Author Archive: Becks Moring

Brands Need Social Media Professionals – Not Gurus, Ninjas, Wizards & Mavens

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Becks Moring | Comments (0)

Whether it’s brands like Celeb Boutique using inappropriate hashtags, or HMV leaving disgruntled soon-to-be ex-employees access to their social media platforms, it seems that some brands still have a lot to learn about social.

One of the latest examples was Luton Airport. Although quickly removed, a post was misguidedly published showing a photograph of a crashed plane on a runway, with the caption:

 Luton Airport Post

 

The crash that was pictured had unfortunately killed a six-year-old boy and was immediately the focus of negative comments from Fans of the Page.

Luton Airport apologised for the ‘wholly unacceptable and insensitive’ post and also added:

Luton Airport apology

We’re sure that the staff member didn’t mean to cause any offence but this incident highlights the importance of hiring experienced staff to manage your communities and/or having a permissions structure in place.

Timing can also be a factor that brands need to take into consideration. One example of misjudged timing would be from Qantas. They chose to launch a #QantasLuxury hashtag competition asking followers what their ‘dream luxury inflight experience’ would be. At any other time, this campaign would probably have worked very well. There were a pair of first class tickets were in the offing and competitions with great prizes are always a good way to increase your reach.

At that particular time though, Qantas was in the middle of an industrial relations dispute with their workers and many planes were grounded. The hashtag was of course flooded with angry and sarcastic tweets such as the following:

Qantas Luxury Competition

 

Anyone who’d taken a proper look at the sentiment around the business at that time should have realised that this was not the right time to launch a competition.

When hiring your next Community Manager ask yourself this question:

Community Management Experience

 

 

If the answer is no, but they seem like they have potential, then an authorisation process must be put in place before they publish any content to your Pages.

 

If they do have experience, then check how they are doing with their current communities:

Good Community Management

 

 

 

 

What might seem like a good idea at the time to an enthusiastic new hire, can often have unforeseen consequences. A workflow or social media tool that manages permissions will ensure someone is double-checking their posts before they go public.

Before publishing, someone needs to be making sure the content is appropriate and checking whether it could be misconstrued but they also need to question timing.

Social Media Publishing Checklist

 

 

 

These examples are just some of many which go to prove that if your brand is serious about social, you need to make sure the people you hire understand the opportunities and the pitfalls.

Hire staff that have the skills to keep it light and fun while recognising bad timing and bad ideas when they see them, and they will help keep your company off the ‘social media fails’ list.

 

 

 

It’s so fun-ny, how we don’t talk anymore…

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Becks Moring | Comments (0)

That’s what Sir Cliff Richard said in 1979 and that’s what a lot of other people are still saying now too.

With more than 8 trillion texts sent a year and over 400 million tweets sent per day, there are those who say that social media and texting has killed real conversation. They say that we never pick up the phone anymore. They shriek that we are disconnected as a community.

In 2013 though, we don’t have to do this to stay in touch. We can read updates, we can tweet, and we can share articles we think our friends will be interested in. We should of course, still make the effort to chat on the phone and have real-life conversations. But have you ever wondered how many of your friendships wouldn’t have survived if it wasn’t for social media helping you stay connected?

We would hope that we’ve seen the last generation of old ladies keeping the gasman on the phone just for someone to talk to. We are more connected than ever. Whether that’s to friends and family, or to strangers on the other side of the world.

The same goes for brands. Consumers have more access to brands, and brands have more access to consumers. Brands are still in the relatively unchartered territory of having to listen to customers. Really listen. Because customers are telling them out loud, in public what they think of their company. How they can improve, what they are doing right and what they want from them.

Does that sound scary?

It shouldn’t, because it’s gold.

Previously if you cared enough about the future of your company, you might carry out research to see what your consumers really thought. Brands were in a position of power, they didn’t have to listen to the ‘little man’, but that wasn’t necessarily a good position to be in.

Unhappy customers could still vote with their feet and go elsewhere, before the brand even got the chance to rectify a problem or even know that there was one.

Social media can guide your company in the right direction. It can help ensure that you’re making the best decisions for your company and the right decisions for your company to succeed.

Sure — it’s a brave new world when everything is so public and people can openly review your products and services in front of the whole world.
But if this is going to help shape your company vision and inform the decisions you make, who better to listen to than your customers?

That conversation must be two-way though. All too often we still see negative reviews unanswered, decisions being made behind closed doors and brushed under the carpet.

Recently, Amazon UK was on the receiving end of some pretty negative reviews on both their website and their social presences. One of their sellers was stocking unsavoury t-shirts, which once picked up, caused a flood of comments, posts and reviews, all asking for the merchandise to be taken off the Amazon site.

Inside the walls of Amazon, decisions were being made and they were acting upon their customer’s demands. However, you would have had no clue of this on their social platforms. Their Twitter feed was still happily posting and all comments and mentions were seemingly being ignored.

Percol coffee

 

 

 

 

This had the effect that, even after they had removed the merchandise, people were still threatening to stop using Amazon if they didn’t remove the goods, long after the goods had actually been removed.

Amazon’s open review system is fantastic, it’s an extremely transparent way for consumers to judge the quality of their potential purchases, and as a result we’ve seen countless companies adopt the same system. It’s just a shame that, the same transparency hasn’t yet filtered through to the way some brands manage their social media platforms.

In order to mitigate the amount of posts and let people know they were being heard, ideally Amazon would have made sure the social team was in place to do the following:

  • Release an update on their social pages to apologise and reassure customers that they are looking into complaints and reply direct to customers where they were able to do so
  • Release another update to confirm that they have dealt with the offending products

On the surface of it, ignoring the problem does mean that eventually the problem will seemingly go away. People will inevitably get bored of tweeting about it and they will move on to the next big drama – but what does that do to the reputation of your company?

Miss Representation

 

 

 

 

Evaw coalition

 

 

 

 

Just like our personal relationships, brand and consumer relationships only work if they are two-way. A friendship won’t survive if only one person is making the effort to keep in touch and the same goes for brands. Listening is one thing, but brands also need to make sure that consumers know they are listening.

Otherwise, you may well eventually find your brand at the bottom of the friend pile.

How The Black Keys’ drummer could teach brands a thing or two.

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Becks Moring | Comments (0)

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in the land of Twitter, @BurgerKing and @Jeep were hacked and @MTV and @BET pretended to be.

If you were following Twitter closely, you might have also seen the Twitter spat between Justin Bieber and the drummer from The Black Keys, Patrick Carney.

The Black Keys had enjoyed a successful night at the Grammy’s with three wins for the band and another for the lead singer Dan Auerbach. Afterwards, Carney was interviewed by TMZ and asked whether Bieber should have got a Grammy by now. He replied with “He’s rich, right?… Grammys are for music, not for money… and he’s making a lot of money. He should be happy.”

Bieber then took to Twitter to publish this Tweet to his 34 million followers.

 

Screen shot 2013-02-25 at 11.37.55

 

 

 

 

 

 

Almost immediately, Bieber’s loyal following had waged war against Carney. While this would have sent many running for the hills and deleting their Twitter accounts, Carney held his own by replying to comments using humour and retweeting particularly funny ‘disses’.

 

ONE HIT WONDER

 

LIKE RIGHT NOW?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally he boldly started to assume the singers identity by gradually changing his name to Justin Bieber and replying as if he was the singer. This of course, further infuriated Bieber fans – as well as picking up some unsuspecting followers who thought he was the real deal.

 

BIEBER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aside from annoying a small number of his real fans with a few days worth of ‘Justin’ tweets, he actually managed to ride the storm by meeting it head-on and he also got a lot of love from how he was handling the angry Bieber-fan onslaught.

 

Screen shot 2013-02-26 at 14.22.28

 

 

 

 

So what can brands learn from how he handled himself?

Carney dealt with the situation swiftly, without fear and he let his personality work for him.

He was of course, able to be far more ‘cheeky’ than most brands could hope to get away with and while we would never advise brands to use these particular tactics, there are some take away lessons here for brands posting their day-to-day content or experiencing their own social media crisis.

Don’t be scared.

Carney didn’t shy away from dealing with negative comments. Brands – particularly if they are new to social – can be tempted to bury their heads in the sand when dealing with difficult posts (or sometimes, any posts) and may choose to ignore them, hoping they’ll go away.

Ignore the ‘wrong’ one and it could have the potential to turn a customer service issue into a full-blown social media crisis. Rule number one — Make sure you respond quickly to questions or problems.

Carney was swift to act, replied to posts and also retweeted them so it was clear to everyone who visited his profile or anyone following his updates that he was dealing with the situation and may have even discouraged some angry tweeters from joining in. We’ve seen a lot of high profile cases recently where people have been driven off Twitter by a furious mob, simply because they felt like it was easier to run away, rather than weather the storm.

For these larger, social media crises, make sure you have a process written down for managing this type of event – while we’re sure Carney didn’t have his plan in place before the Grammy’s, his quick thinking did help him survive the fallout. Brands may have to go through a series of different stakeholders before a plan can be acted upon, so it is essential that this process be nailed down.

Be yourself. Be human.

We’ve all heard it before, but it’s true. Social should be social. People aren’t interested in interacting with boring staid messaging. They want to feel like a brand or person has an identity. Whether that’s in everyday posts or in how they handle a crisis.

Behind all the big strategies, campaigns and messaging should lie a human heartbeat. Carneys’ decision to go bold and his brilliant use of light-hearted humour in the face of some pretty nasty and sometimes homophobic posts, made this into a much more positive news story that it would have been if he’d hidden away from it. He could have passed this over to an agency and released a statement but he chose to ride the storm with his own personal brand of humour.

For brands, you will know when posts require a serious response but it’s just as important to know when it’s okay to interact in a more human, relaxed way.

People want to feel like they are interacting with a real person. I’m sure everyone following Carney’s news feed feels like they know him a bit better, even when he was masquerading as Bieber, and if you manage to convey this type of messaging for your brand, it will go a long way to help building some brand love amongst your following.

Use humour.

Don’t be afraid to use humour in your messaging if the situation or your branding allows it. A serious customer service issue would not be the place for this method but as Carney saw, treating his crisis with light humour, worked pretty well for him. You also saw this with the recent Burger King hack on their Twitter account. Once they had regained control, instead of releasing a very serious statement, they made it light-hearted and recognised that they had picked up a lot of new followers.

 

Screen shot 2013-02-26 at 14.28.37

 

 

 

 

Carney, Burger King and Jeep have all have seen this positive side of their recent social media crises as they’ve added some hefty numbers to their Twitter follower count. It goes to show that if dealt with in the right way, a negative can be turned into a positive. If they keep the right mix of entertainment, value and transparency and let their ‘brands’ personality shine through, they may just keep all their new followers happy.

Keep this mix in your social feeds and you’ll start to reap the benefits too!

Have YOU heard it on the grape…Vine?

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Becks Moring | Comments (0)

 

Vine –- The new kid on the block. We all like new toys to play with but does this one add value to a brand’s marketing efforts? We take a look…

 

What is Vine?

Vine is a new app launched by Twitter. According to them, it “lets you create and share beautiful, short looping videos” that will play directly in your Twitter or Vine news feed (Vines uploaded to Facebook will play in another window). These videos are limited to six second loops but you can stop and start the recording at will, so you can shoot in tiny sections like a flick book if you wish and videos are shareable if uploaded to a social network.

Can we really create good video content in six seconds?

Urban Outfitters shared a simple video that will appeal to one of their core demographics.

 

Bacardi UK have been demoing cocktails made with their drink, and inviting further engagement by asking followers what they’d like to see next.

 

Everyone had the same reservations about Twitter, how could we possibly say what we needed in 140 characters or less? We soon saw that the real beauty of Twitter was exactly that limitation — it forced you to creative and concise.
Brevity is particularly important online as a readers attention span is short. So when it comes to Vine, six seconds is pretty perfect for someone whizzing through their Twitter feed and this means that the right content could be incredibly shareable.

How can brands can use it?

  • Behind-the-scenes clips — share a snapshot of a day in the life of your brand or the history behind your brand
  • Demo your products in six seconds!
  • Show sneak peeks of upcoming products, announcements or new advertisements
  • Create a Vine competition where your fans submit the content to Twitter using a specific hashtag
  • Let your staff get creative! See what content they can come up with that might be interesting to your fans and customers. Maybe they can answer common questions or share tips?
  • Endorsements! Film your happy customers recommending your brand! (With their permission of course) Or ask them to submit Vines to you, for you to share.

If you decide to use Vine as a content creator for your brand, above all, remember that Vine is like any other medium you would use to create content. Make sure your videos are creative, shareable and relevant to your audience, and continue to test what works best for your community. Your content should still be high quality, even if it’s in six-second snapshots.

The Rules

  • Make your Vine visually exciting and creative
  • Ensure the message is on-brand
  • Ensure it has a message! Whether that’s promoting office culture, or showcasing a new product – it should have value for the both the brand and the viewer
  • Include tags/hashtags to make your content searchable
  • Share on other social platforms to ensure maximum visibility

Still need some inspiration? Check how other brands are already using it — http://brandsonvine.com/

Pinterest Rolls Out Official Business Pages

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Becks Moring | Comments (0)

 

With Pinterest recently hitting the top 50 most visited websites in the US and the news that Convertro placed them with the honour of driving more revenue per click than Facebook or Twitter — Pinterest needed to get serious about their business customers. And they have.

Pinterest announced the roll-out of new tools for businesses. Whether you currently have an account or are ready to launch yours, these tools will be a great benefit.

Until now, commercial usage was technically prohibited so the new updates come with their own terms of service for business. Brands also have the option to add a single brand name to their Page rather than using the first name, last name format that was the previous option. There is also now a verification process (much like verified accounts on Twitter) to add validity to the account.

To further encourage adoption, Pinterest has also provided resources for businesses, such as case studies and best practices, to ensure they get the most out of the growing platform.

A business account also comes with goodies, which include ‘pin it’ and ‘Follow me’ buttons for your website. According to Cat Lee, Pinterest’s Product Manager, Pinterest is hoping “to add more tools and features that are geared toward this audience.”

 

So with these extra developments, should your brand be on Pinterest? It isn’t for every business, but if you have visually interesting products and/or are willing to share content that isn’t solely about your business, such as inspirations and trends that will resonate with your branding, then it could be worth the extra time and effort.

According to Media Bistro, “59 percent of Pinterest users have purchased an item they saw on the pinboarding site” and “79 percent of Pinterest users are more likely to purchase items they’ve seen on Pinterest, compared with Facebook users purchasing behaviour”. This clearly isn’t a decision to be taken lightly; it’s well worth giving some thought to whether your brand would benefit from a presence on Pinterest as it could impact on sales revenue for your business.