Herman Miller blog: Discover » Facebook

Social Networking—Frivolous, Powerful, Here to Stay

Christine MacLean — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:00:55 +0000

Social media tools like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter can be frivolous or useful. Frivolous: More than 724,000 kids (my son included) are Facebook fans of “Don’t complain about grading 140 essays over the weekend, you assigned it.”

Powerful: 18,000 people bypass the hype-steria surrounding the H1N1 flu by following the Center for Disease Control on Twitter. The CDC provides factual updates as information becomes available.

For most people, social media lies between the two extremes.

According to Forrester Research, almost 60% of Internet users use social media. Other research shows that a third of social media users are quite active, updating their statuses at least once a week. Their reasons vary, but 54% say they do it to stay in touch with friends and family. Less than five percent report they “regularly” use it to make buying decisions.

That will likely change. Nielsen says global consumers spent more than five hours on social networking sites in December 2009. That’s an 82% increase over December 2008. With that kind of growth, more and more companies are using social networking. They see an opportunity to build their brands and strengthen their connection with customers.

Carnival Cruise helped an unhappy customer locate the t-shirts he thought the cruise line stole from him. They only way they knew he was unhappy about it was that he tweeted about it. But companies like more than just broadcasting via social media. In fact, for the individuals who actually tweet for a company, the best part is hearing from followers.

Herman Miller uses Facebook and Twitter to share good news (such as its inclusion on FORTUNE’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list), product information, and job openings, and to find out what’s on customers’minds.

What is on their minds? Sometimes it’s their chair’s warranty, but other times it’s a pet. Take the tweet from @stacyharmon: Apparently my cat finds my Aeron chair as comfortable as I do. http://post.ly/KL10. All of it helps “humanize the brand,” social media experts say.

Social media—especially Twitter, which doesn’t allow tweets to be longer than 140 characters—also forces companies to be clear, concise, and clever. That’s good news for consumers. If they don’t have us at hello, then we say buh-bye.

Photo via: Harmon Enterprises

Tweets of Yesteryear

Bill Robinson — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:09:55 +0000

Minus digital technology and the Internet, Twitter has a surprising ancestor: early 20th-century postcards.

Postcards didn’t exist in the U.S. before1898. That year, the government made it legal to print and send “private mailing cards.” Stamps were a penny. Messages were permitted only on the front of the card. The back was reserved for the address. The limited space required messages to be brief, telegraphic, “tweet-like.”

In 1907, the “divided back” was approved. Half of the back was for the message, half for the address. With this expanded format, postcards boomed. New printing technologies made postcards cheap and widely available. Many were beautiful hand-colored photographs of local buildings, street scenes, landscapes, and recreational areas. Over 800 million postcards were mailed in the U.S. in 1908. This was ten times the population of the entire country. Postcards were the e-mail, the text messaging of the era.

A 1908 postcard from my collection in the above slide show was sent by Aunt Susie K. of Presque Isle, Maine. She writes to Dora, her niece, in Nebraska. To personalize the card, Aunt Susie pastes a picture of herself next to the image of a nearby lighthouse. (Early Facebook?)

Postcards ushered in direct mail. In 1907, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company sent customers a postcard showing a state-of-the-art workplace.

Researchers at Rutgers describe Twitter as a “social awareness stream (SAS).” Eighty percent of “tweeters” use the medium to communicate what they are doing, how they are feeling, what they are thinking. The intent of early postcards, to “only connect,” was the same.

Whether You’re a “Tweeter” or “Fan”, Herman Miller Invites You to Join Its Network

Marcia Davis — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:17:22 +0000

Herman Miller is broadening its presence in social media platforms. With our recently launched official Facebook page, we’re offering you another way to interface with our organization. Watch for real-time updates about products, services, events, and behind-the-scenes stories from our extensive archives on Facebook.

You can also join over 2,000 people who are already following Herman Miller on Twitter. We’re tweeting company news updates and events, as well as responding to questions you have.

Interested in stories about design, products, or the Herman Miller community? Check out our videos on the Herman Miller YouTube channel. Or peruse the stories in this blog, where we welcome your comments in the conversation that interests you—on topics from design to our products to what makes the world a better place for all of us.