I had the pleasure of interviewing via email Tony Hsieh, the CEO of online shoe retailer Zappos.com, for an article I wrote for the August issue of Multichannel Merchant. Zappos is a real innovator among online retailers in a lot of areas, not the least of which is social media. They have taken Twitter by storm, with 440 twittering employees - including their CEO (Tony) and their COO (Alfred). They even launched a microsite dedicated to their Twitter presence.

I thought it would be interesting to share the interview with you here. The final article is now online, so be sure to check that out too.

Stephan: Can you share a bit of background about you and Zappos, and how the company culture plays into your inclination to jump headfirst into new online marketing channels? What were your objectives in entering the Twitterverse? twitter.zappos.com from a social media standpoint is pretty impressive and in the corporate world a rather unheard of large-scale embracing of Twitter. What is the big picture idea behind this / how did this come about?

Tony: Background on the company is here. My bio is here. You can get a glimpse inside our company culture here.

Our #1 priority as a company is our company culture. We believe that if we get the culture right, most of the other stuff, including great customer service, will fall into place on its own. Long term, we want the Zappos brand to be about the very best customer service and the very best customer experience.

For Twitter, we don't really view it as a marketing channel so much as a way to connect on a more personal level, whether it's with our employees or our existing customers.

Initially, we started getting the entire company more involved with Twitter because we saw it as a great way to help build our company culture. But then we discovered it was also a great way to connect with
customers as well.

Stephan: Are you viewing this as an experiment to be evaluated over some trial period or are you committed to engaging with customers via Twitter over the long term?

Tony: We are committed to connecting with our customers on a personal level. The telephone is actually a really great way to do this, which is why we have our 1-800 number at the top of every page of our web site. We found that Twitter is another great way to do this, and if something else comes along in the future, then we would definitely explore that as well.

Stephan: How are Zappos employees using Twitter? Is there any competitive aspect amongst employees about follower acquisition? Is there an overarching theme to their tweets or are they just twittering about their cats? Do they twitter about Zappos products and blog posts? What's the level of supervision of them in their twittering? e.g. any employee guidelines for twittering? and are they trained? How do they know not to pose as a random consumer and post pro-Zappos tweets while hiding their corporate employee status? What would an employee have to tweet to get fired? What's the procedure for employees handling tweets directed directly at them from customers?

Tony: We do offer Twitter classes, but those are optional and are more for employees to learn how to sign up for Twitter and use various features and third party applications. We really don't give any specific guidelines except to tell them to use their best judgement.

It's up to employees what they want to Twitter about. As I mentioned earlier, the primary focus was to get employees to connect with each other, so the vast majority of the posts are about their personal lives.

In terms of what an employee would have to tweet in order to get fired, it would be if they did something that was not consistent with our core values, which are here.

But this is not twitter-specific: If an employee does anything that's not consistent with our core values, whether through twitter, telephone, or in person, then we need to consider whether that employee is Zappos material for the long term.

We currently don't have any standard procedures for responding to tweets from customers.

Stephan: What (if any) kind of ROI are you seeing by having your employees spend time being active on Twitter? What are your success metrics?

Tony: We're not really looking at short-term ROI in terms of sales. We're looking to form life-long relationships with our customers, and we think Twitter helps us do this.

However, we've also found that Twitter has been great for recruiting because people can get a glimpse into what our culture is like just by observing how we interact with each other on Twitter.

Stephan: What's the response from customers been? What was the response to your tweet asking for feedback to the idea of a zappos.org site that donates a percentage of the revenue to charity? Have you heard if any of your mentions of companies/products/restaurants resulted in an increase in sales for what you've endorsed?

Tony: The customers that are following @zappos on Twitter seem to really enjoy it because it allows them to interact with us on a much more personal level. I've heard anecdotally of people buying from us because of our Twitter presence, but as I mentioned earlier, we're not really looking at the short term ROI.

Stephan: Has Zappos embraced or have plans to embrace any other social networks on such a large scale? Digg? Propeller? Etc?

Tony: Not at this time.

Stephan: Could you describe some of the contests you've been conducting over Twitter and how successful you feel they've been? Any big plans for upcoming Twitter contests?

Tony: We don't have a formal contest plan or program.

Stephan: Have you considered Twitter as a customer service tool to crowd-source customer questions and set up an employee guru status where employees get points for answering customers' questions effectively?

Tony: Not at this time.

Stephan: You seem very open in sharing what you're doing and where you're going at any given moment. Do you feel too exposed sometimes by being so open? Do you fear making some statements on Twitter that might come back to haunt you in some way?

Tony: Almost any statement that's taken out of context can be interpreted negatively. But part of the beauty of Twitter is that you can see what we have all been doing over time and make your own judgement on what you think of Zappos based on the sum total of everything, not a single tweet.

Stephan: Do you randomly twitter stuff, or do you try to schedule entries consistently?

Tony: I think it's important to be authentic, so I don't have a schedule. I'll tweet if I feel like it, and I won't if I don't.

Stephan: What would be your advice to other CEOs out there who would like to try twittering?

Tony: Just be real and use it as a way to connect more deeply with people. Don't think of it as a marketing tool you have to leverage. And you actually have to be passionate about twittering or it's not going to work. So if you're not passionate about it, then don't do it.

I realized while writing my last post about press releases optimized for social media and SEO that "social media" may not mean anything to some readers and to others (particularly the early adopter types) it may mean the world. Some folks even react to the term with religious fervor.

But you know what, "social media" isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread. Nor is Web 2.0. Nor is Twitter.

I know it’s what everyone in the blogosphere keeps buzzing about, and when you hear it enough it makes you want to get in on the action. But guess what? Most people in your target market I bet don’t have a clue what such buzz words mean, nor how to use them even if they did. The fact of the matter is, not every new thing will be right for your business.

So what I'm saying is: Don’t just get involved in something because everyone else is. If everyone else was jumping off a bridge, does that mean you should too? (with the exception of bungee jumping, of course! ) If you are going to get involved with a new technology, don’t just jump head first without taking the time to understand what you are about to get into.

For example... a lot, and I mean A LOT, of social media sites will start ranking for your name if you use them heavily and garner several links pointing to your profile pages. Because of this, it they can be used as great reputation management tools and push down some bad press. But at the same time you can inadvertently misuse them and end up putting a face of your business forward that you don’t want the public to see.

You've been warned.

You gotta check out this WebProNews video interview at ACCM 08 of Steve Spangler - the science teacher turned catalog company CEO/Emmy award winner/keynote speaker/toy inventor:

[ http://videos.webpronews.com/video/frame2.php?movie_name=mentos ]

In the video, Steve talks about how his Mentos + Diet Coke experiment turned into a YouTube sensation and how he was able to leverage it for his own marketing purposes. Steve is a client of ours and he even mentions Netconcepts (thank you Steve!!) as his experts behind the scenes helping him, which was really cool to hear.

Also in the video Steve shows off his cool flaming wallet, and how he is privileged to receive "special treatment" at airport security because of it. Um, yeah, that's not the kind of attention that you want, Steve

What you don't see in the video is that Steve also has a flaming business card holder. It's hilarious when he whips out one of his business cards and he has to put the fire out on the flaming card before he hands it to you. I'd LOVE to have one of those card holders and then troll the trade show floor and then hand over a flaming card to overaggressive, hard-selling vendors - but WITHOUT putting the fire out! hehe

I'd like to add some additional context to my last post on Social Media Power User "Hacks". In that post I provided some power user tips for social media marketing and optimization. These power user tips are meant to augment or supplement the necessary prerequisites of creating great content, being a valuable member of the social site/community, and being authentic your interactions (rather than deceitful or dishonest). Guerrilla tactics aren't a replacement for adding real value.

There are some ethical must-haves (underpinnings) of social media interaction such as engaging in meaningful conversation, instilling trust, being authentic, etc. Entering the social space without an internal moral compass is a recipe for disaster. Although such ethical must-haves wasn't part of my preso (you're rarely allocated more than 10 minutes to speak on an SES or SMX panel), don't think it's not important. It's THE most important thing.

Put another way, social media marketing isn't just a bunch of tricks and shortcuts, it's mostly about being adding value in an honest way, with the tricks and shortcuts added on to give you that little edge over your competition.

And when applying those aforementioned guerrilla tactics to gain the edge, you must exercise restraint and use good judgment. Don't just go hog wild and use every "trick in the book" and do it to excess.

Now consider this example of moderation versus excess... Sending a good friend a site with the StumbleUpon toolbar is totally acceptable. But compare that with sending an army of "friends" that you don't know a truckload of URLs to sift through. The latter is spammy, unethical, and reckless; you'd be foolish to engage in such behavior. You'd torch your account, burn relationships and ruin your reputation.

In line with that thought, you certainly don't need to employ the whole kit and caboodle of guerrilla tactics. For example, that tip for friending bands in MySpace may be totally unnecessary. Hopefully you can get to a critical mass of friends on MySpace without adding low-value friends (low value as in not likely to have meaningful interactions with you and not in your target market) such as all the bands and musicians that you like. But if you are at only a handful of friends and can't seem to get over the hump, it's nice to know that there's something you can do besides just sit and wait for people to friend you; you can proactively friend bands that you like. Granted an artist like Weird Al Yankovic isn't going to be terribly interactive with you, so at some point in the future you're likely to remove that friend from your ranks. Incidentally, that particular tip of friending bands came from a jewelry retailer I interviewed for the Marketing on MySpace article I wrote for MarketingProfs last year. Here's the quote:

Finally, your focus in your social media marketing shouldn't be solely on gaining links. The links are mainly a byproduct of being a good social citizen. Of course they're still an essential byproduct nonetheless if you are an SEO. But it shouldn't be your main driver for participating in social media. Taking such a self-centered and short-sighted view will backfire. People will see through it. Operate by the principle of "pay it forward". Karma, in other words.

Live long and prosper.

Here in Toronto, I just finished my presentation on the Social Media Success panel. I shared some "hacks" for some social sites and services -- and when I say "hacks" -- I mean in the good sense of the word, not the evil sense. In other words, the way that the book publisher O'Reilly uses the word in their series of books such as Google Hacks. O'Reilly define "hacks" as "tools, tips, and tricks that help users solve problems." Such hacks tend to be aimed at intermediate-level power users. Here's what I covered:

Wikipedia

Wikis
There are plenty of other wikis out there that are a lot more edit-friendly than Wikipedia where you could contribute valuable content, get links, and build relationships. Examples include ShopWiki, The NewPR Wiki, WordPress Codex, conference wikis such as the Web20Expo. Some even pass link juice, which is a nice bonus.

Digg

StumbleUpon
You can "force" your friends to view your request to stumble a particular URL using the “Send to” function in the StumbleUpon toolbar. They have to view your URL before they can continue with their random channel surfing. Don't abuse it, or your tick your friends off.

YouTube

MySpace

LinkedIn

Flickr

Meetup.com
Get involved with local Meetups and get your meetup.com member profile page linked from the meetup’s page, which will pass juice to your profile then on to your site.

Actually there are many social sites with profile pages that pass link juice. Here is a nice list of some of them.

Blogs

Twitter

And finally, here is my PowerPoint from the session. Enjoy!

When you sign up for just about any social network, you have the option to upload an image that will represent you. No matter what the social site, you'll want to associate an image with your online identify. This image is your "avatar." It's your online persona. It's the way the online community will see you. With it, your profile appears more real, more tangible, more human. A good avatar will help people relate to you as a fellow human being, to take notice of you, to remember you, and to listen to what you have to say.

Sure, you could choose not to upload an image, but why would you? Then you'd be a faceless user that no one remembers or identifies with - making gaining traction in the network much more difficult.

You don't want to blend into the woodwork and be ignored, right?

Choosing your avatar doesn’t need to be difficult. Your image can be a simple picture of your face or just of something you like or identify with. Using the same avatar on many social networks helps brand you and helps people remember who you are. When people recognize your avatar across many platforms, they are more likely to want to be your friend and vote for your story submissions.

What avatar do I use? It depends. If it's a persona that I don't want necessarily tied to me / my company, then I go for an illustration - something distinctive. (No I'm not going to show any of them to you here.) If the profile is one I've associated with my own name, then I use this headshot photo of me:

With the amount of time needed to stay at the top of the game in social media, it is inevitable that you will eventually burn yourself out. No matter how much you enjoy being on these sites, and no matter how good of friendships you have made, after a while it becomes tedious. This happens most often to the users who have been trying to become power users, and it continues to happen to the super stars.

So what is the secret to no letting yourself burn out? Taking breaks. This might sound obvious but, if you are like me, social media can become an addiction if you let it. You enjoy the social aspect and you love the traffic benefits... and you constantly want more. You get so caught up in it; everything you do online revolves around getting to the front page of your favorite site.

There is an entire world outside of social media (believe it or not ) and you need the real one as much as you need the virtual one. It might sound crazy, but this weekend I'm going to be out in the sun WITHOUT my computer. I suggest you try it sometime. I might send a Twitter update or two from my cell phone, but don't count on it.

From a social media marketing standpoint, YouTube isn't an ideal social site because of the way it hoards PageRank (video pages can't have external links on them, and external links are nofollowed everywhere anyways, including on your user page), so it can't be leveraged to increase your site's rankings in the same way that a site like Digg can. That's why a lot of SEOs and SMOs prefer submitting link bait articles to social news sites versus making videos for YouTube. When a video goes viral, it's YouTube that tends to benefit in terms of inbound links rather than the original site. So, if the link juice and thus the search engine visibility benefits don't transfer to your site, what's the point you may ask?

True, YouTube limits your opportunities to add external links and then nofollows them. But you can be at peace with that fact. Instead, get the YouTube video itself to rank in the SERPs. Long live Google's "universal search"!

With universal search, YouTube now wields a lot of power to rank in Google's web search results -- which means that getting into video is a good idea. Video blogging or trying to create something that has the potential to go viral can be a great thing for your business.

I especially love the "plus box" in universal search -- the clickable plus sign in a YouTube video containing Google SERP that allows searchers to watch the video right there, without leaving the page. It's a great opportunity to make a brand impression over a course of minutes, while the viewer watches your video.

So how do you optimize video content?

Obviously the spiders can't see what you say in the video so how are these things going to rank? When you upload a video to YouTube, there are a few important areas to optimize are:

What you call your video, the words you use in the description, and what tags you assign it, will make a difference when it comes to its ranking in the SERPs and for which keywords.

Step 1: When coming up with a good title and description for your video, remember to use the words you are trying to rank for. This might sound obvious, but it's just like if you were writing good titles and descriptions for a regular page on a site you were trying to optimize. Do not be too exact, but don't be too broad either. YouTube has the ability to rank for some fairly competitive words especially if there are not many videos about it. At the same time, however, if you title your video "Sports video" you're just wasting your time.

Make copious use of tags on your videos (assuming the tags are all relevant to the content), spread your tags out among your clips, use adjectives to make your videos more visible to folks searching based on their mood, have some category descriptor tags (bearing in mind that YouTube's default search settings are Videos, Relevance and All Categories), match your title and description with your most important tags, and don't use throwaway words like "and" or "to."

Your YouTube username is an often neglected but important piece, because it can drive traffic to your site and help burn your brand in the viewer's brain. Consider the famous "Will It Blend?" videos from Blendtec, where they blend iPods, rake handles, light bulbs and the like. Blendtec cleverly set their username to "willitblend.com" to promote their microsite. Granted, it's not actually an external link (it still points to a YouTube user page), but it provides bloggers and journalists with a URL to use in their blog post or article besides (or in addition to) the YouTube video URL.

Read more on YouTube marketing in this article I wrote for MarketingProfs last year.

If you're a search marketer and you dabble at all in social media, there is one program you're probably already taking advantage of: StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon gives some great returns with a relatively small time investment. I've discussed StumbleUpon before, in the context of an interview with social media guru Neil Patel, but let's take a closer look at how it works...

With the StumbleUpon browser extension installed, with the click of a button you get sent to a random page. Once there, you can give the page a thumbs up or thumbs down and then move on to "stumble upon" the next random page. Think of it as channel surfing, but on the Web. You can select your categories of interest so that the random pages are more targeted to your tastes. You can leave a comment about what you like/dislike about any page.

It doesn't take very many thumbs-up votes to send hundreds if not thousands of visitors to your site - even if your site is brand new. It sounds easy, just start voting for your content.

But there's more to it than that... there are some important social media "tricks of the trade" that will help maximize the opportunity.

The most important thing is to have mutual friends. As you follow people on StumbleUpon, you will see more pages that they like. The idea is to follow people with similar interests.

The trick comes in when you begin to use the "Send To" option within the browser extension / toolbar. This option sends a site, along with a personalized message to your friend. The friend is forced to view this site before they can continue with their random stumbling. Do you see where I'm going with this? In the message you can ask them to thumbs up your page -- the more thumbs up a page has, the more traffic it will get from StumbleUpon. Your friends will probably ask for you to do the same for their sites in return. One hand washes the other...

What are your favorite tactics for maximizing your StumbleUpon traffic?

I'm in San Francisco for the Web 2.0 Expo. Tomorrow morning I present a 3 hour workshop on SEO/SMO along with co-presenter Muhammad Saleem. Then on Wednesday afternoon I present a breakout session titled "Best-kept Secrets to SEO Success: the Art and the Science."

This year I've come to the Web 2.0 Expo armed with Twitter. Last year at this time when I spoke at Web 2.0 Expo, I had barely given Twitter any notice. I'm looking forward to tuning in to the "back channel" and getting the additional perspective on the happenings of the show. (I just hope the Web 2.0 Expo wiki isn't an indication of what's in store for Twitterers at the Web 2.0 Expo: the Twitteroll only lists a dozen people.)

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos is into Twitter. (He's on @zappos if you want to follow him). Tony blogged an idea that I quite liked:

His idea of displaying a live Twitter stream while presenting is a good one, and it reminded me of the IgniteWeb2Expo that I attended last year at the Web 2.0 Expo. It was a series of 5-minute lightning rounds, where each presenter had 20 slides, a hard stop at 5 minutes, and each slide advanced automatically after 15 seconds. It was based on the Ignite events in Seattle.

At IgniteWeb2Expo, they used Mozes, rather than Twitter, for audience commenting and voting on the speakers. The voting worked out great - the top four speakers were "promoted" to speaking slots at the keynote later in the week. One of those winning speeches was from my favorite authors, Tim Ferriss, in fact.

The attendees used Mozes for heckling too, to great effect. One snide remark in particular was really memorable.. One of the speakers was a guy in a bad suit that looked like he just walked out of a Miami Vice episode. When the message "don johnson called. he needs his suit back" appeared on the screen, the audience started cracking up. The poor guy didn't have a clue he was being mocked, he just kept on presenting!