Gotta catch 'em all

Netflix have learnt the hard way that social media can’t be a last minute consideration when it comes to a rebrand. Marketing has to be fully integrated with social media planning. On demand video service Netflix struck upon the name Qwikster for its DVD side of the business, you can find its official web holding page here. While the company may have managed to secure that prime piece of web real estate, it appears it was a little tardy in bagging relevant branded social media estates. Twitter was where it all came unstuck.

I urge you to visit the Twitter profile of Jason Castillo or @Qwikster as he is better known; Jason has an enviable way with words, a love of weed and an aversion to wasps. And he’s not beyond talking about the offers he has begun receiving from Netflix’s rapidly mobilising marketing dept to try and secure his Twitter handle (however, these references to money have been deleted from his account in the last 24 hours, it appears he doesn’t want to kill the goose that could lay some golden eggs.)

Dayum $1,000!

Jason has seen his follower count increase from the tens to more than 11k in just two days. This is high profile embarrassment for Netflix, more media attention is now on this social media faux pas and the expletives being pumped out from the @Qwikster profile than in the new service. The company’s online reputation had taken a knock on Sunday about the way it communicated its service update to customers, as seen in this apology from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings.

The reality is that the Jason Castillo incident could have been avoided.

If you’re a brand manager you simply have to remember that old Pokémon adage – ‘Gotta catch ‘em all.’

It’s a fine art, coming up with an original name and idea, but the proliferation of social media and the fact that anyone can own potentially valuable online real estate without out-laying cash means that brands are ever more likely to run into these clashes between the general public and their brand aspirations. Google +’s Huddle feature is another example of a big company (that really should know better) not researching new branding sufficiently.

The key learning?

Bag your brand handle and do your research. You can social media estate sense-check campaign and brand names via sites like Name Chk BEFORE an announcement or making your web site live. Prevention is better than cure, after all your online reputation is at stake.

Finally, you can’t Pikachus your social media estates after the fact, sorry, I had to put that in there.

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In the words of the Content Marketing Institute’s Joe Chernov:

“Without content, social media is a sports car with an empty gas tank”.

No one knows that better than an online community manager. But what that community manager also knows is that accelerating your social media activity straight to sixth gear is risky. Without proper road safety, you might say, that sports car could find itself on a collision course with a ditch.

Continuing our series on online communities, we’ve pulled together our ‘top four road safety tips’ for smooth and secure community management.

1) Stop, look and listen

As Brian Solis said earlier this year, the days of a lone community manager watching out for a few keywords to react to are over. The overwhelming amplification of online conversations has made it impossible for larger and certainly global brands to expect one person in front of a screen to be able to keep track of the potentially thousands of brand mentions taking place on any given day. Today’s community manager needs to listen out for conversations as much as they need to interact with them. Thankfully there are multi-purpose tools that make this more manageable, for example, Lithium combines social media monitoring with a CRM networking solution; while Radian6 offers social media monitoring as well as an engagement console.

2) Watch your speed

If a brand has lots to say and a stack of rich and shareable content, things couldn’t be better for the community manager. But it’s important to resist the urge to shout it all out at once. The content might be flooding in now, but there could well be a drought four months down the line. A clear content strategy and plan will enable the community manager to spread out that content, make it flow in a logical and structured fashion and ultimately make it last. Too many posts in one day can also be seen as ‘spammy’ – so we generally recommend 2-3 a day on Facebook and 4-6 on Twitter.

3) Don’t drive without insurance

In an ideal world your community will chat happily amongst themselves and drop some nice brand evangelism into every other sentence. In reality there will always be the odd trouble-maker, which is why you need to take out an insurance policy: engagement guidelines. By making them clearly visible on your owned social platforms, the community manager is within reason to warn users, remove their posts and if needs be, block them altogether. The Alzheimer’s Society, for example, has a neat Guidelines tab on its Facebook page explaining its rules of engagement, without sounding draconian.

4) Don’t drink and drive

It might sound obvious to say that community managers should always be sober on the job, but the role can require out-of-hours checks on evenings and weekends. Tweeting after one glass of wine might seem harmless enough, but embarrassing hiccups are oh so easy when Twitter platforms are involved. Platforms, such as Tweetdeck, are a great way for brands to keep track of multiple conversations, but when a combination of personal and branded accounts are streaming through a single platform, it’s simple for that manager to find themselves telling their friends about a 40% rise in market share, while their branded community gets informed how pissed they plan to get that evening.

Related articles

• What Exactly is an Online Community Manager? (thesmileystone.wordpress.com)

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Google+ has really got the social media world excited. Twenty-five million users in 6 weeks, makes the growth of similar social networks like Facebook and Twitter look positively stunted in comparison. And the blogosphere is just as fired up – a quick Google blog search for Google+ returns more than 10 million results!

When Google+ launched, every marketeer worth his salt wondered what the network would do about brands; and companies across the globe started chomping at the bit to be the first to interact with the consumer communities on Google+. That privilege has gone to Ford Motor Company, which has managed to gain a corporate identity on the new social network, despite Google closing down all other brand pages. Google says it’s working on a suitable brand solution, but we’ll all have to sit tight until then.

Looking at the Ford page, it’s difficult to find any differences to established Facebook pages. It comes complete with a profile picture in the top right corner, smaller pictures at the top of the page and its ‘wall’ underneath. People can +1 things (akin to Facebook’s ‘Like’) and comment underneath.

While the aesthetics might be similar, there are a number of features we’re keen to start trialling and we’re excited to see what Google has in store for branded profiles. With the network looking set to spice up the social media marketing mix in the not too distant future, we take a look at what brands and businesses could be doing with Google+ in the coming months:

1) Hangouts

Customer service is one of the key areas we encourage our clients to explore and consider for their social media strategies and the Hangouts feature of Google+ could potentially revolutionise online customer service. The likes of Vodafone and ASOS are doing a great job on Facebook and Twitter already; and a number of companies offer instant chat via their websites. But, Hangouts could provide brands with the opportunity to chat to customers directly via video chat, making the whole experience more personal and friendly.

From a PR perspective, Hangouts offer some great opportunities, such as video roundtables with key influencers, and live customer events. This feature will get creative juices flowing as brands think of ways to engage with consumers using this new medium.

2) Search

As a search engine, it’s obvious to point out that Google’s strength lies in search. Google has already temporarily stopped its real time search function with assumptions that it will be restored with results from Google+.

Users can also +1 things, equivalent to a ‘Like’, and this will determine a website’s social value. This could potentially mean that the more +1′s a website has, the higher up it features in the rankings, affecting the SEO tactics we’ve become accustomed to. Google+’s Circles feature can also affect the way we search online, as recommendations from people in our circles, i.e. our trusted sources like friends and family, can feature in search results.  Social search is also beginning to affect the way businesses look at SEO. As well as +1′s, Facebook ‘Likes’ and re-tweets on Twitter can influence what we look for online. As this evolves, the customer experience has never been more important. You need to ensure you give the best experience possible to help encourage social recommendations.

We’re also keen to see the insights provided by Google+.  Facebook Insights are great but can be limited when it comes to identifying key influencers. And there are a number of Twitter apps and tools that give us good information but not all in one place. Monitoring and listening play a crucial role in informing your social media strategy so with Google’s background in analytics, we’re hopeful Google+ insights will provide the information brands need.

Time will tell if Google+ lives up to the buzz it has already created in the social media world. It may take time to become mainstream but, if and when it does, it’ll definitely make its mark on social media marketing.

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Social media marketing is not new. We’re all familiar with the basics and brands are actively engaging with their consumers on a daily basis. So, why are people still doing it incorrectly? Here, we share what to do and, more importantly, what not to do when it comes to the basics of social media marketing. Some of this may be second nature to online community and brand managers, but it’s worth reminding ourselves of the basics from time to time.  Taking a step back and reviewing the processes can help make sure your social media  strategy is robust and prepared for the out of the ordinary.

SEO

Recent data from AOL shows how important it is for brands to invest in SEO PR in order to feature well in search engine results. The first ranking position in search results receives 42.25% of all click-through traffic. Results on the first page (first 10 results) receive 89.71% of all click-through traffic. So, what should you do to get that prime first place position?

Do research your key terms. This will give you a clear direction and inform your content strategy and plans.

Do monitor your performance – make a note of where you were to begin with and see how you’re progressing in the rankings. This shows your efforts paying off and also shows where you need to improve.

Don’t rest on your laurels. Keep generating positive and relevant content to help keep your ranking up.

SEO can be a hard to get your head round. SEOMoz has created a great beginners guide to SEO that gives a good understanding of what it is, why it’s important and what you can do.

Social commerce

Social commerce is really taking off. Brands are beginning to see the value of selling through social platforms such as Facebook; ASOS and Best-Buy are good examples of this. It’s still a new area, so what should you be aware of?

Do integrate social commerce into your wider sales strategy and social media strategy. This will make sure all departments are singing from the same hymn sheet and your approach won’t be fragmented.

Don’t jump straight on the band wagon – take time to research social commerce. Ask yourself: is it right for you? How will it fit into your wider sales strategy and social media strategy and is my consumer demographic likely to respond positively?

ASOS is leading the way. Its f-commerce store looks and feels the same as its website, all within its Facebook page, offering a seamless experience for consumers. This type of integration is key. Consumers often don’t see the point of purchasing on a social site if the experience is not like buying from a normal e-commerce site.

Influencer relations

Contacting bloggers and other influencers is becoming the norm among PR agencies. More and more PR firms are conducting influencer relations in addition to outreach to journalists. Gone are the days of press lists. But, should all influencers be treated in the same way?

Do know your audience – take time to research who you want to target. Remember that not all bloggers or influencers think of themselves as journalists so tailor your approach to suit them.

Don’t send a blanket emails – this can be off-putting and gives out the wrong message for your brand, especially when littered with silly mistakes like “Hi [insert name]”.

Doing it right, means great relationships that will be beneficial to your brand. We’re in regular contact with influencers as a social media consultancy and a number of us have a background in traditional PR. We believe influencer relations is about utilising traditional PR skills and adapting them for a new audience.

Community management

There’s a whole world of conversation happening about your brand online, whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, blogs or forums. Having a Twitter profile or Facebook page is a given when planning a social media strategy. But, how can you effectively connect with your online audience?

Do research your audience. Find out what social networks they are most active on and this will help inform your strategy. There’s no point setting up a Twitter profile when your core audience isn’t talking on Twitter.

Don’t ignore your community. Listen to what they have to say – their opinions can help build your online presence further and can quickly destroy it too.

We advise all our clients to listen and engage in consumer conversation. A community is a two way street – you have to interact with them so they engage back. You wouldn’t expect the organiser of your local community meetings to dictate things to you, so why should it be any different online?

Let us know if you have any other invaluable tips you’d like to share and we’ll make sure they’re included too.

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In the last post we looked at figures from the twentieth century and the lessons that could be learned from their experiences when implementing brand social media training.

In this post we’ll investigate some historical recommendations crowdsourced on Twitter over the past week.

Don’t expect people to be interested solely in your news, get the mix right - Samuel Pepys – a mixture of your own news and timely social comment is always advisable. People aren’t just interested in your latest news, version 2.6.8 of your latest software package or the appointment of so and so to Vice President of Packaging. By all means update your customers and fans through social media, but don’t expect them to share it with others unless it is relevant to their interests. As the great Pepys provided eyewitness accounts of great events, such as the Great Plague of London, the Second Dutch War and the Great Fire of London he still provided daily insights into his home life from his love of wine to his wife’s dancing lessons. Getting the mixture of news and comment right is key in any social media and blog posting.

Watch your supply lines and make sure that your resources can live up to your social media platform commitments – Erwin Rommel‘s failure in North Africa was exacerbated by stretched supply lines and by limited resources across a wide front. Logistical problems plagued his Afrika Korps in 1941 and finally lead to his retreat. Brands need to realise that if they are going to set up social media platforms to interact with customers and fans then they need to be properly staffed, and have guidelines in place to respond to customer queries. A Facebook page with an empty wall or one that was updated months ago is worse than useless because it gives the impression that the brand does not care about its community and gives competitors the opportunity to step in and interact with your consumers.

Spelling and punctuation is vital – A social media platform is a real time representation of your brand, poor spelling and grammar reflect badly upon companies and give followers the impression that not enough care or resource is being devoted to them. Gordon Brown was hauled over the media coals for his numerous spelling mistakes in a letter to the family of an Afghanistan military casualty. The backlash was yet another costly PR mistake that took time and resource to try and resolve and still appears high in the Google search rankings when looking up the former Prime Minister. Proofing and sense checking should be at the heart of any communication that goes out on a branded social media profile.

Sex sells, or the prospect of sex and style sells – Now, I’m not advocating you to advise your social platform managers to turn branded profile into X-rated broadcasts, but Mae West certainly had the right idea in terms of promoting her personal brand. A maestro of the double entendre, Mae made a name for herself throughout Hollywood as the go to woman for quotes, quips and controversy. People don’t become fans of the mundane, they don’t share with friends and colleagues things that might label them as boring. Branded content should be treated in the same way as any other piece of content in the sense that; “If you wouldn’t share it with your own circle of friends, why should you customers or clients be interested?” With that, I leave you with one of Mae’s most famous quotes and one that has been shared by millions “When I’m good, I’m very good, but when I’m bad, I’m better.” Brand managers take note.

Please feel free to proffer any tips you may think relevant for social media training or blog training and I’ll update the post accordingly.

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Those looking to ensure staff are equipped to represent their brand across social media platforms could do worse than learn from some of history’s most famous and infamous historical figures. So what can your social media training learn from the past?

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?” – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Don’t take others at face value - Fake news stories spread like wildfire, especially on Twitter, from the reported death of Charlie Sheen to Rebecca Black’s pregnancy. Even seasoned journalists and media publications have been caught out by news that originated online without any facts behind to back it up. Even today, news that Madeline McCann has been found is a trending topic on Twitter, yet no news outlet has officially confirmed these reports at the time of writing this blog. Neville Chamberlain was easily swayed by a mixture of gullibility and persuasive argument from Hitler in Munich in September 1938. In short corroborate your news from a viable site prior to a blog, retweet or wall post. It pays to be vigilant and accurate rather than timely in many cases. It’s great to break some news early to fans and followers, but not at the cost of your brand integrity.

Wit and personality goes a long way – Brands looking to develop a voice and persona of their own, especially in a busy marketplace, should look to Oscar Wilde.  His belief that; ‘Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.’ should not be taken lightly, there are many brands on Facebook and Twitter who are happy to go along with the crowd and not distinguish themselves from the competition for fear of controversy. However, people are far more likely to retweet or share something that they find amusing or useful; this could range from the bizarre Skittles profile to the erudite and compelling Dr Samuel Johnson. However, Oscar’s theory that ‘It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information’ may now be somewhat redundant.

Controlled controversy - Kenneth Tynan made a name for himself as an outspoken theatre critic and writer, oh and the first man to say ‘fuck’ on television. Link baiting or controversy has a role to play in certain aspects of social media activity in order to excite debate and encourage shareability of branded content and messaging. On 13 November 1965, Tynan participated in a live TV debate and was asked whether he would allow a play to be staged in which sexual intercourse was represented on the stage, and replied: “Well, I think so, certainly. I doubt if there are any rational people to whom the word ‘fuck’ would be particularly diabolical, revolting or totally forbidden. I think that anything which can be printed or said can also be seen.” Critics later stated that Tynan’s use of the word was a “masterpiece of calculated self-publicity,” adding “for a time it made him the most notorious man in the country.” Notoriety is not always desired by brands, but publicity and the guts to say something out of the ordinary and that your competitors are afraid to, cannot be underestimated in terms of creating widespread brand awareness. Tynan was always one for breaking down linguistic inhibitions on the stage and in print and I’m positive that if he was still alive he would be confounding expectations on Twitter.

In the next part of the ‘Lessons from History’ series I’ll be delving into the training tips that can be gleaned from the lives of some recommended historical characters. Thanks to @photogirluk @Elle_Emmm @Carrot79 @nickhide @lesanto @Shinybiscuit for their input! Also please feel free to recommend your own historical characters who we could learn a few social media tips from.

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In the second part of our series on online influence, we round up the three best tools for measuring social media influence; along with a look at their advocates and sceptics.

In my last post I paraphrased Brian Solis and Vocus in defining an online influencer as someone who has online reach and someone who produces quality, relevant content. These are three of the top tools used in social media marketing to identify them:

1) Klout: markets itself as ‘The Standard for Influence’ and combines what it calls True Reach, Amplification Probability and Network Influence to generate an overall Klout Score from 1-100 (100 being the highest and most influential) of a social media user.

Advocate: Michael Cohn offers a nice summary of precisely what Klout measures and why it’s so important to the success of a business.

Sceptic: Steve Farnsworth’s ‘Problem with Klout’ infographic demonstrates how, on the basis of the Klout algorithm, an automated Twitter user with zero engagement can still gain a high influence score.

What we say: An influencer’s network size and quality are both measured, in part, on the basis of retweets. But a good joke, or a cute animal video could become massively retweeted, can that be considered relevant and high quality content that will ultimately change anyone’s behaviour? Unlikely. Plus, if a non-human entity can be considered highly influential, it certainly casts doubt on the reliability of the tool.

2) PeerIndex: uses an algorithm to identify, rank, and score the authority of online influencers and is considered similar to, although less widely adopted, than Klout. According to PeerIndex itself, the tool “addresses the fact that merely being popular (or having gamed the system) doesn’t indicate authority”. It therefore promises to “build up your authority finger print on a category-by-category level using eight benchmark topics.”

Advocate: Andrew Bruce Smith demonstrates how he was able to use PeerIndex’s group function to make a highly popular list of UK Social Media Power Players; he also answers to sceptics with the point that “people had a similar attitude towards statistics based language translation in the 1990s.”

Sceptic: Mark Ralph recently called PeerIndex – along with Klout – the “Emperor’s New Clothes” of social media “appealing to our vanity but leaving us naked.”

What we say: It’s good for drawing in multiple social platforms and getting a broader view, but Twitter still seems to trump the other platforms – if you’re not considered influential on Twitter, you’re just not considered influential.

3) Tweet.Grader: a Twitter-specific tool measuring ‘power and reach’ across the social platform, grading influencers with a score between 1-100 (100 being the most influential). There’s is also a hashtag search function.

Advocate: Omar Kattan recommends it as a very useful tool for tracking the influence of your own business on Twitter, but also for identifying key influencers within your followers.

Sceptic: Steve Allan accuses Tweet.Grader and its ilk of “using fuzzy maths” and “trying to make a buck by rating you and selling that information to marketing companies”.

What we say: In short, even the best of today’s influencer measurement tools, has as many sceptics as advocates. The algorithms are getting better by the day, but they aren’t perfect. While a combination of measurement tools will give good insight into online reach, there’s still no substitute for good old-fashioned research as a means of measuring quality. As a social media agency, we find the best way of identifying the relevancy – and value – of an influencer to our clients, is to take a look for ourselves and ask, are they worth following?

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This is a two-part series exploring online influencers and their role in social media marketing. Part I looks at the reasons why a brand should focus on wooing influencers over journalists; Part II defines ways of identifying and measuring their influence.

Traditional PR vs social media marketing

Traditional media are longstanding powerhouses – politicians and even prime ministers have been kowtowing to them for generations.

Securing a piece of coverage in a leading national newspaper is an undeniable gateway to spiked consumer interest – which may convert to sales.

But newspapers rely heavily on circulation sales and as the Financial Times pointed out a few weeks ago, “in 1966, the Daily Mirror sold 5.1m copies a day, the Daily Express 4m and the Daily Telegraph 1.4m. Last month, those titles had circulations of 1.2m, 631,000 and 635,000 respectively.”

Less sales mean less editorial space and less editorial staff as a consequence. In short, the assumption that traditional PR is a sure-fire investment is coming under scrutiny, as more brands shift investment to social media marketing and the targeting of online influencers.

Who has online influence

Online journalists might look like the obvious target, but if the key objective is to source people with influence (“the ability to cause measurable actions and outcomes,” Brian Solis), then online journalists are not necessarily the most obvious or effective choice.

In a study of online influence by Brian Solis and Vocus, an influencer is defined as:

• Someone with online reach (although that doesn’t automatically correlate with popularity i.e. celebrity status)
• Someone who produces quality content
• Someone who produces relevant content

Data courtesy of 'What Makes an Influencer: a Survey by Vocus and Brian Solis'

There is no uniform online influencer – they are not automatically a journalist, or a blogger, or even a Twitterer. And their content may not even come in the form of written words.

An online influencer could be on any social platform, producing any number of pieces of content, from videos, podcasts and tweets, to slideshares and infographics and on any number of niche subjects.

The relevancy of those influencers to their followers – and your potential customer base – is what makes their influence so powerful; they aren’t ruled by the editorial policy of a publishing house, so they are free to focus on a topic that interests them. And they are most probably creating content on a shoestring budget or even for free, which means it’s a labour of love not a looming deadline.

Signature 9 recently reported that, despite the larger staffs and budgets of online magazines such as Vogue, fashion bloggers have overtaken their online influence, generating more links, greater social media activity and more overall buzz.

Don’t miss Part II, when we take a look at identifying online influencers and measuring their influence.

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More and more businesses are exploring how they integrate social media across all parts of their organisation. We call this social business. But does your organisation have what it takes to be a true social business?

Earlier this week, Harvard Business Review (HBR) posted an article outlining 4 different types of social media strategy. Over 1,100 companies were surveyed and their approaches to social media were analysed, resulting in 4 categories:

Predictive practitioner
The predictive practitioner is a company using social media for a specific purpose, for example as a customer service or lead generation platform. These companies tend to have a uniformed approach to social media, meaning they can easily measure their activity and avoid uncertainty.

Creative Experimenter
Unlike the predictive practitioner, creative experimenters aren’t afraid of trying something new; in fact they quite like it. They have a tried and tested approach to social media. They experiment and dip their toe into new areas of social media to see if it suits them.

Social media champion
Social media champions take on large scale projects to get predictable results. These initiatives can go across a number of platforms and require input from a number of agencies and partners.

Social media transformer
Established social businesses tend to be social media transformers. They create large scale social media strategies that encompass a variety of internal and external groups.

HBR rightly points out that companies can progress from one category to another overtime.  But, as a social media consultancy, we see the ultimate goal for any orgainsation (over time) to be social media transformer. We’ve visualised our thinking in this illustration below:

So, what do you have to do to become a social media transformer?

1. Social media activity cuts across multiple functions
2. There is a central group that use social media to inform business strategy
3. Social media technologies are ‘tightly integrated’
4. Social media involves internal AND external stakeholders

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As a social media consultancy, we find a lot of people ask us: what is social business? Here are our top 3 infographics to help you get your head into the idea of a social business. It should provide inspiration for your social media strategy!

1. Social business imperative

What is great about Michael Brito’s infographic is the idea of the fully collaborative social organisation, which includes a social media centre of excellence. Different departments and teams working together is the key to social business success and Brito’s diagram sums this up nicely.

The Social Business infographic created by Online MBA

2. Social business DNA

Mark Smiciklas shows how all areas of an organisation contribute to a social business by likening it to DNA structure. The key is in collaboration which Smiciklas shows here.

3. Social media strategy development

Sobizco makes some interesting points here about developing a social media strategy, for example set goals and monitoring. What’s interesting is that some of the key princples of social business success are also included. Listening and assessment, creating the right team and educating and training are key considerations when heading towards a social business. This will then help with your overall social media strategy planning and development.

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