Lessons in Social Media from Best Buy’s Brian Dunn

Best Buy’s CEO Brian Dunn is well known as an effective social media user and I recently read a piece he wrote called “Best Buy’s CEO on Learning to Love Social Media.” He mainly outlines his social media evolution and the point of the article is not to give advice, but a close reading reveals some helpful tips:

                                                                                                                                                                                                

If you think social media is a fad or only social, think again.  Dunn tells several stories of how he was able to connect with customers and employees to really get a sense of what they needed or wanted.  He also was able to address an issue or two quickly because of his presence on Facebook and Twitter.  Social media is here.  Get used to it.

Make it meaningful.  Dunn says that he was initially frustrated with the mundane things he read on Twitter, and who hasn’t read one too many “I’m in line at Starbucks” tweets?  So think about what you’re posting and make it meaningful to people. A few mundane posts are OK here and there, but think about what value you’re adding before posting.

Accept that there are risks….because everything has risks.  A Best Buy employee posted several videos where he made fun of the customers he was supposed to serve and on another occasion Dunn’s Twitter account was hacked.  Everything worth doing in life has risks.  Manage your risk well – create passwords that make hacking difficult, for example – and understand that the benefits of well-used social media outweigh the risks. 

Help people make good decisions. One of the ways you can manage risk is to provide guidelines and training for your team members who use social media so that they don’t use it in a way – either personally or professionally – that creates problems.  Best Buy’s summary is “Be smart. Be respectful. Be human.” and Dunn adds that he doesn’t post anything that he wouldn’t want to see published in a newspaper. (This is excellent advice for email use, as well).

Stay in touch with the grassroots.  The further you go up the managerial chain, the more disconnected you become from the front lines of your operation, whether that is students, customers, or constituencies.  Social media can provide an invaluable tool for people at the grassroots level to contact you directly with issues, compliments, suggestions, and many other things you should know about.  Put another way, insulation is good for buildings but not for leaders, and smartly-used social media helps you combat it.

Ask the right questions about social media use.  Dunn says he’s frequently asked how he’s going to monetize his social media activity.  While that may not be an issue in non-profits, it is still a question that could be asked: How is your investment of time in this benefiting the organization?  Dunn says this is the wrong question.  He says the question really should be: “How am I going to deepen my relationship with customers and employees and deepen the conversation that goes on where they are?”.