I recently heard Kira Wampler, Word of Mouth/Social Marketing Leader at Intuit speak. Think about it, folks. By giving her that title, don't you already know the seriousness with which Intuit takes social networking? And the kind of resources they are clearly expending to get it right?
Kira is a pro in this area and it's under her direction that Intuit set up its initiative called Small Business United, which connects their small business customers to one another. Her challenge in setting this up were not small. To begin, small business accounting is not a sexy subject. The brand simply was not attractive on a conversational level, so her first challenge was to elevate the conversation and make it compelling to their target audience, small business owners.
They studies the facts of small business ownership life, of which one of the most obvious truisms is that small business owners feel isolated, on their own, without enough time or money to get together with others like them in their community. So she set out to do three things: Connect. Support. Recognize.
The first goal was new user growth. From there they would go to brand engagement and finally recognition. They launched with a video, provided info on new products and the brilliant piece was the competition, with prize money of $300K, which was focused on having small business owners share their entrepreneurial story. They got nearly 2000 of them, each one including tips that others could learn from. Fifty finalists were selected , and each of them got $5K and a flip video to record their story in a creative video which was then entered into the final phase of voting on the Intuit site.
People love it. The grand prize winner won $25,000. The contest got 400 million (yes million) PR impressions.
And they were off and running on building a highly engaging, much respected community of small business owners. Where they are still engage in conversation. Every day. In a way that helps Intuit sell product and services to them.
Author of I is for Intercourse: The ABC's of Conversation, Susan Bird is the visionary behind Wf360, and a sought-after speaker around the world for her views on leadership, the strategic importance of conversation, entrepreneurship, and the role of women business leaders.
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