The social web is full of garbage (much like a lot of our diet in this country). Too many companies post nonsense to keep a small slice of our attention. We see cat memes, “hump day” reposts from some ecards, and loads of meaningless holiday status updates. There’s an ongoing quest for constant small social signals of engagement rather than the less frequent, brand building, loyalty generating, meaningful interactions.
In the midst of all of this, there are a small number of companies who go a different direction and seek to do something truly remarkable. They invest the time and effort to do something of higher quality, not just higher quantity.
Today, I want to talk about Chipotle, and shine the light on some of the remarkable things that I think they are doing.
Great F-ing Content
What does the cat meme have to do with your brand? How much loyalty are you building when you post the obligatory 9/11 “never forget” update on your Facebook page?
Instead of churning out half baked, generic, and unremarkable ideas, Chipotle has put together some great content that is both engaging, shareable and TOTALLY “on brand.” Chipotle wants you to know about their approach, which is to use local, (mostly) organic or non-GMO, fresh ingredients. How do they do that? By putting together high quality, well scripted videos that contain that message.
Many of you will remember this one:
But more recently, they put out this gem:
It is so refreshing to see companies put out dynamite content! If you want to learn something about how to create content for the social web, take a lesson from Chipotle. The videos are designed to resonate with their target customer, and they put the time into making sure that not only is it high quality, but it communicates a position through the magic of storytelling.
Customer Service / Responsiveness
Another thing that Chipotle does particularly well, is to ensure timely responses to their social channels. A former member of the True Voice Media team, Jon Steiert has written two posts on this blog that reference Chipotle, here and here. Jon is definitely a fan of Chipotle but something you’ll notice in both of his posts is that he discusses the responsive customer service that Chipotle provides on Twitter. Chipotle has an amazingly fast response time and will even provide answers to tough questions on Twitter (read: “are any of your ingredients genetically modified?”).
Where so many companies are seeking the almighty ENGAGEMENT, typically measured by Facebook Insights in the form of Likes and Comments, Chipotle does it in one of the most effective and valuable ways possible, by directly answering questions and providing real-time support.
For companies that are constantly using social media channels to push content, and then subsequently define engagement based on how many people interact with that content, it’s refreshing to see companies that see engagement through another lens.
What can you learn from Chipotle?
Interestingly enough some of what you can learn about social media from Chipotle is the same thing they want you to focus on about them: focus on quality not quantity, take the extra time to do it right, and be open and transparent.
Additionally, it’s worth thinking about how to make your social media experiences truly SOCIAL. Engage your audience on their turf, when they have questions. Be helpful, be responsive, be honest.
Instead of churning out assembly line content, and instead of pushing or blasting, take a lesson from Chipotle. Sit down, think about one piece of super high quality content that can be talked about for months, and that is intended to spark conversation while communicating the brand position.
That’s a better approach, and it makes the social web less noisy and more meaningful.