corporate use of social media

Social Media – Examples – Good And….Not Good

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , .

Here’s a couple of examples of what you can do with social media, dependent on who and what you are. My loyal blog snorkellers will be fully HP with my point of view (that social media is not a valid business communications, marketing or sales tool) but you’ll also know that I’m nothing if not open to new ideas. Unless those new ideas are genuinely pants or threaten the way I think the world should be. Obviously.

So – here we are from BMW, a luvverly film (and it IS a luvverly film) around some motorbike product or other. Obviously aimed at wealthy young (or not so young) men with a need for speed and a bad taste in trousers, beanie hats and friends. You’d need to be careful – this to my male snorkellers – quite how old you were buying one of these. Don’t want to look like a midlfecrisesian, now do we?

On the other hand, here’s a Twit feed from the British Armed Force, which links to this blog, again from the British Armed Forces. I would like to say – although I have no particular feelings about the conflict in Afghanistan (no-one asked me, d’you see) – that I think this is genuinely excellent and I am – deeply – in awe of the men and women who are out there, doing what they do. If you read anything today, click on the links herewith, and absorb the content. Amazing.

Anyway, conclusions. Look at the commentary stream following the BMW video. Are they going to buy a bike? No. Has BMW built a relationship with them? No. These people are all too macho and self-absorbed and – let’s be honest – a bit fricking thick. So – sorry BMW – it’s a waste of money. You’d be better off with experiential. (Oh, and, fair cop – the video is a little bit too fake, sadly.)

Meanwhile, Major Paul Smyth over at t’Army in Afghanistan. It’s genius. It’s compelling. It’s very scary and it’s shocking to read of the deaths of soldiers in what is, effectively, real time. (For what its worth, my thoughts are with their families.) Someone needs to re-think this whole war thing. Someone without their head up America’s bottom.

Summary – social media exists. It’s a great information-sharer. It’s brilliant for those without an axe to grind and with an interesting (perhaps shocking) story to tell. When it comes to branded stuff however – are you listening, blue propeller? – it’s a waste of money and it sucks.

Social Media – Thoughts For The Day

Posted on by in Corporate Religion, corporate reputation, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

(N.B. dear blog snorkellers, there will be no links in the copy today. This is because I can’t be bothered to tell you where I’ve been and also it’s a test of faith. Like so many of the social media posts and threads that I stumble upon, today I am going to say ‘trust me’. Take what I say as read. Don’t ask for proof. For once in your lives, believe in something. Me.)

Facebook, apparently, has 400 million users, half of which log in every single day. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I don’t think is true. Today I ran across a reasonably authoritative article that quoted a figure of 160 million logging in every day. But hey, what’s 40 million users per day between friends?

I’ve also made a big point of my belief that no brand, business or organisation is yet to make a significant commercial return on their investment in social media. This has got me into a lot of trouble – but I stick by it – every time I scratch the surface, the same old names crop up – Starbucks, BestBuy, Amazon, Dell, Coke, Ford. I gave myself into the gentle embrace of that most Googlicious of search engines and tried variations along the lines of ‘big brands social media’ and ‘brands social media success’. I know this isn’t scientific, but I couldn’t find any list of branded social media successes more recent than July/August last year. Not terribly reassuring, is it?

Mashable.com – useful blog, but hideously heavy going – published a list of Top 10 Twitter trends for last week. Tell, just who in the hell is Justin Bieber? I’m guessing here, but I’d imagine he’s got the same level of social and cultural significance as The Jonas Brothers, Tiger Woods, Super Junior, Lil Wayne and American Idol. I don’t think anyone’s in danger of drowning in this particular knowledge pool.

And, finally, I had a quick skim round the various Twitter feeds belonging to some of the bigger brands, just to reassure myself that the ‘Big Conversation’ hadn’t somehow become more valid and meaningful over the weekend. It hadn’t. Here’s where we’re at with corporate tweeting: “Woo-hoo! Just launched! check out the brand new http://www.starbucks.com/” (It’s the least I could do – give them a bit of a plug. Apparently, the fact that Mr Bux has got some social media icons on the home page, that’s enough to make the average punter believe they’re soc-med savvy. All smoke and mirrors.)

(B*gger – there’s a link in my copy.)

Anyway – conclusion for the day? Social media is obfuscation, flim-flam and chiffon gauze. (Sort of.) It still does not represent a route to market. An ROI cannot be extrapolated from social media. All business is about sales, and the value that those sales deliver to the brand, business or organisation – social media do not sell, nor can the effects that they may have on an audience be defined or evaluated. At best, social media raises awareness – but not of overtly branded messages because if you break the unwritten rules of the feral community, its members run back into the shadows, yelping abuse.

By all means – experiment. But don’t waste too much time, resource or money on it.

Social Media – Fact Or Facebo**o*ks?

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Evaluation, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , .

Today, blog snorkellers mine, I is mostly having difficulty getting my head round this. I’m not saying it’s not true, mind, simply that I am having difficulty getting my head round it. It’s called ‘Visualising Six Years of Facebook’ (it’s actually called ‘Visualizing 6 Years of Facebook’, but this title, as it stands, is ugly, depressing and incorrect) and it shows – pictorially – salient statistics illustrating the rise and rise of this social media phenomenon. And, as I’ve said, I’m having difficulty getting me ‘ead around it.

Listen, right. The global population, according to the United States Census Bureau, is estimated to be in the region of 6.8bn. (Obviously, the USCB counts some US citizens twice, because they’re so gosh-darned saturatedly fat, but even so, it’s a pretty accurate and informed stab at the number.) According to the ‘Book, it now has 400 million users. That’s (for the sake of argument) 4% of the world’s population. Which means that four in every hundred people have – at some point – logged on and registered themselves wiv da Face’. Then, further to that, it appears that 200 million of these users log in every day.

Every day. 2% of the global population log in every day. Two people in every hundred, everywhere, log in to their Facebook account. Is it just me – or does this seem just a little far-fetched, especially given that global internet penetration stands at 25.6%? I mean – here are the actual figures – population 6.8bn, internet users 1.7 bn. This implies that 25% of internet users are on Facebook and 12.5% of them log in to the ‘Book every day. Sorry, as I say, I’m having difficulty wiv me ‘ead.

Further than that, even, this piece of work says that the ‘average Facebook user’ (they don’t define what they mean by ‘average’) spends 55 minutes every day (every day!) on the site. It’s one of those stats that seems faintly plausible – just so long as you don’t look at it too hard, or think about it too much.

No – I’m sorry. I don’t buy it. I don’t know where the data is coming from. My suspicion is that someone is feeding it into the marketplace and there are enough gullible souls and snakeoil salesmen preying on the gullibility that it gets picked up and touted around and then becomes fact. I feel a conspiracy theory coming on – after all, usage data should be very simple to get from a site like Facebook – but it just seems too high.

Anyway, I am probably completely wrong and the world is, indeed, being smothered by da Face’. Sooner or later, it’ll achieve sentience and then we’ll be properly f*cked.

In the meantime, despite this data being used to big the ‘Book up and point out how great it is, and how it’s changing the face of our society as we know it (eating it from the inside, more like), it still remains true to say that no-one has found a way of harnessing it for a commercial end. Social media as a business marketing or communications tool still doesn’t work. The feral communities that these sites create simply will not be leveraged, herded, corralled or targeted.

Say this data’s true. Say that 200 million people do log in each day. That’s an enormous amount. Should be like shooting fish in a barrel. But I’d say that if big business can’t get a result with these sorts of numbers – well – doesn’t matter how big it is, it’s still a white elephant.

Social Media – Good, Bad and Ugly

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Very brief post – just to keep everyone thinking. So Twitter right, it’s all about stuff and conversations and motivation and – sometimes – some primeval horsesh*t from those who should know better – check this out (and no, I don’t care that it’s out of context, it’s frightening nonsense from a grown – well – human – I presume):

“More PR hip shooting I see.

 The empirical research show us that it is about commonly held and and understood values.

 I thought that was what Bruno Amaral showed at Bled.

His work is not based on counting fairies on a pin head it accesses tens of thousands of discourse items analyses them and identifies relationships.

It can be about ‘me’ but unless me is part of ‘me and me look alikes’ it will fail.”

This is a comment on a post found here – it’s not about Twitter, mind, per se, it’s about scial media. It’s a shocker. Enjoy.

Anyway, Twitter. Here’s a couple of things.

First, here’s the Williams Formula 1 twitter feed from the daughter of the team principal (Sir Frank), which has been posting interesting updates on pre-season testing over the last week. If you’re an F1 fan ( and I am, I am), you can dip in and out of this for news and views, without compromising your integrity and without – I have to say – a single brand mention. Works for me. Other teams are doing it as well.

And this is how Twitter – if it does have any use – actually serves a purpose. Distributing ‘what are you doing now’ posts for those who have an interest. When are the social media gurus going to realise that this is not an answer to the marketing ill – it’s merely another tool in the marketing toolbox and (if I can mix a metaphor) in the toolbox it is at best a signpost. Not a megaphone. (Yes, of course I have a megaphone in my toolbox. Don’t you?)

It doesn’t sell product, it doesn’t change opinion, except on an oily tanker sort of basis. (That’s an opinion turning circle of several hundred miles.)

To back this up, I present this. This is Advertising Age ‘Top 10 Most Tweeted Brands” survey from last week. Have a look and shudder with the realisation that it’s all – without exception – stuff that people have learnt about elsewhere.

Don’t know about you, but if I was a marketer, or a comms professional – oh! I am. If it was me, unless I had unlimited budget, Twiiter is the last place I’d be allocating time, resource or cash.

What some of F1 is doing is good. What overzealous, over-funded and overpaid marketers are trying to do is bad. The reality of Twitter is ugly.

Go figure.

Social Media – Handling Online Criticism

Posted on by in corporate reputation, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , .

Once again, dear blog snorkellers, never let it be said that I don’t give you anything of any value. Here’s a piece which I came across recently, which is entitled “For Nonprofit Organizations: How To Handle Online Criticism” (As you can see from the errant and offensive ‘z’, it’s an American post.) Don’t be put off by the whole ‘Nonprofit’ bit (if you’re not a nonprofit), the meat of the article applies across the board. It is a long and lengthy piece, stuffed full of links, so it takes a bit of time, but it contains good thinking on the topic.

For the sake of clarity, I am not a fan of social media as a commercial marketing or communications tool. I think it is overrated and overvalued, and that far too much is being made of it by people who do not understand (for who can) where it is going, how it will develop and what effects (if any) it will have on the way people make purchasing decisions.

The one thing that I am certain of, however, is that social media will cause and trigger more problems than it solves. The very fact that anyone, anywhere – if they have internet access – can post anything is going to lead to trouble. It’s the whole ‘infinite number of monkeys, with an infinite number of typewriters’ deal, only in this case an infinite number of surfers with an infinite number of fora are unlikely to produce the complete works of Shakespeare – more likely the sort of chaos that is created by the complete works of any local council’s department of works.

But what is guaranteed is that with complete freedom of expression comes a complete range of opinion – including the bitter, twisted, isolated and disturbing – and some of that opinion will be critical. And if that critical opinion gains critical mass – rightly or wrongly – very quickly (very quickly indeed) it will be everywhere.

How you deal with that criticism – the speed with which you do so, the manner in which you do so, the content that you use – will reflect upon your enterprise, business, organisation or brand and – in fact – offers an opportunity to amass valuable reputational credits.

Social Media – 20 Tools For Social Media Monitoring

Posted on by in Evaluation, Marketing, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , .

In the spirit of entente cordiale (although, if I’m to be honest, if I ever drink cordiale, it’s normally cassis), and in order that it never be said that I don’t give you (dear blog snorkellers) a little something every now and then, here is a post wot I ‘appened upon recently, providing a list of 20 free tools for use in monitoring social media – both for the results (yeah, right) of any social media marketing activity you may be (misguidedly) undertaking and generally, for mentions of you, your company and your brand.

The list contains splendid-sounding stuff like Addictomatic, Buzzoo, Surchur, Brandeye, Tazzup, and SocialMention amongst others – however, before you rush off and fill your boots with free monitoring, might I sound a couple of words of caution.

Also included within the list, and put forward as a a good and sensible solution, are Google Alerts. If you’re like me, then you’ve been using Google Alerts to monitor online news feeds for quite some time, and recognise their shortcomings. In the nicest possible way, Google Alerts are not groundbreaking and simply ride on the back of Google’s raison d’etre – being a good search engine. The results they deliver are far from complete and miss great chunks of – sometimes important – content.

This does rather imply that the other 19 solutions on the list are also not rocket science – and, having had a quick go myself, I can vouch for this. They’re not rocket science and they’re far from being complete.

Sorry – and I can’t help myself – I think the tools for monitoring social media are like the media themselves – misunderstood, over-estimated, inaccurate and not delivering of much in the way of value.

But – hey – make your own mind up.

Social Media – Pepsi Syndrome

Posted on by in corporate reputation, External Communications, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , .

It’s like Stockholm Syndrome, but especially for social media. What happens is that a company, brand or organisation becomes aware of social media – either from within (generally the rot starts in IT) or from without, via the snake-oil salesmen des nos jours, the self-styled social media gurus.

The background noise becomes a barrage, once aware of social media, you cannot simply ignore it – it’s like hives – and before you know it, you’re a hostage to the phenomenon. No part of your business is immune to the lure of the Shiny Object – no department is without its social media evangelist. It’s particularly bad in marketing-led organisations, riven (as they are) with insecurities and staffed by those who cannot be left behind and are possessed of a spectacular herd mentality.

Eventually, while you have to give credit to the decision makers in any organisation, who will understand that they are being coerced and will see the unhealthy nature of the relationship, the company, brand or business learns to love its oppressor.

And that’s when Pepsi removed the $20m from its sponsorship of the Super Bowl and decided to plough it into social media.

I came across this blog, by a lady called Christine Hueber. Because I know that you, dear blog snorkellers, are inherently lazy, and won’t click on the link (even if it were to save your life), I reproduce it here in full:

“Pepsi: Social Media $20 Million — Super Bowl $0

LinkedIn was the initial source for me of this wonderful news:   Pepsi is spending $20 million on Social Media instead of Super Bowl advertising!

What do you think this news means for Social Media?

Best,

Christine

Christine Hueber

Engaging Social Media Relationship Marketing with Results!

+1 530.582.8091 Direct”

What does this mean for social media? Nothing. What does it mean for Pepsi? That they’ve completely lost the plot.

Social Media – PR ‘Students’ And Twitter

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

You couldn’t make it up. This is another one of those jaw-dropping, what-the-f*ck moments. A moment when – for someone who’s spent the best part of two decades in the corporate communications business – I actually begin to question why I’m here and why the industry exists.

Here is a link to a post on the Teaching PR blog (May 2009), from Grady College, University of Georgia. I can only presume that this is a seat of learning with the same level of gravitas and respect that is accorded to Keele here in the UK.

It provides some hints and tips to PR students on ‘what not to tweet’. I’m not going to paraphrase it here. Trust me, you need to read it in all its truly frightening originality.

Without beating about the bush, the hints about ‘what not to tweet’ are not bad. Basic, but good guidelines for those embarking on a Twitter feed. But they’re all about image and communication – things that, arguably, a student of PR should have a natural feel for.

Personally, if I came across a potential communications practitioner making any of these mistakes, I would advise them that perhaps they have made the wrong career choice and that they should f*ck off and trouble some other industry with their ridiculous and naïve viewpoints and attitudes. (Hey – call me harsh.)

On top of that, if Grady College feel the need to give these hints and tips to their students, then they have wholly failed to engender any sort of PR sense into them – thus, arguably, their course should be shut down.

It’s this sort of misunderstanding, naivety and ill-informed behaviour that will provide the comms industry with the next generation of PR lovelies – all blonde hair and parties – that will perpetuate the crass mythology of PR as a business of fluff and spin and will continue to deny the industry its seat at the top table.

My faithful blog snorkellers will know my feelings on social media. This scary nonsense does nothing to change my opinions, or give me any faith in the future of our profession. I’ll leave you with the following:

“Earlier this semester, @BarbaraNixon tweeted a wise suggestion to her students: go to the Web and look at your last page of tweets. Is that really how you want to represent yourself to the world?

If not, it’s time to rethink your twitter strategy.”

No, it’s time to rethink your life.

Social Media – Vodafone Twit Highlights Need For Corporate Social Media Control

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, corporate reputation, Corporate Reputation Management, Crisis Management, External Communications, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – corporate use of social media is a dangerous thing, and if you are going to dip your toe, then you need a frankly medieval ‘corporate use of social media’ policy in place to ensure the wingnuts do not scupper your dinghy.

As happened earlier this month over at Vodafone, a rather large purveyor of telecommunications services to the global community. Vodafone’s on Twitter, d’you see, and although it’s only managed to garner some 9.5k followers with its 5k-odd tweets, it’s pursuing its strategy with verve.

Suddenly, last week, a tweet was tweeted suggesting that – avert your eyes, those of a sensitive disposition – “@VodafoneUK is fed up of dirty homo's (sic) and is going after beaver”. Well. Here’s commentary from www.pocketlint.com, suggesting that Voodoofone’s Twitter account is internally compromised.

Of course, it wasn’t, and – whether you choose to believe it or not, you have to give credit to Mojambofone’s crisis management people – pocketlint posted this yesterday, recounting Jujufone’s official explanation. For those of my blog snorkellers what is hard of de clickery, the explanation is pretty much ‘a big boy did it and ran away’. Only in this case, they appear to have found the big boy, and I can only imagine that he (or she, even) is in a small room somewhere, tied to a chair, while some HR lovelies get all 16th century on his ass.

 Moral of the story? There need to be rules. Perhaps Blackmagicfone has a ‘corporate use of social media’ policy, but it sure as hell ain’t working. As I’ve postulated before, there’s always a proportion of employees – and of the general public, as it happens – terminally afflicted with Twitterette’s. This is the unholy urge to shout ‘bum!’ and ‘poo!’ in public places and at inappropriate times. Generally when confronted with a mass medium (like Twitter, or Facebook), the implications of which they do not fully understand. They do not understand that their ‘bum!’ has a potential audience of – ooooh – everyone. (Luckily, in this case, it was an immediate audience of 9.5k people – although you can still find the post, because it’s been re-tweeted and re-tweeted – whatever that means.)

Anyway, bottom line – a proper use of social media policy, with proper rules, is absolutely imperative. It won’t stop this sort of nonsense altogether, but it may make the f*ckwits think twice. I recommend really, really serious disciplinary action. Boilings in oil. Skinnings alive.

But really, the way to deal with it – folks – is NOT TO GET INVOLVED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

How many times do I have to say this?

Social Media – Not Just For The Nasty Things In Life….Oh…Hold On…

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, corporate reputation, External Communications, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , .

This piece from the new York Times. Jonathan Schwartz, the ‘last chief executive’ of Sun Microsystems – sounds like he ought to be the subject of a movie starring Tom ‘Frighteningly Insane’ Cruise – announces his resignation via Twitter. (Here’s the feed in all its Twittery glory.)

(Actually, I’m fairly sure that he didn’t announce his resignation via Twitter – technically speaking – I’m fairly sure that he did it like everyone else would have, in a letter, delivered by hand to Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle and a man ‘not especially fond of Mr Schwartz’.)

For the hard of clicking, who want everything fed to them on a plate, he did it in the form of a haiku.

That being as it may, the NYT has some interesting stuff to say about Mr Schwartz. Apparently, he ‘has been fond of using the internet as a soapbox’ and was ‘the first CEO of a major company to put up his own blog’ and, indeed, ‘pushed the Securities and Exchange Commission to put blogs on equal footing with press releases and filings when it comes to disclosing critical business matters to investors’. Doesn’t say whether he succeeded.

Which all sounds great. Then you dig a little and find that between April 30 2008 and Feb 3 2010, he managed 36 tweets. Hardly prolific, although he has amassed over 10,000 followers. (Sycophants.) Oh – and his Twitter tag is OpenJonathan, which I’m not wholly convinced by. Luckily, a lot of his Tweets link to his blog.

And his blog’s a belter. This is the way it should be done. The NYT under-egged the cake in my opinion. It was started in June 2004 – here’s the first post, read it before Mr Ellison takes it down – it’s been updated regularly and, as far as I can see, mixes core product messaging (at least I think that’s what it is, I’m not really qualified in the techie arena) with splendid, apparently homespun philosophy. I particularly like the post about having lunch with Tony Blair – genius.

Anyway, this isn’t a hagiography. What it is is a suggestion that more c-suite execs should be trying to approach this tone of voice and this balance of content and should be talking to their audiences through the medium of digital (and I do mean the medium of digital, not the medium of social – I know they’re easily confused. For the record Twitter is social – and we can see here that it’s nowhere near as effective or compelling as the blog, which is digital).

As we know, in this post-economic apocalypse age, our audiences – especially employees, suppliers, business partners and customers – want messages of comfort and reassurance, and want to see companies walking the walk, not just talking the talk. What better way to achieve this than by showing a bit of personality – something that people can relate to.

Why do I suspect that Mr Ellison of Oracle probably disagrees.