Social Media

Internal Communications: Freedom of Speech? You Cannot be Serious.

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

Now, please tell me what is wrong with the quotation below. (And I’m not talking about spelling or syntax, smartarses, I’m talking about content).

“Some companies are training staffers to broaden their social-media efforts. At Ford, Mr. Monty plans to soon begin teaching employees how to use sites like Twitter to represent the company and interact with consumers.

 Coca-Cola Co. is preparing a similar effort, which initially will be limited to marketing, public affairs and legal staffers. Participants will be authorized to post to social media on Coke’s behalf without checking with the company’s PR staff, says Adam Brown, named Coke’s first head of social media in March.”

This is from the Wall Street Journal – an article already mentioned on this blog – which witters on about how companies are using social media (specifically Twitter) to do something. I’m not sure what. On the face of it – to waste time, resource and budget. But hey! Maybe it’s just me.

But that’s not what this is about. (For once.) No, this is about the wisdom of letting your employees have free and uncontrolled access to the media which, in effect, is what the good people at Ford and Coke are thinking of doing.

Are they completely insane? As we all know, your people are your greatest asset and your greatest liability. As ambassadors for your brand and product, there is nothing more powerful than a vociferous and loyal employee – and here’s the important bit – that has been well-briefed and is on-message.

This is why internal communications departments exist – to generate that loyalty, to bring the workforce on-board, to maintain motivation and momentum – to ensure the messages that are going out are consistent and in line with company strategy and policy. This is why internal comms works hand-in-glove with external comms – and why all messages go past the external comms (PR) department – because anything said by anyone about your brand or business can impact on reputation. And it’s your reputation that you trade on.

In no company or organisation that I know do employees get to comment publicly, to an external audience (and I’m not talking mates down the pub, here) without being carefully briefed and monitored. In fact, in many companies and organisations, it is more than their jobs are worth for them to do so. Why? Because not everyone is as sensitive to the message and to reputation as those employed as guardians of reputation and, time and time again, through simple error of judgement, or naivety, or malicious intent, employees’ comments and actions in a public arena bring a company into disrepute. And then you have a crisis, and then you have some shit to shovel.

Example? Dominos Pizza (apologies, because I’ve used this example before, but – damn – it’s a good one) and the posting, on YouTube of video footage of unhygienic practices, in a Dominos franchise, by employees.

You simply do not allow employees free rein. You don’t. It is accepted.

Then along come the social media strategists. “It’s all about content, it’s all about dialogue, it’s all about the quality of the conversation” – free spirits in the digital age. Not for them the rules of the old guard – no, the rise of the internet and FaceBook and Twitter has changed the world and we must move on or wither and die.

It appears that their lobbying – and the continuing spread of Shiny Object Syndrome – has convinced even the most conservative of organisations (Coke, anyone?) that they should be allowed to let employees post directly to the social media sites, without passing the sense/health check that is the PR department.

I know – if anyone ever reads this (hello?) – that I’ll be accused, as a PR professional, of being miffed that I’ve been edged out of the frame and that stuff is going on without me.

Maybe. But I think this is a disaster waiting to happen. Time will tell. Personally I hope there’s someone in both organisations (Ford and Coke) who remembers what the real role of a corporate communicator is, and is powerful enough to perform it.

The real role of a corporate communicator is to look at stuff like this and say ‘no fucking way’. And put a stop to the stupidity immediately.

Social media: Preposterous before…er…Posterous came along?

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

Apparently sane person is asked what they consider to be the ‘next big thing’ in social media. (Actually, scratch that ‘apparently sane’ bit – anyone who’s in a position to be asked what they consider to be the blah blah blah is obviously several tweets short of the full nest.) And this person named three potentials – Foursquare, Brightkite and Posterous and another one the name of which I simply couldn’t be arsed to remember which wasn’t, after all, a ‘social medium’ in the true sense, more a CMS. Which, therefore, doesn’t really make it eligible to be the new Twitter. Even I know that.

Anyway, given that I’ve already had a look at Brightkite some time ago and felt that it really had very little to offer (well, it didn’t, go and look for yourself), I thus had two to choose from and I chose Posterous.

Now. If something had been touted to you as the next big thing in social media, you’d expect it to be a bit special, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you? Or is it just me? Yes, of course you would. Well, here it is:

http://posterous.com/

And no, don’t bother, because it isn’t.

Maybe it is me. Maybe I’m missing something. I read another post this morning about the wonderful world and uses of Twitter and how big companies like Dell and Pepsi and Coke…………………hold on a cotton-picking moment. Aren’t they the same three companies that are ALWAYS mentioned whenever someone wants to demonstrate how social media has been used to corporate advantage? Are there no other examples?

I can only draw one conclusion. And it’s the same one. Social media and social media marketing are another minor royal with no clothes on. Not even an Emperor, more a Duke of somewhere not-terribly-important. Posterous – and the acqusition of Friendfeed by Facebook are nothing more than the desperate attempts of those who are making a living from the chimaera to string that living out for a little longer.

Tell me I’m wrong.

Social Media – A Tweet in Time….er….

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, External Communications, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Some more happy horsedroppings, this time from that venerable organ, the WSJ. Read it here.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124925830240300343.html

On first glance this all seems fine – big names – Ford, Pepsi, Coke etc etc etc – all got a social media presence, all got social media teams, must be important.

Then delve down a bit.

So Ford found that people were complaining about the shutting down of a website. C’mon guys. So what. Is this actually going to affect sales of your cars (because that’s what, as an auto manufacturer, you’re all about and don’t you forget it). No, it’s not. Therefore, all the time that your people spent ‘rectifying the situation’ was, in fact, time wasted.

So Coke found that some guy with 10,000 followers was having difficulty reclaiming a promotion. They fixed it for him. He chaged his avatar to a picture of him with a bottle of Coke. Hot-diggety-dog-dump and a big fat whoop-de-do. Did it sell more Coke? Probably not. Did it impact on this guy’s 10,000 followers? Probably not. Why? because most of those followers don’t actually exist or, if they do, aren’t active. See the link below:

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/08/13/firm-reports-twitter-is-40-useless-babble-were-0-surprised?icid=sphere_wpcom_inline

So, Coke, all that time your people spent sorting it out? Wasted.  In fact, the WSJ article is just plain wrong, on many, many different levels. Not least of which is that it reveals that these companies have such desperate cases of Shiny Object Syndrome that they are lashing undoubtedly obscene amounts of money on the salaries and benefits packages of entire teams of ‘social media strategists’.

C’mon. Facebook and Twitter (there’s another thing wrong with this article – gives it the lie in fact – these are the only two social media mentioned) are passing fads. There’s no burgeoning new comms/marketing world being signalled by social media/online social networking. It’s a chimaera. It doesn’t exist – and neither, therefore, does ‘social media strategy’ or, indeed, ‘social media strategists’. Waste of money and several perfectly good workstations.

As an aside, I saw that Dominos Pizza were speaking at a conference recently – one of those that hapless comms and marketing people like us pay oodles of cash to go to on the off-chance we might learn something. And they were there to talk about the issues around employees posting uncontrolled video footage on YouTube and other social media. Talk about shutting the door after the horse had buggered off – and what did anyone think they were going to learn from Dominos, anyway. I was amazed.

Finally for today, may I express my dismay that the digital/social media strategists employed, at great cost, by Coke, appear to have managed to get permission for a group of people to post to social media sites (probably FaceBook and Twitter – as the only ones that anyone really knows) without going through the PR department. Someone could do with talking to Dominos, now I think about it.

I love the smell of impending disaster in the morning, it smells of – hmmm – Meat Feast?  Or is it random brown sugary liquid? I’m not sure………..

Social Media – Another Case of ‘Shiny Object Syndrome’

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

Oooh, ooh! Look! It’s new! It’s exciting! I’ve got to have one! What if everyone else has one and I don’t?

Yes, it’s Shiny Object Syndrome again. Further proof that the communications/marketing world is in danger of drowning – despite the stuff it’s drowning in being so incredibly, indescribably shallow.

Today, gentle communicatorists, the Shiny Object of our Syndrome is apps. iPhone Apps in particular, but please take it to mean any app that can be downloaded or installed on your device of choice.

There I was, ghosting around the net (I think that’s a splendid term and perfectly describes the squillions of people, moving around the netosphere at any one time, leaving no trace save for a record of their IP address and clickety proclivities – both bits of information that are of no use at all to the ‘social media marketer’), and I found someone pleading for an answer to the question:

“How are you using iPhone Apps in your marketing and PR plans?”

Virals, anyone? (ie a useless waste of money that achieves little cut through and no tangible ROI.) Luckily, in amongst the ‘social media marketing experts’, who were gushing about how the design and production of bespoke branded iPhone Apps  represents the future of marketing and communications (or, at least, will keep them employed when Twitter and FaceBook inevitably turn to dust in their hands), there were one or two brave souls who simply said ‘what’s the point?’ Just another fad in the making and one that our experience should tell us is likely to be simply an expensive chimaera.

As ideas go – well, you cannot polish a turd. Seemingly, however, you CAN roll it in glitter.

Oh – and virals. As if further proof were needed of what an incredible waste of time, effort, technology and budget they are, have a look at this:

http://newteevee.com/2009/08/11/the-megawoosh-waterslide-viral-how-it-was-really-done/

Great film. Turns out it’s a ‘carefully crafted viral ad for Microsoft’s Office suite’. So carefully crafted, in fact, that the result is promotionally homeopathic. The brand message has been diluted so much that it is no longer there.

How can anyone see any value in this? Or is it that the executives who commissioned it have a particularly bad case of SOS?

The Bog of Social Networks – Mayhem in a PC

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

Right. Dig out your very best tweed. Ratchet your age up (or down) to about 60-ish. A moustache is optional (especially for the ladies) but, if you’re wearing one, make it big. And bushy. It would help if you were red in the face, and if you could get various bits of you to quiver in outrage, then so much the better. Middle-class and middle-England is what we’re aiming at here – driven slightly demented by the combined forces of change and the Daily Mail. Splutter a bit and do it in the ver’, ver’ finest cut-crystal accent that you can muster. You are as bemused as Victor Meldrew in One Foot in the Grave and as angry as John Malkovich in Burn After Reading. Ready? Go!

“Social networks are bogs filled with people who are there to befriend one another, tell their stories, or voice their complaints. For those who want others to know all about them or who have unrevealed grievances about life, these are wonderful online destinations. They are a good place to leave messages for friends, propose marriage, and post the scores from the local high school football team. They are not a place where an advertiser can focus on a single group with a message aimed at those people, because no one knows exactly who those people are. For a company trying to sell products or services, Facebook is mayhem in a PC. What the advertiser wants is traditional, orderly content. “

 I love a good rant. But, you know what, I love a good rant even more when it makes absolute sense and is completely on the button.

Altogether now. “Harrrumph!”

Social Media – The Twitter Crack’d 3

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

Some more research into Twitter and its usage patterns. It’s still not looking compelling, I’m afraid.

http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/

Social Media – A New Dotcom Bubble, As If Proof Were Needed

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

ITV sell Friends Reunited for £145m less than they paid for it. DC Thomson buy it, announce that they plan to make a dating site for the over-50s out of it.

As a service for the hard-of-thinking, in simple terms, this is what it means. ITV paid over £150m for Friends Reunited because they thought they could ‘monetise’ it (to press a curennt buzzword into service). They couldn’t. DC Thomson, being slightly smarter AND with the benefit of some years extra intel, realise that they’ll not be able to sell it as a marketing/advertising opportunity, so look at the ways they can make money from the users of the site. Who happen to be over 50 and – let’s face it – looking for something.

This – and eBay’s experience with Skype (OK, not technically a social network, but reliant on users parting with cash to communicate with each other) – really underlines where we are with social media as a marketing tool. Nowhere. Marketing activity through social media delivers no tangible value – certainly nothing that translates into noticeable uplift in revenues. The ITV/Friends Reunited debacle just shows how futile it is to try and ‘monetise’ – get a sensible, serious and stable revenue stream out of – a social medium.

It is an object lesson. Do not do it.

Oh, I hear you say, but I have no intention of buying placebebo.com and trying to monetise it. No, my social media marketing strategies involve using existing social media channels, and require no investment from me.

Wrong. Every hour you, or your people, spend monitoring Twitter or creating groups on Facebook is time, effort and opportunity cost that would be better dedicated elsewhere.

(Oh, yeah – Twitter – becoming the province of the middle-aged and older. Young people moving away, new research says so. Google it.)

Social Media – The Twitter Crack’d 2

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

Those avid followers of my blog (thanks, both of you), with a decent memory, may remember a post back in June which highlighted – actually, that’s a bit grand – which focused on a piece of research done by the Harvard Business School into Twitter’s usage patterns. It seemed to show that the bulk of tweets come from a hardcore of twitterers (95:10 was the ratio, I think) and that average numbers of tweets during the lifetime of a twitterer is one.

This kinda leads us to believe that Twitter’s not really the massive phenomenon that other media – and the rash of ‘social media experts’ that has infected the face of the internet – would have you believe and – thus – it’s a bit rubbish as a marketing tool. As I’ve often said, don’t ignore social media – you’d be foolish to do so – but bear in mind that there are countless other things that you should do first (from a comms and marketing point of view).

Anyway, here’s another nail in the coffin piece of research that would seem to lead us to similar conclusions, although for different reasons. Enjoy:

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007208

New Uses for Social Media – Part 7,523

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

Is it just me or are the attempts to get some real use (and thus value/benefit) out of social media getting more desperate by the day?

Today’s was a facility for the Jewish community to Tweet prayers and have them then – I presume – printed out, folded up and stuck in the cracks in the Wailing Wall. Which is great – a genuine service and all credit to the ‘young man from Tel-Aviv’ who’s responsible.

A great use of Twitter, thereby providing a little more grist for the social media justification mill. Yes, social networks, they get everywhere. In every walk of life. Social networks – they are your daddy.

Only, only – would it be as easy to email ‘the young man in Tel-Aviv’ and get him to print that out? Or, in fact, if you’ve got a friend in Tel-Aviv or Jerusalem, you could email them. Or text them. Or fax them. Or – how about this – you could ‘phone them up and get them to write it down.

It’s a great idea, it genuinely is and it’s a real service. It just doesn’t need Twitter. Or FaceSpace, or MyBook.

Other uses for social media today – publicising Aleksandr the Meerkat (if you’ve been in a hole in the ground for the last six months, this is the eponymous Aleksandr the Meerkat from comparethemeerkat.com, which is a sort of search engine for meerkat-related paraphernalia. I think).

I like Aleksandr – simples! – and he reminds me of a lot of people I work with, but, let’s face it – sorry Alex mate – he’s a fluffy PR stunt. A very, very good one, but a fluffy PR stunt nonetheless – here today and gone tomorrow.

And therefore an absolutely perfect fit for the social media phenomenon.

Canny Tweeters – Gotta be Rhyming Slang, Right?

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

Today, I is mostly loving PR Week.

(Oooh, oooh – and its £3.70 cover price. Why £3.70? Why not £3.50? Or, for the amount of bearing that it actually has on reality, why not £763.27? These are the people after whom ‘Twitter’ was named.)

Which segues me, more smoothly than a freshly-oiled smarmoset, into my subject matter. PR Week and a small ‘news’ story about how Twitter saved the day for Boris Johnson. (For those of you not of a London persuasion, Boris is the rather shambolic chap who spends some of his time as Mayor.)

The first para of this ‘story’ reads “London Mayor Boris Johnson has won plaudits from PR professionals for apparently using Twitter to deal with roasting hot buses last week.” Implication – Boris was replying to tweets about the hot bus situation. Read on, young Paduan learner, and discover that the Mayor was ‘inundated’ by tweets (although how many is not revealed) and then that ‘after a number of days of tweets and  re-tweets’ he went to see his transport adviser and asked him about it. After a number of days? Isn’t Twitter supposed to be about what you’re doing NOW?

Oh, yeah – and then the Mayor’s transport adviser (and I quote) – wait for this – “I immediately fired off a letter to transport for London.” Sent second-class, one can only presume. Yes, the world may be changing, we may be in the digital age, we may be able to IM and Skype, but thanks to the civil service, the time-honoured tradition of ‘firing off a letter’ is still alive and well. Brilliant.

So all in all, Twitter didn’t really save the day for Boris. It was one more medium of communication that alerted him to a situation which it took him a number of days to resolve. Let us reflect on the fact that it took him days to resolve an issue as serious as the heating being switched ‘on’ on London’s buses. How long do we think it would take him to resolve an issue like – ooooh – the pollution of the Thames by an antiquated sewage processing system? (Hint – it’s a couple of years, so far.) Going  back to hot buses, Boris did (finally) respond to the heeted tweeters, but you can bet your bottom that other communications media were used more widely to disseminate the action that was taken.

The story was illustrated – presumably to illustrate how effective Twitter is in saving the day – with some figures for Twitter usage. I’ll repeat them here, for your delight and amazement:

900 tweets per week – Innocent Drinks

100% – Hyatt Concierge’s engagement with followers

738 – people following Asda

226 – number of updates by Boris Johnson

14m – total number of Twitter users

Now is it me, or are these statistics – while on the face of it quite impressive, even compelling – on closer inspection, in one way or another, wholly meaningless? 900 tweets – what about and why? 100% engagement – in what way and to what benefit? 738 followers – Asda’s got more stores than that, hasn’t it?

It gets better. Underneath the Boris story was a small piece with the head “Dell, Innocent and Kodak named as canny tweeters”. I’m not going to bore you with the whole thing – you can do your own clickery and find it should you so wish (or you can go and buy a copy of PR Week for $547.32) – but here’s an excerpt. Dell claims to have made more than $3m (the price of a copy of PR Week) worth of sales since 2007 via its @DellOutlet Twitter stream. That’s $1.5m a year. Loose change. Probably cost them more than that to activate and maintain the Twitter stream.

It’s not really compelling, is it? You know, I think a lot of the chasing around after the social media of the moment and the breathless reportage on how it is changing our lives irrevocably is down to the fact that – deep down – everyone loves science fiction. Everyone wants to be part of a Star Trek world. Which is great.

But to be part of the Star Trek world, it isn’t enough to know what a tweet is and to be able to throw the names of a couple of social networks into conversation. Or even to be part of an MMOG, like W0W or Second Life.

No. You see Star Trek world exists and deals with ddos attacks (which are real) and botnets (which are also real – and huge). Read this – it’s better than William Gibson.

http://thompson.blog.avg.com/2009/07/i-think-i-know-what-the-ddos-was-about.html