Cheezhead Recruiting News and Opinion

Now more than ever, companies are eager to boost their sales, especially if their influence over increasingly tightfisted consumers is waning.

And what better way to replenish those coffers than to recharge your company brand? With Web 2.0 language and technology becoming commonplace in our daily vernacular, companies are leaping at the chance to engage their customers on an intimate level that in the past seemed implausible. No longer hiding behind office walls, employers are flinging open their doors to let the curious peer into the guts of their operations.

Instead of keeping plans top-secret, developers are posting blue prints of new projects on blogs and soliciting others for advice and feedback. Previously enigmatic HR reps have a name and a function, thanks to LinkedIn, and are more than willing to answer questions and point a finger in the right direction. Because of Twitter, customer service reps are able to tackle complaints at an organic level instead of directing frustrated customers to 1-800 numbers. Brand loyalists now have the ability to profess their love or disenchantment for a product or entity on Facebook fan pages and to engage with a new community of like-minded individuals.

Here are four examples that I’ve found to demonstrate how bold and risky employer branding can translate into more business, fast.

Online shoe and clothing retailer Zappos.com is one brand that is probably best-known for their quirky corporate culture and top-notch customer service. Call center reps use no scripts and are encouraged to talk as long as necessary until the customer is satisfied. Shipping and returns are free, and repeat customers are rewarded with overnight upgrades. Every call or email is returned by a human being, not an automated response.

Although Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has shied away from advertising their conscientious reps, he hasn’t objected to the way in which the good feedback from customers spread like wildfire, causing sales to double year after year. In January Zappos premiered on the list of Fortune’s “Top 100 Companies To Work For,” ranking at #23, and its sales reportedly top more than $1 billion annually.

Check out their recent appearance on Celebrity Apprentice and their hilarious YouTube channel, and you’ll find that this is no ordinary shoe store. And then click here to see their latest branding initiative, in which Zappos partners with Magnify.net to build an entire video community via their customers’ experience.

UPS is also making some forays into social media to enhance their brand presence and overall public perception. They recently hired a Twitter guy to search the microblogging platform for customer complaints, a surprising move for such a conservative brand. Thomas spends his day directly messaging consumers about their package, answering questions, and taking a beating from angry customers.

Who can forget the online ad last November by Motrin that sparked a nine-minute YouTube video, a plethora of angry Tweeters, and a boycott called by several well-known bloggers? The ad was yanked and an apology was written to the blogosphere. This campaign may have backfired, but traffic to the web site soared and the ad is still getting coverage.

Skittles – The past few years have shown us that Skittles is one brand that isn’t afraid to experiment. Those colorful candies are often showcased in some of the strangest commercials I have ever seen.

Recently the company decided to unleash one of the gutsiest campaigns in branding history. They discarded their traditional home page in favor of a massive social media experiment. When you landed on the site, you found a Wikipedia entry for the candy. On top of the entry, in the upper left corner, a widget allowed you to navigate off the Wikipedia page to a Skittles-related Twitter feed, Facebook page, YouTube channel, Flickr page and more. So instead of Skittles telling the consumers about their product, the consumers are doing the talking.

Though many people initially slammed Skittles for allowing all comments, including the negative and profane, to crawl across the page, people were also eagerly anticipating the results of such a bold tactic and began looking to Skittles as the one of the first leaders in a risky social media experimentation. In some respects, the experiment worked. According to Alexa, traffic to the site increased 1332 percent in one day.

Skittles had to pull the site after the profanity got out of hand, but I’m sure that this is not the last brave move we’ll see from such an innovative company.

Now is the best time to tap employees for risky and experimental brand ideas, especially since social media has us all clamoring to become mini-entrepreneurs. And why keep these initiatives in Marketing’s inbox? Encourage all departments to get involved, from Corporate Learning to Finance to Human Resources. Odds are with such specialized insight into their own industry trends, each employee could provide a unique outlook to supplement a broader branding initiative.

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