The truth about social media for brands . . . . .
People want to do THINGS!
Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts
9 Feb 2010
Brands and Social Media
Following on from my post about what brands need to think about when it comes to social media and its use for online PR, comes hot news about Vodafone.
The facts:
Late on Friday 5th February 2010, a member of Vodafone’s social media team posted a homophobic remark via the company's official Twitter account. Around 8,800 Vodafone followers received the remark in their tweetstream, I was one of them . . . .
Vodafone admitted that “a severe breach of rules” had taken place, but only after Twitter's amplifying effect took hold.
Attempts to delete the offending comment were scuppered by retweets that amplified the offence. Vodafone apologised repeatedly to its followers . . . using a copy and paste apology . . . oh dear.
What could, and should, have been done:
So, what could have been done better?
1) Accept that human error happens - how you deal with it is what matters.
2) Some errors are worse than others. Posting offensive remarks to thousands of customers is beyong stupid . . .
3) The democracy of social media prevents you hushing things up. The damage is done at the point of publication. The social media network will not allow you to cover things up. The bigger the brand, the more seriously the error will be in terms of its repercussions via retweets.
4) Do say sorry . . . . once. Do it properly, once.
5) Take extra care if you 'own' your company social media profile. It is too easy to accidentally post to the wrong account if you are juggling between a personal and a corporate account. Take time to consider your posts and where they are going to . . . .
6) Some kind of security would be a great idea, especially in situations where profile owners are off-site or based away from scrutiny. But don't persecute the social media profile owner in your company either - be human about it, but sensible.
7) Educate profile users about social media, your reasons for using it and the benefits it brings to the company.
8) Stop and think before you publish. Always.
Social media gaffes of our time:
Habitat - Habitat handed over their Twitter profile to an intern, assuming that social media was just a jolly jape presumably . . . . Result? Habitat were suspended from Twitter following consistent abuse, despite warnings, about piggy-backing trending topics for commercial gain.
Virgin - Virgin Atlantic cabin crew used Facebook to call passengers "chavs" and claimed that the airline's planes were full of cockroaches.
Telegraph - During last year's budget extravaganza, telegraph.co.uk set up a Twitterfall to provide real-time updates of the budget. Tweets were created on the service that included the tag "#budget". Twitter users (savvy lot) spotted the unmoderated twitterfall and embarrassed the paper with a stream of tweets such as "Breaking news: Barclay Brothers to pick up your tax bill in unprecedented act of philanthropy. #Budget" – and far worse than that too . . . . but, that is for another time.
The facts:
Late on Friday 5th February 2010, a member of Vodafone’s social media team posted a homophobic remark via the company's official Twitter account. Around 8,800 Vodafone followers received the remark in their tweetstream, I was one of them . . . .
Vodafone admitted that “a severe breach of rules” had taken place, but only after Twitter's amplifying effect took hold.
Attempts to delete the offending comment were scuppered by retweets that amplified the offence. Vodafone apologised repeatedly to its followers . . . using a copy and paste apology . . . oh dear.
What could, and should, have been done:
So, what could have been done better?
1) Accept that human error happens - how you deal with it is what matters.
2) Some errors are worse than others. Posting offensive remarks to thousands of customers is beyong stupid . . .
3) The democracy of social media prevents you hushing things up. The damage is done at the point of publication. The social media network will not allow you to cover things up. The bigger the brand, the more seriously the error will be in terms of its repercussions via retweets.
4) Do say sorry . . . . once. Do it properly, once.
5) Take extra care if you 'own' your company social media profile. It is too easy to accidentally post to the wrong account if you are juggling between a personal and a corporate account. Take time to consider your posts and where they are going to . . . .
6) Some kind of security would be a great idea, especially in situations where profile owners are off-site or based away from scrutiny. But don't persecute the social media profile owner in your company either - be human about it, but sensible.
7) Educate profile users about social media, your reasons for using it and the benefits it brings to the company.
8) Stop and think before you publish. Always.
Social media gaffes of our time:
Habitat - Habitat handed over their Twitter profile to an intern, assuming that social media was just a jolly jape presumably . . . . Result? Habitat were suspended from Twitter following consistent abuse, despite warnings, about piggy-backing trending topics for commercial gain.
Virgin - Virgin Atlantic cabin crew used Facebook to call passengers "chavs" and claimed that the airline's planes were full of cockroaches.
Telegraph - During last year's budget extravaganza, telegraph.co.uk set up a Twitterfall to provide real-time updates of the budget. Tweets were created on the service that included the tag "#budget". Twitter users (savvy lot) spotted the unmoderated twitterfall and embarrassed the paper with a stream of tweets such as "Breaking news: Barclay Brothers to pick up your tax bill in unprecedented act of philanthropy. #Budget" – and far worse than that too . . . . but, that is for another time.
Creative executions
I really like this one. It's an educational film called 'Does TV make you fat?' and was aimed at 9-14 year olds. It's fact packed but entertaining, not too long and pitched just right . . . . the esence of a good video creative.
Take a look:
The video was directed by Denis van Waerebeke for the 'Bon appétit' exhibition. Design was by Nathalie Prunier and animation by Jimmy Audoin. The sound design was created by Ruelgo with the voice of Mark Jane.
Take a look:
Does TV make you fat ? from Denis van Waerebeke on Vimeo.
The video was directed by Denis van Waerebeke for the 'Bon appétit' exhibition. Design was by Nathalie Prunier and animation by Jimmy Audoin. The sound design was created by Ruelgo with the voice of Mark Jane.
7 Feb 2010
Social Media Marketing - A simple guide
Social media marketing is earning a role in the integrated marketing mix, kind of. As a practitioner I know that social media marketing - SMM for short - is transforming every business division from the inside out. I'm less convinced that brands operating in hierarchical set-ups are getting the message.
Here in the UK a recent survey by Major Players concluded that organisations and marketers need to get a grip on the ins and outs of social media – fast.
Innovate and evolve
This is a recurring theme. Many businesses jump into Social Media without crafting a strategic plan rooted in goals, objectives, KPIs or an understanding of best-practice models. Questions like 'what will be the likely impact of engagement on the brand / organisations?' are rarely asked, let alone understood by senior personnel or the social practitioners and advocates involved. Social media is too often placed in a silo called 'digital marketing', as though it were a discrete part of the business with no relationship to actual processes, actions and reactions elsewhere. Big mistake!
So – here is a view of just some of the opportunities available, and to be avoided, when using the social Web. I'll refine and update these as I go along. . .
Create a survey of fans
Surveys are an effective way to garner feedback to continue to earn ongoing relevance to your existing and new customers. Surveys can range from satisfaction levels, behaviour around the prospect or act of referrals, votes towards new policies and services or be used purely for entertainment. At the simplest level, surveys inject variety into the Facebook stream to foster new opportunities for engagement and communication.
“Friend” recent customers with your corporate profile
Strictly speaking, this activity goes against Facebook’s Terms of Service so go carefully. Facebook periodically flags and deletes branded profile accounts as they’re discovered. Twitter is more open to this approach.
Use Facebook/Twitter user data to profile customers
Social media is nothing if not an experiment. Along the way it provides enormously useful insights into your users' psychography (their interests, passions and motivations – cause based connections for example). Examine your social graph to gain an insight into possible initiatives and trends.
Create a Facebook app around the brand
As the old adage has it – 'yup, there's an app for that', in fact there are often too many. Their lack of utility or longevity springs from their usually being, well, useless. Facebook apps are not guaranteed to earn an audience simply because they’re created. Users' adoption of new apps are related to their friends' activity rather than an allegiance to a particular brand. Make an app relevant, stimulating and ideally 'issue' or 'entertainment' based and you'll likely be on to something – it's that pesky psychograhy again!
Driving traffic to corporate materials through status updates
Where are you sending your users? Chances are your users are landing on a message-rich, yet lifeless and generic web page or company home page. So, you are using a highly interactive and social environment to drive traffic to a static dead-end. Hmmm, not good. Consider linking to issue / campaign specific pages and ideally captivating, interactive or viral content.
Buying targeted CPC ads
Targeted CPC (cost-per-click) ads on Facebook are only as effective as the intention and experience to which they’re tied (see above). Many businesses use these ads to increase the number of fans on a fan page or to promote corporate material. I would suggest using them to drive traffic to clearly pre-defined experiences. However, do bear in mind that buying ads is perhaps the least effective element of the mix.
Monitor Twitter/Facebook and other social media for PR problems in real-time
A PR problem can materialise at any moment, with little warning. Monitoring what your customers are saying about your brand (and to whom) enables you to be proactive in addressing the reported problems internally, in tandem with an external 'push' to correct the . . . . misapprehension. There are myriad free tools to help you monitor what is being said about your brand - Technorati, Blog Pulse, Google Trends and Alerts, Omgili, Tweetcloud and Tweetbeep . . . . . and way more besides.
Contact Twitter users tweeting negatively about the brand
As users venture into using social media in ever-greater numbers, so they are also learning that social media, like Twitter especially, can act as an echo-chamber for complaints and suggestions to brands. Brands that monitor this space are more likely to respond. OK, it could be argued that this encourages users to complain in a public forum. What would you rather? That they complained to you and your processes ignored the complaint or mis-handled it? Or are you assuming that no-one complains about your brand and services? Think again.
Contacting users tweeting negatively about your brand is a tactic shared between PR and customer service and requires solid work flow processes tied to it. It’s very easy to confuse who should respond to which tweets and who already did, versus which tweets require response.
Create 'events'
Too often I've seen people confine themselves to Twitter alone, or just Facebook, without considering using both in addition to LinkedIn and myriad other social options such as surveys and email invites to create buzz around an event. Not only does this provided great user feedback and engagement, it can help guide the tone and style of your event as well.
Provocative text drives clicks
Interesting. As the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” To earn attention nowadays requires a level of creativity that mirrors the methodologies of creative advertising and marketing fused with the grounding of strategic communications. Pay attention to planning and editorial programming to ensure relevance and appeal. Avoid the merely sensational or 'trending' as users will see through that pretty quickly.
Invite Twitter users who tweet positively about a brand to do . . .
Consider using positive tweets as the basis for an advocacy or official ambassador program. As this tactic becomes ubiquitous, consumers are getting wise to their power in social media. Consumers expect something for their loyalty. Consider this prior to engaging.
Time Tweets to maximise views
There is an art and science to what we tweet and when. When using social media think like a media programmer. Content, timing and promotional style will dictate the size of the audience and their expectations. For example Monday and Friday are a great time to Tweet. In the UK, the morning slot from around 7am to noon is perfect for local/territory based messaging.
Here in the UK a recent survey by Major Players concluded that organisations and marketers need to get a grip on the ins and outs of social media – fast.
Innovate and evolve
This is a recurring theme. Many businesses jump into Social Media without crafting a strategic plan rooted in goals, objectives, KPIs or an understanding of best-practice models. Questions like 'what will be the likely impact of engagement on the brand / organisations?' are rarely asked, let alone understood by senior personnel or the social practitioners and advocates involved. Social media is too often placed in a silo called 'digital marketing', as though it were a discrete part of the business with no relationship to actual processes, actions and reactions elsewhere. Big mistake!
So – here is a view of just some of the opportunities available, and to be avoided, when using the social Web. I'll refine and update these as I go along. . .
Create a survey of fans
Surveys are an effective way to garner feedback to continue to earn ongoing relevance to your existing and new customers. Surveys can range from satisfaction levels, behaviour around the prospect or act of referrals, votes towards new policies and services or be used purely for entertainment. At the simplest level, surveys inject variety into the Facebook stream to foster new opportunities for engagement and communication.
“Friend” recent customers with your corporate profile
Strictly speaking, this activity goes against Facebook’s Terms of Service so go carefully. Facebook periodically flags and deletes branded profile accounts as they’re discovered. Twitter is more open to this approach.
Use Facebook/Twitter user data to profile customers
Social media is nothing if not an experiment. Along the way it provides enormously useful insights into your users' psychography (their interests, passions and motivations – cause based connections for example). Examine your social graph to gain an insight into possible initiatives and trends.
Create a Facebook app around the brand
As the old adage has it – 'yup, there's an app for that', in fact there are often too many. Their lack of utility or longevity springs from their usually being, well, useless. Facebook apps are not guaranteed to earn an audience simply because they’re created. Users' adoption of new apps are related to their friends' activity rather than an allegiance to a particular brand. Make an app relevant, stimulating and ideally 'issue' or 'entertainment' based and you'll likely be on to something – it's that pesky psychograhy again!
Driving traffic to corporate materials through status updates
Where are you sending your users? Chances are your users are landing on a message-rich, yet lifeless and generic web page or company home page. So, you are using a highly interactive and social environment to drive traffic to a static dead-end. Hmmm, not good. Consider linking to issue / campaign specific pages and ideally captivating, interactive or viral content.
Buying targeted CPC ads
Targeted CPC (cost-per-click) ads on Facebook are only as effective as the intention and experience to which they’re tied (see above). Many businesses use these ads to increase the number of fans on a fan page or to promote corporate material. I would suggest using them to drive traffic to clearly pre-defined experiences. However, do bear in mind that buying ads is perhaps the least effective element of the mix.
Monitor Twitter/Facebook and other social media for PR problems in real-time
A PR problem can materialise at any moment, with little warning. Monitoring what your customers are saying about your brand (and to whom) enables you to be proactive in addressing the reported problems internally, in tandem with an external 'push' to correct the . . . . misapprehension. There are myriad free tools to help you monitor what is being said about your brand - Technorati, Blog Pulse, Google Trends and Alerts, Omgili, Tweetcloud and Tweetbeep . . . . . and way more besides.
Contact Twitter users tweeting negatively about the brand
As users venture into using social media in ever-greater numbers, so they are also learning that social media, like Twitter especially, can act as an echo-chamber for complaints and suggestions to brands. Brands that monitor this space are more likely to respond. OK, it could be argued that this encourages users to complain in a public forum. What would you rather? That they complained to you and your processes ignored the complaint or mis-handled it? Or are you assuming that no-one complains about your brand and services? Think again.
Contacting users tweeting negatively about your brand is a tactic shared between PR and customer service and requires solid work flow processes tied to it. It’s very easy to confuse who should respond to which tweets and who already did, versus which tweets require response.
Create 'events'
Too often I've seen people confine themselves to Twitter alone, or just Facebook, without considering using both in addition to LinkedIn and myriad other social options such as surveys and email invites to create buzz around an event. Not only does this provided great user feedback and engagement, it can help guide the tone and style of your event as well.
Provocative text drives clicks
Interesting. As the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” To earn attention nowadays requires a level of creativity that mirrors the methodologies of creative advertising and marketing fused with the grounding of strategic communications. Pay attention to planning and editorial programming to ensure relevance and appeal. Avoid the merely sensational or 'trending' as users will see through that pretty quickly.
Invite Twitter users who tweet positively about a brand to do . . .
Consider using positive tweets as the basis for an advocacy or official ambassador program. As this tactic becomes ubiquitous, consumers are getting wise to their power in social media. Consumers expect something for their loyalty. Consider this prior to engaging.
Time Tweets to maximise views
There is an art and science to what we tweet and when. When using social media think like a media programmer. Content, timing and promotional style will dictate the size of the audience and their expectations. For example Monday and Friday are a great time to Tweet. In the UK, the morning slot from around 7am to noon is perfect for local/territory based messaging.
10 Dec 2009
Real time search: Implications
Google's real time search feature has big implications for brand reputation, SEO and paid search. What are they?
I'll start by looking at Social Media, PPC and SEO techniques.
Social Media
Real time search puts brand reputation to the fore. Why?
Look at it this way, I criticise a brand and that post on Twitter say features as a top search in real time . . . . . get it?
Real time search puts social media at the heart of search like never before. Brands that have not engaged will lose out by failing to engage with the slipstream of the fastest moving economic and commercial revoution of all-time. Brands that have engaged will have to invest more in online reputation management resources. For a while I was managing just such a project internally and it was a full time activity, I mean 24/7.
Customers searching for a brand will see everything, EVERYTHING, and immediately . . . or as quickly as I can post that poor review of the dodgy restaurant I was at.
It really is that simple.
PPC
I was managing this in-house for a time. It was hugely time-consuming and quite costly. This isn't to write off PPC.
For the right product or service and correctly managed (ideally by an agency or fully resourced in-house team!) PPC can work brilliantly. Why does real time search impinge on PPC then?
Most PPC systems scan search engines a few times a day, not in real time. So, whilst the position of your PPC ad may not change, the commentary around it will and this has huge implications for click through rates, costs and of course, revenues.
PPC is Google's golden calf. It is unlikely that it is about to be slaughtered. However, the way that real time search scrolls and updates does affect the way you look at a page . . . . .
SEO and how we do it . . . .
Or, will retweets become the new links? As SEO practioners we spend our time making sure we publish relevant links in natural results returned for your search. Real time search results will push organic search results (SERPs) lower down the page . . . . hmmmm.
It' not all bad news though. For any opportunist or challenger brands with great content, and there are many, it's a real opportunity to use trending keywords and real time search to great advantage.
However, the central conundrum remains. Imagine a page full of negative real time results, these will affect click through rates and links to a brand's portal and so it's natural SERPs position.
To be fair, Google are using filtering and authority (to some extent) with real time search so the picture may not be too bleak.
I shall update as I go along . . . .
I'll start by looking at Social Media, PPC and SEO techniques.
Social Media
Real time search puts brand reputation to the fore. Why?
Look at it this way, I criticise a brand and that post on Twitter say features as a top search in real time . . . . . get it?
Real time search puts social media at the heart of search like never before. Brands that have not engaged will lose out by failing to engage with the slipstream of the fastest moving economic and commercial revoution of all-time. Brands that have engaged will have to invest more in online reputation management resources. For a while I was managing just such a project internally and it was a full time activity, I mean 24/7.
Customers searching for a brand will see everything, EVERYTHING, and immediately . . . or as quickly as I can post that poor review of the dodgy restaurant I was at.
It really is that simple.
PPC
I was managing this in-house for a time. It was hugely time-consuming and quite costly. This isn't to write off PPC.
For the right product or service and correctly managed (ideally by an agency or fully resourced in-house team!) PPC can work brilliantly. Why does real time search impinge on PPC then?
Most PPC systems scan search engines a few times a day, not in real time. So, whilst the position of your PPC ad may not change, the commentary around it will and this has huge implications for click through rates, costs and of course, revenues.
PPC is Google's golden calf. It is unlikely that it is about to be slaughtered. However, the way that real time search scrolls and updates does affect the way you look at a page . . . . .
SEO and how we do it . . . .
Or, will retweets become the new links? As SEO practioners we spend our time making sure we publish relevant links in natural results returned for your search. Real time search results will push organic search results (SERPs) lower down the page . . . . hmmmm.
It' not all bad news though. For any opportunist or challenger brands with great content, and there are many, it's a real opportunity to use trending keywords and real time search to great advantage.
However, the central conundrum remains. Imagine a page full of negative real time results, these will affect click through rates and links to a brand's portal and so it's natural SERPs position.
To be fair, Google are using filtering and authority (to some extent) with real time search so the picture may not be too bleak.
I shall update as I go along . . . .
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