the restaurant business and you are not obsessedwith your Yelp strategy, please sell your establishment now whilethere’s still some value in your business.

† It’s a perfect, simple play to use your manners, and it rarely failsto impress.

* Just how much information are we trying to absorb? At the 2010Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe, California, Google CEOEric Schmidt stated that every two days people create as muchinformation as they did from the dawn of civilization to 2003, aboutfive exabytes of data.

* See Rick Kash and David Calhoun’s How Companies Win,HarperBusiness, 2010, pp. 40–41.

* I respect the math that goes into figuring out how these smallsamples can stand in for large groups of people, but still, you can’thelp but question it, can you?