How should CEOs Engage with Social Media
June 16, 2011
A guest post today from Jerry Burrows: if you have a CEO who is keen to embrace social media, how would you advise them?
How Should CEOs Engage With Social Media?
Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos
Source
Forbes’ article, ‘Yes, CEOs should Facebook and Twitter’, provides a sound argument for why CEOs should abandon their traditional prejudices toward social media and hop on the bandwagon.
The idea certainly has the support of “Web 2.0 evangelists [who] argue that social software can be used to boost productivity. They say it can facilitate an open-ended corporate culture that values transparency, collaboration and innovation. Most important, it can be an effective way to build a customer-centric organization that not only communicates authentically but also listens to customers and learns from that interaction.”
Blogs and social media can facilitate that genuine conversation between CEOs and customers–and encourage those customers to become brand evangelists.
If you need one example of how company CEOs can use social media to their advantage, look no further than Tony Hsieh, founder and CEO of online shoe and clothing retailer Zappos. Hsieh’s Twitter following is massive. He has just under 2 million followers–clearly, the man tweets hard. And Zappos is a more than successful enterprise for the 37-year-old entrepreneur: it sells about a billion dollars worth of shoes and accessories a year. (And Tony’s not the only one who tweets; at least 440 other employees do, too.) There’s even a dedicated microsite. So how can you replicate his success? How is it done?
Be Careful
Yes, the goal is transparency, affability, and authenticity. But there are limits to that kind of sharing, too. Be casual, but if your personal life is especially tumultuous, you may want to leave the details out. The golden rule? Don’t speak ill of anyone. No, not your competitors, either. Recall the social PR disaster that occurred in 2007 when Whole Foods CEO John Mackey made comments on various finance forums under a pseudonym attacking rival company Wild Oats Markets, and predicting that it would fall into bankruptcy. The result was a permanent tarnish on the Whole Foods brand image.
Don’t Spam
In an interview with Kevin Morris for Wikinomics, Zappos’s Recruiting Manager, Christa Foley, writes:
“It wouldn’t be in our culture to be salesy/pushy so we’re not using Twitter to promote Zappos just for the sake of promoting Zappos. We’re using it for what I think it was intended, which is a social network that we all enjoy.”
If you want to follow in the successful footsteps of Zappos, make your interactions on Twitter and Facebook as genuine as possible by avoiding spammy language. Use your microblogging platform to post useful links about topics that relate to your industry, reply to questions from inquisitive customers (or direct them to the appropriate source), handle customer service requests, etc. Transparency is key; other potential customers that come across your social media profile will be able to view and appraise your customer service dealings without the traditional barrier of secrecy.
Show Leadership
As the CEO, you’re the face of your company. Remember that you’re also setting an example for the rest of your employees. That means that you should use your social networks to remedy problems and address widely-held customer concerns. No, it’s not the same as indiscriminately airing out your dirty laundry; but it helps to keep your brand’s image fresh and timely. Moreover, don’t be afraid to link to blogs and press releases that quote you as an authority. Encourage others to take actions on a social issue that is important to you.
Celebrate Your Fans
The Zappos brand likes to give their fans recognition for their loyalty. Hold contests and competitions for your followers (maybe something to the tune of how many followers can you get to follow you), call out loyal retweeters, etc. It’ll make them more appreciative, and know that they’re the center of your brand. Ask them for their input and they’ll feel appreciated–turning them into even more passionate advocates in the end.
About the Author: Jerry Burrows is a freelance writer for Tektronix. Tektronix is a leading supplier of test and measurement equipment like a digital multimeter or a pulse generator.
Importance of Media Studies: Next Steps in Social Media
June 13, 2011
‘Next Steps in Social Media’ was the title on the programme; the speaker (Dr Paul Coulton) had apparently wanted to call it something much more earthy…
This was a seminar organised by InfoLab21, and I don’t remember academia being so much fun. For example, Dr Coulton has a database full of tweets referencing the Royal Wedding (what insights is he planning to mine from those?) and showed us a number of slides tracking the flow of tweets and Facebook likes during the course of the X Factor.
Popular culture? Well, yes, but a long way from the popular perception of media studies. His analysis demonstrated, for example, that the volume and rate of tweeting about the X Factor was not reflected in behaviour and in the actual results: one candidate, although with a significant quantity of social approval, actually received fewer votes. However, even if social approval can’t be used to predict the result, business decisions can usefully be made—and no doubt are being made by the media moguls—by analysing the difference between the demographic using social media to express their views, and that which acts.
The seminar discussed theories of how social networks are designed to meet some of our basic psychological needs. For example:
- Facebook supports the need to maintain close ties within a group by ‘grooming’ behaviour; small social interactions that recognise the ‘other’ as significant, and reassert the ties between individuals
- Twitter supports our love of gossip: he said this; she did that; pass it on.
If you can understand something of human psychology, then you can see how our behaviour on social networks can be – and is being – manipulated into behaviours that can benefit someone else, such as a company. Often these behaviour manipulations are overt, or can easily be spotted with experience… if you do X, you’ll get Y and we’ll get Z.
But sometimes it is less clear to the individual. Without at least a superficial understanding of some psychological theories of reinforcement, for example, individuals may well remain ignorant of the extent to which they are being manipulated: such as by being rewarded with badges for repeated behaviours (for growing 5 different kinds of tree in Farmville, for example, or by returning repeatedly to check in at the same location to retain their mayoral position via FourSquare).
In another example, people may not be aware that they are training themselves into addictive behaviour by repeatedly checking for new email, or retweets; the intermittent reward is more satisfying than if they were rewarded every time.
Manipulation is of course true of offline activity as well, and for all that our children are categorised as digital natives, this kind of hidden persuasion online may remain hidden from them, just as it may be offline. My father tells of a colleague who educated his children to ask themselves ‘what’s the lie?’ every time they saw an advert. While I wouldn’t go this far, I do think that an understanding of how such things work is valuable.
And that, I think, should be at least part of the point of ‘media studies’.
Systems Thinking: No Man is an Island
June 6, 2011
On Wednesday evening, I saw a play (in the world’s oldest surviving music hall) about the revolution of thought in the 16th century: that we are not at the centre of the universe, but merely a part of it.
This inversion resulted in a loss of certainty and belief; and for some, a loss of power. Against this background was enacted John Donne’s struggle for authenticity (consistency in belief and action) set against his financial responsibilities.
Not a typical Wednesday evening for me, but it was followed by a Thursday at the most recent Social Media in a Corporate Context conference, and there was a surprising similarity in theme: disruption and change; financial drivers; authenticity.
Much of the discussion was about social media as a disruptive influence, and the effect that this is having on organisations:
- the need to work together as a networked system, rather than in a command-and-control structure
- the need to restructure to accommodate changes in communication styles and audience expectations
- the importance of the financial dimension
- the need for both transparency and authenticity: show it how it really is.
A curious synchronicity.
Highlights
Highlights of #SMCC2011 for me were:
Simon Tucker, CEO of AIM listed marine communications specialist Software Radio Technology, who talked about using a live webcast to communicate with his shareholders. He used RNS to alert people to the webcast, and asked people to email in questions to drive the content of the webcast. He received 600 emails, and hundreds tuned in. Trading volume doubled within a week of the webcast; the shareholder base went up by 30% over the four weeks after the webcast; and the share price went up.
Key phrase: ‘social media has to generate financial benefit’
John Shewell, Head of Comms at Brighton and Hove City Council, talking about mending the disconnect between how people felt about Brighton, and how they perceived the council, beginning by mapping out the local social networks and communities, and trying to understand the residents real concerns rather than making assumptions: a genuine listening exercise and opening up of dialogue. Then a real empowerment of staff, making them curators, rather than controllers, of community assets. He’s now writing the new operating model for a networked council.
Key phrases: ‘relinquishing power’ and ‘restructuring’
Paul Taylor, Team Head at Central Office of Information, talking about using mobile and social media for recruiting. The RAF has set up 8 people in the RAF team with mobiles to keep potential recruits up to date with RAF life using Flickr & Twitter. The RAF also uses YouTube, Bebo, Facebook, live chat and embeddable widgets to meet potential recruits where they are online.
Key phrase: ‘blurred boundaries’
Not all the sessions can be shared in detail, or the speakers named (and some of these were excellent – make sure you’re there next time) but other snippets, both small and large in impact, include:
- an organisation preapproving blog posts, but tweets—which obviously need immediacy—are reviewed weekly by management to see if they are on track
- another one restructuring internally as a result of social media; the boundaries between the audiences collapsed
- an organisation becoming less territorial as a result of global communications
- a note that a company retweeting a customer would fall within the Advertising Standards Authority remit
Three soundbites from the day:
- social media is like a barometer: not the most accurate tool, but gives a good idea of what the weather is like out there
- social media is not a strategy but a tactic to change behaviour and improve an organisations reputation
- the role of communicators is changing
- large corporations are the last bastion of feudalism
They made us work too: creating an iPad app in a day. We spent 20 minutes in groups discussing one question each, and coming up with video or text content which a team of developers converted into an app within hours. Our table played an unspoken game of Hearts with the pen – guess who ended up documenting our discussion? You can see a PDF version via the TKGB blog.
Thanks to Communicate Magazine for another excellent event.
Lessons from Social Media Mistakes
May 27, 2011
I hope you’re enjoying our series of occasional guest posts; I know I am. It’s always interesting to hear a fresh perspective. This post is from Jamie Davies.
Three Case Studies Big Business Can Learn From
If you follow all the popular media outlets online, then you might have recently seen the controversy over the video that GoDaddy.com founder Robert Parsons posted on his personal blog last March. In the video, Parsons goes on an elephant hunt in Zimbabwe, kills a ‘problem’ bull elephant, and then videos the villagers graphically slaughtering it for meat the following morning, all while zooming in on the GoDaddy.com logo on many of the villagers baseball caps.
Naturally, the blogosphere exploded when a senior editor, Cord Jefferson, of GOOD Magazine covered the story, criticizing Parsons for “shameless branding.” Since then, coverage has gone viral, as major media outlets, such as The Huffington Post, have linked back to Parson’s video on his personal site. Jefferson later published an article offering tips to GoDaddy.com clients who are interested in severing their ties with the company due to this blunder.
Although Parsons prides himself on being a ‘maverick’ when it comes to managing his social media presence and his business, his example is definitely one that big business wants to avoid at all costs.
Keep Your Personal Life Private
In fact, from his example we can learn the first lesson of social media for big business: compartmentalize your social media presence. This lesson should apply to all levels of the business, from the lowest level of employees up to the CEO of the company. Yes, in some cases it will be important for upper-level employees and company leaders to show their personal lives in order to help brand the company; however, even these ‘personal sides’ are highly produced within the company. So, if you’re not a part of that project, then it’s best to filter personal details and be aware of how they can create a stir if they are not carefully thought out.
Action Tip: how much information is too much information? Drawing the line between personal and professional is difficult, but preparing guidelines in advance would help define the boundary – which will depend on the corporate brand. Thought put into how to keep the two distinct, operationally, is advisable. For example, if an individual is running two separate Twitter accounts, one personal, one professional, then using different tools for each one might help avoid off-brand tweets.
Be Aware of the Consequences of Your Actions
Last summer, UK furniture dealer Habitat tweeted a series of messages that linked certain discounts and specials to various hashtags, which would have been fine if the hashtags hadn’t been completely unrelated. The most egregious example of this hashtag spamming occurred when Habitat tweeted regarding the Iranian elections: “#Mousavi Join the database for free to win a £1000 gift card”. In response to the scandal, Habitat removed the tweets and apologized long after the transgression. Tiphereth Gloria of Social Meda Today wrote that Habitat’s policies are “typical of a traditional, push marking, corporate PR approach. Admit nothing, apologize for nothing, do not engage in conversation, advertise, advertise, advertise.” It’s this traditional approach that big businesses need to move away from; they must show that they understand how their social media actions affect others, and they have to be willing to follow up.
Action Tip: this is a training issue: mistakes such as this can come from lack of experience in the medium. Establishing an agreed list of acceptable hashtags for corporate tweets could reduce this kind of mistake. The list would need to be regularly reviewed and updated; things move fast.
Appreciate Your Audience
Social media is, at its core, a communicative vehicle, which means there is someone who creates a message and someone who receives that message. All problems with communication can be linked to one of those three things: speaker, message, audience. Because of this, it’s important that social media managers at big businesses do everything they can to make sure they understand the expectations of their audience and how their message will affect their audience.
Unfortunately, the people at Groupon who tried to make a Super Bowl ad go viral did not fully appreciate their audience. The New York Times blog reported in February of 2011 on the satirical Public Service Announcement that caused quite a stir on Twitter minutes later. The video seemed to make light of Tibetan refugees. The idea behind the video was to drive traffic to the Groupon site, where consumers could not only save money but also make charitable donations.
But they got it wrong. It wasn’t clear that Groupon was mocking old Public Service Announcements and themselves and that, in fact, the campaign did have a charitable side. And, it wasn’t until a huge uproar occurred online that Groupon apologized, removed the offending ad, and tried to make amends.
From this case we can learn that social media managers and marketers at big businesses must use all the resources at their disposal to learn as much as they can about their audience. Yes, the Super Bowl audience tends to appreciate a lot of humorous ads, but at the same time, the Super Bowl draws viewers who are not often aware of current trends in social media, so they might not have been familiar with the funky brand image that Groupon had already cultivated up to that point.
Action Tip: videos can be expensive to create, but even more expensive if they are wrongly targeted. A small focus group involving key members of the target audience before launch could have given a clue as to the likely reaction – or at least been a support if the real-life response differed from that of the focus group. Having a few key influencers ‘on your team’ and signed-up to the message can be a big help.
Summary
From all three cases, we see that doing the following matters in case of a message gone wrong:
- admit the error in the social space where the error was made (for example, Dominos CEO responded on YouTube to the YouTube video of his staff and their ‘prank’)
- apologize – make a genuine apology, and contact directly those who have complained
- take corrective action – contact key influencers in the target audience, asking them for feedback on how to make amends, and be seen to use the feedback.
This guest contribution was submitted by Jamie Davis, who specializes in writing about Masters degrees. Questions and comments can be sent to: davis.jamie17@gmail.com.
Going Social: Internal or External Team?
May 10, 2011
This is a guest post from Carla Sanchez, discussing whether to outsource your social media activity, or to do it in-house. What do you think? Do let us know in the comments below.
Corporate Social Media: Outsourcing vs. Hiring a Team Internally
In the past few years, social media has quickly become one of the biggest online marketing tools available. According to Facebook, their site has 500 million active users, 50% of which log on in any given day. Some estimate that the number of Facebook users will double by the end of 2012. Twitter, the second largest social media site, had 175 million users as of the end of 2010. According to digitalbuzzblog.com, Twitter users send out an average of 55 million ‘tweets’ per day.
With the ever-growing popularity of social media, it is absolutely critical for corporations to develop a social media presence and utilize this medium to expand their customer base and build brand loyalty. The challenge for most companies is determining the best way to go about developing an effective social media marketing campaign. There are generally two ways to set up a campaign; outsource the process to an agency or hire a team internally. There are advantages and disadvantages to both options.
Outsourcing to an Agency
There are some potential advantages to outsourcing corporate social media campaigns to an agency, but there are also some pitfalls to be aware of as well.
Advantages
1. Quick Campaign Implementation
When using an expert agency to set up the social media campaign for the company, the agency can generally set things up much quicker than employees working in-house. This is because a good outside agency or consultant has vast experience setting up these campaigns and knows what steps to take. On the other hand, an in-house employee will most likely require a learning curve to get up to speed.
2. Increased Exposure
A well-established consultant or agency will likely have an existing network that has a wider reach than can be achieved by setting up an in-house campaign. This allows the company to leverage this exposure to grow their own social networks much faster.
3. Potential Cost Savings
An outside agency or consultant can potentially save the company a lot of costs vs hiring an in-house team. When you consider the time and money involved in hiring new employees and training them to the level of understanding how to effectively operate a social media campaign, then paying them benefits, sick time, etc. Not to mention the cost in office space, equipment, and paying employees for ‘down’ time. The costs of hiring an effective outside agency will most likely be less than an in-house team.
4. Experience in the Industry
Perhaps the greatest advantage to using an outside agency is the experience they have in running successful social media campaigns for other clients. This experience allows the agency to implement an overall strategy using an integrated system of social media channels and tools. This is likely to produce far more effective results than using an in-house team that is learning as they go.
Disadvantages
1. Campaign May Not Seem Genuine
The largest potential pitfall to outsourcing a social media campaign is the risk of not looking genuine to your customers. Since the essence of social media is having a two-way ‘conversation’ with your customers, it is important that they believe they are actually talking with the company, and not someone paid to send robotic messages that make no sense or indicate no understanding of the company or the brand.
This is very similar to the problem many companies have with outsourcing their call centers for sales and customer service to third world countries. They do this to save money, but many of their customers quickly realize that they are not talking to people who are truly part of the company, which in the long run damages the brand.
It is the job of a good outside agency or consultant to fully understand the company, the brand, and what they are all about, so that all the content created that goes out to their social networks will make sense, be useful for the customer, and build brand loyalty. However, not all outside agencies are created equal, so it is essential that if a company uses one, they get some references to make sure the particular agency they are considering is skilled in these areas.
2. Outside Agencies Have No Vested Interest
Even a very skilled outside agency is not likely to have the same level of commitment to the company as an in-house employee. Remember, an outside agency is usually managing several ongoing campaigns simultaneously, and if a mistake is made, it costs them a client, but it does not necessarily mean losing their job. An in-house employee running a social media campaign will be much more committed to making sure the messaging is correct, because their job depends on it.
For more details on outsourcing social media, go to SocialMedia Examiner.
Hiring an Internal Team
Hiring an in-house team to run the social media campaign of a company can be challenging and will require a great deal of commitment on the part of the company for it to be successful. As mentioned above, it can be very costly to hire and train an in-house team and bring them up to speed on how to successfully run a social media campaign. The financial costs alone can be staggering, but the time commitment is also an issue. It will often take several weeks to train an employee and bring them to the skill level needed to match the effectiveness of an outside agency.
Even after the in-house team is trained and running the campaign effectively, you still have the ongoing costs of office space, wages, and benefits. Another issue to consider is that many times, when an employee reaches the skill level to run a social media campaign, they may no longer want to stay at their present ‘job’ after seeing the opportunity to make more money using their social media management skills somewhere else.
Even with these potential pitfalls, the importance of the corporate brand is hard to put a price on, and therefore needs to be heavily guarded. Despite the costs and the potential for employee turnover, it is always better to have the social media messaging controlled in-house.
For more information on hiring an in-house social media team, go to Mashable.
What’s the Best Option?
The best option for companies developing a social media campaign will depend heavily on their individual situation. The size of the company and the size of the budget allocated for the campaign are important factors. A good solution for many companies will be a combination of outsourcing and an in-house team. In this scenario, a company may choose to outsource most of the technical aspects of setting up the campaigns and networking strategies, but assign in-house people to control the content and the ‘messaging’ of the campaigns, to insure that the brand is protected.
In most cases, it is a good idea for a company to consult an outside agency to handle at least part, if not all of the initial set-up of a social media campaign. The reality is that most companies don’t have in-house staff with the depth of understanding needed to set up and run an effective campaign. When choosing an outside agency or consultant to work with, it is critical for the company to have them thoroughly researched and make sure they have a successful track record. When the company name is on the line, they can ill afford to leave this important marketing process in the hands of novices.
Thanks Carla!
About the Author: Carla Sanchez is a freelance writer for Omniture. Omniture is the world leader at marketing analytics.
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