Horizon Realty – A Case Study in how not to handle online reputation management

It started out fairly innocuously, it was a single retweet on Twitter of a news source I monitor, but the headline was too intriguing not to read – Will one Chicago woman’s Tweet cost her $50,000? I immediately thought to myself; “boy, someone is in trouble…,” but as I clicked on the link and read the first article here, and then I saw it was a headline here and here, I quickly saw the writing on the wall, it wasn’t the person that was in trouble, it was the company referenced: Horizon Realty.

The company in their response and defense of the single tweet by a woman, Amanda Bonnen, with the Twitter username:  @abonnen, initiated legal proceedings seeking $50,000 in damages for claimed defamation.  This is the company’s right to do so.  It is even a recommended course in traditional public relations crises communications tactics, yet, it is never the first recommended course when trying to manage your brand and reputation online. It should be the last resort.

When someone brings out the giant cannon of litigation, without having investigated and addressed the message in a public forum, it is immediately seen by the public watching, as overkill.  The giant corporation is now seen as bullying, callous, and unfeeling towards its tenants in the actions it has taken in response.

The response the company was initially hoping to avoid (that of their reputation being besmirched by the remark, has instead inflicted 1000’s of remarks to their own reputation, when word of the lawsuit reached the Twitter community.  The Twitter community took the side of the woman, and began to tear the company to shreds online for its “heavy-handedness”, “Lawsuit-happy management”, and generally being “clueless” (all words being mentioned online as descriptors of the company).

The response by Horizon’s Jeffrey Michael in a Chicago Tribune interview  , was that they were a “Sue first, ask questions later, type of company.” Once again this irked the general public online. Michael later (1 day, an eternity online)  released a press release claiming the comments were meant to be “tongue-in-cheek”, and then delved into the details of some ongoing issues that Horizon has had with Ms. Bonnen and some prior complaints she has had with them.  AS you can imagine, this release was not received well online, and for a second day, Horizon was listed as a trending topic on Twitter as the negative conversations continued fueled by Horizon themselves.

In the first 72 hours that this occurred, the damage on the net was done.  It’s been classified as an example of the Streisand Effect - an Internet phenomenon where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized.  Companies can no longer scoff at the idea that their reputation online does not matter, and that they have to participate in and listen to the conversations.  Horizon failed to do so, and the end results so far are these:

• They became a trending topic on Twitter, meaning that they went from the 22 followers of Ms. Bonnen’s to being seen potentially by over a million people (of their own doing with the news of the lawsuit). The most recent 1500 comments can be seen here (it would be more, but that is all that Twitter has room for in their search tool).
• If you Google “Horizon Realty”, four of the eleven first page listings are negatively related to the lawsuit. (Think of how that looks to a future potential tenant or someone searching for a management company).
• Their reviews on Yelp have exploded from three listings prior to this event to 26 listings (ranging from annoyed to enraged) as of today keeping their ratings as a lowly 1 and a half stars.
• Google Blog search shows over 16,000 blog posts that are already indexed, of which over 1000 include the phrase: “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization.” There are also over 14,000 posts mentioning Jeffrey Michael (predominantly in a negative manner)
• Not only has Horizon Realty earned the onus of being attributed to the Streisand Effect on Wikipedia, Horizon Realty has its own entry page.
• The story jumped to traditional media as well – earning mentions in the Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times, The Wall Street Journal and too many other outlets (over 512 stories as of today’s writing) to mention.

Is there still doubt in your mind or in the minds of your company that social media doesn’t matter?

Crisis Communication on Social Media has to have different rules, since it is different from traditional media.  We recommend the following steps be in place as the basics for any online reputation management strategies and policies that need to be put in place:

1. Always investigate complaints made & verify the facts and source.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Legal action may be taken to protect your IP, Brand, & Reputation: but remember, Internet issues are tricky as there are 1^stAmendment 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.

As you can see, escalating to legal action is an option, just not the first recommended option, and never until the first three steps have been taken.

The final thoughts I will leave you with are these – the best defense is a good offense:

1. The conversation is happening online whether you like it or not – will you participate?
2. It’s not good enough to be present online – You need to engage your audience and participate in the conversation
3. Transparency and Authenticity rule the net – Lies and misrepresentation will always be found out and called
4. True Customer Service comes from listening, observing, and engaging – then, providing a thoughtful, timely response.
5. Perception online is always a consideration – if you are perceived as the bully in responding to a complaint, using threats, or worse – legal action that could be avoided, then you lose, even if you are in the right.

For the Multi-Housing Industry – Making Social Media Work for You

I’m linking to a valuable article for you today. I am quoted in it, but that’s not the reason I did. This article focuses specifically for social media strategies and learnings for the Multi-Housing Industry. It appears in the August 2009 issue of the Multi Housing Advocate Magazine. The Magazine is produced by the Minnesota Multi-Housing Association (MMHA), where I spoke in June on the topic of Managing your Online Reputation and Brand. The article is written by the MMHA’s PR Director, Tina Gassman and is full of insight about how to apply social media to the multi-housing management space. Here are the first two paragraphs and you can click the link following that to read the full article:

Last month, I sat in on MHA’s two-part Hot Topic seminar. Robert Turnbull of Rentwiki.com presented “The Social Media Phenomenon” and Christopher Lower of Sterling Cross Communications presented “The ROI of Managing Your Online Reputation.” While I had been reading about and researching this topic fairly extensively, I found the information to be very helpful in that it was tailored to our industry. As I discuss how this social media phenomenon must change the way we approach marketing, I will include the valuable points I learned from these two presenters and will provide you with a quick and dirty guide to your public relations efforts in this “always on” age.

Today’s marketing landscape looks much different than it did 30 years ago…

Please click here to read the rest of the article.

Removing Social Media Accounts – What happens when you need to end a presence online?

It’s become a fact in this economy that companies are going out of business.  Even those companies that were forward thinking in their marketing have not been able to escape the factors in the economy, and they have had to close down.  A client of ours became such a casualty two months ago.  They had just launched several online platform accounts at the beginning of the year.  All was going very well for them as they built their followers slowly and steadily to amass an engaged audience.  Then we received “the email” alerting us that the client was ceasing all business activities and requested we shut down all of their accounts online.

This would be a first for us.  We’ve worked with over a dozen companies, all with varying degrees of success, but, it has always been success.  It was even successful for this client as well; we had executed the initial strategy well, and were growing our audience to allow us to move into the second phase of the strategy.  Now we had proof though, that even the almighty social media with all of its bells and whistles could not solve all problems a company faced.

So we went and started deactivating accounts and learning to what degree the information could truly be removed or purged from the internet.  The results were interesting to say the least:

The Corporate Website – This was able to be turned off. Searches to the domain name now lead to a placeholder page put up by the hosting company.  Two months later though, the site still shows up in searches.  The links are broken, so I will assume Google, Bing, and other engines will eventually drop the results, it wasn’t gone in two months.  The search engines have archives and cached pages of the website, which are starting to deteriorate as well. Queries made to the search engine companies have come back with inconclusive answers as to how long something can live online.  Some items that are heavily linked to from other sites will last longer than those that had only a few links.

Facebook – the Company’s professional page was shut down, but the owner of the Company kept his personal page up to continue building his personal brand for a new career/job.  Facebook is fairly complete when it comes to deleting material permanently.  Due to the fact that most of the content is kept inside of the Facebook community tags, and unless it was open to search by the outside internet community, it seldom shows up in outside searches.

Twitter – After the corporate Twitter account was shut down, it was determined that the content would not easily go away, in spite of Twitter having the content open for immediate outside search.  The several different search applications associated to Twitter archived Tweets almost immediately and most kept running archives up to eight pages long.  The owner of the company decided to re-brand the Twitter account and continue its use for his personal brand.

A WordPress Blog – The blog was deactivated, but is still found in several searches. The codes that many blogs are created in are very search friendly.  Search sites have copies and cached copies of the blog posts, and many of the posts were reposted on other sites.  Unless those posts are removed by the individuals that reposted them, they will stay online.

Linkedin – The Company profile was removed, but the fact that it is listed by former employees, and as past positions of the owners, the company listings will stay online in Linkedin.

Some of this material can be litigated to be removed, but you’ll want to make sure you are going down the right path with the right legal team for that.  Most bloggers are protected by 1^st Amendment rights and you will need to engage an attorney with experience in Constitutional law.  Other sites may require formal legal requests to remove photos, videos and other charts and images.

The bottom line is that yes you can deactivate your accounts and remove some material online, that it will not result in the immediate removal of all of the material from being found online. It may fade over time, like the memory of the company, but for now it is a record of existence that won’t easily go away.  With that in mind, what kind of online legacy is company leaving online?

Today’s marketing for Resorts & Campgrounds – Building Community, Memories, and Lifetime Visitors with Social Media Tools

This is an article I wrote for Resorts & Campgrounds Magazine and appears in their summer 2009 Issue. Due to popular demand, it was reprinted here for those who do not have access to the Magazine. Enjoy!

I grew up lucky enough to have had an annual family trip to some resort or campground every year.  If you are the same, you probably have some great old photos.  Some might be in albums, some might be framed, but most are probably in a box or bin somewhere, but wherever they are, they capture and represent great memories.  There are great tools online these days that allow you to post and share these photos and memories online. 80% of all internet users are posting photos to share online, and 54% of them are posting vacation photos, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project data. 30% of those vacationers are posting to sites and communities connected to the place they went on vacation, if there is a space to post.  Disney is great at this for their Camp Wilderness property.

You too can create a space where your visitors can share photos.  You can brand your own photo sharing page on many social media photo sharing sites like Flickr, ShutterFly, and Photobucket. These sites can be linked back in to your own website, where potential new visitors can share in the memories and see great pictures of people enjoying your services and amenities. Of the 140 million Americans online, 63% of them are booking their travel destinations online. 53% of them state that their decision to book is based on photos or videos of visitors enjoying the property and amenities.  Social media tools allow your guests to share their great times and memories and empower them to build community by connecting to other resort and campground visitors.  Other tools like blogs, YouTube, and pages on sites like Facebook allow people to connect and share as well. The common backdrop across all of these sites is your location.

Like any vacation destination in today’s times and economy you must adapt to keep up. In 2008 it was reported that up to 60% of campgrounds and 84% of RV Parks have added WIFI internet access to their list of amenities, whether in the common areas, or available throughout the property.  If you offer internet access on location, you can encourage guests to post up photos while still there and even offer prizes for photo contests, to build your online content.  All photos posted should be tagged (identified) to include your property name and location to aid in the online search benefits you will receive from posted photos.

More often than not, these social media tools are low to no cost to implement, and can be managed by staff onsite.  For best results, you’ll want to invest a bit to ensure that your brand is represented across each of these social media sites which can be handled typically by your web developers or marketing team. Here is a list of tools that any resort or campground owner or manager can use to connect with their customer to convert them to brand evangelists and lifelong customers:

 

Social Media Tools for Resorts & Campgrounds:

• Make sure your property can be searched and reviewed through local business guides such as Yelp.com, Hotels.com and TripAdvisor.com. Suggest that positive feedback from patrons is shared on these social business guide sites.
• Twitter – sign up for a Twitter account. Use it also as a tool to listen and converse with your customers.
• E-Newsletter – Email a monthly newsletter with the latest happenings, new renovations, additions, or upgrades etc.
• Blog – Customers want to be part of something more than just a onetime trip; they want to feel like they belong.  You can set up a blog to allow guests to post their memories and stories.
• Facebook – Set up a Facebook fan page to connect with your customers on Facebook.
• MySpace – If your clientele is the MySpace generation, create a profile page and consistently update it with fresh content.
• YouTube – Incorporate video into your social media strategy.
• The Business Card – Provide a business card or note-card to each customer that visits your property with their receipt that maps out where they can continue their vacation experience online by connecting to you via social media to share memories.

 Christopher Lower is the Co-owner of Sterling Cross Communications, a Social Media, Public Relations, & Web Design Firm, that focuses on the Restaurant, Hospitality, Hotel, and Lodging industries. In addition to over 20 years of PR & Marketing experience, Chris worked over eight years in the Hospitality Industry. He can be reached at www.sterlingcrossgroup.com or can be found on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mrchristopherl.

Domino’s proves why Restaurants must monitor their brand and reputation online

It was a Restaurateur’s worst nightmare. In the span of a few minutes of video posted to YouTube, a 50 year old brand was brought low.  Two (fired and facing felony charges) employees of a franchise location of Domino’s Pizza recorded a video of themselves doing horrendous and disgusting things to food that was potentially about to be served to an unsuspecting customer. The video went viral.  The YouTube video reached one million views in less than 3 days. References to it were in five of the 12 top search results on the first page of Google search for “Dominos,” and discussions about Domino’s had spread throughout Twitter. Several major news outlets have covered the incident, including the New York Times, USA Today and Fox News.  

Reportedly Domino’s knew about the video for nearly 48-hours before it launched a PR blitz to respond to the overwhelming amounts of negative comments, and comments faulting the company for not responding in a timely manner. They were first notified of the video from bloggers that had seen it online.  The company itself was not monitoring what was being said about its brand and reputation online. That was a fatal mistake that has brought great damage in customer confidence and loyalty and has crushed an iconic brand.

As Domino’s is starting to realize, social media has the reach and speed to turn tiny incidents into marketing crises. In November, Motrin posted an ad suggesting that carrying babies in slings was a painful new fad. Unhappy mothers posted Twitter complaints about it, and bloggers followed; within days, Motrin had removed the ad and apologized, but as with Domino’s, it was a case of too little, too late.

There was no one watching out for their brand online. 

If this can happen to a mighty chain with a fifty year history, how much can it affect independent restaurants, smaller chains, and family owned businesses?  If you are in the restaurant industry, or for that matter, in any industry that can be reviewed online, you cannot afford to ignore what is being said about you online.  Many restaurateurs are not even aware of the many sites and places where people can and are talking about them online.  Sites like Yelp, Urbanspoon, Chowhound, Metromix, Getsatisfaction.com, and Trip Advisor offer consumers a platform to get their complaints or raves heard.

Crises Communications is not a new practice, but it is new when trying to be performed in Social Media. There are several tools though for low to no cost for a restaurateur to watch what is being said about them (good or bad) online. You can do simple things, such as setting up Google Alerts, or searching Twitter and blogs to monitor what is being said, or you can pay for more robust search tools to and firms to do it for you (We offer such services for clients). No matter what you do though, you need to start watching what is being said starting now, and on a regular basis.  Domino’s and Motrin failed to respond quickly 48 hours is an eternity online, and the damage is done.

What is the cost of not paying attention, or “hoping it will go away”? A majority of your business could be in jeopardy. 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.

So what should you do? Here are a few things to get you started:

·         Create a Crisis Communication plans for online issues.

·         Execute effective online Customer Service.

·         Get the tools to monitor what’s being said online about your brand, your company, and you.

·         Learn the strategies and steps to take to respond to information already posted.

·         Learn the strategies and steps to take to have negative information removed, mitigated, or retracted.

If you are in the Minneapolis – St. Paul area, we are holding a seminar on April 28^th, 2009 on The ROI of Managing your Online Reputation & Brand. Click here for more details: http://onlinereputation.eventbrite.com/.

The ROI of Managing your Online Reputation & Brand presented by Sterling Cross Communications

Who: Sterling Cross Communications, a Twin Cities based Social Media, PR and Web Design firm.

What: 90-minute workshop presentation that educates and arms participants with awareness and tools to understand, monitor and shape their online reputation and brand.

When: Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 – 8:30 – 10:30 a.m.
*Breakfast/registration opens at 8:30 a.m. – session start time 9:00 a.m.

Where: The Learning Center at the offices of Lurie Besikof Lapidus and Company LLP; 2501 Wayzata Boulevard; Minneapolis, MN 55405

Cost: $100 for general admission – $85 for Early bird purchases by April 17th.

Registration: http://onlinereputation.eventbrite.com/ for more details contact Sterling Cross Communications – 763.496.1499 or info@sterlingcrossgroup.com

People are talking about you online. Do you know what they are saying? Is it good or bad?
Bad reviews, comments, or complaints can be costing you business every day.
• Do you know how to respond?
• Do you have a contingency plan to handle an online communications crisis?
• Why does it affect you?
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.

Christopher Lower, Co-owner of Sterling Cross Communications will open your eyes to the status of your brand and reputation online, how to monitor and manage it, and give you tangible steps to improve its condition.
We’ll discuss:
• How and where to monitor what’s being said online about your brand, your company, and you.
• Strategies and steps to take to respond to information already posted.
• Strategies and steps to take to have negative information removed, mitigated, or retracted.
• You’ll learn the key components of Crisis Communication plans for online issues.
• Discover how to execute effective online Customer Service.
• Best of breed tools and solutions that provide immediate results will be discussed and demonstrated.

About your Presenter:
Christopher Lower has over 17 years of marketing, PR, and strategic consulting. He has 10 years of focus on emerging web technologies and their use in marketing – Blogs, Podcasts, Viral Campaigns, Social Media (Linkedin, Twitter, etc.), Wikis, Webinars, RSS, and Mobile Technology Solutions.

About Sterling Cross Communications:
Sterling Cross is a Social Media, Public Relations, & Web Design Firm. They are the firm behind Social Media campaigns for over a dozen companies including; moto-i, The Bailey Consulting Group, Augeo Benefits, Baja-Sol, and several other clients that do business in both the B2B & B2C space. For more info please visit www.sterlingcrossgroup.com.

Strategically Promoting Your Restaurant with Social Media Tools

This is an article I wrote for Restaurateur Magazine and appears in their April 2009 Issue. Due to popular demand, it was reprinted here for those who do not have access to the Magazine. Enjoy!

 

You work hard to get everything right, the food, the atmosphere, the service, the kitchen and back of the house staff, and once a guest comes through the door, you have the power to make sure they have the best possible experience. Then they go home.  A place you can’t control the experience – and you don’t know what they’ll tell their family, friends, co-workers, and anyone who will listen, about their experience. What if you could control it? What if you could extend the dining experience beyond the walls of your restaurant? With social media tools, you can.

 

You’ve heard the buzzwords: Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, and YouTube.  These tools allow you to enhance and carry the dining experience beyond your front door. They allow your customers to take the physical connections and loyalty virtual to experience it online as well. With customers increasing their online activity, the online experience that guests have with you can make or break you.

 

You put thought, consideration and passion into every physical aspect of your guests’ interaction with you, but how is their experience with your website?  Does it convey your brand, atmosphere, and message? Is it easy to navigate? Are your menus and specials quickly found? Is your contact information, location, hours of operation and amenities crystal clear? These are just the bare minimum standards now needed to entice someone to interact with your online brand.

 

When they interact, they feel connected. When they feel connected, they’ll often be your evangelists and make a point to refer your establishment or brag about their incredible experience. They are inclined to take someone with them the next time they visit, and will want to connect your restaurant to others.

 

In the best of times, it’s hard to promote a restaurant.  With labor and food costs constantly battling to take the lead as your primary concern, you need systems and tools that can give you the greatest return on your investment of dollars and time. Social Media are emerging tools that fit that bill.

 

Social Media tools are increasingly moving from consumer to consumer tools to business to consumer vehicles.  6,000 people a day are signing up for Facebook and only a percentage of them are the college students that the platform initially attracted.  Many businesses are motivated by the opportunity to opt in at a fairly cost effective manner, and also the ability to bring them to an intimate space next to their customer. What you are seeing is a vast array of Social Media approaches that converse and connect. Once you realize who your customer is, what makes them tick, what they like and dislike, using social media can be that missing link that transforms a casual customer into a brand evangelist.

 

Using tools for the “cool” factor of saying you use them will not bring you a tangible return.  You’ll need to start with a strategy. Once you’ve determined who your customers are, you need to know which social media tools they use, and engage with them on their turf. The effectiveness of social media isn’t simply using the tool; it’s listening, answering questions and connecting with others. These tools are just opportunities to connect your customers to your brand and by connecting with them, they’ll help you build relationship and gain invaluable insight to their propensity to buy from you.

 

Here is a list of tools that any restaurant owner can use to connect with their customer to convert them to brand evangelists:

 

Social Media Tools for Restaurants

• Make sure your restaurant can be searched and reviewed through local business guides such as Yelp.com, Urbanspoon.com, Getsatisfaction.com and TripAdvisor.com. Encourage your guests, that if they had a great experience to please post it to one of these sites.
• Twitter – sign up for a Twitter account. Use it also as a tool to listen and converse with your customers.
• E-Newsletter – Email a monthly newsletter with the latest happenings, new menu items, entertainment news, recipe of the month etc.
• Blog – Customers want to be part of something more than just a meal; they want to feel like they belong. A blog can be that tool.
• Facebook – Set up a Facebook fan page to connect with your customers on Facebook.
• MySpace – If your clientele is the MySpace generation, create a profile page and consistently update it with fresh content.
• YouTube – Incorporate video into your social media strategy.
• The Business Card – Provide a business card or note-card to each customer that visits your establishment with their receipt that maps out where they can continue their dining experience online by connecting to you via social media.

 

Christopher Lower is the Co-owner of Sterling Cross Communications, a Social Media, Public Relations, & Web Design Firm, that focuses on the Restaurant, Hospitality, Hotel, and Lodging industries. In addition to over 20 years of PR & Marketing experience, Chris worked over 8 years in the Hospitality Industry. He can be reached at www.sterlingcrossgroup.com or can be found on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mrchristopherl.

 

Sterling Cross is a proud to have been selected as a preferred vendor for Hospitality Minnesota. Hospitality Minnesota is the management entity for

 

 

 

The Minnesota Restaurant Association, Minnesota Lodging Association and Minnesota Resort and the Campground Association. These Associations provide legislative and regulatory advocacy, marketing, education and information and money-saving programs to members. In addition, Hospitality Minnesota operates a non-profit education foundation, the Hospitality Minnesota Education Foundation, which provides a high school curriculum in foodservice and lodging management and provides scholarships to students pursuing higher education in the hospitality field. For more info: www.hospitalitymn.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sterling Cross Communications Presents Social Media Boot Camp

We’d like to present our Social Media Bootcamps here in the Twin Cities:

 

What:               Sterling Cross Communications Presents Social Media Boot Camp Basic Training & Advanced Maneuvers

 

When:              Wednesday, March 25^th, 2009 – 9:00 – 10:30 am for Boot Camp Basics 11:00 – 12:30 pm for Advanced Maneuvers

*Breakfast/registration will begin at 8:30 a.m. and the beginner session will begin at 9:00 and run until 10:30.  There will be a half hour break and then from 11 – 12:30 the advanced session will take place ending with lunch.

 

Where:             Hilton Hotel in Bloomington (3900 American Blvd West, Bloomington, Minnesota, United States 55437 Tel: 1-952-893-9500)

 

Cost:                 $100 per session or $175 for both – Early bird purchases by March 16^th – $85 per session or $150 for both

 

Registration:   Basic Training Session (or both sessions) http://socialmediacamp.eventbrite.com/ Advanced Maneuvers session http://socialcampadvanced.eventbrite.com/ For more details contact Sterling Cross Communications – 763.496.1499

 

                                               

Social Media platforms are the fastest growing segments of the Internet user population.  New users of Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, Flickr, and so on, number in the millions daily. Besides the basic benefits of networking, there are a myriad of ways you can utilize and incorporate Social Media tools into your business to support and enhance such functions as communication, customer service, PR, marketing, sales, new business development, research, education, human resources, recruiting, training, and more. 
 
Boot Camp Basics will cover:

·         Introduction of Terms

·         Getting Started

·         Early Adaptors vs. Practical Marketing

·         Basic Training – Initiation of Followers

·         Measurement & Tracking

·         Strategy Overviews

 

Guest Speakers -

·         Robyn Flach, Partner from Excellanz, will speak to why a business owner must engage in social media.

·         Julio Ojeda-Zapata, author of Twitter Means Business: How Microblogging Can Help or Hurt Your Company will speak about his book and why businesses are flocking to Twitter, as well as what they are doing once they get there.
 

 

Boot Camp Advanced Maneuvers will cover:

·         Creation of Live Twitter Case Study

·         Integration of a Social Media Campaign

·         How do I speak to my audience in Social Media?

·         Base Initiative Ideas

·         Time Management for Social Media Applications

·         ROI (Return on Investment) /ROP (Return on Participation)

·         Strategy and Tips for Selling Social Media Initiatives to Marketing and Financial Decision Makers (as well as clients)

 

Guest Speakers -

·         Phil Wilson, Partner from Localtone Radio, Comic Twits, & Remain Comm.com, will speak to the transformation of Traditional media to social media.

·         Julio Ojeda-Zapata, author of Twitter Means Business: How Microblogging Can Help or Hurt Your Company will speak about his book and why businesses are flocking to Twitter, as well as what they are doing once they get there.

 

Media Sponsors – MinnesotaBusiness Magazine & Minnesota Meetings + Events Magazine

 

Skittles new website is NOT social media…or is it?

 

The new Skittles.com site

 

 

The M&M Mars colorful fruit candy chews have gotten a social media makeover to their website. It is drawing many oohs and aahs from the crowds that click over to this site to find a very slick transparent overlay with a navigation widget that is laid on top of their social media sites, including a www.summize.com  page keyword searching “skittles” (Seen in the photo).

 

You can also click over to the other platforms where they have accounts as well – Flickr, YouTube, and Facebook.  There is also a quick insert your age here survey (where they are apparently gathering demographic info).  It has gotten many of the so-called social media gurus all up in a tizzy though, as it is a very slick implementation of technology, without an apparent “social media strategy” attached to it.

So, what’s the deal?  Who’s right? Well, to be honest, it’s a lot of both.

Let’s talk about what they did right:

1.       The advertising & PR garnered from the word of mouth from incorporating their social media platform accounts is off the charts as far as ROI is concerned.  The cost of such a website as this, by rough estimates, could be pulled together for 5 to 30K (incredibly cheaper than the cost for the media buys they would have had to have done, and not gotten the benefit of so much traffic).

2.       The SEO benefit is again off the charts successful for the ROI and benefit.  The amount of mentions online they are receiving as well as the back-linking happening from those of us that are posting on blogs, writing stories, tweeting, etc. about their new site.

3.       Ability to track – not having access to their analytics, so not knowing for sure, but there is the potential for incredible results from tracking clicks. Even more potent than the collecting of age information (which I’ll get into later).

4.       Word of mouth and instigation of online conversations – the level of buzz generated, and word of mouth have quickly spread this virally to an internet sensation.  The opportunities to allow for their audience to discuss, socialize, and talk about their brand (glowingly or otherwise) is also incredibly done.

5.       Trusted in their brand enough to release control of it to the world.  It took guts, and I’m guessing some people are still sweating it to allow people to wreak havoc by saying whatever they want and attaching the word “skittles” to it (my personal favorite was one that said Skittles are actually unicorn poop!).  Watch for a potential removal of the overlay to the www.summize.com page with the live stream soon (my prediction).

Now here’s where they failed, or missed the mark:

1.       Failure to participate in the conversation.  Yes Skittles fostered conversation about their product and brand, but as many others have already pointed out, neither Skittles, nor M & M Mars is participating in the conversations on Twitter.  They do not own or manage the @skittles or @skittlescandy accounts.  When you are not participating in the conversation, you have zero chance to impact it.  What if the conversation is skewing negatively or there are legitimate complaints being made (and not just the graffiti-like profanity tweeted out just so they could see it on Summize)? You as the business have no control, say, or opportunity to provide customer service on these platforms.  Comcast with their @comcastcares account on Twitter, is an example of how to do this right.

2.       Capturing the wrong data.  It might be interesting to see what the age group of the people coming to the Skittles site is.  The problem is, that the visitor to the site does not necessarily equate to a consumer of the candy.  The data they have collected seems to be fairly diluted, especially with the amount of marketers and online gurus that have been checking it out, without ever intending to purchase the candy. 

3.       As a professional at a PR/Marketing agency that has worked with several candy clients, it has become crystal clear (to me), that candy is typically an impulse buy and not something that is purchased online, as there is a lag time for shipping, etc. Skittles would have been better served to offer a downloadable coupon for a free package of the candy redeemable from their local store, where the opportunity to purchase an additional bag or two, could occur. Personally, (and this is my big idea) I would have partnered with the braintrust that runs Twitter and came out with a collector’s edition package of Twittles! (I want credit for this, and a free case or two) there would be a run on the stores by the Twitterati.

4.       Trusting an Ad Agency/Web Design firm without actual experience in conducting social media campaigns with a social media campaign.  It is clear by the misses, that their firm (agency.com) came at this with the old-school traditional advertising mentality where this was a cool broadcast out to the world. The fact they failed to get the company to engage with their audience.  While it is always good to want to engage in social media, make sure you are dealing with someone that has already built and executed campaigns.  There are too many “social media experts” shilling themselves today, that are foisting about the buzzwords without any experience to back it up.

5.       Failure to monitor the conversations about their brand online. I don’t know this for sure, but I will deduce that if they aren’t interested in participating in the conversations, that they really aren’t interested in monitoring what is being said as well.  This also goes to managing your online reputation, where if you aren’t watching what people are saying, you have no true measure of your brand’s performance.  The conversations are happening, will you be a part of it?

So now I open it up to you.  What are your thoughts on Skittles new website?  Is it social media – or NOT? Comment away…

The Cost of Not Entering into Social Media – How it Hurts Your Company (Part Four & Final for Now…)

In wrapping up our discussion on the cost of not entering into Social Media – How it hurts your company, we want to discuss something that every CEO and CFO can appreciate – ROI, or in the case of Social Media – ROP (Return on Participation).

At best, the tracking of traditional media – PR and advertisements being tied to audience numbers has always been sketchy at best.  Traditional media campaigns rely on the amount of people who actually see the ad.  Think about the companies that buy a full page spread in The Wall Street Journal or N.Y. Times.  What do you think that costs?  According to information provided: a full page ad in The Wall Street Journal costs around $175,000 (according to www.wsj.com).  A 30 second commercial costs around $350,000, Billboards are around $25,000/year and Radio ads run around $5,000/week (according to a Clear Channel sales rep). Note: rates based on date of this posting and may be subject to change.

So how do you measure the success of these massive costs?   Traditional media relies on one way communication with as many people as possible, but then what?  Our attention is decreasing, now, more than ever, it’s easy for us to ignore ads.  Your TV commercial is only good if it isn’t Tivo’d out.  How do you track the impressions of your full page ad in the paper or magazine?  You can try to fudge some circulation numbers into a pseudo-percentage that you can hope is close, but there are still no tangible numbers, unless you tie it to an action.

Social media platforms themselves do not charge you to become a user (for the most part). In social media, here are some of the things we can measure.  The majority of the cost falls under “time” or participation (unless of course you are building a micro-site or some sort of customized social media platform/game/etc.).  Here is a list of some of the things we can measure:

1.       SEO & traffic to a site, there are many ways to measure this i.e. referral sites, organic listings, inbound links to pages or sites, etc.

2.       The amount of conversation/number of comments that you receive

3.       You can track your overall brand image and work to change it if need be.

4.       You can see the amount of times something is opened, shared with, or forwarded to other people

5.       The number of sales or increase in revenue, you can track this by using analytics programs and setting up funnels/goals to track conversion points.

6.       The number of dedicated subscribers/followers/people that want to engage and interact with you or your brand

Another thought – the real problem is that we measure traditional marketing programs the wrong way. Almost everything in traditional measurement programs is customer transaction-based – how much will it cost to get a customer to buy, once based on viewing a traditional media piece. What we really need to measure is the customer’s life-cycle value.  This includes any repeat purchases, his/her ability to influence others in making buying decisions, and the value of their extended network.

Finally, most traditional media measurement analytics – is based upon reactive activity, rather than predictive. Too many companies are not measuring their customers to determine where their business is going, or how successful new product or service offerings will be.

So, after all of this, is your company still on the fence about engaging in social media?  Why? Leave a comment and let me know.  If they still are on the fence, I’m more than happy to come over and have a chat with them!