While we continue to see companies dancing around their level of engagement and commitment to marketing through Social Media channels, some interesting limitations are apparent with these channels. Limitations in communication that are not easily overcome;
Textual Channels: Twitter, blogs, wall postings…anywhere where text is the primary method of communication. The issue here is “context” as it can be hard to identify what the person is “feeling” or how angry they are. Aside from perhaps a profile picture, it’s not easy to define an image of someone either. As we know, 60% of human communication is non-verbal. One might then say it is hard to truly engage in a medium with limitations to emotional expression. Emoticons are clever, but they only go so far. Flame wars erupt easily in textual channels.
Video Channels: With a service like Chatroulette this is a litter better for communication. One can see body gestures, facial expressions and denote tone of voice. The limitations here are what can be added to the conversation, such as other visuals, since you are often more dependent on location and form of camera. When it’s combining text and video response to posted videos in a sharing service like YouTube there is often delay in engagement and the chance of missed communication that can have any desired effect.
Audio Channels: Like a phone or Skype or similar IP Phone. With video enabled it helps, but similar restrictions to video channels apply. In audio communications we get tone of voice as an aid to completing the communication objective. But still, gestures and facial expression is limited.
So what does this mean in corporate attempts to engage with customer service or marketing through social media channels? Not understanding these limitations can negatively impact the outcome of the desired objective.
As with Nestle’s Facebook experience, the entire issue erupted over statements made by a Nestle marketing employee on the Facebook page for Nestle. It was purely textual. It was also a permanent linear string that all could see. This means the original context or framing of the issue rapidly spins out of hand. Nestle could have added some video response or offered a Web chat with video. This may have helped add elements that would’ve reduced the overheating of the issue. May have.
Each social media channel has its challenges. Understanding the limitations and the risks are key to success. They also add another level of education and knowledge development for a business, which adds cost to the management of these channels and reduces profits.
Do you see any other limitations?
(Author: G. Crouch)
She got your brand out all over Twitter, to the tune of many thousands of followers. He built a huge presence on Facebook and NetLog for you. Nary a negative word was said about your organization. It was all great, until they resigned. She got a plum offer from a PR agency and he got hired by your competitor. Now what? And just who were all these people engaged with? Your brand or the person behind it? Both really.
So. Now what? One was an intern the other was a junior. Yes, they were building positive vibes for the brand, but conversion to sales wasn’t really there yet, or you’d only just started to define success metrics for engaging in Social Media. We’ve seen this with a few clients. It creates a difficult situation. A few quick do’s and don’ts based on our experience:
Don’t:
- Leave The Kingdom Doors Open: Make sure you change all the passwords to the accounts. Just to be on the safe side.
- Drop it Cold Turkey: If you assume all those followers were a bunch of teens and 20-somethings who don’t care, you’ll be in for a little Social Media crisis. If you want to wind down your engagement in Social Media, then plan it carefully.
Do’s:
- Have a Transition Plan: Have the person’s supervisor develop a plan to transition to a new person if possible, or plan disengagement. Carefully, with solid, honest messaging.
- Be Open: Let the person who’s leaving talk about in a positive manner. If it’s possible, have them introduce the new person.
A little forethought when a situation like this can save a whole lot of grief down the road. It’s also good practice for the senior manager in the organization to “listen in” on what’s being said on a regular basis. To make sure the message is clear and on target.
(Author: G. Crouch, Managing Partner @webconomist on Twitter)
A social media channel going “uncool”? I’m talking about something like, well, Plurk as an example. Plurk is a microblogging channel and well, it’s losing it’s cool factor. As are other social media services, including MySpace (as Abrams Research recently found.) With the evolution of social media moving quickly and growing, the “tools” are perhaps more at risk of losing value, quickly, than any other form of product in history. Including the Chia Pet and Pet Rocks.
Here is an often undiscussed business risk of engaging in a social media channel. MySpace is already feeling the pinch of becoming “uncool” as advertisers shift their spending to more popular Facebook. Plurk is seeing outward migration to Twitter. Some smart companies still haven’t engaged fully in social media, and that may not be a bad thing.
Walgreen’s didn’t move onto the Web until 2000, preferring instead to watch the mistakes of the first movers then capture that space. They did, and they did it well. The risk today is not just a service becoming “uncoll”, it’s also that the service may shut down due to lack of a business model and subsequent funding.
So, you might say, just move to another service. Certainly, but not easy. Again, you have to “listen” to see where those people you were engaging or marketing to have gone. Then you have to build up your presence again…all of which takes time.
Is there a way to know what’s becoming “uncool”? If you’re listening to the chatter, there are signs as people move, and usually they’ll tell their freinds. If you have a good rapport with them, likely they’ll tell you as well. It’s bound to happen, but by always listening and having a contingency plan, a move to a new service can be a little less painful. What would you do?
It was noted today that Twitter surpassed Digg for traffic this past month. What is this a trend indicator of? Well, we view Social Media as two primary types; 1) High Engagement and 2) Low Engagement. Although both enable engagement, the level of engagement varies, and most vital to these two are the cost of the transaction.
Low Engagement: Here we clump Mixx, Digg, Newsvine and similar as well as Social Bookmarking. We label them as “Low-Engagement” since the transaction cost is rather much higher than active Social Media services that encourage broader engagement. They are “passive” because discussion of an issue is not easy, and spreading the word is also not easily done. They are based on “voting” principles rather than true “sharing” such as Microblogging services like Twitter. The stories lie relatively dormant until people find them. These services are far more passive.
High Engagement: A prime example here is Microblogging, as well as SMS, IM services and Forums. Once registered, the transaction cost is low and the engagement level is high. Services such as Twitter are instant and generally very viral since “Re-Tweeing or RT” is easy and sends the “content” across broader reach faster than Digg or Mixx. Witness the US Airways crash last week, the terror attacks in Mumbai and even the small earthquake that hit LA last summer – the news was out on Twitter before traditional news media picked it up in all cases. This is highly-active and sharing audio, text and video is simple and fast – low-cost to the user. More is shared faster. This is highly-active.
So what does this mean? It means another “shift” in how people are deciding to use Social Media tools. Services like Digg and Mixx will be where content might reside, but Highly-Active services like Twitter or Identi.ca will become the primary distribution channels, perhaps more so than email.
(Author: Giles Crouch, Managing Partner)
Best Practices•
on September 19th, 2008•
There is a lot of discussion around monetizing Social Media, and rightly so. Our experience however, is that the approach and thinking around monetization of Social Media has been focused from the wrong frame of reference – that of Web 1.0 and the expectation of fast revenues via advertising. Businesses often anticipate that Social Media is either a) a campaign marketing tool or b) a place to extend their advertising campaigns. While that may be a suitable approach, they are both short-term and singular, thus will not deliver any anticipated returns.
To understand the difference in Social Media vs other forms of revenue generation, it’s good to compare Sales Vs. Marketing. Sales in a business are a Leading Indicator of a company’s cash flow and revenue opportunities measured weekly, monthly and quarterly. They are close and easier to understand – selling is tactical. Marketing on the other hand is more strategic. Marketing, properly implemented, is a strategic investment and marketing ROI is measured over longer periods starting at a minimum of quarterly.
Social Media is also a managed investment. Like a marketing strategy, Social Media takes time to deliver results, even when just marketing. Primarily due to the fact that Social Media means a deeper engagement with your target markets. Additionally, when engaging in Social Media, you are likely reaching a broader circle of stakeholders than a one-off marketing campaign. You will reach shareholders, employees and their families, recruiters and potential employees and more.
Social Media is engaging in a conversation and building a relationship. If we think of comparable “conversations” we have that are transaction oriented, think of these analogies; ordering a coffee is a brief conversation with the retailer ending in a transaction, that’s a sales transaction. Stand by the water cooler at the office and you have a more meaningful conversation where issues are discussed, that’s a “marketing” action, and it takes longer.
Successful Social Media engagement comes from approaching it like a marketing or communications strategy. Developed over time with metrics along the way to help evaluate and shape the program. With this approach, a Social Media strategy is likely to return better results. Some Social Media projects may generate revenue through advertising, but that too takes time. There is no instant and quick hit with Social Media, just like marketing. It takes careful research, planning, measuring and adaptation to realize success.
Long before Social Media entered the mainstream, our parents and mentors told us to “listen”. We know that listening plays a key role in communicating with others. Effective listening is not just hearing either, it’s watching for visual cues given by the speaker. This fundamental of communication carries over to the “corporate entity”, which is striving to learn new “listening skills” as companies develop new conversation skills. How does Ketchup play a role in our listening outcomes?
So how does a company “listen”? While there are many tools such as Social Media monitoring services (there are over 40 and here’s a good list) and Business Intelligence applications, the concept of “Corporate Listening” goes beyond the available tools. You can have all the tools you want, but unless you know how to use them and have a philosophy around “listening” they will not serve very well. So how does a company develop these “Corporate Listening” skills?
It starts at the executive level with a concious decision to engage in “listening” as a whole; recognizing that your market is saying something (beyond the usual focus groups and surveys) and that what the company might learn may result in fundamental change. Take for example the Ketchup Conundrum as Malcolm Gladwell wrote about. You may discover that your market wants more. They may even be willing to pay for it and your revenues may increase. Do you want your competitor to know this before you? While Social Media may not immediately replace focus groups, it can give you insights you’d never uncover in a structured focus group.
When “listening” starts at this basic, philosophical level, then it is easier to decide, we argue, what you are listening for and where you need to be listening. Then you can decide on the appropriate tools to help you listen. Key to succeeding then, is deciding what you are going to do with what you learn. Once you connect to Social Media, you will hear about many aspects of your company; from HR issues to product usage. You also need a plan on how to manage, disseminate and integrate that commentary into the organization.
So “Corporate Listening” needs to be more than a marketing project and begins with a fundamental acknowledgement that your market is out there talking and you can benefit. So just as in real life, listening in the virtual world is critical to success in communicating with your market.
(Excerpt from eBook “Conversant Corporation“)
Best Practices•
on August 13th, 2008•
You know your organization needs to move into Social Media; but where? There are over 300 blogging services, over 200 news feed services and mutiple Social Networking services like Bebo and Facebook. Should you be everywhere? While it might be ideal, trying to be everywhere could cause more harm than damage over the long term.
Microblogging is just one example (the main channels are Twitter, Plurk and Identi.ca) where you can only place 144 characters. As Jeremiah Owyang points out, many brands fail on services like Twitter. In part because the concept of Microblogging doesn’t suit the brand and because of the ability to understand how Microblogs work and sustain a presence there. Microblogs come down to a “who” not a “concept” like a brand and thus require an “individual” to represent the brand. For a company, a Microblog might be more useful for crisis responses and good quick stories.
Success in Social Media comes from selecting the right channel and building, then sustaining, the right message(s) over time. Building a presence in Social Media also means investing some time and understanding the ROI is not immediate like banner ads and Landing Pages. Social Media is a Sustainable Marketing activity that is like marketing itself – a managed investment. Properly managed, an investment in Social Media will result in increased customer loyalty, lead generation, brand strengthening and product innovations.
So when looking at engaging in Social Media it’s all about finding the right channel and the right target market. You may not need to engage with Microblogging and perhaps just a blog is a good start and then develop your strategy from there. Segmenting in Social Media channels is as important a segmenting in Web marketing and marketing planning as a whole.
A bad news story for your company hits traditional media. You kick in the standard damage control processes and try to move beyond the issue; it’s always worked before. Except this time a prominent or even not so prominent blogger picks it up…and it spreads. Have the rules changed? Can you move beyond the story like before?
Certainly, except it may take a little longer than before, and there may be “aftershocks”. When the Blogosphere picks up on a story it can suddenly take on a life of its own. Sometimes there’s no real need to respond, other times you must respond. There are ways to manage a crisis point with Social Media, but the issue can stay hot in the Social Media world a little longer.
In most bad news incidents, the best strategy is to acknowledge the issue, state your proposed resolution and then move on to more positive stories, knowing that in traditional media, the story will blow over fairly quickly. Bloggers and microbloggers however, can add their own opinions and what was a small issue spirals out of control. Not responding can make the perceived issue worse and carry on for weeks or months.
Deciding whether or not to respond is something you need to determine with your PR team or Social Media agency. Deciding how you respond is key, along with follow up. Once you’ve said something in the Social Media sphere, it will live on. This means you may be held accountable at a later date as someone may inquire in a few months to see if you’ve lived up to the proposed solution. If not, you’ll suddenly have another crisis, this is what we call “aftershocks.” Developing a good plan for a PR crisis should always include the Social Media angle today.
With Social Media, the vital point to remember is that a story can live on far longer and resurface at any time. Sometimes you can take the high road and not respond, deflection is still very much possible, but going about it is very different in Social Media.
Best Practices•
on July 21st, 2008•
For decades, businesses have been able to excerpt a fair amount of “control” over a message, and in some markets they still can and do. Yet this is changing. With the prevelance of Social Media and the Web as a whole, people can share audio, text and video very quickly. This has broad implications to a PR team or agency managing negative coverage over a story. So how do you deal with that inevitability? Not bother with a Social Media strategy?
I often ask a client “do you stop going to networking events and parties because someone may have an opposing view on an issue?” The answer is no. As people, we have skills we’ve developed professionally to handle situations that become contentious in social settings. A company is an entity as well, through it’s brand. It just has more moving parts and many brains. Negative commentary is inevitable with Social Media today.
Having to deal with negative coverage in Social Media is an issue we’ve seen a lot lately. It seems to be the largest roadblock to developing a Social Media strategy in many cases. In large part, we have found this is due to the fact that a company focuses on “marketing” as it’s primary conversation with the public, and most marketing is a very one-way effort; “telling” versus “conversing”, which is two-way. This isn’t the fault of business. It’s because the mediums most of us are familiar with are one-way; TV, radio, print. Social Media and the ability of anyone to begin a conversation is a new frontier for many businesses.
The fact is, a company doesn’t sell products and make profit from negative issues. Bad publicity leads to senior management firings, board changes, stock price drops, shareholder anger and lost sales and profits. In an increasingly transparent world, Social Media can have broad implications.
But the fact is, negative commentary will happen. Whether a company has a Social Media strategy or not. It’s just inevitable. It’s more than likely that most negative commentary will be minimal, localized and can be simply monitored. But it can also rapidly become an issue that spills over into Traditional Media (i.e. Rogers and the iPhone in Canada and AT&T in the U.S.) and Rogers had no Social Media strategy to deal with an online petition that hit Traditional Media and forced the company to lower its pricing.
Our view is that all businesses should have some plan for Social Media, whether it’s simply monitoring on a regular basis or deciding to actively engage in developing a conversation with its stakeholders. Accept that some negative issues may come up, but find a way to turn them into a positive. There are plenty of case studies. What are your views on the inevitability of negative coverage and what should a company do?
Marketers want to maximize revenue from Social Media. Companies are struggling to learn new conversation skills in the Social Media realm. Perhaps we can garner some perspective from childrens’ toys. Not the ones parents buy in a store. We’re talking the ones that get made of cardboard boxes, string, tape, markers and craft paper. The toys kids really play with. read more