Ed Scholtens is the Vice President of Enterprise Social Media at Wells Fargo in San Francisco.
How did you get to where you are now?
Graduated college at the height of the recession – literally, no one was hiring. My only option was to volunteer. Over the next 6 months I volunteered at 2 local non-profits, managing their social media activities. When you aren’t working for a pay check, it allows for a certain level of creative freedom, so I was able to learn a lot during that period. From there, I continued to expand my skillset – explored new platforms, different media formats and all that good stuff.
Eventually the opportunity arose with a small media agency. It was onward and upward from there. The biggest thing I’ve learnt: never turn down the opportunity to expand your professional network. Whether that’s chatting with a recruiter, a job interview, attending an event, or being interviewed by a student, you never know where your next opportunity will come from.
What drives you as a marketer?
Understanding what makes people tick and behave in certain ways. If I hadn’t been in marketing I think psychology would have been my next choice. It’s so fascinating to see how brands build loyalty and favorability in a world where a. we can access any piece of information, and b. peer reviews shape public perceptions and purchase decisions.
What do you think is state-of-the-art in Customer Experience?
State-of-the-art customer experience goes beyond achieving customer satisfaction. I’d argue it’s now gone beyond driving loyal customers. A truly state-of-the-art customer experience will result in an army of consumers willing to not only advocate your products, but defend your brand. This will typically only happen after a number of purchases and brand interactions. With customer journeys becoming more complex and touch points increasing, achieving this is extremely difficult. Defining what it is, is equally difficult, so instead here’s a list of what I believe are the most important elements in crafting this experience for an online purchase journey: simple site navigation, friendly human help that’s instantly accessible when needed, transparent peer reviews available, simple payment process, even easier return process, and follow up communication that ensures satisfaction. So, basically Amazon.
What are the biggest challenges in measuring ROI for Social Media Marketing?
The challenge starts at the executive level. Those individuals are used to seeing results in the form of data; numerical values that indicate an increase or a decrease, profit or loss. In social, more often than not, success is determined by qualitative actions – like this, share that, comment on this. It’s very difficult to quantify what that equates to in executive speak. The inability to quantify emotions will always be a major hurdle. Another major challenge for large organizations is the inability to follow the customer or prospect all the way through their journey e.g. I create and publish content that drives to a microsite owned by another line of business. All of a sudden I’m not exposed to how the prospect engaged on the site itself leaving me with no knowledge beyond driving x amount of clicks.
As a marketer, how do you feel about the increasing number of marketing technology companies and what are your criteria when choosing or trying new tools?
It’s great. There are so many tools now that can make the process of delivering value to an audience more efficient and effective. The first consideration we’ll always have is obviously does the tool solve that particular problem. Given the regulatory environment I operate in, security is usually the second major concern when choosing a tool. What’s the level of risk associated with implementing that tool? Finally, what level of support and knowledge will the company bring?
How much dependency is there about Twitter data for consumer insights and listening and what would happen if Twitter disappears tomorrow?
Twitter is largely a listening tool for us. The open API really allows you to monitor conversations in a way that no other platform does. The insights you can get from peer to peer conversations, in an uncontrolled environment are fascinating. With that being said, we can glean that sort of information from other sources it just may take a little longer and cost a little more.
What social media brand strategy has inspired you lately and why?
So many for a whole number of reasons:
- Taco Bell for their hilarious company-to-company banter, as well as the way they involve their community in product related decisions and marketing campaigns
- Purina for how they personalized pet imagery on twitter, at scale, using a listening tool (folks that didn’t even follow them)
- Air New Zealand for the way they leverage each social channel in a very unique manner that beautifully corresponds with the user behavior/purpose of each platform
- General Electric for taking the mundane and making it interesting
- Jet Blue for their outstanding customer service. They’ve really figured it out behind the scenes.
- Newcastle Brown Ale for their sense of humor Etc.