Social Media Breakfast MSP - #smbmsp

Christopher Lower, Director of Marketing & PR,
Sterling Cross Communications
Chris’s Background:
• 17 years of Marketing, Sales, & Copywriting
• 10 years of focus on emerging web technologies and their use in marketing –
Blogs, Podcasts, Viral Campaigns, Social Media (MySpace, etc.), Wikis, Web
Video (YouTube, etc), webinars, RSS and more.
• Worked for such companies as Disney, Toys R Us, Starlog Franchise
Corporation, Build-a-Bear Workshops, Zeiss Microscopes, & Champp’s
Americana.
Sterling Cross Communications:
• 6 year old Public Relations, Social Media Relations, & Marketing Firm
• Local, National, & International Clients in Professional Services, Luxury Goods,
Retail, Hospitality, Gourmet Food & Wine, Professional Chefs & Catering,
Consumer Goods, Children’s Products & Toys, Trends, Technology, IT, Medical
Device, Human Resources & Recruiting, and Media.

The Growth of Internet Use 2005 - Today
The number of Americans
online in 2005 – 35%
The number of Americans
online in 2008 – 58%
The number of Americans
online in 2009 – 72%
The number of Americans
online in 2010 – 93%
(projected)

How Prevalent is it?
• According to a 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Survey, it was
found that 60% of Americans use social media, and of those, 59%
interact with companies on social media Web sites. One in four
interacts more than once per week.
• These same subjects surveyed also found that 93% of Americans
believe a company “should have a presence in social media,” 85% say
having a presence is not enough, and that companies “should also
interact with consumers via social media.”
• 89% of US online buyers read customer reviews before they purchase:
43% most of the time, 22% all of the time. A bad reputation hits your
bottom line.

What are they using it for?:
• We’re focusing on
“Critics”:
– Post ratings/reviews of
products or services
– Comment on someone
else’s blog
– Contribute to online
forums.
– Contribute to or edit
articles on wikis
Classifications Courtesy the book Groundswell
(2008) by Forester Research Group – Josh
Bernoff & Charlene Li

Success often hinges on 1) being cognizant
of and 2) participating within the thin blue
line between control and credibility
control credibility
web 1.0 web 2.0
company consume

8

Who do people trust?
As you can see, 83% trust the word of a friend. But perhaps one of the more interesting points is that the
number who trust consumer reviews by people they never met on a retailer's site is 60%, only slightly lower than
\"a review by a known expert.“
Why do people trust strangers?
They don't, not as individuals. But they do in groups. Strangers are assumed not to have an axe to grind. If 100
people on eBags say a laptop bag is great, then it is great. If they say it's inferior, then it is inferior. Regardless
of what a so-called \"expert\" might say.
What does this mean for your brand?
You never know who may be reviewing your product, or where.
If most of your customers like you, the lesson is this: help them to talk. Install ratings and reviews on your site.
Create a blog and let them respond. Give them online tools and energize them. And embrace the fan groups
they form on social networks. Fan the flames.
What if your customers don't like you?
Shutting them up is not an option.
SOURCE: Data courtesy of Forrester Research Group 2009.

Wikipedia lists over
150 “mainstream” sites
that are being utilized
for reviews.
“Mainstream” status is
given to a social
community that has a
minimum of 100,000
registered “active”
users.

Have you ever
sent flowers that
weren’t
delivered on
time?

FTD’s new communication
challenges on Mother’s
Day:
• “FTD.com still hasn’t delivered the flowers I ordered Wednesday to
my mom in the hospital, and they still haven’t replied either.
Grrrrr.”
• “Firing off an angry letter to FTD. They are liars, use 1-800-
Flowers or call an actual, real florist on the telephone.”
• “Calling FTD…mothers day flowers that were not delivered….”
• “FTD had two days to get RA’s mom her mothers day flowers and
they FAILED. I am SO waiting this 15 minute hold time to rip
someone a new one.”
• “FTD resolution was terrible; solution to missed Mother’s day
flowers; send flowers tomorrow & discount the service charge!”
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/11/ftds-mothers-day-mishap/

Does your company “own” its
online identity?

With all of this said, it’s no surprise…
• Nearly 7 out of 10 global executives fear for their
corporate reputations as online risks grow
Weber Shandwick's 2009 “Risky Business: Reputations Online”

reputation loss – the “stumble rate”
79 %
corporate royalty
losing reputation

not an easy journey…
General
1 General Electric Electric
2 Microsoft Toyota
Procter
Southwest
3 Coca-Cola & Gamble
Airlines
Dell Johnson
4 Intel & Johnson
Starbucks
5 Berkshire Hathaway Apple
Sony Berkshire
6 IBM Hathaway
7 Wal-Mart FedEx
8 Cisco Nokia Citigroup IBM Microsoft
Home
9 Dell Coca- BMW
Depot
Cola
10 Merck Toyota PepsiCo
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Source: Fortune World’s Top 10 Most Admired Companies 2000 – 2007; Top Voting Results

Motrin Case Study

Response

3 DAYS LATER!

Last Twitter
update on
Sunday night.
No sign of
response to
issue via
Twitter.

Motrin apparently did little or no monitoring of their
audience before or during the crisis
Taxi’s corporate communications director was
reportedly unaware of the online firestorm.

Guess Who Noticed? Mainstream media
“Slings and arrows: Online backlash ends Motrin ad”
J&J Pulls Online Motrin Ad After Social-Media Backlash
Company caves to moms' Motrin ad backlash
Offended moms get tweet revenge over Motrin ads

• A majority of leaders are out of touch with rogue
employees online. A large two-thirds (66%) of
global executives are either unaware or do not
want to admit that employees are badmouthing
their companies online.
• Surprisingly, only one-third (34 percent) of
executives worldwide say they know of an
employee who posted something negative online
about their company despite the ongoing
prevalence of damaging digital chatter.
Weber Shandwick's 2009 “Risky Business: Reputations Online”

Case Study: Domino’s

What Happens When Customers
Complain or Damage your brand online?:
Domino’s Pizza:
– 2 Employees posted a horrific video on YouTube showing disgusting things they did to
the food prior to it being delivered.
– Over 1 million people saw this in the first 48 hours.
– 5 of the first 12 Google listings for “dominos pizza” are now negative
– Over 5000 people commented on the YouTube site’s comment section
– Domino’s held off on responding until after 48 hours after they found out (The video
debuted on a Monday & Domino’s didn’t respond until following Friday).
– As first reported by Ad Age, the video has taken a toll on quality and perception from
an 81% positive perception to a 64% negative.
– Experts put the cost of this to Domino’s at over 50 mil (including legal, PR, loss of
sales, and coupons to recover business)
37

\"Nothing is local anymore,\" Domino's spokesman
Tim McIntyre says. \"That's the challenge of the Web
world. Any two idiots with a video camera and a
dumb idea can damage the reputation of a 50-year-
old brand.\" – USA Today, 4/16/09

vs
What did Chevron do when it learned that “60
Minutes” was preparing a potentially damaging report
about oil company contamination of the Amazon rain
forest in Ecuador?
It hired a former journalist to produce a mirror image
of the report, from the corporation’s point of view.
– Wall Street Journal, 5/10/09

• “60 Minutes” report reached at least 12
million viewers on television
• Chevron-sponsored video has 4k views
• Maybe this is why 98% of execs “use” the
Internet to evaluate company reputation,
but less than 6 in 10 find it “useful” for
making final judgments (Risky Business)

What Happens When Customers
Complain or Damage your brand online?:
Matt Bacak – A personal brand
destroyed:
– Matt Bacak is a Business Coach in the Atlanta Area, that was new to Twitter, He used list building
techniques to build a huge list of followers but was not following them back or monitoring what they
said.
– According to a website called Twitter Grader – Matt saw he was listed as the #3 Twitter user in
Atlanta, and he thought that was newsworthy.
– He put out a press release on his having attained “elite” status.
– The Twitter community was insulted by his egotistical display of hubris and started venting (he had
some detractors) – and was dubbed “The Biggest Douchebag in Social Media” it was mentioned in
an article posted to Digg (It received 500+ Diggs driving it to the top of the search ranks).
– Matt had left Twitter to go to a seminar after posting the release for over 24 hours he hadn’t a clue as
to the whirlwind he had wrought.
– There are over a hundred negative reports on him and his business online – Prospective clients will
find the D-bag comment wherever they search for him.

What Happens When Customers
Complain or Damage your brand online?:
They Are Not Alone:
– 2009 Web Tech Manufacturer Belkin – gets caught paying for positive reviews – casting in doubt the
quality of their products.
– 2008 Motrin – puts out a badly worded ad about mothers being caused pain for being “baby carriers”
instantly earning them the wrath of the mommy bloggers (the largest classification of bloggers
online). It spread to YouTube, Twitter, & the rest of the web.
– 2008 CNN falls for a rumor spreading on the internet that Steve Jobs has had a heart attack and
reports it as news – it causes Apple’s stock to dip.
– 2008 Exxon-Mobile – Gets brand-jacked by a person posing as a corporate spokeswoman on Twitter
– The general populace believed she was real and that her interactions were those of the company.
– 2008 JC Penny – Third party individuals create overtly sexual ads representing the “brands” new
direction – JC Penny is still attempting to have all of these removed.
– 2008 Target – Officials brush off customer complaints of an indecent ad, figuring it would go away –
the story is covered on the Front Page of the NY Times.
– 2007 Target – Bloggers “out” Target for their “Rounders Program” where they encouraged and
compensated college students to promote the brand on blogs and on Facebook but to keep it “our
little secret.”

What Happens When Customers
Complain or Damage your brand online?:
There are Industry Specific sites that
could affect you:
– Yelp, Urbanspoon, & Chowhounds – sites focused on Restaurants & Bars.
– Trip Advisor, Hotels.com, & Bedbug Registry affect Hotels.
– Apartmentreview, Rentalprotection, & Badlandlord.com affect properties.
ICANN reports that over 500,000 “sucks.com” sites have been created such as;
www.wellsfargosucks.com, www.walmartsucks.com, &
www.toysrussucks.com
SEO can be a temporary fix to promote positive online reports and push back
negative results.

Corporate
Reputation

ABCs of reputation management
• No reputation is bulletproof
• Recovery is continuous with no short cuts or days off
• Reputation recovery comes with no completion date
• Each crisis and recovery has its own rhythm
• Second chances are rarely a matter of luck
• Don’t leave reputation up to the roll of the dice

recovery process – getting off the crutches
91% of global executives believe
companies can fully recover
`
On average recovery takes 3 years, 5
months
Only 48% prepared for reputation damage
Sources: Safeguarding Reputation™ survey, conducted with KRC Research, 2006: AON, 2007

listening
Listening

How to Monitor?:
• Basic first steps are free:
– Let Google do the work for you by setting up Google Alerts – Google will
send any links to postings it finds based on the frequency you select
(Weekly, Daily, As it happens).
– Perform searches on your keywords on Social Media Search sites:
– Twitter = www.summize.com
– Blogs = www.technorati.com
– Multimedia (video/audio) = www.ezinger.com
– More free monitoring tools:
•Moreover (FREE)
•MonitorThis (FREE)
•BlogPulse (FREE)
•Google News Alerts (FREE)
•Yahoo News RSS Feed (FREE)
•TwitterMeter (FREE)
•TweetVolume (FREE)
•BackTweets (FREE)
•Monitter (FREE)
•TweetBeep (FREE)
•Google Blog Search (FREE)
•BackType Blog Comments Monitoring (FREE)

How to Monitor?:
• Paid services are more robust:
– Small Business Solution:
– Trackur – www.trackur.com
– Enterprise Solutions:
– Buzzlogic - www.buzzlogic.com
– Radian6 - www.radian6.com
– Dow Jones/Factiva- www.factiva.com
– Niche Services:
– GuestPulse – Restaurant & Retail www.guestpulse.com
– MarketCentral – European Financial Markets – www.marketcentral.com

response
Response

How to respond – Strategy:
Always investigate complaints made & verify the facts and source.
Responding to a complaint - where:
– When possible, respond on the same site the comment was made.
– If it was on a blog submit a comment – if the blogger refuses to post your
response, notate this and publish your post on your own blog or website.
When to respond:
– Respond in as timely a manner as possible, when the complaint has been
investigated.
– 24 hours is a lifetime on the internet – waiting makes things worse.

How to respond – Escalation:
You may need to involve legal assistance.
Legal action may be taken to protect your IP, Brand, & Reputation:
– Internet issues are tricky as there are 1st Amendment issues involved that
may require special expertise.
– Slander, Defamation of Character, Harassment, and online Bullying laws
can apply.
– Legal intervention is required in most cases to force removal of material
from the internet.
– Copyright Infringement could be involved in the case of brand or identity
theft.

The key components of Crisis Communication
plans for online issues :
2. Check the facts
• Ascertain the legitimacy of the source & complaint
3. Determine the impact
• What could the potential damage be?
4. Bring together trusted counsel
• PR, Legal, Business Advisors – those that can be trusted to give good counsel
5. Understand your detractor
• Seek to understand their motivation and needs
6. Decide on the appropriate response
• Determine is escalation is needed, otherwise, respond with sincerity, show action to correct issue, and
actions to make amends
7. Host the conversation
• Provide a forum for your audience to voice their opinions & complaints – it’s easier than tracking down
comments all over the web.

The best defense is a good offense:
• The conversation is happening online whether you
like it or not – will you participate?
• It’s not good enough to be present online – You need
to engage your audience and participate in the
conversation
• Transparency and Authenticity rule the net – Lies and
misrepresentation will always be found out and called
• True Customer Service comes from listening,
observing, and engaging – then, providing a
thoughtful, timely response.

Better Defense Through Inoculation
Minimize Reputation Risk

Fill the sandbags BEFORE the flood
Inoculate through Proactivity: http://www.usernamecheck.com

Participate and join the community
Inoculate by Listening, Participating, Evolving

Group Activity Time!
1. Trust Falls!
2. Partner off –
seek out
someone you
don’t know.
3. Take turns
“Googling” each
other and see
how much you
can find out