Tags
brand measurement, company-influencer relationships, Customer conversations, Facebook, Google Alerts, Google Analytics, Listening to the marketplace, Measuring Relationships, Public Approval, social media, Target influencers, Twitter
Chapter 5:
Now that social media is firmly entrenched in the everyday life of PR, Chapter 5 of “Measure What Matters,” is all about monitoring your social media profile constantly and keeping on top of it basically around the clock to stay in tune with the current.
The concept of “now” has been redefined to include nights, weekends, holidays, you name it; brand monitoring must be a daily process, if not hourly. “There’s no shortage of examples of how quickly reputations can be made or destroyed in today’s social media environment” (Paine 71).
With users acting as the media, editors and reviewers (69), PR and marketing must adapt to new methods of communication on a smaller scale but to the right people if much more valuable than reaching millions of faceless eyeballs with old methods of advertising (73). This also means a new way of quantifying success. “We must change from pitching to listening, and from measuring eyeballs to measuring engagement (74).
Helene Blowers points out that old methods of measuring success can no longer be relied upon and new measuring sticks are usage and influence. “Just because your traditional Website stats may be trending down, it doesn’t mean that your digital usage is down… they may do it through other channels, such as mobile app or Facebook” (Blowers, 2012).
Paine identifies four new rules for PR and social media monitoring:
- You’re Not in Control—and Never Have Been
- There Is No Market for Your Message
- It’s about Reaching the Right Eyeballs, Not All the Eyeballs
- It’s Worse to Not Be Talked about at All
Paine goes on to identify two worlds of social media profile monitoring: measuring what you can control and measuring what you can’t control. Both Paine and Blowers concede that what is really important and a key component to things you can control is engagement.
Levels of user engagement identified by Paine include:
- Lurking
- Casual
- Active
- Committed
- Loyalist
Web analytics systems like Google Analytics, WebTrends and Omniture are recommended by Paine to measure engagement.
However, Paine admits there’s far more things you cannot control. “The new environment is so vast that even the largest budgets can’t truly dominate the conversation…The best you can hope for is to learn from those conversations, make improvements, and maybe influence them” (84).
Chapters 6 and 8:
The innovation of social media brings several benefits to companies and business. It allows them to “get feedback from our customers and marketplace” (Paine, p. 99). Chapter Six outlines the differences in listening to customers and listening to the marketplace. The first step in listening to the marketplace is to set up any web analytics program. By using the analytics program, one can search keywords to see if they are collecting results necessary for their business. “Make sure you have set up alerts for all your competitors’ names and brands in addition to the general terms describing you r product or market areas” (Paine, p. 100). The next steps are to review and track the results to see what is relevant and irrelevant to the search. At this step companies and business are also able to see mentions of the services and products. Next, one should pay attention to those mentions that mostly matter to their company. “Channels, outlets, and writers who get the most comments are usually more influential, and so you should pay particular attention to them” (Paine, p. 101). The next steps call for companies to weight the mentions and find out what the market thinks about their competition and them. By doing so, companies give them self an advantage over their competition to improve their own products.
To listen to customers, companies need to probe into and evaluate customers’ conversations. By evaluating conversations, companies will have the opportunity to gain “insight into people’s relationship” with their brand (Paine, p. 103). Meesh and Mia, a company licensed to sell university-related clothing items, listens to its customers via social media. Meesh and Mia listens to consumers by simply using its social media to ask the consumers what they think of its brand. “Customers on Meesh & Mia’s Facebook or Twitter pages will find requests for feedback on product categories so the company can learn, for example what branded items they want to see more of” (Aquino, p. 1).
Chapter Eight expounds on the need for companies and businesses to move from targeting traditional influencers, to targeting communities. Those communities are composed of consumers that have strong interest in one’s brand and narrow topics. “Whether it’s small farmers, fans of a particular product, or parents of children with a specific disease, there’s now a group for it. And that group has members and the members have friends and all of them can influence your market and your market share” (Paine, p. 124). Instead of individuals being seen as influencers, communities are now the new influencers. These communities influence others that may not be as informed or engaged with one’s brand. To build communities, companies should search blogs that mention their marketplace, and evaluate if those blogs are important.
Next, companies should measure the relationships they have with the influencers of their marketplace. “Periodically assessing the health of your relationships with them is absolutely critical, because understanding what they think about you is just as important as understanding what they write about you” (Paine, p. 128). In an article written by Marisa Peacock, she speaks of a new discovery platform that helps companies to target influencers. “Sometimes the hardest part of content management is not tracking it, but targeting it to the appropriate audience. Thanks to a new content discovery platform called Outbrain, companies can find and acquire an audience for their content. By using personalized links at the bottom of online articles, such as ‘Recommended Reading’ or ‘You Might Also Like,’ Outbrain is able to grow an audience by distributing your content on other sites, where people are looking for something new to discover” (Peacock, p. 1). Paine offers five steps for one to measure their relationships with influencers:
- Define goal
- Define audience
- Define benchmark
- Define key performance indicators
- Select measurement tool
Chapter 9:
The “Measure” reading starts out by saying, “Al business in a democratic society begins with public permission and exists by public approval.” –Arthur Page. That being said, whatever public approval an organization has at a given time can be quickly removed. Likewise, it can certainly grow.
Because news travels faster today than ever, it’s critical to understand, measure and improve your relationships with your local community. Paine refers to community as “our neighbors.” Neighbors are no longer just those within a tight, local circle, rather, this includes an organizations “internal communities of customers, vendors and partners, as well as external advocates, nongovernmental organizations and any other community with which you have a relationship.” (Paine, 72).
How do good or bad relationships influence your organization? Paine put it succinctly when she said, “the short answer is that you ignore your communities at your peril.” (Paine, 72). She used Amazon as an example of the negatives associated with ignoring customers. Amazon ignored its Kindle community of users and led to loss of trust. On the flip side of that, Paine used the positive example involving SeaWorld when PETA attacked them after a trainer was killed by a Shamu. Because of SeaWorld’s positive involvement with its community, “PETA voices were quickly drowned out by SeaWorld fans.” (72)
The last question is who and what is most important to measure? That depends, but the fact is that millions of bloggers and Twitterers out there, negative stories can no longer be contained as was possible years ago. Measuring relationships with just customers is a great start, but organizations must take into account potential crises when non-existent relationships are thrust into existence by virtue of a negative or newsworthy incident. Organizations are no longer in control of their message.
There are seven steps an organization can use to measure relationships with its communities and neighbors:
1. Agree upon solid measurable goals that are tied to the bottom line:
2. Define your publics:
3. Who or what are your benchmarks?
4. Set your audience priorities: Who and what is most important to measure?
5. Choose your measurement tools
-Relationship surveys
-Local media analysis is critical
6. Analyze the data
7. (Taken from Chapter 3) Turn your data into action
A great, detailed example of measuring relationships and navigating social media is a presentation by Beth Harte of Harte Marketing & Communications.
Bottom line, it may seem irrelevant, but establishing, embracing and maintaining a good relationship with as many publics as possible can help an organization ensure success. Taking the data from the aforementioned measurement tools can shape the organization. Ignoring the data and ignoring how others see the organization can be a negative consequence of failing to measure relationships.
BLOG POST LEADERS: Jason Newton, Dionell McNeal, Lisa Charles
References:
Anderson, F. (N.D.) Measuring the Strength of Relationships. Forrest W. Anderson.com. http://www.forrestwanderson.com/documents/MeasuringtheStrengthofRelationships.pdf
Aquino, Judith. (2012). Transforming Social Media Data into Predictive Analytics. Retrieved from http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/Editorial/Magazine-Features/Transforming-Social-Media-Data-into-Predictive-Analytics-85687.aspx
Blowers, H. (2012). “Measuring Social Media and the Greater Digital Landscape. The Digital Strategist. Columbus.
Harte, B. (2009) @TheForefront: Successfully Navigating Social Media. Theharteofmarketing.com. http://www.slideshare.net/bethharte/theforefront-successfully-navigating-social-media-1441164
Paine, K. (2011). Measure What Matters: Online Tools for Understanding Customers, Social Media, Engagement and Key Relationships. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Peacock, M. (2012). Digital Marketing News: BlogFrog, Outbrain Use Analytics to Target Influencers. CMS Wire. Retrieved from http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/digital-marketing-news-blogfrog-outbrain-use-analytics-to-target-influencers-017926.php
Magical Public Relations 
As the blog leaders discuss, it is imperative to listen to your community. This can include the usage of measuring as well as simply engaging in the conversation. In “Measuring what Matters,” Paine (2011) emphasizes the importance of relationships with customers, internal communities, and external communities. Specifically, Paine brought up the benefits of having these relationships at your disposal during crisis situations. It is important that companies take the time to evaluate and measure such connections because crises situations are unpredictable, and they do not want to be left without a contingency plan due to the fostering of bad internal and external relations.
The speaker from Rockit Science explained a bad situation his company was put in. His company put up an advertisement billboard for a client and the client called in a panic because the advertisement was wrong. The representative from Rockit Science explained that they fixed the mistake immediately and the customer did not complain further. This is a great example of having a set internal network with competent relationships. Mistakes can be handled in an organized manner because of good relationships with the outside as well as inside publics.
In the article “5 PR Lessons from teh Chick-fil-A Crisis,” Steve Cody, discusses the use of outside public in a criss in point number 2: ” If Cathy actually intended to start a firestorm of such proportions, he should have first lined up third-party ambassadors. Sure, right-wing politicians and church leaders rallied to support Chick-fil-A, but that was after the damage had been done. Imagine how much more powerful Cathy’s remarks would have been if, say, Mike Huckabee and Glenn Beck had joined him on a podium.” If the company was going to take extreme measures, they should have taken them more carefully and used the tools at their disposal.
Cody, S. (2012). http://www.inc.com/steve-cody/public-relations-lessons-from-chick-fil-a.html
Paine, K. (2011). Measure What Matters: Online Tools for Understanding Customers, Social Media, Engagement and Key Relationships. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
As Paine’s Measuring What Matters notes it is a bad idea for organization to ignore the relationships with their communities (138). In the old days, organizations figured that by saying the right things and controlling the message they could preserve their image as a good place to work or a good neighbor (Paine 138). Techniques such as making a few speeches at the Rotary Club, doing some United Way activities, or making a self-congratulatory press release talking about the charity or philanthropic work they done would be enough to preserve the image (Paine 138). Now days, with social media and technology such as camera phones angry customers, activists, or people with grievances can hurt an organization’s well-crafted image (Paine 139).
In recent years there have been numerous instances where company’s misuse or lack of social media has hurt their image (Wilms). For example, many oil companies at first didn’t see the need for having a Twitter handle (Wilms). As a result, the environmentalist activist group Greenpeace created fake Twitter accounts for oil companies in which they talked about the oil companies abuses (Wilms). In another case the Chrysler Twitter account tweeted, “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to (expletive) drive” (Wilms).
However, there are cases in which organizations have built good relationships in times of crisis (Paine 138). In one case someone took a video of a FedEx employee tossing a flat-screen television over the fence instead of ringing the doorbell and posted it on the internet (Wilms). Two days after the video was posted FedEx’s SVP posted a video on Youtube apologizing and saying that the company would learn from its mistake (Wilms). In the video the SVP said, “we have 200,000 employees, every once and awhile we let a bad apple in, we have corrected it, and now we are getting better for it”. As a result, the company’s stock went back to the price prior to the mishap and the internet stopped talking about it (Wilms).
In conclusion, the FedEx example is a perfect example of the benefits of a business or organization having a good relationship with people on social media in the wake of a crisis (Paine 138-139).
Paine, K. (2011). Measure what matters: Online tools for understanding customers, social media, engagement, and key relationships. Hoboken: NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Wilms, Todd. “Quickly Defend and Enhance Your Brand on Social Media (Or Become a Cautionary Tale)”. Forbes.com. Forbes, 25 Jun. 2012. Web. 3 Nov. 2012. http://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2012/06/25/brand-management-through-social/
In chapter 5 of “Measuring What Matters” Paine describes the importance of monitoring consumer engagement on social media as opposed to focusing on just numbers. “We must change from pitching to listening, and from measuring eyeballs to measuring engagement” (74).
Our blog leaders mentioned some tools that allow companies to measure engagement from their audience, including Google Analytics and WebTrends. Though as the scene evolves, companies should be aware and explore new resources. Paine also says in chapters six and eight, companies need to listen and get to know customers and measure the relationships they have with their biggest influencers.
Here’s an article about another tool, PageLever, to measure Facebook engagement: http://mashable.com/2012/11/01/facebook-analytics-real-time/
The author lays out a pretty solid game plan for businesses. Get to know your consumer, listen, then get to know their influencers and build relationships, and understand the communities within your consumer base.
Paine, K. (2011). Measure What Matters: Online Tools for Understanding Customers, Social Media, Engagement and Key Relationships. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
As the blog leaders discuss, it is imperative to listen to the community and customers. This can include the usage of measuring as well as simply engaging in the conversation. In an article, Public relations: Real-time customer feedback gets easier, Ann Marie van den Hurk, the contributing columnists asks two questions, “ Wouldn’t it be nice to know what your customers are talking about right now? Wouldn’t you like to know their immediate needs or what’s frustrating them?” (van den Hurk 2012)
“I’m pretty sure I know the answer to those questions, and it’s a “yes” to both. As a business owner, of course you’d want real-time insight into what your customers are saying. It would allow you to see opportunities as well as problems developing.” (van den Hurk 2012)
She goes on to explain that many large organizations are opening mission control centers to monitor what their customers are saying about them in real time on social media. (I found this very interesting.)
As I am sure we all know what HootSuite is, an article: Hootsuite Enterprise Solution: Social Media Command Center, explains that the company will be launching a new comprehensive social media solution for enterprise business. “The HootSuite Command Center will provide measurement, monitoring, and engagement information in real-time across various social media platforms in one centralized location.” (Ross 2012)
“According to the HootSuite Blog, here is what the Social Media Command Center would enable big companies to do:
• Drive internal and external visibility for your company’s social initiatives.
• Activate and coordinate company-wide social resources and activities.
• Provide real-time, actionable data for informed decision-making, to optimize performance.
• Mobilize team members through a suite of apps for iOS, Android and BlackBerry devices.” (Ross 2012)
The most relevant part of this is that a command center like this will help enable companies see the relationships in communication activities in real-time. (Ross 2012)
Ross, Michelle Stinson (October 17, 2012). HootSuite Enterprise Solution: Social Media Command Center. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved from: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/hootsuite-enterprise-solution-social-media-command-center/50259/
van den Hurk, Ann Marie.(October 29, 2012). Public Relations: Real-time customer feedback gets easier. Lexington Herald-Leader. Retrieved from: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/10/29/2388181/real-time-customer-feedback-gets.html
This week’s reading assignment from Measure What Matters focused on the importance of reaching the right consumers (sometimes called “brand advocates” or “brand loyalists”), instead of attempting to reach mass numbers of consumers. Paine (2011) states, “Engagement produces brand advocates . . . who broadcast their enthusiasm for your brand to their friends” (p. 79). In an article on the Ad Age website, Bob Knorpp also discusses the temptation to chase large numbers of followers and “likes.” Knorpp notes that although metrics might reflect an increase in interaction (due to what he calls “mass philosophy”), the engagements may become less valuable (Knorpp, 2011, para. 8).
According to Paine, “The rise of social media makes the cultivation of relationships with stakeholders more important than ever. In order to encourage those relationships, business needs to shift from broadcasting to customers to listening to the stakeholders, acting as their champion, advising internal decision-makers, and building engagement with the brand” (p. 73). Knorpp explains that the danger in “mass philosophy” is when companies treat their loyalists like everyone else, when the loyalists are the ones that can influence the rest of the community. He encourages companies to grow their communities by targeting these loyalists, although this growth will happen at a slower pace.
How should companies interact with their community leaders? How can companies create new brand loyalists? David Hauser provides some tips, including adding value to your product, listening, creating a culture of responsibility, and making human connections. I think Hauser’s best tip is to promote how your customers are using your product, which “builds tremendous brand loyalty because people see that you’re actively helping their business grow” (Hauser, 2009, para. 7).
Hauser, D. (2009, December 28). How to build an army of brand loyalists. Retrieved from http://www.zdnet.com/blog/feeds/how-to-build-an-army-of-brand-loyalists/2258
Knorpp, B. (2011, July 18). What your social-media team should learn from direct-response folks: Adding up the metrics of scale. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/social-media-crowd-learn-direct-response-folks/228770/
Paine, K. (2011). Measure what matters: Online tools for understanding customers, social media, engagement, and key relationships. Hoboken: NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Business professionals have caught on to the relationships they must form in social media. Frank Speiser, CEO of SocialFlow, states, “If you want to be realistic, there are not a lot of people who want to be friends with your brand” (Feil). This article stresses the need to constantly experiment—within reason and monitoring—to find out just how to target new and strong audiences on social media. Brands are realizing that loyalty, and catering to those that are willing to put in that work, is where their efforts should be harnessed. Those loyal and committed Facebook friends will both grow your brand and share it with their social media following (Feil). Paine defends this by explaining that the audiences with which you build trust are those that will assist you in a crisis (138). You can no longer control or contain a message (139). There are too many people writing too many things about everything or nothing that your business is doing.
Opinion leaders, for example, are an important audience in this communication. Paine explains that while opinion leaders should be targeted, you should also know how you stand in their eyes (129). When you strategically target these particular individuals, your effect is probably much more effective than having hundreds of “Likes” or friends that may never visit your social media sites again. Not only are these followers loyal and knowledgeable about your brand and product, they are a built-in audience in any crisis that may occur. Paine notes that measuring the effectiveness of social media is not always done with impressions; the effectiveness is sometimes seen through relationships between people and the product itself (74). This is an audience that should never be ignored and will make their voices heard when an issue arises.
According to Laroche et al.’s article on social media and brand communication, brand communities not only bring people together, they are also part of the “creation and negotiation of meaning (McAlexander et al., 2002, p. 38 & Laroche, M., et al., 1756). However, Laroche et al. also note that creating one-on-one communication and relationships with consumers can be time-consuming and somewhat inefficient. Brand communities, like those on social media, allow for the creation of those communities and the help that they may be searching for (1757). Not only do customers identify themselves in these brand communities, but they also give companies important feedback and information that cycles into improving the brand itself (Laroche, M., et al.).
Feil, S. (2012). “How to Win Friends and Influence People: What brands are doing for their social followers.” Adweek. Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/sa-article/how-win-friends-and-influence-people-143388
J.H. McAlexander, W. John Schouten, F.H. Koening (2002). Building brand community. Journal of Marketing, 66 (2002), pp. 38–54. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com.libezp.lib.lsu.edu/science/article/pii/S0747563212001203
Laroche, M., Habibi, M., Richard, M., & Sankaranarayanan, R. (2012). The effects of social media based brand communities on brand community markers, value creation practices, brand trust and brand loyalty. Computers In Human Behavior, 28(5), 1755-1767. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2012.04.016
Paine, K. (2011). Measure what matters: Online tools for understanding customers, social media, engagement, and key relationships. Hoboken: NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc
Now, more than ever, it is important to monitor what is being said about your company. As the blog states, social media is a 24/7-transmission tool. Not only that, but a lot of people, myself included, listen to the things that are being said in social media. Whether a brand is good or bad. If there is a new restaurant that I need to try or if there is one I should stay away from. Social media seems to be one if the number one ways that can either help make your company or break your company.
A company called Cisco knows the importance of listening to social media and they have recently launched their Social Media Listening Center. This system allows them to track negative associations with their name, trends, and the overall sentiment of their company on social media. They try to listen to their customers, and based on the problem, route them to the person who can handle them. By listening to their customers they are building a lasting rapport .
http://blogs.salesforce.com/company/2012/10/cisco-is-changing-the-way-people-connect-and-collaborate-with-social-media-they-recently-launched-their-new-social-media-lis.html
In chapter nine of “Measure What Matters,” Paine explains the importance of companies measuring their relationships with their communities. Paine states that a company’s community isn’t just the people physically close to your business, but also the virtual community. The writer advises that a couple of speeches here and a charitable activity there will accomplish very little for the company. A means of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become increasingly paramount for organizations to implement.
Rahim Kanani, a contributor of Forbes, interviewed the founder of LeapCR, a program used to increase employee engagement in corporate responsibility and measure the impact. Chief Executive Officer and Founder Malcolm Scovil saw the need for LeapCR when he experienced the difficulty of volunteering. He went through three charities with no success before he simply walked into a hospital and volunteered his time to a patient. The feeling was better than anything he had ever felt on a job. That sparked the creation of LeapCR.
LeapCR is used by hundreds of organizations, including non-profits. The company has added the Leap Network and Leap Trends allowing companies to communicate and collaborate, engage, and measure impact. These additional applications allow LeapCR to offer memberships to companies that have tight budgets or simply cannot afford the product. The company is in the works of building a tool that measures both Return on Investment and Social Return on Investment.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rahimkanani/2011/12/13/malcolm-scovil-of-leapcr-on-the-future-of-csr-and-employee-engagement/4/
Paine (2011) notes that in the new world of social media with public relations it is important for practitioners to listen and move from “measuring eyeballs to measuring engagement” (Nook 63). It’s no longer enough to look at who is viewing your site, but to understand what it is they’re doing on your site. As the author mentions, the meaning of “engagement” has come a long way and people have to come define it in many different ways. Paine says engagement can be anything from the number of visits on a site, to the number of comments on a blog, to the number of retweets you may get on Twitter.
Paine says that engagement is key for three reasons: it is the first step in building a relationship between your customers and your brand; it helps promote and protect your brand; and it can make your products better. These ideas all tie back to what the Groundswell authors said about listening, embracing, and helping the groundswell support itself.
A recent iMedia Connection article expounds on the idea of using key performance indicators (KPIs). For a brand website that had no lead generation, the author developed three areas of engagement and created new KPIs around each. These included site engagement rate, community engagement metric, and intent to purchase. Above all, she urges the importance of thinking about your users first. It’s imperative to keep in mind that different people may come to your site or page for different reasons. You have to consider what their goals are in order to deliver a better user experience and understand which actions are most valuable to measuring engagement.
http://www.imediaconnection.com/article_full.aspx?id=32065
Paine, K. (2011). Measure What Matters: Online Tools for Understanding Customers, Social Media, Engagement and Key Relationships. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
People, your customers, your employees, your stakeholders- are now the media, the editors, and the reviewers. Let you know what they think through their comments and changing their behavior. This behavior has forced marketing and advertising companies to change their focus to integrative media and connecting wit the consumer. This shift has caused three revolutions: timeliness has been redefined, the role of marketing and communications has been redefined, and most definitions of success are irrelevant. With these changes come new rules. These rules include: you’re not in control, there is no market for your message, its about reaching the right people and getting people to talk about the company.
One of the most important of these rules is getting people to talk about your organization. Word of mouth is now changing through mediums such as Twitter and Facebook. Having interaction with the consumer increases a company’s chance of getting that person to purchase the product or service. There are many different levels and intensities of engagement: lurking, casual, active, committed and loyalists. Company’s main goal is to get the consumer to the level of loyalists.
Social media also allows the organization to monitor what consumers are saying about the product. Content analysis makes measuring social media easier. Measuring the amount of chatter that is occurring about the product is important because it also allows for listening. As outlined in previous readings, listening to the customer is crucial so that the company, but it is important that the company is getting the information that is relevant to their specific company.
Social media has not only given consumers more control in the market, but it has created a new form of influencers. Understanding influencers is about understanding who and what matters in the industry. Having a relationship with influencers is crucial. Ways to connect with influencers include: defining goals, defining the audience, defining a benchmark, defining the key performance indicators, and select the management tools.
Paine, K. (2011). Measure What Matters: Online Tools for Understanding Customers, Social Media, Engagement and Key Relationships. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Social media has transformed the way businesses act in today’s modern world. Paine discusses how important it is to monitor relationships in your community as well show the show the relationship that social media has placed on PR. Throughout the semester we have discussed recognizing your audience and using new, non traditional advertising ways to reach them. It seems social media is everywhere now. Take Paine’s statement of reputation management on social media. There’s no shortage of examples of how quickly reputations can be made or destroyed in today’s social media environment” (Paine 71). A companies whole reputation can easily be destroyed with one bad review or even worse, a bad picture.
An example I found of social media producing bad PR and eventually destroying some part of reputation occurred on twitter with the focal company being Urban Outfitters. Urban Outfitters is a multi-million dollar clothing store which leads the industry. They were once however involved in a scandal that included the copying of an individual jewelry retailer on a community based store website called Etsy. Stevie Koerner claimed the mega store had replicated their jewelry and were using the same language she had to advertise it. True or not, she immediately took to twitter and Tumblr. The news spread like wildfire, eventually caught the eye of a celebrity and was publicized for the world to see.
The Washington Post as well as many other news outlets covered the story of this trending Urban Outfitters topic on twitter dubbing it a “PR nightmare.” Instead of immediately going into crisis communication mode, Urban Outfitters released a statement saying they were looking into it, but subsequently went silent on twitter for the next 24 hours. While this may not have resulted in a huge loss of sales for the company that still remains a forefront in urban clothing, it has opened themselves up to a maelstrom of other designers claiming they too have been ripped off by the clothing store and are continuing to receive bad press on their social media communities which now also include Reddit and Digg.
Stokes, John. “5 examples where social media jeopardized online reputation.” Fresh Networks 8 June 2011, n. pag. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2011/06/5-examples-where-social-media-jeopardised-online-reputation/
Flock, Elizabeth. “Twitter erupts over accusations that Urban Outfitters copied designers necklace line.”Washington Post 27 May 2011, n. pag. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/twitter-erupts-over-accusations-that-urban-outfitters-copied-designers-necklace-line/2011/05/27/AG0GJxCH_story.html
As discussed by the blog leaders, and as we’ve discussed throughout the semester, it’s important to listen to the consumer base. Paine’s four new rules for PR and social media monitoring seem especially useful and relevant. Reaching the right eyeballs relates directly to the attention economy. This speaks directly as well to the idea previously discussed regarding to knowing exactly what type of audience your company is trying to target. It’s worse to not be talked about at all also is another relevant point. In a time where just being mentioned in social media can lead to greater consumer base awareness of your company, the old saying of no news is bad news rings true.
Being able to evaluate customer conversations about your product seems like an especially useful tool to gauge the consumer public’s opinion regarding your company. It’s cost effective and it doesn’t require inquiry from a company to a customer, which may actually change the way customers may share their opinions.
Murdough (2009) writes that social media may help deepen relationships with customers, learn from the community and drive purchase intent. These goals can be measured in specific ways. These specific goals have their own objectives. Specific strategies lead to a more targeted plan that can lead to a smaller but more effective marketing plan.
Click to access socialpresenceandrice2.pdf
http://jiad.org/article127
Social media has progressively taken a large stride in consumer use. From Facebook to Twitter, companies are using social media to reach their target market, and for some companies that do a great job of communicating with their customers, and other companies don’t seem to care much of what their customers say. The blog leaders mentioned in chapter 5 of “Measure What Matter,” that companies should be monitoring their social media profile constantly, and I would have to agree with this statement completely. If they don’t stay on top of their social media, much can go wrong. Comments could be overflowing your feed, whether positive or negative, and I believe the company should be checking posts as possible as they can.
In an article that I read, the author stated, “With retailers working hard to grow the ranks of their Twitter followers, consumers are increasingly using the service to get basic customer service and even try to resolve disputes,” writes Lipka (Lipka). He goes on to say, “The top performing companies in the test were Zappos and LL Bean, followed by Overstock.com, Dell.com, and Best Buy.” The testing that STELLAService did was pretty interesting. “Zappos.com and LLBean.com responded to every question in a 45-day test by STELLAService, which studies and measures customer service. But overall, only about 44% of the questions asked on 25 retailers’ official Twitter accounts received a response within 24 hours, the study found.”
The study showed that among the retailers, only Zappos responded to Twitter questions in less than an hour. It’s appealing to comment on Twitter to a company, but if they don’t work on responding to their customers then it won’t be reliable to their consumers. “Companies with smart social networking strategies realize that when one customer asks a question or needs help, others are watching. So a handful of companies, including Southwest Airlines, have quickly developed reputations for aggressively working with consumers who have tweeted a problem or concern,” writes Lipka.
Companies are taking a big risk when not replying to customers who are engaging through social media sites. These customers are clearly taking time out of their day to post something about their experience, so it is imperative to engage in some sort of interaction to let them know that they don’t go unnoticed.
Lipka, Mitch. “Zappos, LL Bean Use Twitter Most Effectively, Study Says | TIME.com.” Business & Money | The latest news and commentary on the economy, the markets, and business | TIME.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. .
As stated by the blog leaders and fellow classmates, the chapters in Measure What Matters focus on evaluating marketing success specifically on social media. They discuss three shifts they deem necessary: 1.) Redefine “now,” 2.) Redefine PR, advertising, marketing and corporate communications, and 3.) Change the way we quantify success.
I agree that all three of these ideas are necessary in measuring organizational success on social media outlets, but one that resonates is their re-definition of time. Because of the interactive nature of social media, it is extremely important to monitor social media channels at all times, especially if an organization’s product is one that is utilized at all hours of the day (i.e. airlines). Social media users expect a timely and prompt response, so it is vital to be able to respond to consumers before a situation gets blown out of proportion (especially with regards to negative comments–like the infamous Domino’s Pizza fiasco).
In an article on the Huffington Post, Brands, Social Media and Customer Service: Are You Ready?, the author describes the importance of timely customer service via social media. She specifically references her frustrations with an airline company who failed to respond to her efforts to reach out via social media. This helps to show how the consumer now retains control. Once they put their message out there, it is there for the world to see until it is deleted or responded to. While social media is a great platform for marketers to utilize, they must now be much more responsible in the way they respond to users.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jayne-gorman/brands-social-media-and-c_b_2035459.html
Paine, K. (2011). Measure What Matters: Online Tools for Understanding Customers, Social Media, Engagement and Key Relationships. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
In our reading this week in Measure What Matters by Katie Paine, she discusses the importance of engaging what we know as the groundswell online and offline. She uses five levels of social media engagement to demonstrate how involved and engaged a person is. (80-84) The five levels are Lurking, Casual, Active, Committed and Loyalist. She also points out, however, that controlling engagement isn’t possible. She states, “the vast majority of the conversations taking place every day about your brand, your product, and your market will go on somewhere else, without any influence from you.” (84)
The SalesForce Marketing Cloud produced a very helpful eBook on the subject of Social Media Engagement highlighting 20 ways to succeed at it. A few of their tips are: Be Transparent, Build Trust, Be Proactive and Act Quickly. The eBook also discusses the need to respond to negative feedback and to be innovative with content on social media networks.
Social media has transformed the face of business and in order for a business to thrive in the groundswell, it needs to understand the importance of social media engagement and how to effectively participate in it.
Salesforce Radian6 (2012) 20 Ways to Succeed at Social Media Engagement. Retrieved from http://www.radian6.com/resources/library/20-ways-to-succeed-at-social-media-engagement/
Paine, K. (2011). Measure What Matters: Online Tools for Understanding Customers, Social Media, Engagement and Key Relationships. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
The blog leaders did a great job of capturing this great content in a concise blog post! I thought one of the most interesting pieces of advice Paine offers in her writing is the idea that with new media comes new rules for PR practitioners to engage with audiences. Paine not only states what most of our readings echo—“We must change from…measuring eyeballs to measuring engagement”—but she offers a detailed list of those new rules (74). What struck me the most was the statement “You’re not in control—and never have been.” Upon reflecting on these new rules and methods of measuring engagement, I began to think about the role of the communicator and how new media technologies work in tandem with these new rules.
A July 2012 blog from Babcock & Jenkins, Inc.—Branding and Marketing gurus—states bluntly, “Your buyer does not need you anymore.” Author Eric Wittlake discusses how with an increase in the accessibility to knowledge, consumers control how they want to receive information and very much dictate the buying market more than ever. Wittlake agrees with Paine that new media and new consumer habits require new methods of engagement from strategic communicators. He writes, “Your prospective buyers do not need to negotiate with you for knowledge…if you continue hanging on to this traditional process your marketing will slowly become part of the messaging clutter that besieges us every day, and you will lose the opportunity to connect.”
Wittlake also offers five methods to maintain relationships with your publics in this new era of media innovation:
1) Embrace mobile—Make mobile the assumption, not the add-on. Communicate in the consumers’ “channel of choice.”
2) Make social media about the social, not the media—social media marketing is becoming a push tactic. We are “dangerously close to acting like a used car salesman” instead of a partner.
3) Set your content free—share information easily. If we aren’t accessible to our audiences, they will move on and find their information somewhere else.
4) Develop your own audience—stop abusing your same audiences. Meet the needs of new consumers, or be tuned out.
5) Stop relying on brand marketing for influence.
“Your traditional cards are gone. What will your next move be?”
Wittlake, Eric. “Your Buyer Does Not Need You Anymore.” Babcock & Jenkins, Inc., 22 July 2012. Web. http://www.bnj.com/marketing/.
As the blog leaders stated, it has never been more important to measure what is being said about your company than now. Social Media never shuts down, it is a 24/7 media tool.
Now with social media, your companies community isn’t just the physical surrounding area, its the virtual community as well. Paine explains that a few community appearances aren’t going to cut it now a days. You must make your company presence strong in person and online. Companies must have a strong sense of Corporate Social Responsibility. The blog leaders list three shifts they deem necessary: 1.) Redefine “now,” 2.) Redefine PR, advertising, marketing and corporate communications, and 3.) Change the way we quantify success. These three shifts are very important for a company to build its Corporate Social Responsibility.
In the article, 4 Examples of Corporate Social Responsibility Done Right, written by JD Lasica for Social Bright: Social Solutions for NonProfits, Lasica gives great examples of companies who are sterling examples of how the corporate sector is contributing in genuine ways to the social good. Those bridges between the for-profit and nonprofit/social good sectors are becoming increasingly vital. The discussion provided some clarity around the difference between corporate social responsibility, cause marketing and lethal generosity: “when a corporation applies its core competencies to advance social change in a way that contributes to business results and gives it a competitive advantage (Lasica).”
He lists four fantastic examples of how large companies have been contributing to the social good in compelling ways. The four companies/campaigns listed are:
1) Molson Coors & responsible drinking
2) Tyson Foods & hunger relief
3) Haagen-Dazs & honeybee preservation
4) Greenopolis & recycling
Each of these companies does a wonderful job at integrating social media into their marketing campaigns to reach their online community and to set a strong company CPR by helping others.
http://www.socialbrite.org/2010/04/22/4-examples-of-corporate-social-responsibility-done-right/
Social media has transformed the way businesses act in today’s modern world. Paine discusses how important it is to monitor relationships in your community as well show the show the relationship that social media has placed on PR. Throughout the semester we have discussed recognizing your audience and using new, non traditional advertising ways to reach them. It seems social media is everywhere now. Take Paine’s statement of reputation management on social media. There’s no shortage of examples of how quickly reputations can be made or destroyed in today’s social media environment” (Paine 71). A companies whole reputation can easily be destroyed with one bad review or even worse, a bad picture.
An example I found of social media producing bad PR and eventually destroying some part of reputation occurred on twitter with the focal company being Urban Outfitters. Urban Outfitters is a multi-million dollar clothing store which leads the industry. They were once however involved in a scandal that included the copying of an individual jewelry retailer on a community based store website called Etsy. Stevie Koerner claimed the mega store had replicated their jewelry and were using the same language she had to advertise it. True or not, she immediately took to twitter and Tumblr. The news spread like wildfire, eventually caught the eye of a celebrity and was publicized for the world to see.
The Washington Post as well as many other news outlets covered the story of this trending Urban Outfitters topic on twitter dubbing it a “PR nightmare.” Instead of immediately going into crisis communication mode, Urban Outfitters released a statement saying they were looking into it, but subsequently went silent on twitter for the next 24 hours. While this may not have resulted in a huge loss of sales for the company that still remains a forefront in urban clothing, it has opened themselves up to a maelstrom of other designers claiming they too have been ripped off by the clothing store and are continuing to receive bad press on their social media communities which now also include Reddit and Digg.
Stokes, John. “5 examples where social media jeopardized online reputation.” Fresh Networks 8 June 2011, n. pag. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. http://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2011/06/5-examples-where-social-media-jeopardised-online-reputation/
Flock, Elizabeth. “Twitter erupts over accusations that Urban Outfitters copied designers necklace line.”Washington Post 27 May 2011, n. pag. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/twitter-erupts-over-accusations-that-urban-outfitters-copied-designers-necklace-line/2011/05/27/AG0GJxCH_story.html
From the assigned readings by Paine this week, we once again focus on listening to what is being said- by your consumer base, by your competition, or about products/services you sell or provide. The power of groundswell technologies; blogs, wikis, SNS, etc. has turned the everyday consumer into critics, reviewers and editors. This shift now connects the one customer who may be having a problem with something to a community of others who may have the same complaint about your company. This is one of the reasons that now more than ever it is important to pay attention to everything that is being said about you. Chapter 5 of “Measure What Matters” mentions how companies should stay on top of what is being said about them or their products.
In Kaplan and Haenlin’s article “Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media”, they discuss how Social media is becoming more and more of a top agenda for many business, with more executives getting involved with the process. They also present some of the challenges that cause some to reject social media practices early on and the opportunities that cause most to embrace the challenge. While discussing some of the opportunities that blogs present, Kaplan and Haenlin mention how blogs are still used to keep people current as well as present transparency (64). “Many companies are already using blogs to update employees, customers, and shareholders on developments they consider to be important. Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems, maintains a personal blog to improve the transparency of his company; so does automotive giant General Motors (65).” They also mention how this and other interactive tools give consumers/employees the ability to voice concerns or complaints about your company or your products. “…customers who–—for one reason or another–—turn out to be dissatisfied with or disappointed by the company’s offerings may decide to engage in virtual complaints in the form of protest websites or blogs (Ward & Ostrom, 2006), which results in the availability of potentially damaging information in online space. Second, once firms encourage employees to be active on blogs, they may need to live with the consequences of staff members writing negatively about the firm.” Listening to these opinions can lead to greater improvements while neglecting these voices can hurt the company in the long run.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681309001232
In Booth and Matic’s article, “Mapping and leveraging influencers in social media to shape corporate brand perceptions”, they discuss how companies can use these social medias to create new influencers. The article describes how companies can listen to what consumers are saying, pinpoint a select few who are passionate about a product or service and convert them into brand loyalist. They introduce “conversation point” that helps companies’ communication strategists establish effective outreach with consumers who have had positive things to say about the company, brand or product. The consumers in turn influence a target audience, helping to reach more people, simply by listening to what consumers are saying.
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1944324&show=abstract
In chapter 5 of Katie Paine’s “Measure What Matters”, she discussed the new rules for PR and social media. With this ever-changing market, Paine and the blog leaders listed how companies should change their approach. It is important to measure to manage, to listen to your community, targeting the correct audience, and to always be a part of the conversation (75-76). Rule #4 interested me the most because the first two paragraphs of this section is very true. “If you’re not part of the conversation, your competition will be. If you haven’t participated in the conversation, fewer people will be engaged with your brand. And, if you’re not listening to your market, you’ll miss not just the damaging conversations but the conversations that can give you insight into the minds of the marketplace.” (76). Companies can make mistakes, but the actions they take to help the consumers really resonates with them.
This is an interesting article about a consumer who had difficulties with Spotify, a music player application. Nate Riggs could not login to Spotify during his work out regiment, and a short day later, Spotify e-mailed Riggs to apologize, let him know it has been fixed, to offer his money back or to enjoy two free weeks. This impressed Riggs and restored his loyalty to Spotify. He offered a great marketing tip: “Sometimes, brands want to jump the gun and immediately release an apology for poor service or product performance without first identifying and implementing the solution to the problem. Whenever possible, work first to fix the problem and then bring that solution to the communication you send to your customers. The positive impression that approach will create has incredible value to your brand.” (Riggs).
Paine, K. (2011). Measure What Matters: Online Tools for Understanding Customers, Social Media, Engagement and Key Relationships. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Riggs, Nate. (2012 Mar 7). How Spotify Reduces Backlash and Retains Customers for the Long Term. Retrieved from
http://www.nateriggs.com/how-spotify-reduces-backlash-and-retains-customers-for-the-long-term/
Social media must be monitored for companies to use it effectively. By defining a company’s goals and the stages of audience progress towards reaching the goals, companies can realize their strengths and weaknesses. With social media, the users are constantly in control. Companies relinquishing freedom to the users can either be harnessed effectively or handled poorly, with the users decrying the the company itself on the same social media sites set up to give them a voice.
Jay Baer’s article, “Social media success is about the wizard, not the wand” discusses that when social media monitoring is ineffective, it is primarily because those who maintain the social media sites are inexperienced and do not know how to use it rather than the social media itself being ineffective. Baer cites Klout and Google Analytics as social media vehicles that are used poorly due to the companies that use them failing to learn how to use them. Baer also derides companies for using Twitter as simply a “tiny press release machine.” (Baer, 2012) Baer concludes by suggesting that a “six-month moratorium” on every social media vehicle is necessary, stating that someone with a “real-job” who doesn’t work on social media full time would be completely overwhelmed. (Baer, 2012)
Jason, Dionell, and Lisa have mentioned several categories of social media users. I have found an interesting video about “lurkers” that discusses how social media vehicles like Twitter are accessed by a majority of lurkers who simply have accounts but do nothing to progress the social media itself. The panel of Australian researchers goes into detail to explain that 90% of social media users are lurkers, 9% actively contribute, and 1% use social media efficiently and effectively.
Baer, J. (2012, August 21). Social media success is about the wizard, not the wand. Retrieved from http://www.pizzamarketplace.com/article/199259/Social-media-success-is-about-the-wizard-not-the-wand
As the Measure readings states, monitoring what is being said about your business and your competitors is of critical importance in today’s social media world. The focus is no longer centered around reaching as many people as possible, but instead, it is important to micro-target and make sure your message is reaching the right people at the right time.
An important thing is to focus on how many interactions your posts are receiving. Views are not necessarily representative of how people are receiving your message. Views do not constituent engagement which is what’s important. It is more important to focus on things like comments and likes on Facebook and retweets and replies on Twitter. Engagement is key.
Businesses should also focus on making sure that the groups they are reaching are the same groups that need to reach for their business to succeed. They need to track the impact of their social media progress to their ultimate bottom line.
Paine, K. (2011). Measure What Matters: Online Tools for Understanding Customers, Social Media, Engagement and Key Relationships. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
As discussed, even bad publicity is better than no publicity at all. When I first read this, I started to disagree. I can think of countless cases of bad publicity that completely derailed an entire corporation. But then I thought more about it and realized, it wasn’t the bad publicity that tanked the company, it was a poor response to the bad publicity that did it. While good publicity is undoubtedly more desirable, bad publicity can still be a great opportunity for a company, especially a virtually unknown company. When no one knows who you are one day, and then the next day, everyone is talking about you, it’s an opportunity, even if what they are saying is bad. It’s an opportunity because if you handle the crisis well, you can then capitalize on your new-found name-recognition. Naturally, this isn’t to say that drumming up bad publicity is a good idea. But if you ever find yourself in bad publicity situation, it helps to know that it can actually be one of the best things that’s ever happened to you. Just make sure you listen to how people are responding to your efforts. If you’re handling the situation in a poor way, your publics will undoubtedly let you know (the bad publicity will get worse). Listening allows you to change tactics that aren’t working in almost-real-time and allows you to know if you’re doing the right thing. Listening to the groundswell in a crisis allows the phrase “all publicity is good publicity” to actually be true.
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