Page 199 - Social Media Marketing

177■ ╇ T hree T hings to D o ( and W hy )

Figure€7.2╇â•T‰ he Pepsi Refresh Project
Connect Collaboration to Your Business
With a collaborative context defined, the challenge is to connect the engagement
process as defined in the social context to your business or organization’s objectives.
Starbucks and Dell, using a range of social technologies, have done this really well.
They have used consumption, curation, and creation through their respective “Ideas”
platforms as a way to invite collaboration, and then used what they learned to improve
their products and product experiences. Google will offer up plenty of analysis and
commentary on these cases: Check them out and see how their implementation of what
amounts to a suggestion box—done right—has changed their businesses.

Collaboration extends into tactical marketing programs as well: Pepsi’s Refresh is
one way of involving customers directly in building a relevant brand, clearly a long-term