A colleague attended two events last week – one PR based, one marketing based, and the common argument amongst those that attended is who should own social media? Now there’s no right or wrong answer, there are good arguments from both side, but is this something that needs to be addressed within the industry to allow brands to use social media effectively?
In the red corner are the PRs. Traditionally these are the people that communicate between the organisation and the public, using the media to get the message across. They should be aware of the correct tone and how to portray messages effectively to the public, so in essence, would it not make sense for PRs to ‘own’ the social media channels for a company? It would make complete sense for PRs to be able to utilise this channel and make use of direct conversation with consumers, and they should also be the best equipped to handle a crisis (should one arise) too.
In the blue corner are the marketing crowd. By looking at strategies to best promote the brand, and looking into all channels, the marketers can ensure that social media is integrated effectively to advertising/PR campaigns and ensure that all messaging is consistent across all outposts.
In my opinion, for brands to ensure that they use social media effectively, there needs to be clarification over who looks after the platforms from the start, rather than end up with a situation where there are ‘too many cooks’. To add to this, another other issue that needs to be addressed is what they want from social media. Is it just another channel to inundate with PR, or would they rather engage their consumers through innovative campaigns? By sitting down and thinking about what they can gain from being social, it will probably help answer who should ‘own’ it.
Augmented reality (AR) has become *the* topic of discussion lately. Not only is it an exciting technology for agencies to use within client’s campaigns, making things more ‘social’ and ‘innovative’ – but people seem fascinated with the idea of making reality more informative.
AR, according to Charles Arthur in The Guardian , is essentially taking a real-life scenario or a video and adding information to better explain the situation. As he goes on to explain that this technology has been around for a while in different forms – such as slow motion on a sports channel to better show a tackle, goal, or one of those absolutely ridiculous dives – some might wonder why people are only now getting excited at the prospect of what can be achieved.
So what’s taken so long? It really comes down to the fact that now we can all carry around phones that keep us constantly connected to the Internet, instead of being weighed down by something that resembles a brick.
A basic example of how brands are using AR is the Star Wars comic, which allows readers to see Luke Skywalker come to life when the comic is viewed through a webcam (see Augmented Planet). Sure, Star Wars fans were excited about this, and it’s great to see a legendary character ‘come to life’, but it’s hardly the most convenient use of AR. How many people will read a comic or magazine through a webcam? Well, aside from a die-hard fan, of course.
Ben & Jerry’s ‘Scoop of Happiness’ iPhone app allows users to find out more about the company and its products, as well as the ability to share it with friends via social networking sites. This example is likely to start shaping the way AR is used by agencies to help make brands more social.
The Doritos Late Night Rihanna 360 video also shows clever use of AR technology as users are able to experience the video however they want to; in a day or night scenario and from whatever angle they desire. This experience empowers the user, with complete control over what they are viewing. Although the campaign isn’t instantly social (there’s no apparent ability to share directly with Twitter or Facebook), it still doesn’t take away the fact that the content of the video is essentially the perfect social currency – it’s current, allows content creation from the user and is entertaining.
Should all brands be considering how they can use AR? Probably not, as not all brands were built to be social and it’s not worth doing something with AR if it’s going to be thought of as gimmicky. It needs to be informative and benefit the user. It also comes back down to it being valuable – are people not only going to use it, but will they share it? In essence, a brand needs to really understand its consumers and how they behave before investing immediately in a new trend.
I was fortunate this week to work at the Call of Duty: Black Ops launch event which was awesome! The event took place at Battersea Power Station, and for those who have been there, you’ll appreciate how great this venue is. To me, it seems like the perfect place to hold a COD event – many people I was working with said it would be perfect for a setting in the game.
Throughout the launch event, myself and my colleague @samhilary acted as the moderators for the UStream live stream that took place for just over 5 and half hours. While I moderated the live chat happening alongside the stream, Sam was diligently monitoring the comments on Twitter, Facebook and UStream. Not only were we moderating what was being said (thanks to all you who kept me busy with the AWFUL racist and sexist comments), but we were feeding back to the production team what people wanted to see on the stream.
The event was a great success, and the live stream had over 182,000 views by the end of the night! This type of activity was great, and highlights how these types of events can now be accessed/experienced by everyone, rather than just celebrities and lucky competition winners.
All pictures courtesy of @samhilary
Charlotte McEleny on NMA.co.uk yesterday reported a story that the London School of Business and Finance has put the entire contents of a MBA course that it offers on Facebook. The university teamed up with former Google employers to create an application for people to be able to access full lecture notes, as well as panel discussions with top companies like Deloitte.
While I’m sure this new approach to education will have its critics, I think that this will bring accessibility to a whole new level. It wasn’t that long ago that attending university was for people with money (and it looks like it may be going to the same way again with the increase in tuition fees), so by placing content in a place which is rapidly becoming a large part of people’s lives, as Etingen (founder of LSBF) said, it allows people to access knowledge easily.
My main concern with this is that by making the degree so accessible, will it mean people will begin to devalue the importance of a physical lecture – being sat in a lecture hall and having opportunities to raise questions and having a face to face discussion with a lecturer? Yes, most of university is self taught (all those hours I spent sat in the library are suddenly flooding back to me), but the discussions I was part of in a seminar group and in lecture theatres were where I was most challenged. I’m aware that people will be able to have these conversations through technology, but you could miss a lot of body language from someone who is just sat in front of a webcam (after all, they say 93% of your communication is through body language).
I do think that this is a great idea, and could mean that if more universities follow suit, more people will have access to higher education, and that, surely, embodies what social media is all about – allowing people to access and share information without boundaries.
This week Polydor launched a fantastic integrated campaign for Cheryl Cole’s new album ‘Messy Little Raindrops’. It’s grabbed a lot of attention and rightfully so – its use of outdoor advertising with Facebook Places is brilliant. Encouraging users to check in to the billboards via the social networking site not only allows an offline campaign to become digital, but it also pushes the message socially through each user’s news feed to their friends. Oh, and they’re also offering tickets, travel and accommodation to a live X Factor show – pretty cool, huh?!
So why should brands consider an integrated campaign? Well, firstly it makes your offline efforts seen and heard by potentially millions of people. The posters are currently only in Newcastle and London; however, those who check in could have connections not only all over the UK, but globally too, meaning that the small location-based offline messaging could spread globally.
Why else? People like being sociable. They like to share things with their friends, so if you have a great offline campaign they will go online and talk to others about it. It’s more about reaching out to consumers these days and catering for their changing behaviour. Since the strong emergence of social networking, the way people consume the media and advertising is different. They can now interact with brands, and share interesting things they see quickly and easily.
I’d be really interested to see the results of the campaign – how many people got involved and were entered for the prize draw. It would be great to see whether this type of integrated campaign is actually as good as it looks on paper (and a billboard, and Facebook…).
National Express West Midlands had to deal with a fake Twitter account (@Travel_WM) last week, which had been set up to announce false cancellations and to inform overweight passengers they would have to pay double fares for taking up two seats. While this might be amusing to those behind the feed, it’s highly offensive for the passengers who felt victimised by the tweets.
So where did it all go wrong? It’s not like National Express West Midlands didn’t already have a Twitter presence (@nxbus), so why did @Travel_WM have over 200 more followers than the official account? It’s a small figure, but still. In part, it’s down to the appearance of the profiles. The unofficial account has a tiled background with the company’s logo, as well as a user friendly Twitter handle (considering that the official website is: www.travelwm.co.uk). In comparison, @nxbus doesn’t tie back to the brand as clearly, and the appearance of the profile is very basic; in fact the only part that has been modified is the image to the company logo. But it goes deeper than this; after all, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
While we can’t condone fake profiles, this one does seem to have a better handle on social content. The official @nxbus profile has created little to genuinely engage consumers. In comparison, the unofficial account has been posting information (albeit false) that would directly affect those who depend on the service National Express provides in that region. @Travel_WM has been engaging with its followers, promising that, “All queries are responded to”. While @nxbus had tweeted, “Any queries tweeted we’ll try and answer, however the best way to contact us about specific journey feedback is via our website”.
So, where does this leave the company? According to The Telegraph, National Express West Midlands’ Development Director – Martin Hancock – has said that it has asked Twitter to close down the account (as the views do not represent the business)and expects the offensive content to be removed immediately.
Has this damaged the brand’s reputation with its consumers? It’s far too early to tell, but to avoid any further confusion, Hancock and his team needs to take the @nxbus feed a lot more seriously. Firstly by making it look official, and then considering the type of content the company could share using this channel. By assessing the value, interactivity, time and location, National Express West Midlands should be able to start creating something that customers will find truly valuable.
Are you taking social media seriously? No? You’re just asking for trouble…
Posted by: Kelly
October 6th, 2010 >> Social Media
In recent months we’ve all seen the issues created by crises that start in, or are amplified by, social media and the lasting damage caused to brands. Huge companies like BP, Nestle and Eurostar are just three examples that jump into my mind after the year they’ve had, and the fall they’ve all suffered. So, when it comes to social media how can brands get it right?
It’s no surprise that social media is a sensitive place for brands to communicate; few brands were built to be social, therefore a relationship between the brand and consumer can be a difficult to facilitate. The mistake a lot of brands make is to ignore the opportunity to get close to their customers via social, until their backs are up against the wall after a crisis. Take the example of the Eurostar incident at the end of 2009 when multiple passengers were stranded on trains due to bad weather. The company had a presence on Twitter, but only a niche Twitter profile created to talk about holidays. When the crisis happened, people were looking for instant answers online via this profile, or for anyone from the company to at least acknowledge they were listening to passengers’ growing concerns. However, this didn’t happen, causing complete uproar through social media, the public and mainstream media.
Since that incident, the brand is starting to do things right. It has set up @EurostarUK and @Eurostar to communicate with its consumers, with a particular focus on engaging with them, answering their queries, and being open and honest (simple, no?).
So why is it that BP and Nestle, among so many other brands, are still struggling with this concept? Rather than just pumping out information, updates on what they are doing, and videos of different employees across their social media platforms, why aren’t they doing the basics and holding simple conversations with their consumers? It seems that brands are still seeing social media as another channel for their PR materials, and aren’t considering the real needs of the consumers in social spaces.
A great case study of a brand who is doing it right, is Vodafone. The company managed to overcome a crisis when an employee tweeted an extremely inappropriate message to all followers of its customer care profile @VodafoneUK. Clearly Vodafone’s #fail, but they came out of it well. Why?
First, because the company had already created a loyal online community due to the time it had invested in dealing with customer issues via Twitter. Second, the honest and transparent approach adopted when reacting to the crisis meant Vodafone was able to recover rapidly, and retain a level of trust and faith within the online community.
So, what should brands do to manage their reputation on social media? Start realising that this is the closest they will get to their consumers, stop pumping out mundane PR information, and start talking.
Some people critiquing PR practices within the social media world are quite possibly screaming at their screams declaring that communities are made by members rather than companies, and in that fact alone it would appear that calling a fan page a community would seem ridiculous.
Mike Phillips argues this point, very articulately:
The problem is most brands don’t have communities. Some brands have amassed large numbers of fans on Facebook, but the mere act of becoming a fan of a brand on Facebook does not mean that the user wishes to participate in any community or join in with any conversation about that brand. A Sausage Roll fan page with 10,000 fans does not mean there is a Sausage Roll community; it simply means that 10,000 people are saying they like Sausage Rolls.
He makes a good point – most fan pages are pointless and really can’t be seen as communities. Everyday I see my friends becoming fans of pages like ‘I am a mole and I live in a hole’ and ‘Sucking a cup to your face and then panicking cos it won’t come off’. These types of pages usually have a low percentage of the fans interacting with the page, and therefore are a passive way for people to show their interest.
However, for several of my campaigns lately we’ve tried to create a ‘hub’ for fans of our clients and their products. We’ve taken the angle of trying to create another source of information and almost go to our consumers, rather than relying on them visiting our clients’ websites. Through creating our ‘hubs’ we’ve tried to create interesting and engaging content to keep the consumers informed about the products, and through this the consumers have begun to not only interact and engage with the client, but they have been interacting and engaging with each other too. Using threads on discussion tabs to debate issues about the products, as well as discussing topics that we post on the wall amongst themselves through ‘comments’ and posting their own content like images and videos to the pages to share with others.
Could this be classed as a community? People engaging with others over a common topic? Yes, the ‘hub’ for this communication was created by a company and not by the ‘people’, but when people engage and interact with each other, surely this could be seen as a community? It seemingly has a similar ethos…
I’m not saying it’s a case of setting up a fan page and calling that a community. You need to think about what your consumers will want to hear about – the reasons behind people’s behaviours in social media are completely different to how they use news websites. The content needs to be adapted for this purpose. Give them exclusive news, relevant and interesting content, and run incentives (like competitions and giveaways) to give them a reason to not only keep revisiting the fan page, but to encourage them to contribute to the page too. By getting them to participate in things on your page like this, it may help lead to create a sense of community amongst the fans.
Obviously there’s not a ‘one model suits all’ approach to this activity. It takes planning and strategy, as well as an in depth knowledge of your client/product and their publics. Only through considering all these factors can marketers/PRs start to contemplate being able to create a ‘community’ on Facebook.
A great presentation from David Griner which helps to explain why PRs should care about social media.
It’s strange, for a person who works for a digital PR and social media agency, as well as talking PR and social media for the majority of my day, and spending what seems like my whole life on social media networks, I’ve only just taken the leap into the ‘blogosphere’. I work with bloggers practically every day for my clients to help maximise online exposure for their campaigns, gain the interest of key influencers and create word of mouth amongst the social media world, yet I’ve not really understood what it takes to be a blogger – the time it takes to write an interesting post, and the reasons why a person chooses to blog.
The thing I started to realise was, how can you really understand bloggers and social network users without fully immersing yourself in that world? It’s not a case of text book theories. Social media is constantly evolving and changing, therefore if PRs want effective and successful campaigns, we need to be at the forefront of this activity, understanding how people are using this type of media and why. Only then can we come up with new and exciting strategies that not only benefit our clients, but also engage effectively with consumers.
So after realising the benefits that would come from throwing myself fully into the social media world, I started looking around the net to find that there is a lack of PRs on blogs talking about what they do and the importance and issues of PR in social media. This has all resulted in me taking on the challenge to talk about social media – the new and emerging trends and possibilities, as well as the best ways to use social media within the world of PR.