2. Overview of social media Combination of social interaction and digital media to: Communicate, engage, develop and be part of communities Internally and externally for organisations Create and share content and information across networks Build and extend social networks through interaction Listen and participate in discussions, threads and develop ideas and relationships Learn from community (crowdsourcing)
3. Benefits of social media Listening Crucial to hear what the public is saying about you Both positive and negative The web now operates in real time – Brands need to hear what is said about them in real-time Engage with Customers Once you know what is being said about you – you can then interact directly Benefits Build real communities online and offline Build long lasting relationships and trust with customers Instant polling and research opportunity with customers Reduce customer acquisition costs Increase customer retentions
4. Associated risks Loss of control of the conversation Two way communication Openly negative transmissions Brands criticised for using social channel as a marketing or PR conduit Can be a difficult persona for brands to adopt Reveal a human voice of a corporate identity What it is that voice? Starting – and then not following through Inevitable criticism
17. Bord Gais The Big Switch Campaign (TheBigSwitch.ie) Contacted over 100 influencers before launch of BigSwitch campaign Well received by blogging community – lots of open & public praise Set up Twitter and engaged with community Community participated in Video campaigns Allegedly Bord Gais PR company advised against (protecting interests?) Then they lost 75000 customer details Reverted back to boilerplate PR Lost a lot of credibility with community
19. Pat The Baker & Bebo Unlikely brand to become a template on how to run a social media campaign Engaged with their audience (very well) Blogs, updates, conversational, responded to comments and questions as they happened User Interaction – Allowed and encouraged user feedback – solicited their opinions using Polls & questionnaires User generated competitions Design related (skins, characters), video and merchandise (T-shirts, bags) Social capital as well as economic rewards
21. FBD.ie Employ a community manager Engages in conversations on Blogs, Twitter, Forums, very public presence Provides a personal face to the Brand Involved with the IIA and chairs on the social media community group Participates on IGOPeople Launched new website at end of May 09 Gets a lot of positive feedback from online community for participating
24. Listening Tools Using third party tools brands can listen online to what is being said about them Typical Channels covered include: Online Forums Blogs – Post and Comments Twitter Social Networks Video Sites Photosharing sites Wikis Operate on an Alert system Close to real-time notification systems Single View of brand and can manage conversations within the Third party tool Brands can avail of Free tools and utilities Do not get single view of brand mentions
25. Case studies of brands not listening and managing digital crisis
26. Domino’s Domino’s Pizza Video Two employees posted video of them “interfering” with food production Posted on a Friday night Circulated around Twitter, YouTube and social web over weekend No response from company until following Tuesday Video received millions of views and large volumes of commentary Eventually company release PR statement – not very satisfactory On Wednesday President responds with Video – generally, well received Classic case-study in failure to respond immediately
28. Amazon AmazonFail Amazon remove thousands of gay and lesbian literature from ratings system on a Friday evening Outrage amongst online community over weekend No response from Amazon until following Tuesday #Amazonfail hashtag in top 5 trending topics in Twitter A lot of commentary about mismanagement of issue from Twitter and Blogosphere Eventually Amazon release a boilerplate PR release – calls incident a “technical glitch” Brand tarnished by incident – search Amazon on twitter to see comments – #Amazonfail now part of digital lexicon
30. Ryan Air & “Idiot Bloggers” No time for bloggers Blogger notices technical glitch on RyanAir site and blogs about it RyanAir employees respond in heavy-handed fashion Affair generates publicity both online and offline – RTE news, Irish Daily newspapers, Blogs RyanAir release a harsh press release – calls bloggers “idiots” Incident picked up internationally (NY Times, Guardian. Skynews etc…) RyanAir position seems to be all publicity good - regardless
33. Burger King Embraced the “BrandJacker” - @theBkLounge & @whoppervirgins on Twitter Considered top 40 best Brands online - Mashable Kudos from Advertising Age and LA Times No “Cease and Desist” letters form Burger King Crispin Porter used the BKLounge character to generate conversation – online and offline
35. Snickers “Cease & Desist” Snickrz! – set up by agency Poke Allowed users to upload Snickrz logos Very popular – 80,000 users - lots of traffic on Twitter Inherently used by Snickers customers who liked the brand Mars (Parent Company) issue and enforce a “cease and desist” Site has now been taken down - #snickersfail on Twitter Should have either co-opted or allowed it to continue Recent forays by Mars into social media such as Skittles – show lack of understanding of web Caused a lot of negative publicity