Tony Hsieh CEO of Zappos - Talks About Twitter
05/12/2008
In prep for writing my Age of Conversation book II page, I reached out to Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, for his insights about social media. Not only does Tony blog but he actively tweets (on Twitter the 140 character micro blogging platform).
In fact, that's where I "met" Tony. I sent him a Twitter DM (direct message). With Tony following 4658 people I 
wondered if he would respond. He did indeed .. within minutes (!) providing me with his off Twitter email so we could continue the conversation without the 140 character limitation.
Sidebar: Not to digress but .. where else .. how else could a little ol' diva in Atlanta connect with the CEO of billion dollar corporation based in Las Vegas? I tell you girl friend, that alone boggles the mind. One more testimony to how social media and in this case, Twitter, can open the doors and windows a little wider to develop relationships.
Toby/Diva Marketing: What influence has social media had on how you conduct business? Does Zappos have a system or process in place to respond to the concerns/complements from consumer generated mentions about the company? And to respond back to the blogger, tweeter, etc?
Tony Hsieh: We haven't really changed any of our internal processes yet. Right now the stuff I am doing on Twitter is just me... if someone Twitters me then I personally respond.
We now have close to 300 employees on Twitter, but
our main motivation for getting our employees to join Twitter was to help improve our company culture.
Company culture is our #1 priority. We believe that if we get the company culture right, most of the other stuff (including great customer service) will happen on its own.
Toby/Diva Marketing: What advice would you give to a CEO on how to incorporate social media and the feedback from social media into an organization?
Tony Hsieh:
I think if the CEO starts using Twitter on his/her own and is actually passionate about it, then that passion will eventually rub off on the rest of the organization.
You can't fake or mandate passion, you actually have to be passionate. On Twitter, people can tell whether you are actually passionate about connecting with other Twitterers, whether they are your customers or employees.
About Zappos - Founded in 1999, Zappos is an online commerce company that got its start selling shoes. Since then their product line has morphed to include: handbags, clothing, electronics and more. According to Marketing Sherpa, Zappos anticipates to top $1 Billion in sales in 2008. With a focus on superior customer service Zappos is game to try innovative strategies that bring them closer to their customers. Zappos Blogs Zappo Tweets. Sounds like a match made in Social Media Heaven!
