Jamie Grove of Thinkgeek.com

By Allan Maurer

WASHINGTON, DC – While tracking social media related to your business and participating in discussions is important, “You shouldn’t obsess over either,” says Jamie Grove, vice president of Evil Schemes and Nefarious Plans (aka Marketing) at ThinkGeek.com, the site where you can satisfy your geek lust with such things as pizza slicers shaped like Star Trek’s Enterprise.

Instead, when done right, social media create a “halo effect” around a brand in which customers create excitement around your brand.

Grove, who has worked online at places such as CompuServe before the Internet boom and as VP of e-commerce at Highlights for Children, has also been architect of several eCommerce websites and created iPhone apps, will talk about how retailers can use social media at the upcoming Digital East Conference at Tysons Corner, VA, Sept. 28.

Thinkgeek does things differently

“We do things a little differently at Thinkgeek,” Grove tells us. Once marketers “get hold of something, they tend to ruin it,” he says. “Most brands are trying to control the social media conversation. Many firms have poured resources into social media and now they’re scratching their heads trying to figure out how to make money from it. Our approach is more about participating in the community and celebrating it.”

That is a direction we’ll see more companies taking, he predicts, noting that it’s based on a really simple idea: treat your customers the way they want to be treated.

Slashdotted

A top 200 online retailer, Thinkgeek focuses on fun gifts and toys. The 12-year-old firm has revenue of about $100 million annually. The company describes its genesis this way on its website:

“ThinkGeek started as an idea. ThinkGeek started as a way to serve a market that was passionate about technology, from programmers, engineers, students, lovers of open source, to the masses that helped create the behind-the-scenes Internet culture.

“Three out of the four founding ThinkGeek members started an ISP in the Northern Virginia area way way back in 1995. We couldn’t afford Solaris, learned about a free UNIX-like OS, and spent almost an entire day downloading it onto over 50 floppies for installation on an old 486 laptop with no cd-rom (thanks Slackware!). After a few years with the ISP gig, the ThinkGeek idea popped into our heads, and, operating out of a spare room at the ISP office we setup shop and launched the site on Friday the 13th, 1999.

“A month or so later we were Slashdotted. Promptly thereafter, ThinkGeek was acquired by the good folks at Andover.Net who through an acquisition and a bunch of name changes, is now known as Geeknet. So we’re part of a cool gaggle of sites including slashdot.org, sourceforge.net, linux.com, and freshmeat.net.”

Grove says the first thing a retailer getting into social media needs to consider is “what are you going to talk about?” A lot of companies come out “blabbing about themselves all the time basically,” and that’s the wrong way to go. “People like to associate themselves with brands,” Grove says, “But they don’t want to hear about them all the time.

“Stop trying to use social media as an acquisition channel.” In fact, he says, company’s would be better off putting their social media into the hands of staff responsible for customer satisfaction rather than acquisition. “Put it in retention, not acquisition,” he says.

What brought the customer to you in the first place?

Be careful before you outsource your social media functions, he warns. “A lot of large firms outsource to PR companies or corporate communications. Those folks are not always in touch with your brand, so that may not be the best strategy. Find someone in your company who uses social media and is passionate about your brand. That’s the type of person you want handling your social media.

He suggests, “Think about what draws that customer to you in the first place.” In Thinkgeek’s case, he notes, “We’re a geeky company and we celebrate the geeky product line we sell. We share our geekiness with others. So, conversations revolve around topics such as “Star Wars,” or “Star Trek,” gadgets, computer stuff, or other things that bring its customers to the site. “Get into it,” he says. “Interact with followers. Point out other people in the community.”

Thinkgeek has done that with a variety of approaches. “We’re the granddaddy of Internet pranksters,” he says. “We create fake products. Last year it was a Playmobile Apple computer store.” Sometimes the company will actually makes and sells them if they’re popular enough, such as the iCade, a retro game arcade cabinet for the iPad it launched this year.

Grove says you should do as much tracking as you can, but don’t obsess over it. “We’re very heavily into paid search and affiliate marketing so it’s in my nature to collect a lot of data and analyze it. But don’t obsess. Build tracking in where ever you can.”

It’s probably a mistake to look at social media just for ROI, he notes. “When you’re really good at social media, you get a halo effect,” he says. “Social media sharing creates deep interest in a brand. People get excited about what you’re doing and share it, creating excitement around your brand.”