How Not to Use Social Media to Market Your Brand or Anything Else – Ever
September 30, 2009
Microsoft brings us a great example of how NOT to use social media to market your business, your brand, your products, or anything else you might ever consider promoting online in any way shape or form with its Global Windows 7 Launch Party campaign.
I don’t think I could make this story much funnier than The Register did, so check out their take for a good laugh. In the meantime, here’s my view on this marketing ‘miss’.
First, the Global Windows 7 Launch Party is a worldwide online event hosted on the HouseParty.com Web site, where anyone can sign up to host a party to celebrate the launch of Microsoft Vista 2 Windows 7 with their friends and loved ones. So if you want to lose your friends and annoy your family members, go here and sign up to host your own Windows 7 launch party right now.
Why so negative, you ask? It’s not so much the idea of the Global Windows 7 Launch Party, which seems lame enough in and of itself, as it is the promotional videos Microsoft has unleashed on the unsuspecting online world to teach people how to host a Global Windows 7 Launch Party.
I cannot do these videos justice in text summary. You must either watch them or read the article on The Register for full humorous impact. However, I will include them below for your analysis:
First, the “How to Host a Global Windows 7 Launch Party” video complete with preparation instructions, agenda suggestions, and more uncomfortable banter than an interview between Glen Beck and Richard Gere might be.
Next, the terrible party idea suggestion. Copy music and send your friends home with it. Notice the missing disclaimer that copying music you don’t own or have permission to copy is illegal. Oops.
And now the final piece of torture. Notice how at 30-seconds into the video, the over-zealous partier proclaims, “Cool!” I believe the real-world exclamation at this point would be something more along the lines of, “Dude! We can’t be friends anymore.”
So yes, this post was a bit more sarcastic than you might usually see here on Corporate Eye, but if you read any of my other blogs, then you know I’m very sarcastic in real life. And I couldn’t resist this one. This story was just too lame to ignore. I’m waiting for the Windows 7 Launch Party skit on Saturday Night Live. If only that show was as good as it used to be, but I digress. What’s the SNL equivalent outside of the U.S.? There’s parody gold here!
Scare Tactics? Debating the “Perils” of Social Media Recruitment
September 30, 2009
Workforce Management has come up with another surprising article. (The first one was discussed here recently in Cut on the Bias.) And this time, the fur is flying.
The article is Discriminatory Twist in Networking Sites Puts Recruiters in Peril. If the title seems a bit melodramatic—it really doesn’t hold a candle to the contents. Highlights:
- “Sourcing from professional network sites such as LinkedIn carries a risk that the method could be challenged on discrimination grounds,” says Pamela Devata, a partner at Seyfarth Shaw in Chicago. “It represents a hiring pool that is not open to the general population.”
- “Networking sites, including Twitter, exclude whole populations,” says Jessica Roe, managing partner at Bernick, Lifson, Greenstein, Greene & Liszt in Minneapolis. “The social networks represent limited social groups and very small labor pools. It’s an enormous issue.”
- Paul Mollica, partner at Meites, Mulder, Mollica & Glink in Chicago, has another warning for heavy users of networking sites: “When the OFCCP [Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs] or plaintiffs’ attorneys come along with a discovery request and want to see the trail for recruiting, these employers are going to come up short,” he contends, because “the records are in a digital mist.”
And it’s not over when the sourcing is done. In the selection phase, “using social networks to screen candidates generates additional legal risks,” according to the article. Explains Mollica,“the risk is that visiting Facebook or MySpace pages or even Googling candidates may reveal information that no employer should have in a properly constructed application or interview.”
There are even more perils to be feared, such as the dangers of changing job descriptions and laying off people who were “hired into bad positions.” But if you want to be thoroughly warned, read the whole article.
In the meantime, let’s take a look at the blowback. Commenters are mixed in their responses—but one of them (solubrious1) offers this heartfelt response: “Stop freaking out about pretend legal issues when the real issue is workforce design, the concept of ‘permanent’ work, and the decisions made by political and business leaders (many who also do not use Twitter and Facebook) to de-value Human Resources in the core mission and vision of their organization.”
Meanwhile, one of Workforce Management’s featured blogs (Fistful of Talent) takes aim at the “Discriminatory Twist” article and lets loose with a full-scale rant: Hey Employment Law “Experts”, You’re Killing My Profession . . .
Worth reading, including the comments. Choice quote: “Oh, I forgot. You only care about promoting your little section of the world, which is risk management from a legal perspective. In the meantime, you scare, intimidate and generally freeze the average HR person from adopting tools that can help them do their jobs better . . . “
What’s the relevance of all this for the corporate Careers site? I suspect that similar concerns come up in the context of using social media and blogs as part of employer branding and online recruiting. The problem is (for all concerned) that Genie has left the bottle, and won’t be going back in.
So the inevitable outcome is “a period of adjustment.” Those are never fun.
Consumers Friending Brands on Facebook Via Engagement
September 29, 2009
If you believe Facebook chief revenue officer Mike Murphy, then it is possible to convince Facebook users to friend brands on the social networking site. According to an article from AdWeek, Murphy claims that, “ads on Facebook have a significantly higher engagement rate than ads elsewhere on the Internet.”
That’s possible since ads served via Facebook are typically well targeted. But how does that advertising engagement rate translate into friending brands and building relationships with them that lead to sales? A new partnership with Nielsen should make it more apparent.
Facebook and Nielsen signed a deal that will allow marketers to measure performance through more than the ubiquitous click rate metric. The new metrics Facebook and Nielsen plan to deliver to Facebook advertisers and brands is one that will allow them to identify branding goals and serve ads that match those strategies. For example, one of the first tools offered is called Learned Targeting which serves ads to Facebook users that have been identified through their online behavior and demographics to be more likely to become fans of brands on Facebook. Read more
Germany’s RWE a Website to Visit and See a Giant
September 29, 2009
At times I come across a corporate website that is truly extraordinary. RWE Group, a company that is among Europe’s five largest utilities, is the latest finding. The Home page –
offers an interactive History and easy access to information about the Company. When you mouseover on “RWE at a glance”, the menu images and icons to the left change in sync.
The company displays a high-level view of their Strategy, but more importantly targets are shown–
A unique aspect of this web site is that when you click on Facts and Figures Special on the main menu, a new browser page opens –
Note the rich menu of content and the option to download all information via a PDF. However, I would like to see more recent updates. Still, this is very impressive. Kudos to RWE for a model of transparency and stakeholder communication that other companies need to note. Once you go here expect to spend some time. There is much to view.
Finally there is one of my favorites on this site and it indicates that they have a sense of humor, something that is very lacking in the business world.
Click on Learn More and enjoy the short movie. You will enjoy it even more if some children are with you. Well done indeed.
There is much more to browse –
Executive Board see comprehensive backgrounds on the C-Suite.
RWE- an Attractive Investment this is the case for attracting investors.
Wait there’s more… but you will have to visit the website.
A Look at Rolls-Royce’s Investor Site
September 29, 2009
This week I visited Rolls-Royce’s investor site and found much to like. Similar to a well-engineered engine, the site seemed to do exactly what it was supposed to with a minimum of fuss or wasted energy.
To start, the tab for investors is the second tab listed on the top banner on the Roll-Royce home page. No hunting involved here, as you would be hard pressed to miss the link. The main investor page is well laid out, with the main links listed down the left hand side of the page, plenty of white space and a generally pleasing color palette, although there appears to be three or four different shades of blue printing employed, which is about two more than I would prefer. Otherwise, things are where you can find them and digging into the tabs leads you to good information. For example, the Share Price Data tab gives you an option to create your own share price chart with custom dates and comparisons to the FTSE All Share and FTSE Aero Defence indexes.
But then I dug just a little deeper, and of course, I found something that just didn’t sound right. Knowing that Rolls-Royce has been through many changes over the years, I wanted to see how they described themselves and their businesses, so I went to the Company Profile page. Here’s their introductory sentence in the section titled “Company overview”: “Rolls-Royce, is a global business, providing and supplying integrated power systems for use on land, at sea and in the air.” This is a sentence that reads as if it was lifted from a corporate mission statement written by a consultant. It begs to be explained, but of course, it isn’t. What do they mean by integrated power systems? I think Rolls-Royce is trying to say that they do more than make engines, but they are saying it in such a vague manner as to obscure the issue even more. Considering that the large majority of Rolls-Royce’s sales and profits come from their businesses of making civilian and defence aircraft engines, you would think that they would want to expressly acknowledge this fact. Instead, eager to position itself in the greater power systems global market, we have the use of the phrase “integrated power systems”. This can mean anything from alternative energy to electrical transmission grids. This is fuzzy writing.
I am comforted by the fact that their engineering appears to be better than their writing.
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