Why Zappos' Tony Hsieh Dislikes Social Media, Despite 1.8M Followers on Twitter - Ed Keller

The CEO of Zappos Tony Hsieh has 18 million followers on Twitter In many marketing circles he is something of a Twitter god using the Twitter feed to promote Zappos and his way of thinking about business as expressed in his book Delivering Happiness A Path to Profits Passion and Purpose to his many followersImagine my surprise then when I saw a TV interview with Hsieh in which he said he dislikes the term social media In fact he dislikes it so much that anyone who uses it around him at Zappos owes him a dollarIt39s not just the use of the term social media it39s the whole idea of it quotWe have never had a strategy for Twitter or Facebook So many companies are chasing the social media hype thinking it is a great way to connect with customers when they haven39t even gotten their telephone interactions with customers39 right Or if you are a bricks and mortar store you need to get that interaction right before you worry about the other stuffquotFundamentally Hsieh says Zappos doesn39t think about itself as a high tech company and rather prefers to take a high touch approach This is why Zappos puts so much emphasis on its call center and encourages a bond between the customer and the call center rep quotEveryone is trying to figure out how to get their brand to stand out We think the telephone is one of best branding devices out therequotAt the core of the Zappos call center strategy according to Hsieh is PEC Creating a quotpersonal emotional connectionquot between the call center rep and the customer Emotional connection is a critical idea here There is a growing body of research to suggest that emotions are central to people39s sharing of stories and word of mouthAnd this is the key lesson to learn from Zappos It thinks about itself as a quotsocial companyquot and treats its customers as friendsas in real world friends first Hence the company39s desire to create a bond between the rep on the phone and the customer It also thinks of itself as a word of mouth company Sometimes social media fits in often not But it never leads Why notAaron Magness head of business development and brand marketing at Zappos explained it this way in a recent conversation quotWhen you look at successful marketing in social media for the most part what it39s around is discount coupons offers things like that That39s not the Zappos brand We don39t offer coupons and we don39t discount As great as Twitter is it39s sort of limiting You have a better job at telling the story in print than you do in 140 characters So I don39t know if it has the same impact or reach in as authentic wayquotPerhaps it39s for this reason that Zappos now does a fair amount of advertising including a heavy presence in magazines You read that right Zappos darling of the social media world still believes in print Zappos use of quottraditionalquot media also extends now to TV which it uses to get across the point that it is a diversified retailer that also sells clothing in addition to shoesZappos doesn39t engage in Facebook campaigns with the goal of winning fans In fact Zappos makes it rather hard to be a Zappos fan You can39t do it from the Zappos website You have to actually go to Facebook search for the page and then push the like buttonquotWe know that if we had two million fans our reach would be many times more than what it is todayquot Magness told us quotBut what we also know is that it would be rather diluted Our fan is someone who has been on Facebook and searched us out All those Facebook consultants will tell you what the true value of a fan is when it comes down to it I don39t think people really know So as opposed to risking our authenticity we39d rather just stay true to who we are and keep plugging awayquotA major lesson here is not to confuse the industry story with the consumer one The marketing industry is fascinated by Zappos in part because of its early adoption of Twitter The customers who keep it in business learn about it because of the great word of mouth it receives for its customer service and because Zappos truly thinks about them as friends in the conventional sense of the wordEd Keller CEO of the Keller Fay Group has been called quotone of the most recognized names in word of mouthquot The publication of Keller39s book The Influentials has been called the quotseminal moment in the development of word of mouthquot Ed can be contacted at ekellerkellerfaycomRead all Edamp8217s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at WOM MattersCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

Become a Thought Leader. Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

Why Zappos' Tony Hsieh Dislikes Social Media, Despite 1.8M Followers on Twitter - Ed Keller

Author

Publish date

Channel

Edward Keller

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 10: Political Spending) - By Carl Mayer

More Videos:

Become a Thought Leader. Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

Why Zappos' Tony Hsieh Dislikes Social Media, Despite 1.8M Followers on Twitter - Ed Keller

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

Edward Keller

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 10: Political Spending) - By Carl Mayer

The payment was successful

Cookies