birddog

Safeguarding your brand in the social media space

Social Media is here to stay, for now anyway.  The adoption of Social Media into the mainstream has been prolific.  Consumers have been quick to engage with and adopt social channels into their day to day lives. According to Nielsen, the total minutes spent on Facebook alone increased nearly 700% year-over-year, growing from 1.7 billion minutes in April 2008 to 13.9 billion in April 2009.

But what about brands?  How can brands use Social Channels effectively?  In the new world order, instead of pushing our message at an audience, we are expected to allow the audience to make up their own minds, be selective about what information they choose to adopt and trust that they will spread our message within their own network of peers. What about the loss of control over subject and message?  For some brands, the thought of effectively handing the majority of their PR to their customers – you and I, has been, and still is a daunting prospect.  What if they say the wrong thing, what if they damage the brand?

The web today, Web 2.0, the social web, or whatever else you want to call it is different.  It’s no longer a channel controlled by website owners – as it was way, way back in the dark ages of 1999. It’s now a two way medium, with site owners providing us, the audience, with the tools by which to connect, share, and voice our thoughts and opinions.  The success of these sites is largely driven not just by the functionality they offer the users, but by the PR they achieve. But the PR coverage no longer comes exclusively from press releases and magazine adverts. It comes from us, the audience using them, becoming their advocates, singing their praises (or not) both online, and in day-to-day conversation.

Building a successful brand online, and then protecting it and your brand values isn’t just a case of having a nice shiny website with four gazillion RSS feeds, a Facebook page, or a Twitter alias. It’s a combination of all of these things, the appropriate use of the channels and relevant context.

Things you [as a brand] should think about before embarking on a Social Media strategy:

1. What are you looking to use Social Media for?  If you’re looking to use it as a direct sales tool, forget it (we’ll see why later)
2. Have you got the skills in-house to develop, launch and manage these channels?  If not, consider appointing outside expertise.
3. Are any of your competitors using social channels, and what are they using them for?  What can you learn from them?
4. Social Media isn’t ‘free’ (just like PR isn’t free).  Yes, setting up a simple Facebook or Twitter account costs nothing more than a few minutes of your time, but it’s how you then develop these channels in terms of functionality, management and marketing (seeding, incentives, fan engagement) which takes time and costs money – sometimes a considerable investment.
5. Are you comfortable with your employees engaging with whatever social channels you choose to launch and advocate?  There are varying levels of anonymity to most areas of social media, providing people with a means by which to have a gripe without giving away their true identity.
6. Are your internal PR team, or your PR agency social media savvy?  Do they know how to react correctly to whatever is said on any of the social channels?
7. Are you committed to your social strategy, as a long-term investment, not a quick thing you can pick up and put down as you see fit?

Creating presences in relevant platforms

When you can answer the questions above (and probably a few more questions along the way) the next step is to choose your channels.  Sounds simple right?  Well, not really.  This is the most important part of your strategy.  Using the appropriate channels for your brand will make or break your strategy so it’s vital to choose the right ones.  Relevancy is key – think about your audience, your customers, where are they in the digital space?  If you’re not sure, ask them!

Do this right and you’ll reap the rewards.  Get it wrong and you’ll either waste a whole load of time and money, or end up upsetting your audience.  Or a combination of the two.  Now that would be bad.

Let’s talk about Dell for a minute. Dell is a well-known brand that has been using social media effectively for some time now. Dell launched www.ideastorm.com on February 16, 2007, and continues to use it to gather feedback on existing products.  It’s also a place where you and I can make suggestions for new products, features or functionality.  Other people then vote on these suggestions.  Suggestions with the most votes get reviewed and potentially implemented by Dell.  The point of this site is not merely for Dell to gather consumer feedback on their products, it’s also a great PR tool – who can say Dell don’t listen?

Dell also has a Facebook page – Social Media for Small Business.  Search on Facebook for it and check it out.  It’s a great resource for SME’s and SOHO’s, that gives plain English introductions and whitepapers all about Social Media.

You’ll also notice Dell include social bookmarking icons on the majority of their online properties, empowering their users to easily save and share Dell content.

Relevancy.  Dell are using multiple social channels, but in ways that are relevant to the audiences of those properties.

What to include?

Of course, it’s important to ensure your messaging is consistent – after all, it’s your brand, but it’s also important to ensue that your tone of voice is relevant to the channel.  Come across too corporate on certain channels and you’ll discourage people from engaging with you.

By using social media as a means to engage with your audience, you can build a relationship with them, a good rapport. It’s a small step to turn customer conversation into customer advocacy of your brand.  Whether you’re engaging with your audience through social channels or not, people will be talking about you.  It’s better to be engaged and influencing the conversation than not at all.

Understanding the landscape and conversations – Social Media in a B2B context

Social Media as a tool in B2B can be broken into three core areas:

1. Conversation -  Channels such as Twitter fall under the conversation category. These channels are a continual stream of real-time chatter that you can dip in and out of as you wish.  Conversation channels are fast becoming the first source of information for people seeking up-to-the-minute information on anything current.
2. Community – Facebook is the best example here.  Whilst Facebook is a ‘social utility’, to most users, their space in Facebook is their own online community, made up of friends, relatives and associates.  Online communities are built through trust and relationships, and provide both users and advertisers with powerful communication tools.
3. Networking – Networking sites provide users with the ability to do exactly that, network. LinkedIn is a great example of a networking site, giving its users the ability to get introduced to people they want to know, through utilising existing relationships.  Networking sites are a powerful tool in today’s business world.

Of course there are other ways of using social media, however, understanding the above will ensure that you use social channels effectively and in a way that is relevant.

What to say?

The main thing to remember with all social media is that the conversation is continuous.  Just because you log off at 5:30pm, doesn’t mean the conversation ends until 9am the following morning when you log back on.

The web is 24/7.  As we’re going home in the UK, people in the US are going in to work.  Conversations that have been created by a predominantly UK audience will continue through the night with people around the world, so it’s important as a brand to understand how these conversations can develop, and the repercussions if something were to go awry.

So what can you as a brand do to ensure you’re saying the right thing?

1. Listen.  See what people are saying about your brand, where they’re saying it and to whom.
2. Get involved – join Facebook groups, follow conversations on Twitter, slowly begin to engage with these groups and conversations.
3. Be responsive.  If people are asking questions, be prepared to answer them, help them and guide them in the right direction.
4. Don’t try the hard sell approach on social channels.  Ever.  People won’t like you for it.  They will probably also tell you they don’t like it.  And their 100+ followers/friends.

When it all goes wrong!

There is a flipside to the good and wonder that is Social Media.  It can also severely damage a brand.  As a brand, you can no-longer control what others say online. How you react to what has been said online will therefore determine a good or bad final outcome. Here are a couple of examples of how to, and how not to do it:

How not to do it – United Breaks Guitars

United breaks guitars” is a powerful example of how social media empowers consumers and can tarnish the image of a big company.  In spring, 2008, Dave Carroll of the Sons of Maxwell band claimed United Airlines baggage handlers broke his $3,500 Taylor guitar on a flight stop-over in Chicago while travelling from Halifax to Nebraska. Ladies and Gentlemen – presenting Dave Carroll: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, a Forrester Research analyst covering customer experience/service and social media says “If you spend millions on advertising your brand and someone spend five cents on a YouTube video, you’ve just wasted a lot of advertising dollars. There’s a consensus around the frustration customers feel with companies that act like monolithic monsters”.

But the guitar wasn’t the only thing damaged.  In just four days from the launch of the song online, millions of viewers had watched the video on YouTube and United Airlines stock plummeted 10%, costing shareholders $180M at the time. ‘This could have bought Dave over 51,000 replacement guitars” reported Chris Ayres of the Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/chris_ayres/article6722407.ece

United’s lack of willing to engage with the consumer cost them dearly, and no amount of crisis management could rectify the situation. The damage had been done.

How to do it – Domino’s Pizza

The now infamous Domino’s food prank, where a couple of employees decided it would be funny to upload a video on to YouTube showing them doing various unsavoury (excuse the pun) things to food that was about to be cooked and delivered to customers: http://www.dailymotion.pl/video/x8zunc_dominospizzaemployedegoutant_fun

“By Wednesday (April 15) afternoon, the video had been viewed more than a million times on YouTube,” reported Stephanie Clifford of the New York Times. “References on it were in five of the 12 results on the first page of Google search for ‘Domino’s,’ and discussions about Domino’s had spread throughout Twitter. This goes to show how social media has the reach and speed to turn tiny incidents into marketing crises.”

However this situation was different.  Rather than ignore the matter, by Wednesday (April 15) afternoon, Domino’s had created a Twitter account, @dpzinfo, to address the comments as well as their CEO, Patrick Doyle making a personal address via YouTube, apologising and re-assuring people that the matter was being dealt with, and that it was an isolated incident, watch it for yourself here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l6AJ49xNSQ

Making such a quick response within the social networks proved extremely helpful in efforts to re-establish trust and credibility with consumers while rebuilding their customers’ desire to purchase their products.

Things to remember with social media

1. You can’t control what people say about you online, but you can ensure you’re engaging with these people, and have the tools and knowledge to best to engage with them.
2. There is no room for spin with social media, if you try and manipulate the truth; chances are you will get found out.  Transparency is key.
3. It’s not all about you.  A big part of your success lies in how much and how well you interact and share with others in the social space.  This can range from quoting and referencing other brands’ articles, linking to useful resources (other than your own), or commenting in a positive manner to something someone has written.
4. The majority of social media engagement takes time and effort. It’s not something that can simply be bought [such as banner advertising].  It’s all about creating awareness, creating your unique space and building your reputation.
5. Just because a channel exists, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right for your brand.
6. Attention, Interest, Desire, Action Advocacy.  That’s the thing to remember with social media, it’s not a direct sales tool. You don’t necessarily want your audience to perform an action.  You do however want them to become your advocates.

The day the Internet nearly died [Michael Jackson and the power of Wiki’s]

A Wiki is a website that runs the Wiki back end.  It is a content management system that enables collaborative contribution to the content of the site by the users.  Wikipedia is the best-known example, it was founded by Jimmy Wales in January 2001 and now has over 10 Million articles.

On the 26^th June 2009, it wasn’t just Michael Jackson who tragically died. People rushed to report the chain of events as they happened, with news spreading around the Internet at such a rapid rate that the load put on many websites was too much for them to handle, causing a large percentage of the web to almost grind to a halt.

People on Twitter were updating every minute, fuelling blogs and news sites.  But it wasn’t just Twitter, Facebook or blogs that were serving the news.  People were racing to Wikipedia to update Michael Jackson’s page, and all other pages that were in some way affiliated with the artist. Wikipedia saw close to 500 edits made to Jackson’s entry in less than 24 hours following his death.

So even before news sites, papers or television could get the news to the masses, social media had the scoop. Wikipedia is now one of the largest sources of news related information – and has even been credited with publishing news reports before the police know an incident has taken place!

Wiki’s – best practice

If you’re an established brand, it’s likely that there’s a Wikipedia page about you.  The first thing to remember about Wikipedia is that it’s not a sales tool. It’s designed to be unbiased and factual, so don’t approach the creation of a Wikipedia page with the idea that you can simply stick all of your well crafted PR on a page and that it will be accepted. It won’t.

1. Before creating an entry for your product or service, be sure the entry meets the notability requirement.
2. Remember, the page isn’t yours, other users can add or contribute to it – as long as what they write is factual.
3. Because anyone can create or modify a Wikipedia entry means that your entry could be modified by an unhappy customer, or worse, a competitor.  As a result you should regularly monitor your entries for any misleading or inaccurate information, and promptly make corrections.
4. The management of your Wikipedia page should become part of the management of all of your online channels such as your website and Facebook page.
5. Google loves Wikipedia.  If you’re number one on Google for your brand term, you may well find that in time, the Wikipedia page about your brand may overtake you into the number one spot.
6. The majority of people trust Wikipedia, so look upon having a presence on there in a positive light.
7. Every edit made to a Wikipedia page is archived and catalogued for future reference, so don’t do anything to a page that you might regret in the future.
8. Make sure your internal comms and PR team are fully aware and up-to speed with your Wikipedia page, and how to edit it.  Despite a large approvals team, the occasional slanderous or factually incorrect comment can appear on Wikipedia pages – make sure your team(s) know how to edit the page.

Finally

Social media isn’t merely something you can do as and when it suits you.  Even if you’re not engaged with it and in it on a regular basis you will fail. So spread the load. Consider you corporate social media policy and allow others to establish, join or maintain the conversation. This can range from your employees and customers to your competitors.  Ensuring your brand is as well protected as possible is about being aware of the conversations happening – even if you’re merely listening. But the best protection will come from the network itself. Brand advocates will do the protection and the promotion. Look after them.

Oliver Budworth

Digital Director

Believe in the Concept

I have had a busy summer shouting at stupid people. Having received a brief for a European corporate ‘Awareness Campaign’, I duly presented the accumulated wisdom of my many years of awareness campaigning to Sir and a considerable flock of subordinates, (including a slightly sallow, moist and inexplicably flaking representative from a media agency…). The client expressed his “disappointment” that I hadn’t addressed their need for a “value proposition”. He worked his way around the room gathering opinion from his team who all said, “Baaaa… oooh yes Sir, you’re so right…”

I felt like a gunslinger walking into the saloon where the conversation stops and the piano player dives behind the bar. The safety catch was off. I now had a choice. I could back out the door slowly and hope I made it to my horse before my mouth started firing random abuse, or I could slug it out. Sometimes I wish I could just, you know, ‘not’. But there we are…

The red mist welled up and all I can really remember is that I didn’t jab my finger in anyone’s face. I saw an interview with Bill Clinton once where he said that in heated debate, it was essential not to point fingers as the gesture was overly aggressive. Clinton used his thumb which, apparently, is politically correct. So there I was, purple faced, neck vein bulging, spraying spittle across a good metre and a half of conference table as I ranted uncontrollably and all I could think of was, “It’s Ok Scot, it doesn’t matter what names you’re calling him, you’re not pointing, you’re using your thumb. All is well.”

All was in fact very far indeed from ‘well’. It was unacceptable in my opinion that a two billion dollar company should ask a number of small agencies for their unpaid responses to their brief and then move the goalposts from ‘awareness’ to ‘value proposition’. I was particularly incandescent because this was at least the second time this particular client (I use the term loosely) had shape-shifted mid stroke. 18 months earlier the brief had been for a (expressly and specifically) “radical and creative brand strategy.” That’s what I delivered. Turns out my proposal was “too radical…” and, “too creative…” The agency appointed was, “safe, with a process.” Safe it may well have been, but the client had seemingly spent 18 months producing a brand strategy with a worthless proposition and decided that the best time to be disappointed at my lack of telepathy skills was after I had presented the requested brand awareness campaign. Tisk.

At some undefined point, my spleen was fully vented and a stunned silence reigned. (There was still a wild howling in my ears of course, but for the most part, the room was quiet.) I packed up my things, and, with the surprising absence of ‘any further questions’, I left.

He called me the following day. I’m still not sure why. Apparently, “it’s important to follow these things up.” Well, no, it isn’t. Everything had been said. It turns out he still thought he was right and just wanted another fight. I nearly gave it to him too. But as the red mist rose, I caught myself, took a deep breath and simply said, “Look, you’re worth nothing to me. You’ve been worth nothing for years and you’ll never be worth anything. You’re a drain on my resources and my energy. I can apply both to considerably better commercial advantage elsewhere. The conversation’s over. Goodbye.” And I hung up.

It’s possible I was wrong. It’s possible that the work didn’t answer the brief. It’s even possible that it just wasn’t good enough. But that’s not the point. The point, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is that you have to believe. Not a little, not a lot. You have to BELIEVE with every single fibre in your body. Because no one else will. Least of all the client. Believe it, live it and hang up on any mutthafuggah who isn’t prepared to die for the cause.

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 (0)20 7323 6666

Mobile Internet – If Not Now, When?

It would appear, that in matters of debate, I favour the alternative. Having been roundly thrashed proposing ‘the future of marketing was digital’ at the B2B Conference last year, imagine my enthusiasm when I was asked to propose the motion at the recent IDM B2B Conference, ‘This house believes that mobile marketing will be a crucial channel for B2B brands in the UK in the next 12 months’. I politely declined.

My reluctance to take the stage and wave my arms around in a passionate display of mobile affection wasn’t so much the fear of defeat (and the motion was squarely defeated…), it was more a response to the depressing realisation that the B2B industry is catastrophically unable to respond quickly to game-changing shifts in market development.

I sat in the front row and listened to the argument against the importance of mobile and, if you were there, the person snorting and spluttering, unsure whether to laugh or cry, was me. In the panel discussion following the formal debate someone ‘rested their case’ with the comment, “Ask yourself this, if you’ve just been told that your budget’s going to be cut by 25%, what would you do without? – Yeah, [pause for effect] mobile.” The comment (and the vote) highlights the staggering degree of ignorance about mobile technology in the B2B space.

A better question would have been, “If your budget was cut by 90% and you only had 10% left to play with, what is the single most essential activity that will deliver the highest returns in the next 12 months?” Yeah, mobile. Idiots.

“I don’t want people to have my mobile number” was one comment from the floor. “I don’t want more spam texts or unsolicited calls on my mobile” was another. Is that really the extent of understanding of the mobile platform? Has the B2B industry again failed to grasp the significance of social empowerment, this time in a mobile context?

No one is talking about SMS. No one is talking about telemarketing. That was the 1990s. It’s now 2010. ‘Push’ marketing pretty much died, fairly quickly, but painfully, with the advent of Social Media. That’s the thing that changed the world of communications forever – you know, the thing that has transformed Facebook into the equivalent size of the world’s third largest country.

What does that have to do with B2B? Well, irrespective of budget cuts, we can barely afford to push even if we wanted to. We have to ‘pull’ social-savvy audiences towards our products and services. If we do nothing else, we should ensure information is accessible when customers come looking for it. Richard Robinson, Industry Head of Business Markets at Google said in the debate, that mobile traffic has increased over 600% in the last year. Your customers use their mobile devices to access and request information online. No one heard that of course, because they were worried about unwanted SMS messages…

Your customers want to use their mobile devices – SmartPhones, NetBooks, Tablets – to access content (your content) when it’s convenient to them, which is hardly ever whilst they’re sitting at their desks. They want to see your content at the airport, on the train, in a coffee shop, on the street, while they’re waiting for something else, whenever they have a spare moment.

Now reach for your mobile (it’ll be right next to you) and punch in the URL for your own brand’s website and have a look at how well your company content performs on a 3” screen. It’s not good is it? Would you spend time engaging with your brand in that context? No, you wouldn’t. So why should your customers? It’s not even a difficult (or budget-breaking) problem to solve. Mobestar, who also spoke in the debate, can fix most mobile content delivery with a simple technology nip and tuck. If you do nothing else in the next 12 months, fix your content for mobile delivery – you can do it with one call, from your mobile. And if you don’t, just remember that your customers are already engaging with those that have. Ok, now you can vote.

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 (0)20 7323 6666

The BA Brand Up In Smoke?

I was a victim of the wholly unpronounceable Icelandic volcano eruption that shut the airports. I say ‘victim’, but it’s relative. There are worse places to be stranded than Arizona. Iceland for example. In reality, my discomfort was limited to the enforced rationing of underpants. The location in which I was stranded and the consequence of unexpectedly prolonged underpant usage is not, however, my point. I was surprised to find out how much reliance I placed on the brands I trusted and how well, or badly, they responded. It’s these formative experiences that shape an audience’s perception of a brand, so they’re important. Like pants.

My Flight was booked with BA. Any organisation that you enlist to carry you and your loved ones at a height of thirty thousand feet has to have a trustworthy and reliable brand. Despite industrial action a few days prior to our departure, our outward flight was unaffected and we had a great 2 week vacation.

The morning that we were due to fly back, my wife received an email from BA announcing that the Flight was cancelled due to the volcano. Not ideal, but at least we received the email. It offered no details about the eruptions, but gave 2 phone numbers (in the US and the UK) and directed customers to rebook their flights on the BA website. That was the ‘ordinary’ response to a cancelled flight but BA clearly didn’t have a plan for ‘extraordinary’ – certainly not one that they were able to share with me.

So with British airspace out of bounds, we were on our own and, basically, screwed. The BA website wouldn’t allow us to change flights and, contrary to the email, the website continued to show our flight as confirmed and checked-in. The UK number simply didn’t work and the US number provided an automated service to nowhere followed, intermittently, by a call-holding system. I’m not sure when the last time you were ‘on hold’ for 2 hours was, but you’ll appreciate that with two small kids in the room, a wife doing her nut and housekeeping banging on the door, it’s not good.

During the 13½  hours it took to get through to the call centre, and the subsequent eight days I had to wait in Phoenix for the return flight, I had time to reflect on the power of brand perception. My considered wisdom is this – it’s all in the mind. BA has spent millions persuading me to trust BA in preference to other brands. It worked, because that’s what I did. But it’s when the shit hits the fan that you really need to manage customer perception and brand reputation. Reputations that have taken years to build can be blown in an instant. Or 13½ hours.

I have no doubt that in the UK, the volcano, the closure of British airspace and the impact on the beleaguered BA share price was daily front page news, but in ‘Pleasant Valley’ Arizona (really) I think it would be fair to say no one gave a shit. I relied on web news, CNN, Twitter, texts and email from friends and colleagues. The news was patchy and unreliable (often conflicting) but it was better than nothing, which is exactly what I received from BA. BA is the one brand that I should have been able to rely on for relevant, timely and accurate customer information. Oops.

The very reason that companies invest in their brands and the supporting digital channels of communication is to shape perceptions in the minds of their audiences. Brands aren’t ‘things’, brands are what people, customers, ‘think’. Brands are the experiences people have and the stories, like this one, they tell other people. In our digital world, those stories can travel a long way. Further than Pleasant Valley. BA fundamentally failed to manage my customer experience and, in the absence of any other input, they have allowed me to form my own perceptions of the brand. So that’s what I’ve done. My perception of the BA brand is now permanently and indelibly etched in my mind.

Does BA still have a brand? Yes, but it no longer has the value or values that are important to me. The trust is gone and without it… well, a plane ticket I can buy from anyone.

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 (0)20 7323 6666