Socialmedialand

Posts Tagged ‘social media’

Or, so says MediaPost News’ Joe Mandese in his post Social Media Fails To Manifest As Marketing Medium, Report Likens Twitter To TiVo: More Hype Than Reality.

I’ll summarize the basic points of the article for you. Mandese says that although social media has “reached critical mass with 83% of the Internet population now using it – and more than half doing so on a regular basis” it isn’t turning into the marketing medium that all it’s media proponents claim it to be. He uses the following research from Knowledge Networks to assert that less than 5% of users “turn to social media for purchase decisions.”

He goes on to use this information to say that TV advertising and WOM are far more effective ways for brands to market to their customers.

I was going to leave a comment with my thoughts on this, but alas, you cannot comment unless you login and since I felt I had so much to say to refute this, I decided to write my own post.

Point #1: Research Issues

Knowledge Networks’ research looked at how many people regularly or sometimes “turn to” social media to make purchase decisions. I would say that there are two major flaws with the question itself that bias the outcome:

1. Who “turns to” anything for purchase decisions? I don’t ”turn to” TV when I want to go on a trip. I don’t think, “Hey, I’d love to go to Hawaii this summer, maybe I should watch hours of TV in hopes that a commercial appears giving me information on that.”
2. Regular consumers don’t know what “social media” is. If you ask them if they use social media to make purchase decisions they think about whether or not they went on Facebook to find information. They don’t realize that if they went to TripAdvisor.com - they were using social media. If they went to Priceline.com and read reviews of the hotel they were considering – they were using social media. If they wanted to buy a new computer and read an article in TechCrunch about it – they were using social media. They just don’t categorize it as that anymore because it’s so natural.

Point #2: TV and Word of Mouth

Knowledge Networks considers social media to be below TV and Word of Mouth in terms of value. But they’re not comparing apples to apples. Their question was “How often do you refer to social media Web sites or features as a resource for information, reviews, or recommendations when in the market for [category]?” So we need to talk about whether people turn to TV and Word of Mouth as resources to make purchase decisions to determine value in this case.

1. Like I mentioned above, you’re not going to “turn to” TV to make a purchase decision, TV is a discovery mechanism. You don’t go there when you’re looking for specific information to make a purchase. If you compare TV as a promotional, awareness increasing marketing tactic to whether people purposefully use social media to make a purchase decision – that’s not a fair comparison. Compare their effectiveness based on reach and awareness driving goals. And I’d argue when you have a social media site with millions to hundreds of millions of users and the ability to hypertarget your message the value of those impressions is actually pretty high, especially when you consider cost.
2. Social media is word of mouth. If my friend posts that she’s headed to Hawaii this summer on her Facebook and links to the review page of the hotel she picked – that’s word of mouth. If my coworker twitters about how he just bought the cool new phone and it’s actually poorly made and already breaking – that’s word of mouth. If you go on your blog and talk about how your trying to decide between a Mac and a PC and your friends all comment back – that’s word of mouth. All of that is actually social media but people probably wouldn’t categorize that as “turning to social media” they would categorize that as asking their friends.

Point #3: You’re Missing the Forrest For the Trees

This whole article is based on the premise that advertising will work the same in social media as it does everywhere else: as ads interrupting people’s experience as they try to connect with their friends online. The questions are all directed towards the effectiveness of advertising in that sense on these sites. But what about actually participating here?

The point isn’t how many people use one service or another, the point is that the people are demanding personal relationships. They want to get advice from people they trust. What if the brand itself is part of that circle of trust? This isn’t a shift from TV ads to Facebook ads – it’s a shift from bullhorn one-to-many advertising to one-on-one relationships. And they’re right – social media doesn’t have the reach that TV has. Yet. But do you really want to be the brand that gets left behind? Do you want to watch while your competitors get comfortable here in the early days and reap the benefits in the future when you’re playing catch up?

I guess those are questions each business will have to answer for themselves. What do you all think? Please feel free to leave me a comment – my comments are open, no login required.

This is a topic that has come up in my own work recently:

In any given social media account; who are you?

It seems like a silly question but if you think about it, it’s critical. If you’re the person with the responsibility to be the personal voice of a company or brand, then who are you really? Are you still John Smith, a PR rep at XYZ corp, or are you XYZ corp, or are you some fictional manifestation of XYZ corp?

I read an interesting take about personalities on Twitter by Shea Beck last week and some musings by popular industry bloggers, like Jeremiah Owyang, regarding the level of personal content in their tweets. It all got me thinking about online identity in greater detail.

[Note: while most of the inspiration for this post comes from Twitter and the account setup on that network, keep in mind that it can apply anywhere: branded Facebook fan pages, brand accounts on popular forums, corporate blogs, anywhere where you are talking in a personal capacity on behalf of a brand or on behalf of your personal brand.]

There are several models for the branded online personality:

- Person first, brand second. This would be an account where the avatar is the actual person, the name includes the person’s name and then the bio or second half of the user name is the brand.

- Brand first, person second. In this case the avatar would be the logo, the profile name is the brand and somewhere in the bio it mentions who the actual person is that is responding from the account.

- Brand only. This is when the whole thing is branded and there is no mention of an actual person.

- Brand mascot. An account where a fictional personality represents the brand, they’re the avatar, the account name and whoever is writing is pretending to be that person. Jack from Jack in the Box is a great example of this.

So what model works best? I think it varies depending on the brand. But the rule on how to decide what is right for your brand never changes: Choose the one that will make your purpose clear to the community. By reading your name and/or profile I should get a good idea of what being friends with you means. If you present yourself as an individual person who is going to share interesting information and then I follow you and find out it’s all branded messaging, that’s not going to make me happy. At the same time if I follow a brand and get a bunch of personal messages or my feed is full of personal photo albums, I’m going to be pretty confused.

How you clarify your online identity (whether that be for a brand or for yourself):

1. Identify the purpose of the account. Is it for keeping up with friends, talking about business, talking about a particular business, or a mix of several things.

2. Think about how to describe that purpose using the bio/profile picture/any other fields available. Is it about you or the brand? Is about your personal life or professional career? If it’s more than one thing, highlight the main objective and describe the secondary objective later.

Disclaimer: Just because you create a separate business/brand account as well as a personal one doesn’t mean you can say whatever you like in the personal one and think that it’s anonymous (it’s not – even if you try to make it that way, there’s a very good chance it will somehow come back around to you.) You still have to utilize basic social skills.

This is my recipe for online identity, what do you think? How should we present our identity online in situations where we may be representing more than just our personal selves?

One step up from a hall monitor badge...pretty nifty

Ok don’t. Seriously. I was just kidding. Really. Please don’t sue me.

The settlement of a libel lawsuit regarding user comments on the review site Yelp bring concerns about validity in social media to the top of everyone’s minds. Ok maybe not everyone’s, but mine and most other peoples’ in my industry. My coworker Josh wrote a post asking for opinions on the social media ethics debate that this will enevitably spark on both sides so I decided to throw in my two cents. Here goes.

For Businesses:

To sue or not to sue, that is the question? Can you really say that suing a former customer who clearly had a gripe they were willing to post for the world to see could ever be construed as a positive, constructive, PR minded move? I think not. If you find that there’s been a negative review about you, yes you need to act, but you must think about the repercussions first.

If it’s true: you need to evaluate your business. Apologize for the gaff and try to make it right for them and then use that feedback to adjust your business moving forward.

If it’s wrong: reach out to them. Ask them why they think that, why they said that, ask what the situation was and how it could be made right. Maybe the customer isn’t always right, but they think they are and you need to deal with them on that level. Draft a public response to the review, the libel was written in the social media forum; try responding there first before taking it to court. Tell your side of the story in an adult, mature way. (No “they’re a big fat liar” type stuff.)

If that doesn’t help, think about this before you sue: If a potential customer sees the negative review how much will that affect them in the total of all reviews that have been posted versus if they read a news story about the review and how the reviewer is being sued? I don’t know about you but I’d rather not go to a chiropractor that has shoddy billing practices (according to one person – but this is the comment that’s been publicized above all others at this point) AND sues their customers.

For Social Media Users:

This is kind of scary. I mean I don’t really think about what I say on review sites before I say it. I just tell my side of the story, like I was complaining or raving to a friend. I don’t ever think about whether my exaggeration might be taken as libel.

Personally I’m not sure any of these cases will go actually go through without proof that the person had lied outright and maliciously. This one was settled and I think most of them will be (assuming more keep coming…see above.) So as long as you’re honest and stick to things that really happened and your opinion about them you should be safe.

If you’re still worried you can read this definition of Libel to make sure your comments don’t violate anyone’s rights.

For Everyone:

Maybe we all need an ethics refresher course. Be honest. Do the right thing. Treat others the way you’d like to be treated. If the business treats a customer correctly in the first place – no problems. If the customer is honest in their reviews and opinions of that treatment – no problems. It’s so easy people. Why can’t we all just get along….

Ok I know it sounds like a stretch at first, but stay with me on this one.

As social media continues to grow as our industry’s biggest buzz word I’ve seen an increasing number of client requests for blogs, twitter accounts, or facebook pages. Without fail the request goes something like this:

          “Please put together a strategy for client XYZ to have a Twitter account.”

          ”….?”

What will a Twitter account accomplish in a scenerio like that? What about all the unaswered questions? Like, “Why do you want a Twitter account in the first place?” ”What is your plan for handling customer concerns, suggestions and ideas internally once they’re brought up?”  And it’s not just Twitter. These questions need to be answered before a starting a blog, creating a network or joining a forum. No social media technology should be adopted lightly.

Just like you can’t adopt a puppy without thinking about it first. Sure it’s cute, sure everyone loves puppies. But you can’t just buy it and then forget about it. You have to feed it, you have to pet it, you have to walk it, you have to give it water, you have to have it groomed and taken to the vet for checkups, and you have to listen and respond to its complaints about your products. Ok maybe the last part is really only applicable to social media, but you get the idea.

The hardest thing to explain about social media is that it’s not a “thing” that you can just “have.” It’s a complete change in your business the same way a puppy is a complete change of lifestyle. You have to be prepared for the fundamental shift in the way you relate to your customers. Twitter isn’t just another platform for your advertising bursts, it should be the gateway to a deeper communication with the people who purchase your products. And a blog isn’t an island – it should be a traffic center where you put out information, bring in information and respond to it.

So do you still want a puppy? Think hard before you decide, because once you buy one it’s nearly impossible to go back. Think back to the last commercial you saw featuring the sad puppy dog eyes of the dogs at the humane society – can you handle how bad you would feel if you had to give your new puppy up to that fate? Same thing with social media – it might sound like all fun and games to start now but if it doesn’t go the way you expect you can’t just ditch the effort. Your customers will be twice as angry that you asked for their opinion and then ignored it when you didn’t like it. They’ll feel abandoned, just like that puppy. Social media is a commitment to your customers that you will take care of them for life, from here on out.

If you’re not ready for that relationship with your customer, then you’re not ready for social media in any form, no matter how trendy it is. Because trends come and go, today it’s Twitter, tomorrow it might be something new. If you understand the fundamentals of social media you can simply adapt to any new platform your customers adopt, you grow with them the same way pet owners switch dog food for different stages of their puppy’s life, if you don’t then you just have an irrelevant account on yesterday’s cool new site. And a sad puppy.

And so, social media is like a puppy. Agree? Disagree? Have another metaphor? Share in the comments section!

I’m a huge fan of Groundswell and Charlene Li. I often refer to both the book and the Social Technographics Profile Tool provided by Forester at work. It’s a great way to kick start the conversation with clients about why social media has become such an important piece of the online marketing mix.  I just went back over to the site today to get a screenshot of the profile tool when I noticed it had been updated with 2008 data. I think the difference between the old version and the new version speaks for itself:

Technographics Profile – 2007

Technographics Profile 2007

Technographics Profile – 2008

Technographics Profile 2008