Some people agreed with my conclusions in last week’s post, Social media’s failed acid test: Pakistan disaster response. Others suggested that in cases of fund-raising, social media makes a difference.

This week’s post focuses on how social media can be used effectively to get non-profits’ Facebook friends and Twitter followers to donate to the Pakistan floods appeal.

First, we must consider some factors that influence all fund-raising efforts for a natural or man-made disaster.

A. Popular tourist destination: If the country affected by a tsunami or an earthquake is popular with tourists, people are more likely to donate… Pakistan has little international tourism.

B. Good political capital versus ‘image deficit’: The better a country’s political image, the easier it seems to secure relief funds. The slow donor response to the Pakistan floods might be due in part to people’s concerns about how the aid money will be used (e.g., what about the Taliban?).

C. Media coverage: A disaster in a country with good political capital that is also a popular tourist destination will result in more extensive news coverage. Relatively low-key coverage in the international media, as in the case of Pakistan, makes raising funds tougher.

D. Timing: No matter how much coverage is available, it means nothing if it does not reach the public. Vacationers often ‘unplug’ from the world, so they tend to be less aware of a disaster situation and its severity.

Plus, a disaster that occurs around Christmas tends to benefit from people’s ’spirit of giving’. Not so during other times of year, when they have either just spent lots of money on a vacation or are already saving up for the next holiday (i.e. Christmas).

Lastly, a disaster that is slow to develop, such as the floods that have worsened over weeks in Pakistan, lacks the punch of sudden and catastrophic destruction, like the earthquake that leveled in Haiti in just seconds.

Social media for social causes
But the question remains, will your Facebook friends, Google Buzz or Twitter followers respond to your post asking them to contribute to the Pakistan flood relief?

Here are some examples and experiences I have come across this year (this list is by no means complete):

Donating via text messaging or telethons - US and Canada: The American Red Cross and the Canadian Red Cross have tried to raise money using text messaging.

In some cases, companies like Rogers Communications (Canada) have matched their clients’ donations through text messaging.

Star appeal helps: Actor George Clooney helped organize a two-hour telethon for Haiti and might be part of another one for Pakistan. He received the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award on August 29 during the 62nd Primetime Emmys for these and other humanitarian efforts.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Joining forces to raise awareness and funding – Switzerland: The Glueckskette (Swiss Solidarity Foundation) is Switzerland’s humanitarian solidarity and fund-raising platform. The foundation is led by the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation and also works closely with private and print media.

Work in the field is carried out by Swiss relief organizations ranging from the Swiss Red Cross to Médecins Sans Frontières Suisse, according to precise stipulations.

Media coverage continues for weeks after a telethon, including podcasts (e.g., interviewing a relief worker that just got back from Pakistan), and ensuring that people still know how they can donate.

Twitter, online banking and Angela Merkel: Germany’s second largest public broadcaster ZDF ran a two-hour telethon program each for Haiti and Pakistan, raising €20 million and €7.5 million, respectively.

Insiders felt that without Chancellor Angela Merkel’s personal involvement, the Pakistan telethon would have raised even less.

Getting creative and engaging with social media – Austria: The Austrian Red Cross has gone a bit further than most.

Its viral campaign was based on its employees and donors/friends replacing their profile pictures on Xing or Facebook with one supplied by the Red Cross of the Pakistan floods.

Through its webpage, the Austrian Red Cross also launched an online raffle/lottery that was announced on various social media platforms, including Facebook, to raise awareness and get more funding. The raffle offers prizes attractive to online users, such as an iPhone.

Whatever means you prefer is fine with us, but please donate – UK: The British Red Cross is another organization that offers people various methods to donate money.

Its webpage and social media platforms are well done. Still, if I prefer a good old check or paying at the local post office to contribute, no problem.

Getting your Twitter followers and Facebook friends to donate – just by asking
Various factors play a role in getting donations during an appeal. As Haiti and Pakistan illustrate, being a tourist destination with great political capital while getting lots of media coverage during the right time of year is definitely helpful for getting funds needed to rebuild the country.

1. Show impact: Show people what their donation will buy or how it will be used for which projects (nearly all charities do with videos, text, podcasts and so forth).

2. Viral marketing – get people involved: While this may not apply for brands, individuals are clearly willing to share information about good causes with their friends using social media.

3. Make sharing and commenting easy: Many charities’ or NGOs’ webpages or blogs do not empower readers to write a comment and share it with their friends. Seems like a lost opportunity.

4. Use the platforms your users do: Many charities use Facebook and Twitter to engage with the public. But what about Google Buzz, Xing or LinkedIn groups? If your donors are there, shouldn’t you be?

5. Make donating simple: Text messaging is one of many methods you should offer for donation. And while giving specific amounts to choose from might help in the US, it could turn people off in some countries like Belgium or Italy.

6. Create synergies & leverage your campaign with the help of traditional media: In just a month, and by using podcasts, radio news shows and interviews in newspapers about the relief efforts, the Swiss Solidarity Foundation more than doubled the funds raised during a day-long fund-raising telethon.

7. Measure the efforts: If you tweet a link to your followers or ask your Facebook friends to visit the Pakistan flood relief page, measure the effect. But please use actionable analytics and metrics… this means taking action based on the numbers (fine-tune, watch the trends and change your strategy based on these numbers).

What works for your organisation? Please leave a comment.

Article source: Pakistan floods appeal: Getting social media followers to donate

More resources
Pakistan flooding – social media map shows limited use of Twitter by victims
Pakistan floods mapping through Ushaidi – an open source platform to crowdsource crisis information

American Red Cross – about 203,000 friends
British Red Cross – about 7,800 friends
Swiss Red Cross – about 1200 friends

This week’s social media DOs and DON’Ts: Social media measurement, marketing buzz tidbits, tools and other happenings we came across while surfing the internet, blogging and posting on Facebook, Identi.ca, Naijapulse or Twitter.

Our focus includes Roger Federer attempting viral marketing at SuisseEmex 2010, Google trying to attract more users for its services, 7 social media failure rules, the best actionable analytics for your weblog, and other heavyweight brands’ trials and tribulations.

In case you missed previous weeks’ memorable moments on social media monitoring, just point your browser to:

ComMetrics weekly review – social media going’s on

So here come the highs, lows and oddities I discovered through my various social media channels.

Tuesday

This week starts off with a video featuring tennis star Roger Federer. Apparently, Gillette was hoping it would play on our collective fascination with ‘real or fake’ when it hit the web in mid-August.

This video was filmed during a shoot for Gillette Fusion, in partnership with the British Skin Foundation: Federer knocks a soda can off a crew member’s head.

I guess if you create a somewhat unbelievable, but good-quality, video and throw in a famous dude, the rest is history… a viral marketer’s dream… I just wish we could afford such a brand ambassador.

Click here to view the embedded video.

But I wonder what this adds to Gillette Fusion’s or the British Skin Foundation’s brand. It comes across as a cute gimmick, but so what? Is this what the money I spent on my last blade replacements paid for?

Wednesday

On Wednesday, yours truly gave a presentation about the best actionable metrics for your weblog at the SuisseEMEX tradeshow in Zurich.

I decided to bring my friend Roger Federer along – at least in virtual form – and used his video to illustrate some of my points:

- How much are 4 million YouTube views worth to sponsors? Or is this just another number that adds little value to your bottom line?
- Could this video actually damage the Gillette Fusion brand, since it seems to be such a waste of money?
- Might it damage people’s trust in the British Skin Foundation, since they were associated with a shoot that was clearly a fake event?

You can view the slides here, OR download them (in German, these slides cover what this blog is all about:  actionable analytics and metrics for weblogs):

Download the presentation slides – SuisseEmex 2010 – Zurich – pdf file (1 MB)

Tradeshow organizers should make a video available in a week or so. I will keep you posted.

Thursday

Listening to many presentations about social media during SuisseEMEX 2010, I prepared 7 social media failure rules below:

1. Social media communication is not new. Only some of the tools (e.g., blogs, emails, RSS) and platforms (e.g., Flickr and YouTube) we use to engage AND share with others are. In business, interpersonal contact is still king.

2. Maintaining a presence on only one social media platform is risky. Especially since they’re here today and gone tomorrow… witness Bebo and MySpace.

3. Quality versus quantity. Social media marketing is all about pull (vs. traditional push marketing, such as exhibiting at SuisseEmex), requiring content that is attractive to your target audience (videos, white papers, etc.).

4. Avoid the ‘constant self-promoter’ trap from all angles. Just because you have followers on Twitter, Google Buzz or friends on Facebook does not mean you have an audience that wants to engage and cares about your content. By the same token, avoid connecting or engaging with people who have nothing substantive to offer you.

5. If the data do not result in action, don’t measure. Developing useful metrics takes time and effort!

6. Concerted attempts to create viral marketing or word-of-mouth videos fail. Instead of producing a flash in the pan, or worse a flop, stick to your guns and produce quality content for your clients.

7. Social media is rapidly evolving. That means you and your skills must evolve just as rapidly – no seminar needed. Invest just 10 minutes a week in skills upgrading by signing up for this blog’s content via email:

Top off your subscription by visiting the ComMetrics University and signing yourself and your team members up for our latest webinar (Wednesday, September 1 – Richtlinien für die Nutzung von sozialen Medien im Betrieb at 8:30 – GMT + 2).

Friday

I just came a cross this report again, which summarizes the issues and poses some intriguing questions that every social media evangelist should ponder to ensure they can demonstrate how much these efforts add value to an organization’s bottom line.

To download the 33-page report, click the image. Make sure to read pages 4 – 10, or thereabouts, for the juiciest bits.

For me, the book raises three important questions:

- How do I measure social media return on investment (ROI)?
- What are social media best practices?
- How do I manage my time best with social media?

What do YOU think? Please, let me know by leaving a comment below!

Sunday

Previously, we told you about Google trying to gain market share and not lose the ultimate battle over users and advertising with Facebook:

=> ComMetrics weekly review: Google Me teams up with Louis Vuitton (see Tuesday)

In the past, Google tried to leverage its 180 million Gmail users to launch Google Buzz, with mixed success.

This week, Google made another attempt to leverage this user base by launching phone calls from Gmail to fixed-line or mobile numbers. Calls within or to the US and Canada are free. Rates for calls to Asia or Europe are very low.

I tried to place a call to Canada this week, but the sound was not that great. My friend called across Seattle and said his sound was tinny… so there is still room for improvement before we can agree that call quality is ‘really good’, as claimed by Google.

To introduce the service, Google made this cute video. Who knows, it may even go viral.

Click here to view the embedded video.

P.S. – By the end of June 2010, Skype averaged 124 million users a month (it has 560 million registered users), but only about 6 percent or 8.1 million are paying clients (they average about US$96 per year). In 2008, Skype carried about 8 percent of combined international phone traffic or 33 billion minutes, which was 41 percent more than in 2007. How much it is today, we can only guess.

Article source: ComMetrics weekly review: 7 roads to a social media flop

What is your opinion? Please share, discuss and leave a comment below.

In a recent interview Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari warned that it could take his country more than three years to rehabilitate after the floods. Data indicates that

- 20 to 25 percent of the country is now under water;
- 20 million people have been affected;
- 6 million have lost their homes;
- 8 million need food supplies;
- 3.5 million children are in imminent danger of contracting cholera and diarrhea; and
- approximately 2000 people have already died in the floods.

Based on these numbers, the UN has concluded that the Pakistan disaster is “worse than the 2004 tsunami.”

Last week I also came across information from the Social Media Grows Up – American Red Cross Emergency Social Data Summit, so this post focuses on public disaster response and how social media can be used to help victims during a natural or man-made catastrophe.

But first, sign up with your email to be among the first to get our next blog post.

1. Emergency management

The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) defines emergency management as follows:

‘Organized analysis, planning, decision-making, and assignment of available resources to mitigate (lessen the effect of or prevent), prepare for, respond to, and recover from the effects of all hazards. The goal of emergency management is to save lives, prevent injuries, and protect property and the environment if an emergency occurs.” (FEMA, Introduction to Emergency Management Course, 1995, p. 1 – 6.)

2. Improving information and data analysis

The American Red Cross – Emergency Social Data Summit addressed the role social media might play in cases of emergency, such as Hurricane Katrina. The organization also used the event to release findings from an important study.

Variations in use of online communities and social networks:
- respondents with children in the household are more likely to use social media (81 percent vs. 67 percent for those without children in the household);
- college graduates are more likely to use social media (78 percent vs. 67 percent for those with some college or less);
- 89 percent of respondents aged 18‐34 use online communities or social networks compared to 65 percent of those aged 35 and older.

The survey was conducted during July 2010 with 1,058 respondents representative of the US population aged 18 and older. Data also indicate that

You can download the 19-page presentation as a pdf file or view it here:

3. Large-scale disasters

The recent summit and study data (see above slides) indicate that in the US, the public would like response agencies to provide information via Facebook, blogs, micro-blogging services and their websites for

a) those in the disaster zone, specifically critical information updates, such as where to get help, and
b) those concerned about relatives or friends directly affected by the event.

Unfortunately, during larger disasters such as Pakistan or Haiti, two things could happen:

a) telecommunications networks may crash and stay inoperable; and
b) power may be unavailable for extended periods of time.

In Port-au-Prince, just after January’s 7.0 magnitude quake, some enterprising people used their diesel generators to recharge other people’s phones – for a fee. But since the necessary infrastructure was also severely damaged, there was no coverage even after your phone had power.

As Haiti’s earthquake and Pakistan’s flood illustrate, during a disaster of such proportions only a battery-powered radio might work. Have you got one? I don’t.

While response agencies can use social media, it is pretty much useless to the victims unless they have both the necessary hardware and the required power to access a functioning network. Too many ifs.

Bottom line
The human tragedy unfolding in Pakistan demands our undivided attention. Unfortunately, this is not happening since news coverage has already become halfhearted and the worst is yet to come.

Even before the disaster, Pakistan was dealing with energy shortages, uncertain water supplies, and widespread poverty. The disaster brought upon the country through torrential rains has resulted in the worst floods in 80 years.

Surely, those hurt by the disaster see no more positive ways social media can make an immediate difference to their lives than I do (see statistics above). If a flood hits, you run for the hills and/or bring your family and valuables to safety. Who has the time and energy to tweet about this? Certainly not the sane!

Take-aways

1. Failing communications infrastructure: unless base stations and other vital components of the system are built above potential flood lines or strong enough to withstand a flood or remain standing after the earthquake, those harmed by the disaster will be unable to send or receive information using the Internet and social media.


2. Non-functioning electricity grid: in some countries base stations will continue to provide mobile coverage if their diesel generators can be kept running (e.g., Ghana). In other places, as illustrated in Pakistan, the electricity grid may no longer be capable of providing the necessary power. At best, mobile communication will be available in some spots, at worst it will not work anywhere.


3. Social media fails to connect with victims: social media (SM) will increasingly facilitate emergency agencies’ efforts to receive data and communicate information to the country or world. However, in large scale disasters, it is unlikely that victims will be able to receive information and send data through social media channels.

Resources

August 2010 – White paper: The case for integrating crisis response with social media
Atlanta Councilman chooses Twitter over 911 to report an emergency

Article source: Social media’s failed acid test: Pakistan disaster response

Please share your comments below; I am very interested to hear how you see social media’s benefits in case of a disaster.

The flood in Pakistan is as long as the Mississippi river (video courtesy of US Department of Defense):

Click here to view the embedded video.

This week’s social media DOs and DON’Ts: Social media measurement, marketing buzz tidbits, tools and other happenings we came across while surfing the internet, blogging and posting on Facebook, Identi.ca, Naijapulse or Twitter.

Our focus includes Google Android taking over Apple’s iOS, how Tod’s took a page from Louis Vuitton and improved on it, and after Google Street View’s nightmare in the making, Google drones come to the rescue, and other heavyweight brands’ trials and tribulations.

In case you missed previous weeks’ memorable moments on social media monitoring, just point your browser to:

ComMetrics weekly review – social media going’s on

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up right now with your email to get social media metrics insights first:

So here come the highs, lows and oddities I discovered through my various social media channels.

Monday

In January 2010, Google Android tried to gain market share while Apple pushed up its revenue stream with the help of iPhone, specifically by hooking its users with iOS, which increases its revenue share from telecom service providers:

Apple, Google and China: What you should know

However, the reality is that Google’s Android mobiles are marching ahead and had already overtaken global iPhone sales by the end of the second quarter of 2010.

This growth comes largely at the expense of Nokia and RIM (Research In Motion, the makers of BlackBerry) and has provided a boost to struggling handset makers like Motorola and Sony Ericsson.

Nevertheless, while Google’s Android operating system is free, it makes it harder for device makers to differentiate their products.

2010-08-12 Oracle filed a lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco alleging that Google violated copyright with the Android mobile phone platform and infringed on Oracle’s intellectual property pertaining to Java. Google has vowed to fight the suit.

Some experts suggest that Oracle’s lawsuit against Google highlights the internet company’s relatively weak patent portfolio. Had Google had a portfolio equivalent to Oracle’s, they would certainly have agreed to a broad cross-licensing deal, which is generally the case between technology companies with extensive patent rights.

Tuesday

Once upon a time, Google unsuccessfully tried to leverage its 180 million Gmail users to launch Google Buzz.

While Google Buzz is a smart attempt to integrate Twitter with Facebook’s commenting and ‘like’ system, it has yet to work well with Google Search and the buzz has pretty much died.

Then we had Google Wave, another example of a me-too product by Google, offered with somewhat limited fanfare. Apparently, Google has decided it failed and will be closing down the service by December 2010.

Still, Gmail and Google Talk, as well as Google’s Android smartphone operating system are stellar successes. These applications and services have helped Google remain the number one search engine in most markets.

For instance, Google is served up most search advertising and hauled in US$23.5 billion (Correction – see comments, this number should be billion, of course not as it million as recorded) last year, while Facebook is expected to make between US$1 and US$2 billion in 2010.

2010-08-12 Google bought Jambool, a company that runs virtual currency systems for social games, including those on Facebook. Also this month, Google took over Slide, a major developer of Facebook applications. It had previously invested US$100 million in Zynga, the largest developer of social games, with 700 employees and US$200 million in revenues in 2009.

Now Google wants to marshall this pool of acquired brain power, internal human capital, ideas and resources to build a destination for social games and applications called Google Me.

Of course, this is done in the hope that users will flock there and build another mammoth social network like Facebook. But Google is facing an uphill battle.

For starters, a Facebook, LinkedIn or Xing user moving to Google Me faces high switching costs: it will be time-consuming to transfer their network of friends and contacts, including wall posts and pictures.

Moreover, if a friend has not joined, you cannot connect with them on Google Me. The problem is, that being active on Facebook and Google Me takes more time than staying in touch through one system. Another example of the winner taking a disproportionate market share, making it nearly impossible for others to get enough traction to survive… remember Bebo?

Google has tried social networking with Orkut (very popular only in Brasil), but Google Me will have to do a lot better than that if they have any hope of making a dent in Facebook’s success.

Wednesday

This week I came across another study about German web users. Unfortunately, the online-produced report does not clarify the methodology used to collect data. For instance, I wonder if the average person really knows whether they are on a weblog versus a webpage (e.g., Economist.com), when both offer commenting and sharing their content on Twitter and Facebook. Nor does the study distinguish between work-related use of the Internet versus private.

And while maybe only 8 percent produce content for a blog (it is unclear whether a blog comment counts), and even fewer produce a video, these numbers have been growing. In fact, considering that probably less than 1 percent of a blog’s visitors to a particular post write a comment or share it with their Twitter followers, 8 percent seems a pretty high number indeed. (By the way, how about leaving a comment below and joining this exclusive club?)

If you read German, have a look yourself
=> ARD/ZDF-Onlinestudie 2010

I also wonder if the average user realizes that they are producing content every time they upload a picture, share it with some friends via an online service, post or comment on a friend’s Facebook wall (e.g., leave a thumbs up – I like this), etc.

Finally, with a response rate of about 70 percent, I am curious about possible response bias. For instance, I refuse to answer such online surveys because I feel my time is better spent doing something else. Did certain groups (e.g., professionals, younger individuals, high income earners and geeks) maybe not participate and are disproportionately under-represented in the findings?

On another note, Facebook announced its geo-locate service, which can be suppressed for now, but cannot be cancelled once activated, something privacy advocates and commissioners want to change.

Friday

Louis Vuitton followed the tradition of luxury brands associating themselves with famous people by cultivating a relationship with famous soccer players Maradona, Pelé and Zidane.

Gucci followed common practice and emphasized heritage by featuring the artisans who craft their products, implying that tradition and history are somehow linked to their quality. A further step in this game is illustrated by the autumn/winter campaign of Tod’s, an Italian luxury accessories brand.

It features people such as Lord Mountbatten’s granddaughter India Hicks, her sons Felix and Armory Flint Wood, American heiresses Lauren Remington Platt and Ashley Wilcox Platt, English artist Hugo Guinness of the Guinness dynasty, and American movie producer James Johnson of the Johnson and Johnson family, naturally all wearing Tod’s shoes.

Photographer Elliott Erwitt uses London and the English countryside as his backdrop. This aids in portraying the elegance and flair of his subjects, both models and products, including handbags. Presumably, the ads give people a peek into a world they would not otherwise see.

In the age of financial crises and high unemployment, such timeless privilege imbues relatively discreet accessories with an atavistic appeal.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sunday

Microdrones GmbH has confirmed that the first of its mini-drones has been delivered to Google, allowing the latter to spy on people from the skies. CEO Sven Juerss says, “Wir haben gute Chancen, mit Google dauerhaft ins Geschäft zu kommen.” (We have a good chance of building a long-term business relationship with Google.)

This technology can be used to provide an even better service for Google Earth, however, it can also be misused to invade people’s privacy, such as taking pictures of people having a backyard barbecue. This may well turn out to be a greater threat than Google’s Street View.

Google street view runs afoul of German data commissioners… (see Saturday)
Google FIRST: George Orwell says hello; mini-drones coming our way – how to remove your house from Google Street View

Click here to view the embedded video.

Microdrones GmbH’s official client list reads like a who’s who – ranging from the research to defense establishments.

Article source: ComMetrics weekly review: Google Me teams up with Louis Vuitton

What is your opinion? Please share, discuss and leave a comment below.

We started a series entitled, Social Media DOs and DON’Ts, which provides checklists, tips and tricks to help you leverage your social media skills even better.

Today we focus on how to leverage social media in your hunt for a job or contract. Bosses search the web to find information about each of us; this post addresses how to ensure they find information that shows we know our stuff and would be a valuable addition to their team.

But first, sign up with your email to be among the first to get our next blog post.

1. Invisible candidate syndrome

Whatever method you use to look for a job or land another contract, if no one knows about your talents and skills, they cannot hire you.

Sounds easy, but as we pointed out on 2008-12-17, people are increasingly self-employed, accounting for nearly a third of the US workforce – up more than 25 percent in the last few years.

The financial crisis has not helped unemployment figures anywhere. As a result, more people have started supplementing their income with freelance work or started their own business, even in Europe, where self-employment statistics are lower. To make matters worse, there are several unemployed workers for every job opening (see right).

Tweaking your resume, searching job boards, and perfecting your cover letter has become the minimum work required. Even more is needed to increase visibility and secure that dream job or contract.

2. Social media DO’s and DON’Ts – follow your policy and be careful

Social media is a wonderful tool to increase your visibility. However, you must be careful about what you post to Twitter, Facebook, etc.

In fact, any pictures that landed on the Internet, such as snapshots of you attending the last Street Parade in Zurich, Carneval in Rio and so forth may not impress your future boss or potential client. Worse, they can still be found decades later.

Tip – Better safe than sorry. Follow the ComMetrics – Social media policy DOs and DON’Ts: 8 essentials for using social media smartly.

3. Set a timetable and start today

Having a digital footprint that impresses your boss requires that you start crawling before learning to walk. Creating an impressive digital footprint with content that shows your expertise, know-how and competitive edge takes time.

Don’t forget that qualifying for the 2012 Olympic Games in London takes so much training that unless you have already started, you certainly will not make it.

Budget at least six months to get yourself into the best start-position before the key interview happens.

Tip – With social media, things tend to take more time than you think. If you budget two hours a week, be prepared to double that time in order to produce the quality content required to have a positive impact.

Remember, the purpose is to land your dream job and/or that new contract/sale you want. Behave accordingly – focus, focus, focus.

4. Starting your own quality-content blog helps

Micro-blogging with Identi.ca, Naijapulse or Twitter, as well as using Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing or Viadeo is definitely important, but content related to your work and expertise (e.g., discussing industry-related matters) is still the most important component when building a personal brand people trust.

Blogging allows you to create quality content that is relevant to your key audience in the industry or business you want to focus on.

The more interesting or relevant the content of your blog to your target audience, the more it will support your reputation and the better people will learn that you know your stuff. You may even become known as an expert of sorts.

As important, your blog content must be easily found and indexed by your reader’s favorite search engine, which also has the added benefit of attracting search traffic months later and making the blog’s archive a great resource.

The simple truth is that few people are renowned enough. Whenever somebody reads a great blog post, white paper or other content, the author(s) gain(s) a certain level of credibility with the reader.

This is merely a first, though very important, step to landing the job.

Tip – Before you start blogging, make sure you avoid the classic beginner’s mistakes: ComMetrics – Increasing blogging effectiveness: 6-step strategy

Learn from Briana Ford, who created a blog with a bio and great content that showed off her skills to recruiters and bosses alike BEFORE she entered the job market. That’s what I call a jump-start.

5. Join business-related social networks

Having a Twitter account that provides links to interesting content like @lgmassmedia and a social networking profile that puts your skills in the right spotlight, such as LinkedIn, always improves career prospects.

Ensuring that you tweet about your new blog content and listing it on various networks also helps. The key is to find the networks whose members include your target audience, whether potential employers or prospective clients.

Tip – In order to properly launch your career, your profile must be interesting (see Briana Ford’s on LinkedIn or Florian Richter’s on Xing).

6. Read, engage and discuss on social networks

Most people’s profiles on networks such as Xing , LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook list memberships in plenty of groups. But those groups can thrive only if people read the shared content and engage. Most importantly, writing quality content that contributes to discussions is critical to building your reputation.

Group members that are never ’seen’ become victims of the old adage, ‘out of sight, out of mind’.

If you’re wondering what LinkedIn has to do with a blog, take note. Unlike your blog content, most information you post to a group you help moderate on Xing or LinkedIn is difficult for non-members to find. Nevertheless, you can link to content on your blog, as long as it is relevant to the group’s discussion.

Another way to increase your group visibility is to add some new but relevant information to an older post (whether your own or someone else’s) so it comes up again in the most recent timeline of the group.

Tip – Check out ComMetrics – Building a social networking reputation: 4 golden rules or how Joyce Treptow shares on Social Media Monitoring.

7. Best face forward – appearances matter online too

Attributes like trustworthiness, ambition and intelligence are generally recommended profile information, but it is all in the eye of the beholder.

Profiles without pictures just kind of fade into the background, but an engaging profile picture may work for one industry, but not for another line of business or country.

Tip – Just because a picture – helps you get more followers does not mean that the ones following are those you want and need to get another contract and/or job. Nevertheless, it does help to have as many blog readers or Twitter followers as you can get.

8. Leverage your time

Using social media is time-consuming and like a garden, it requires regular attention, pruning and so forth. Tweeting one week and being silent for a couple thereafter does not help building relationships.

Out of sight is out of mind, so regular posts with links to interesting material are key. Staying focused on relevant content for your readers also helps keep your audience happy and save time.

Tip – 3 golden rules for social media marketing

8. What is your social media baseline?

Once you have established your blog, social network profiles and so forth it is time to take an initial baseline measure. Then you can start benchmarking and tracking your progress with My.ComMetrics.com or other software.

Unique visitor traffic can be a navel-gazing kind of metric, because unless those visitors are current clients or can help you clinch a sale, high traffic may not help your company’s bottom line or land you the job you need to pay the bills.

Tip – Make sure that your metrics link to your objectives (i.e. getting a job and/or new contract). Unless unique pageviews come from those who can help you reach your objective, the number has no significance.

Bottom line
Following these essentials will help establish your digital footprint with content that is relevant to your target audience(s) and helps build your personal reputation.

Have an opinion on this? Did we forget a social media DO or DON’T that you know about? Please share in the comments; I love to hear what works for you!

Article source: ComMetrics – Social media DOs and DON’Ts: 8 job search tips

This week’s social media DOs and DON’Ts: Social media measurement, marketing buzz tidbits, tools and other happenings we came across while surfing the internet, blogging and posting on Facebook, Identi.ca, Naijapulse or Twitter.

Our focus includes Levi Strauss trying to sell us new jeans, how Honda pushes new models with Facebook, another Twitter tool, the most popular Facebook games, and other heavyweight brands’ trials and tribulations.

In case you missed previous weeks’ memorable moments on social media monitoring, just point your browser to:

ComMetrics weekly review – social media going’s on

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up right now with your email to get social media metrics insights first:

So here come the highs, lows and oddities I discovered through my various social media channels.

Tuesday

We have previously outlined how smartphones with a location-based application can be used to run customer loyalty programs using Twitter, Facebook and Forthsquare:

ComMetrics – 4 roads to success? Microsoft, NBC, Toyota and PostBus

Now, Levi Strauss is using cameraphone-readable tags to market its women’s jeans line in the US. If the client uses her smartphone to scan the pixellated QR tags she will be directed to a YouTube video explaining how the new Levi’s jeans focus on shape, not size, like this one from Myer, Australia:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Some marketing systems are based on a phone’s GPS signal, but newer applications respond to an audio signal transmitted in the store, provided they are installed on your phone. Best Buy, the largest US electronics retailer, has begun sending special offers to customers’ smartphones when they enter the store.

Of course, to make this work the customer must have the application (e.g., iPhone app) installed on their phone, allowing the audio signal to track it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Customers who buy something can receive discounts by providing their mobile phone number to a cashier. They will also receive special in-store offers from Best Buy and gift cards, computer gaming credits or music downloads from Best Buy’s Napster service.

Wednesday

As I have previously pointed out, there are several ways to find your tweets. I put this to the test and got the best results when searching for the term Facebook or #Facebook (# = hashtag) according to the list below:

1. The best way is still subscribing to your own Twitter RSS feed. This allows you to search using your email program’s search function, such as Outlook or Thunderbird. Putting the feed into your Google Reader also works nicely.
2. Searching identi.ca for ComMetrics and using the word Facebook in my tweets works too.
3. Search using the SnapBird timeline – tweets stored from May 28, 2010.
4. You can also go to Google Real Time Search and bookmark that page. With the configured settings, you are only shown ‘updates’ that come from the Google.com domain, effectively making this a Buzz search.

I have listed the above according to my preference. Try it for yourself.

Thursday

Social network games are becoming increasingly important to keep people involved and ensuring revenue and advertising flows. For instance, as of 2010-08-15 the most important Facebook games are:

1. Farmville – 61 million users,
2. Texas HoldEm Poker – 27 million users,
3. Frontierville – 21 million users,
4. Café World – 20 million users, and
5. Mafia Wars Game – 17 million users.

And the recently-launched FIFA Superstars has already garnered about 5 million users.

Most of the revenue generated by these games comes from users purchasing virtual goods. Since May 2010, payments for the above and other games functions only via Facebook, thereby allowing the company to charge a 30 percent commission on game-related payments.

Friday

FIFA Superstars is off to a great start (see above) and Electronic Arts (EA) is currently working on improving usability, as well as creating an interface for its FIFA Superstars computer-game series.

Thanks to a license from EA Sport, the game boasts images of 15,000 players. Some people are already sharing information about how certain parts of the game can be hacked to advance faster.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Saturday

Social media quality is a hot topic that we have previously discussed

From fee to free: Will e-readers revive newspapers?
ComMetrics weekly review: Saturday – New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Guardian

Now comes the Swiss Year Book on Media (in German), where the authors try to assess how free news has influenced the quality of media regarding coverage in print, TV and online. Unfortunately, the authors do not seem to have addressed quality issues per se, but use such criteria as writing style or quantity of articles published about topics such as business to make inferences about decreasing news coverage quality.

For me, quality of reporting or news coverage seems to have more to do about measuring

- whether the article or blog post is in-depth,
- whether the reported facts and/or issues hold up under scrutiny (e.g., source confirms, research did state these things as actual findings),
- and more…

But maybe I got confused, what is your opinion? Please let me know.

Sunday

As Madison Avenue finally begins to notice the latest web craze drawing growing numbers of people to social gaming, Honda and McDonald’s are making a push into the field to promote their brands.

On August 23, 2010, Honda kicks off a US campaign for its new hybrid CR-Z on Car Town, a recently-launched Facebook social game aimed at car enthusiasts.

Incidentally, Honda UK used Facebook to help launch a new model.

=> Noteworthy: A US government probe’s preliminary data appears to support Toyota’s claim that its electronic throttle control system works properly, pointing instead to driver error as the main cause of accidents blamed on unintended acceleration – read 2010-08-12 Update on ComMetrics – Toyota: How to commit brand and reputation suicide

Article source: ComMetrics weekly review: Joining the social gaming bandwagon

What is your opinion? Please share, discuss and leave a comment below.

We started a series entitled, Social Media DOs and DON’Ts, which provides checklists, tips and tricks to help you leverage your social media skills even better.

Today we focus on how to handle social media in case of a crisis, such as the BP oil spill or a product recall. Social media has become an increasingly important tool for crisis-management.

Below we outline a plan and, most importantly, how it must be tried and tested to withstand a potential onslaught. Examples and videos illustrate what works and what fails when online activist groups like Greenpeace mount an attack against your brand.

But first, sign up with your email to be among the first to get our next blog post.

1. Speed is critical

If the event has been identified such as a faulty product, whatever should be done (e.g., product recall) must be done quickly.

As well, the decision must be communicated fast and a response (e.g., on Facebook, YouTube video, etc.) must be done quickly if not within the hour of the day you discovered the attack.

Example
Unflattering publicity: A news report shows some unsavory practices at Domino’s Pizza.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Domino’s responds with a clever, though slightly over the top video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Testing: Is your team ready to start preparing your coordinated response within 30 minutes of such an incident? Practice such a situation with two or more drills each year to see if your team is up to the challenge.

2. The messenger(s) should be whoever does it best

The company’s chairman or chief executive officer – whether the positions are held by one person or two – should be the face or faces of its crisis response.

Unfortunately, few company chiefs play well to the cameras.

The drubbings received by BP’s British chief executive Tony Hayward, its Swedish chairman Carl-Henric Svanbert, and Toyota chief executive Akio Toyoda, suggest that a company might want to rethink this approach.

Example
How to win the battle: Virgin Group chairman Sir Richard Branson cut short a holiday when a Virgin train derailed in 2007, killing one woman. He painted the driver as a hero, said Virgin’s trains were ‘built like tanks’ and – perhaps most important – looked genuinely upset.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Testing: How well do the people chosen to respond in case of a public relations disaster come across on various media channels (e.g., different methods are required for television than print-media)?

3. Saying nothing is never good

The ‘no comment’ statement might satisfy your lawyers but represents media-suicide and infuriates the public.

Furthermore, silence is often perceived as guilt. Accordingly, talking straight and accepting partial responsibility quickly is likely to protect your brand better than using carefully crafted statements that may smack of legalese and evasion. Accordingly, if the company’s representative communicates unequivocal resolve, compassion, concern and engagement, the words become less important.

After all, the company can still seek indemnification in the event subsequent investigation shows other parties are more culpable.

Example
Being polite could be misconstrued as guilt or lack of feeling: Mr Toyoda and his lieutenant Mr Inada (president of Toyota USA) using a translator and speaking in halting English during their testimony does not help either come across as trustworthy and convincing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In some countries, being aggressive and unrepenting is positive: As Brooksley Born interrogates him, Lloyd Blankfein’s lucid testimony comes across well, without any admission of wrongdoing or much insight. He is rather cocky, but he got away with it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Testing: How well will your statement or testimony be received by consumers or clients in key markets? Prepare your 30-second sound bite and check whether it gets the message across by reviewing the material.

Test whether those responsible for preparing the initial statement for the company’s spokesperson are up to the task – can they deliver within the time-frame given?

4. Saying the wrong thing backfires – but what’s the ‘wrong thing’?

These days an off-the-cuff remark such as BP chairman Svanberg’s talk of ‘the small people’ gets passed around the world within hours on the web. Such statements clearly undermine any trust the public may have in subsequent communications.

When Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann gave a victory sign during his court appearance at the Mannesmann trial, it became a symbol of arrogance to the German public (see right). Ultimately, he avoided any conviction of breach of fiduciary duty as a Mannesmann board member during the Mannesmann/Vodafon takeover battle at a re-trial. Mr Ackermann settled without admitting guilt, paying €3.2 million. Nevertheless, the German public remains wary of this guy.

Example
BP CEO Tony Hayward saying, ”I’d like my life back,” was perceived as a slap in the face of thousands of Gulf Coast residents whose lives and economic livelihoods had been turned upside down by his company’s actions. It was the beginning of his subsequent downfall and replacement.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When Lloyd Blankfein said he was just a banker ‘doing God’s work’ (page 4, second-last paragraph), the world knew it within hours. The fallout was far beyond the statement’s importance in the overall interview but the media had a field day.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Testing: What may seem cool, funny or humorous to your peers can be perceived as offensive by others. Test and try to minimize the risk for collateral damage or refrain from making light of the situation altogether.

5. Being incommunicado is not an option – ever

Social media use by consumers, activists and journalists never stops, whether on weekends, overnight or during holidays. It is 24/7/365, all the way.

So if Greenpeace starts a negative publicity campaign late Friday afternoon, the company cannot ignore it until Monday, by which time the news has spread like wildfire. Even if the company provides media and bloggers with important facts by Tuesday, the risk remains that it is too little, too late.

Example
Nestlé’s team demonstrates how not to respond to a Greenpeace attack on your brand - KitKat.

Even rational arguments provided to the media two weeks after the disaster started will not help. For instance, according to Nestlé CEO Mr Brabeck-Letmathe, the social media team forgot to share some facts, such as Nestlé and other food producers buying about 0.7 percent of world production of palm trees, but European governments’ policy on increasing the amount of energy that comes from bio-fuels is the bigger culprit.

While this suggests that the message should be something like “don’t use bio-fuels”, the issue was never raised in the social media fight regarding his use of palm oil from Sinar Mas and its reputation. When it was finally mentioned, it was lost in the shuffle.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Testing: How can and does the company monitor social media in relevant markets outside ‘regular’ business hours (24/7/365 approach required for global brand)? For instance, how well can it respond to an onslaught of negative comments on social media networks, thereby influencing discussions with facts, not opinions? Have you tried it, did it work or was it a Nestlé-type flop? Put an emergency response team in place that can take action within 30 minutes of learning of any online brand attack.

6. Respond to humorous brand attacks with a smile

The Internet has changed things in part by empowering consumers to produce content and share their material using social networks. Increasingly, consumers are using humor to get the message across. The company has three choices:

- ignore the attack at your own peril,
- try to respond in kind (e.g., leave a comment on the blog post or on YouTube were the video was posted), and/or,
- produce a humorous response (e.g., on corporate blog or YouTube channel).

Even being proactive and responding quickly does not mean you are in control of the situation, but it does enable you to influence the discussion with facts.

Example
What might happen if BP was responsible for cleaning up a coffee spill at a meeting.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Increasingly, Facebook is getting into hot water about privacy issues and sharing users’ data with advertisers. This video makes a bit of fun of CEO Zuckerberg and how he believes we should address privacy concerns.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Testing: Humor does not play well across cultures and/or languages. Make sure you do not overplay your hand and use what is tried and tested.

Bottom line – the social media disaster drill is a must
If your company follows the above DOs and DON’Ts, a level of savvy and understanding can be attained that allows for effective use of this technology to leverage your brand.

We advise preparing a 30-second sound bite AND a 200-word statement that addresses and answers:

- what went wrong,
- how it will be fixed, and
- what will happen to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

The core message will always be wrapped in these three main points and adhere to the cardinal rules of crisis communication:

=> tell the truth, tell it all, tell it fast.

Most important is to test how well your response meets the above six criteria, create a strategy for quickly establishing contact with key people to handle such emergencies and test your procedures to make sure everybody knows what to do, when.

Remember, as a student you knew exactly what to do when the fire alarm went off at school thanks to all those fire drills. The same is required to handle a public relations disaster or attack on your brand. Without testing how well your strategy works, your effective damage control will fail during a real disaster and may actually exacerbate the problem instead of limiting the damage.

Have an opinion on this? Did we forget a DO or DON’T for social media that you know about? Please share in the comments; I love to hear what works for you!

Article source: ComMetrics – Social media DO’s and DON’Ts: 6 remedies for any emergency

This week’s social media DOs and DON’Ts: Social media measurement, marketing buzz tidbits, tools and other happenings we came across while surfing the internet, blogging and posting on Facebook, Identi.ca, Naijapulse or Twitter.

Our focus includes Hollyoaks or, how TV producers got more lather from their soap using multichannel approaches, Internet and mobile penetration and accessibility in Africa, domain name sales, how Twitter influencers try to overcome their followers’ passivity, Google Wave’s failure and other heavyweight brands’ trials and tribulations.

In case you missed previous weeks’ memorable moments on social media monitoring, just point your browser to:

ComMetrics weekly review – social media going’s on

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up right now with your email to get social media metrics insights first:

So here come the highs, lows and oddities I discovered through my various social media channels.

Sunday and Monday

Hollyoaks is an example of how television producers are learning to broaden their appeal in a digital multichannel world:

1. Hollyoaks, the teenage television soap opera that began in 1995, captures the lives of aspiring young Britons.
2. The Hollyoaks Music Show airs during the Saturday morning T4 youth programming slot on the UK’s Channel 4.
3. Hollyoaks Freshers, an online only series launched in August 2010, follows the characters about to enroll at Hollyoaks Community College (the 16+ school around which much of the action is centered).

When the show began there were only four terrestrial TV channels in the UK; now there are hundreds. As a result, the program’s TV audience that once hovered at about 3 million has dropped to only about 1.2 million, half of which are between the ages of 16 and 34.

Nevertheless its brand extension began in 1997 with a website and today, about 40 percent of the TV audience regularly visits the various web destinations. In turn, the show has managed to improve engagement with its audience.

The Hollyoaks Blog

Also, the Hollyoaks Music Show is sponsored by Matalan.co.uk, which offers the audience an opportunity to purchase whatever the performer is wearing in just one click => classic cross-channel marketing.

Evaluation. The show is a classic example of how an idea can be cross-marketed using different channels, moving from TV to music show to online series and soon, online games.

TV professionals understand how the revenue stream works in their business, so the Hollyoaks team is still experimenting, trying to find their way on the Internet to improve that channel’s revenue stream.

Nevertheless, it is obvious that television producers are learning to get more lather from their soaps by using multichannel approaches, including online episodes, fashion and perfume sales, as well as online gaming.

Hollyoaks also remains ahead of most in the race when it comes to using the Internet and/or eCommerce to leverage the TV show’s revenue potential. Well done. However, navigating between those different destinations is still not easy; some A/B testing would help.

Tuesday

Some would argue what a sad state of affairs it is that more people have access to mobile phones than flush-toilets.

Information from the International Telecommunication Union and others indicates that Africa is an interesting market with facts that make one pause, such as:

- penetration of mobile phones has jumped from 2 to 45 percent over the last decade,
- the average user in South Africa spends 3 percent of their monthly income on a mobile phone,
- the average user in countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Niger spends 25 to 60 percent of their monthly income on a mobile phone, and
- to get the necessary electricity, 99 percent of base stations require a diesel generator in some countries’ rural areas.

This indicates that focusing solely on so-called penetration rates (i.e. the number of mobile or Internet broadband subscribers) may well be completely inappropriate.

July 2010 – The world in 2009: ICT facts and figures – download 10-page pdf

Wednesday

In the last year, median prices for .com domain names have risen by 25 percent to US$510 in 2010.

• 2004 – US$100 million paid by SBC-BellSouth joint venture or yellowpages.com
• 1999 – US$7.5 million paid for business.com domain
• 2009 – US$16 million paid for insure.com

Some claim that the importance of such domains should fall, since search engines are becoming increasingly important, thereby making human memory less critical for finding information. Nevertheless, easy-to-remember domain names make sure I come back… by allowing me to enter the information in my browser from memory.

Trends for 2010 and beyond – summary tables for .com, .org, .de, and other domains
Trends for 2010 and beyond – 10-page pdf

Thursday

Twitter is an interesting subject and I have previously mentioned research about it, such as:

Twitter influence – the million-follower fallacy

This week I came across another interesting study that tries to address this matter by using an algorithm instead of re-tweeting or mentions… and one of its conclusions is:

=> “This study shows that the correlation between popularity and influence is weaker than it might be expected…

“The study found that a large majority of Twitter users act as passive information consumers and rarely forward (“retweet”) content to the network.

“To become influential, users must not only catch the attention of their followers; they must also overcome their followers’ predisposition to remain passive.”

Also interesting was the finding that high popularity does not necessarily imply high influence…

Download research paper:

Romero, D. M, Galuba, W., Asur S., & Huberman, B. (not dated – Aug 2010). Influence and Passivity in Social Media (download 9-page pdf)

What is your opinion? Do you think your tweets make a difference for your readers?
Watch this 2-minute video summarizing the study – nicely done:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sunday

It’s official – finally: Google Wave will no longer be offered as a unique service after 2010, as posted by Urs Hölzle on the Google blog.

There are a few lessons to be learned here:

1. Have the added-value down pat: Google Wave was meant to replace emails by combining the latter with document creation/editing and file sharing. But the added benefit of Wave versus other social networks and online tools remained unclear for most users.

2. Usability is critical: Gmail is easy to use while Google Wave was always a challenge, both figuring out the options and understanding why some things failed to work properly.

3. Social networking is a tough racket: linking social networking with search functions and information retrieval is where Google can excel and give Facebook a run for its money – if lessons 1 & 2 are taken care of, that is. The product must be attractive, with easy-to-use features and less about online collaboration. Leveraging Google’s strengths is critical and definitely Google Wave did not do this.

By the way, Google Buzz is also a ‘me-too’ product but it is easy to use and allows Google to collect and make use of my Twitter and Google Buzz tweets. Even better for Google, it is a clever way to leverage their search strengths AND the 180 million Gmail users (see Saturday).

Article source: ComMetrics weekly review: Hollyoaks excels as Google stumbles

What is your opinion? Please share, discuss and leave a comment below.

Companies using social media to improve engagement require web relations specialists for constant monitoring. This means that staff spend their time on Twitter or Facebook engaging with clients and helping them find solutions when problems arise.

An increasing number of companies have accepted social media as part of their public relations and communications strategy. These tools can drive sales and help you reach new markets; they can also create public relations nightmares.

2 weeks ago we discussed

ComMetrics – Social media DOs and DON’Ts: 8 pivotal tips

This week we address other social media DOs and DON’Ts for companies that want to blaze a trail down the path to better engagement while being ready for a possible public relations disaster.

But first, sign up to be among the first to get our next blog post.

Planning for an emergency situation means designing railroad tracks and switches in a way that ensures a smooth and safe ride. A similar objective should be accomplished to prepare the company for an effective response in a public relations disaster.  If you missed some of the previous post, please check:

Find more DOs and DON’ts in social media

Below we outline issues that must be resolved long before a crisis occurs.

1. A crisis is a matter ignored – know the company’s issues and risks

Ambush marketing attacks by companies that had not paid to be an official sponsor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa were a real threat to the organizers.

Unfortunately, as the Bavaria ladies demonstrated, FIFA was once again caught unprepared. Taking the ladies out of the stadium and subsequently charging two of them in a Johannesburg court turned public opinion firmly against FIFA.

The public favored the ladies and instead demanded that Bavaria Brewery’s owner be charged for the illegal stunt in which the women were involved.

Being prepared for a possible onslaught before it happens means understanding the issues so the company knows how to respond properly.

2. Prepare for the crisis

Most office buildings, schools and universities have a checklist that spells out simple steps for each employee or student to follow in case of a fire. Not only is the plan in place, but there are usually several fire drills throughout the year to see how well the check list and implemented procedures work.

Similarly, preparing for a public relations disaster requires having a plan in place that really works. The best-laid plans flop when put to the test if various scenarios have not been taken into consideration or drills are not practiced every three to six months.

3. Who communicates what?

Unfortunately, those best-laid plans also fail to deliver the goods if it is unclear who is responsible for what: who marshals the troops, who will be the public face?

Put differently, who is and who is not authorized to comment?

Therefore, your crisis road map must be clearly understood at all levels of the company. Remember though, while only some will give interviews, staff will continue to use social media to share information with the masses, with or without authorization (e.g., their Facebook wall).

Accordingly, ensure channels are ready that enable the company to inform employees about its response and where online videos, briefs and white papers can be downloaded by the public and media for additional insight.

Better employees share the right information than guess what the company will do or has already done to fix the problem, especially since the media will always go elsewhere to fill the story if the company remains silent. They will also likely use pictures of closed company doors, executives walking off muttering “no comment”, and other unflattering images.

4. Who monitors social media and how?

Besides blogs, micro-blogs (e.g., Twitter, Naijapulse) and Facebook (non-English content is growing fast here), who will monitor Japan’s Mixi, Tencent QQ in China and Vkontakte of Russia if these markets are important to your brand?

Toyota USA assigned eight people in Los Angeles to monitor social media during its recall crisis. Great, but somehow Toyota forgot to marshal regional resources and combine and share their insights across the organization, given the likely inability of the Los Angeles staff to monitor networks in Russia, China or Japan.

Social media requires a monitor beyond local markets and institutionalized ways for sharing this information in order to protect the brand.

5. Show genuine empathy and concern

Ensure that an expression of regret for an incident or adverse outcome (as long as it is not an admission of responsibility) cannot be used as an admission of liability under applicable law.

When Virgin’s train derailed, Richard Branson became the company’s public face of the crisis, showing empathy as well as genuine concern for the train passengers who suffered. He also defended the train engineer and made it clear that the disaster was not due to that employee’s actions.

A somewhat different approach was demonstrated on 2010-06-17, when BP’s former CEO Tony Hayward told a US congressional energy subcommittee that he was “deeply sorry,” going on to tell the often fractious hearing that, “I understand the seriousness of the situation, the frustrations and fears that continue to be voiced.” He said BP had “made a lot of major changes” since he became chief executive and that he was “distraught” by the Gulf spill.

“It’s clear to me that you don’t want to answer our questions,” Representative Henry Waxman stated.

This hearing did not help BP get its message across, since Mr Hayward failed to follow what we suggested in our third point:

=> tell the truth, tell it all and tell it fast; then explain what went wrong, how it will be fixed and what will be done to prevent a repeat.

Mr Hayward followed legal advice and refused to comment or evaded questions when the public wanted clear answers on how the Deepwater Horizon disaster would be fixed – yesterday.

Bottom line
We advise preparing a 30-second sound bite that addresses and answers:

- what went wrong,
- how it will be fixed, and
- what will happen to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

The core message will always be wrapped in these three main points and adhere to the cardinal rules of crisis communication:

=> tell the truth, tell it all, tell it fast.

If you and your staff follow the above guidelines, you can achieve better risk-management, and most importantly, more effective use of this technology to leverage your brand, which should help your bottom line.

We will continue our DOs and DON’Ts series throughout the summer, so please join us.

Have an opinion on this? Did we forget a DO or DON’T for effectively preparing for a possible public relations or media onslaught that you know about? Please share in the comments; I love to hear what works for you!

Article source: ComMetrics – Social media DO’s and DON’Ts: 5 hints for successful crisis-management

Next week watch out for: Social media DO’s and DON’Ts: 8 critical steps for emergencies

This week’s social media DOs and DON’Ts: Social media measurement, marketing buzz tidbits, tools and other happenings we came across while surfing the internet, blogging and posting on Facebook, Identi.ca, Naijapulse or Twitter as well as LinkedIn and Xing.

Our focus includes Sarah Palin making fun of herself, Hungary curtailing bloggers’ freedom, Amazon’s new strategy page, Google’s woes in China and other heavyweight brands’ trials and tribulations.

In case you missed previous weeks’ memorable moments on social media monitoring, just point your browser to:

ComMetrics weekly review – social media going’s on

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up right now with your email to get the social media metrics insights first:

So here come the highs, lows and oddities I discovered through my various social media channels.

Sunday and Monday

Sarah Palin may be planning to run for US president in 2012. John McCain’s former running mate is wading into the discussion over whether an Islamic study center should be allowed to build a mosque near Ground Zero of the 9/11 disaster in New York.

America’s self-described ‘Grizzly Mom’ appeared on US television and tweeted, calling on Muslims to repudiate the plan. Her malapropism was greeted by a tide of bi-coastal derision, which she topped with “Refudiate, misunderestimate, wee-wee’d up. English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Go to celebrate it!”

It was Barack Obama himself who warned people against getting all ‘wee wee’d up’ during last year’s protests against healthcare reform. The author of ‘misunderestimate’ does not need a reintroduction, does she?

Tuesday

Today I came across some news that Hungary’s new prime minister Viktor Orban is engaged in self-styled ‘revolution’ that includes an assault on media freedom, through such measures as compulsory registration of bloggers. How will the government decide what a blogger is – anybody posting on the Web, or just those using blogging software?

I am worried about press freedom, especially since Hungary takes over the EU’s rotating presidency next year. If Viktor Orban continues to push his brand of populism curtailing free speech and democracy, we worry.

Wednesday

Almost 16 days ago in China, only one of 13 services – Gmail – was considered fully accessbile. ‘Web search suggest’, the drop-down list of related search items, has been blocked since the end of June.

Photo-sharing site Picasa, YouTube, blogger and Google sites have been fully blocked for China’s users since March.

Routing users to Hong Kong means Google does not censor results itself, but China’s great firewall kicks in anyway. If mainland users enter banned keywords they might lose their browser connections for at least 10 minutes.

Baidu is reaping the benefits, since its search share has risen from 58 to 70 percent while Google’s has fallen from 36 to 24 percent, further hurting Google, which has lagged behind the Nasdaq by 19 percent this year while Baidu has outperformed it by 80 percent. Apparently, having principals and conducting business accordingly has a price for everyone, even big dogs like Google.

Ivy Bean, the world’s oldest tweeter better known by her handle ‘IvyBean104′, died Wednesday 2010-07-28 at age 104.Her tweets ran the gamut, from the mundane to juicy gossip.She had 57,000 followers, including Sarah Brown, wife of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown. They met this year at Downing Street to talk about social networking.

Thursday

White papers — Damning verdict on buy-out groups that have underperformed, whose motto seems to be ‘heads they win, tails you lose’.

I came across another white paper saying that private equity groups produce disappointing returns while charging their investors fat fees amid glaring conflicts of interest:

- 2 to 8 percent (average rate) charged as annual management fee of funds raised, and
- 20 percent ‘carried interest’ of any profits above a certain level, say 8 percent.

One study mentioned cited 110 deals in Europe between 1995 and 2005, reporting:

- 39 percent internal rate of return, of which
- 22 percent was accounted for by debt, and
- 9 percent by a rising stock market

This left the private equity managers’ contribution at just 8 percent. I think I prefer pension fund managers and public money stay away, the risk is not worth it.

=> Private equity, public loss? by Peter Morris

The Private Equity Council, a US trade association which represents 13 of the biggest US buy-out groups, including Blackstone, KKR, TPG, Carlyle and Apax, responded on Tuesday by saying that the CSFI report “…has at best a tangential relationship to the facts… The 60-page text’s selective quotations of existing research and ignorance of data that rebut its conclusions do more to perpetuate the myths about the industry than to dispel them.”

=> Private Equity Council – press room

Friday

Virtually insecure: The Article 29 Working Party, an influential group of European data regulators, feels that the current practice of sending cookies as soon as someone lands on a page must stop.

=> The Article 29 Working Party – European Union – 2/2010 opinion on online behavioral advertising - unrealistic

I agree, but it is only a first step, since I already have a way of dealing with it, for example by using the no-script plug-in for Mozilla Firefox. Unfortunately, many sites that require a cookie will not allow me to use all their features without allowing their cookie on my machine/hard-drive. They give me a choice that is not really a choice, is it?

Instead, the Article 29 Working Party should demand that users be given the opportunity to take advantage of most site content (e.g., weblogs, news sites), without accepting a cookie. Yes, Google Analytics uses a cookie to collect data on websites – German data protection regulation requires full disclosure by the site owner to visitors – but how helpful is this when a user cannot access to much of the content and services on a site without accepting the potentially intrusive bit of script?

Digital trails left by users proliferate quickly (see right). Considering that advertisers end up engaging in surveillance that is often covert, creepy and non-consensual things must change to make sure that a single visit to a site cannot tell marketers things they have no right to know.

If a single visit reveals too much to those without a right to know, why have privacy regulation at all? What is your opinion on this?

Saturday

Amazon, maker of the Kindle eReader, is trying to write a new chapter in book publishing strategy. Just as a reminder, from January through May 2010 the US market experienced a:

- 7 percent fall in adult mass market book sales,
- 200 percent growth in eBook sales, and
- 8.5 percent of the total market was eBook sales, compared to 3 percent for the same period last year.

Clearly, it seems that authors and publishers are missing an opportunity by not offering a book in digital format as well as print.

Some 764,000 public domain and self-published books were released in the US during 2009 compared with 288,000 traditional titles. This seems a vast pile of potential riches for Amazon. It substantially improved royalty rates for self-published authors to 70 percent in January 2010!

We do not take American Express here. Why, because a recent US study shows that merchants generally do not set differential prices for credit card users to recoup the costs of fees or rewards. As a result:

“…On average, each cash-using household pays US$151 to card-using households and each card-using household receives US$1,482 from cash users every year… Reducing merchant fees and card rewards would likely increase consumer welfare.”

Schu, S., Shy, O, & Stavins, J (July 2010) – Who gains and who loses from credit card payments? Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

Sunday

Things for reflection: We have spent many hours, resources and grief on the BP oil spill. However, the true consequences for the environment may not be known for months or even years.

Moreover, the 8.84 million gallons (33.46 million liters) of dispersants used may continue to haunt us. Some scientists fear they may have a worse effect on sea life than the oil, since their use in this manner was ‘unprecedented’.

As quarterly results suffer, BP is to sell US$30 billion in assets to pay for oil spill costs, while it confirmed the departure of its chief executive Tony Hayward.

Additional resources

=> Case studies – successes, flops and disasters
=> Learn from history – identify the trends before they happen
=> Freakalytics – statistics lie: assume nothing, question everything
=> Social media ROI – the budget committee is laughing at you

Article source: ComMetrics weekly review: Curbing media freedom, Google and Sarah Palin

What is your opinion? Please share, discuss and leave a comment below.

Companies using social media to improve engagement require web relations specialists for constant monitoring. This means that staff spend their time on Twitter or Facebook engaging with clients and helping them find solutions when problems arise.

An increasing number of companies have accepted social media as part of their public relations and communications strategy. These tools can drive sales and help you reach new markets; they can also create public relations nightmares.

Last week we discussed

ComMetrics – Social media DOs and DON’Ts: 8 pivotal tips

This week we address other social media DOs and DON’Ts for companies that want to blaze a trail down the path to better engagement.

But first, sign up to be among the first to get our next blog post.

When undertaking a longer trip, such as biking across the Sahara, having the right supplies along is critical to making the journey successful. Hence, most adventurers use checklists evolved over years, based on their own, colleagues’ and other experts’ experiences.

With those checklists, the risk of taking the wrong things along is reduced.

While a checklist makes it easier to pack the right things, a social media policy helps manage risk and ensures the company stays compliant and does not run afoul of legislation while using the tools offered by social media networks.

The ComMetrics Social Media Policy (started in 2007 with five rules) is a working document to help employees of ComMetrics (a division of CyTRAP Labs GmbH) use social media wisely. Thanks to feedback from staff and experts we instituted these eight golden rules.

1. Do to others as you would have done to you

This means always be nice, truthful and respect the other individual. Never embarrass or make fun of others online.

2. Once you post it, you can’t take it back

Besides avoiding foul language, remember that a party image posted online from your friend’s mobile phone might haunt you in the future, whether you are applying for a job or getting married.

Also ensure that the source you link to (e.g., a research report) can withstand regulatory scrutiny (e.g., possible conflicts of interest are disclosed – see FDA regulations) and will not damage your reputation (e.g., badly disguised sales pitch, low-quality white paper).

3. Never reveal too much information

This can do damage in any number of ways, including violating company-client privilege, opening your organization to sanctions, voiding patent rights, revealing trade secrets, or violating copyright.

Email, instant messaging, Twitter, Facebook, voicemails, as well as the entire contents of your private PC, smartphone or iPad if used for any work-related reason are fully discoverable and the first place lawyers look when building a case.

Lastly, it is just as easy to ’spill the beans’ in a social setting as it is online. Be careful and you will be fine.

4. Remember that cyberspace links your professional and private lives

Friends and clients will not only find your corporate blog posts, but your private Facebook page and personal Twitter account, and draw their own conclusions. Be cautious before putting anything ‘out there’.

5. Engage honestly and truthfully

Interact and connect with clients. If you cannot help someone directly regarding any of your services, products and so forth, send them to the appropriate department, person or social media channel.

Follow up personally or make sure a colleague does so within 24 hours. In today’s virtual world time is of the essence and your public holiday or weekend may be a client’s normal workday!

6. Verify your privacy and security settings

How much data you reveal – such as email or phone number – should be set in your security options or privacy settings (e.g., what information is visible to anyone).

Before you post any images or videos online (e.g., holiday snapshots on Facebook), get explicit permission from anyone included, so as not to violate any personal rights and/or privacy regulation(s).

Be careful which links you visit and make sure any materials you download are scanned by your computer’s security software.

7. Watch the clock when using social networks

Visiting your personal Facebook page takes time away from getting tasks done for which you get paid; accordingly, use your time wisely while at work and make your social media engagement beneficial to the company. Please do not let such usage interfere with maintaining your high performance.

8. Lead from above

As a boss, team leader or manager, you should lead by example. If you are an infrequent and/or sloppy social media user, your bad habits may spread to your colleagues and/or subordinates.

To reduce the risk to yourself, your team and the company, set a good example and review social media use with your team – the good, the bad and the ugly – to learn from mistakes and successes.

This policy is in addition to other existing policies.

We wish you all the best success with engaging in social and private networks. May it advance your career and in turn assist us in our efforts to provide clients with more value.

In this case as in all, we feel that the best way to deal with effective use of social media in the workplace is by persuasion and example, NOT by removing liberty.

For more resources visit the ComMetrics social media policy and scroll to the bottom for tools and much more.

Bottom line
If your staff follow the guidelines above, you can achieve better risk-management. Most importantly, the effective use of this technology to leverage your brand should help your bottom line.

We will continue our DOs and DON’Ts series throughout the summer, so please join us.

Have an opinion on this? Did we forget a DO or DON’T for an effective social media policy that you know about? Please share in the comments; I love to hear what works for you!

Article source: ComMetrics – Social media policy DOs and DON’Ts: 8 essentials

This week’s social media DOs and DON’Ts: Social media measurement, marketing buzz tidbits, tools and other happenings we came across while surfing the internet, blogging and posting on Facebook, Identi.ca, Naijapulse or Twitter.

Our focus includes UEFA upsetting fans, US consumers’ worries, BP’s oil spill, Italy hitting the brakes on 90,000 vehicles, the New York Times’ digital ad boost, Facebook’s continuing rapid growth and other heavyweight brands’ trials and tribulations.

In case you missed previous weeks’ memorable moments on social media monitoring, just point your browser to:

ComMetrics weekly review – social media going’s on

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up right now with your email to get the social media metrics insights first:

So here come the highs, lows and oddities I discovered through my various social media channels.

Tuesday

Today I came across some news that Syria has banned women from wearing the hijab, or full face veil, at its universities. Officials have been quoted as saying that this move is intended to protect the nation’s secular identity.

Just a reminder: Last week, France’s National Assembly backed a bill banning the wearing of the full face veil in public places. In turn, this took France a step closer to becoming the first democracy to ban women from wearing the hijab when shopping for groceries.

Wednesday

UEFA flexed its muscles again, but managed to upset fans in the process and anger the Swiss and French football associations. What is the issue, you ask?

Apparently UEFA believes that, “the organisation of football on a national territorial basis constitutes a fundamental principal and a well-established characteristic of the sport” (quote from FT.com).

Therefore, UEFA quashed Évian Thonon Gaillard FC’s (ETGFC) hopes of playing its games in Geneva, a decision which has elicited scorn from many, including local politicians and fans.

France’s Evian club had won promotion to the second division but had no venue befitting its new status or meeting UEFA regulations regarding security and capacity, etc. But just 35 km away, Geneva’s new stadium (built for the 2008 European Cup) meets the highest international standards, including a train station.

In rugby, Biarritz regularly plays its home games across the border in Spain, but on June 8, UEFA decided this will not work for soccer.

Instead, Evian must now make more than €1 million in repairs to the Annecy stadium, which is much further away than Geneva, and play there. All because of an arbitrary line drawn on a map.

So far social media backlash regarding this decision has been limited for UEFA. And yes, considering increasing cross-border cooperation, this UEFA decision seems incomprehensible.

PS. There are precedents in the UK which would suggest that Evian should be able to play in a stadium in Geneva. For instance, Berwick (England) play in the Scottish League, and both, Cardiff and Swansea (two Welsh teams), play in the English leagues. Naturally, all with the approval of UEFA.

Thursday

Consumer spending in Canada and the US is the biggest single contributor to economic growth. Now two studies report that consumers on both sides of the border are losing confidence in the recovery.

In fact, a majority of consumers believe that their economic situation has gotten worse. Accordingly, Canada and the US are unlikely to experience higher consumer demand in the upcoming months.
The Canadian data shows dropping confidence across the board, including expectations for the economy, income and future buying intentions.

In the US, the University of Michigan study reports that both the current and future expectation components of the survey were down about 10 points, to their lowest levels in a year or two.

- Reuters – University of Michigan Sentiment Survey (done monthly for the US)
- AlixPartners – Americans Don’t Expect a Return to Pre-recession Spending Levels, Lifestyles

By the way, measuring consumer sentiments, also called consumer attitudes, is interesting because these are correlated with consumers’ spending decisions. Accordingly, rising consumer attitudes lead to higher consumer spending or at least a maintenance of current spending levels, while falling consumer sentiment tends to predict the reverse.

US government stimulus will fade in the second half of 2010 and consumers losing faith in the recovery suggests a drop in spending for the coming fall. How this will affect global spending… we can only guess.

Friday

Running an idle oil rig costs about US$500,000 a day. The US renewed and revised its ban on deep-water drilling to apply to any deep-water floating facilities with drilling activities. Some rig owners are now sending their idle equipment from the Gulf of Mexico to the Republic of the Congo.

While Representative Ed Markey is quoted as saying, “if we are going to drill in ultra-deep waters, we have to ensure it is ultra-safe and response to a spill is ultra-fast,” oil executives feel it is once again business as usual, (see graphic).
As the above shows, Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron are pretty confident that the mess that happened to BP will not happen to them. Only Total and ConocoPhillips are a bit more cautious and suggest that more work needs to be done on their side to improve their risk-management in deep-water drilling.

Some oil executives are already getting cocky again. How else could one explain Shell Alaska vice-president Pete Slaiby’s statement to the BBC that, “The Gulf of Mexico may have been a wake-up call for some, but not for Shell.”

This week, four of the world’s biggest oil companies announced that they are pooling US$1 billion to form a joint venture to develop a deep-water Gulf of Mexico oil spill response and containment system. Of course, this does not mean that Shell is finally cleaning up its act in Nigeria, where the environmental damage continues and has done for years.

Huh.

Saturday

In July, Facebook announced that it reached 500 million members. This came five and a half months after it reached 400 million, with most of the growth in non-English speaking countries.

Over the past year, use of Facebook among Portuguese internet users went from 10 to 63 percent while in Brazil, user numbers have risen from 1.3 to 6 million.

Facebook’s member numbers are on par with other big sites:

- 500 million (annual revenue generated by user = $2)
- 932 million users visit Google’s search engine and other sites, including YouTube and Orkut (Google’s social network) every month ($22.50),
- Microsoft draws 789 million users ($2.65),
- Yahoo has 633 million ($7.65), and
- about 140 million people visit a FriendFinder site in any given month (no revenue numbers available).

In June we also shared some trends and graphics that indicate print media’s drop in revenue in the US.

=> Wall Street Journal, New York Post, New York Times, Le Monde – Dropping ad revenues and continuing losses

The New York Times (NYT) reported this week that it enjoyed a digital ad boost that increased its online ad revenue by 21 percent, year-on-year, off-setting a 6 percent decline in print advertising revenue. More than a quarter of its advertising sales now come from online businesses.

The NYT plans to begin charging readers of NYTimes.com in a so-called metered model that would offer a limited number of free articles, similar to FT.com and others.

Sunday

Italy has decided to hit the brakes on some 90,000 limos, 10,000 of which – including drivers – are used by elected politicians, 20,000 by appointed officials and 65,000 ‘grey cars’ for general transport, such as deliveries. Of course, police cars and so forth are excluded from these numbers.

The cost of this ‘auto blu’ is estimated at €4 billion of taxpayer money. Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s office has reported that it has 30, some of which are Maseratis. Under pressure from the public, Italy’s minister for cutting public sector waste Renato Brunetta is walking these days.

Will we see Mr Berlusconi walking around Rome too? Don’t hold your breath: he talks about cutting the budget deficit but fails to show the way when it requires tightening his own belt.

Additional resources

=> Case studies – successes, flops and disasters
=> Learn from history – identify the trends before they happen
=> Freakalytics – statistics lie: assume nothing, question everything
=> Social media ROI – the budget committee is laughing at you

Article source: ComMetrics weekly review: UEFA screws up as Berlusconi walks

What is your opinion? Please share, discuss and leave a comment below.

Companies using social media marketing as part of brand management require staff to do the job right. In theory, engagement requires web relations specialists who constantly monitor the channel, meaning staff spend their time on Twitter or Facebook engaging with clients and helping them find solutions when problems arise.

An increasing number of companies has accepted social media as part of their public relations and communications strategy. These tools can drive sales and help you reach new markets; they can also create public relations nightmares.

So while social media has gone mainstream, quite a few companies continue to struggle with achieving effective engagement. This post addresses the social media DOs and DON’Ts for companies that want to keep up with their engaged community.

==> Update 2010-07-28 – ComMetrics – Social media policy DOs and DON’Ts: 8 essentials

If you missed a few of these posts, please check:

Find more DOs and DON’ts in social media

But first, sign up with your email to be among the first to get our next blog post.

Effective social media use that achieves desired results: How to get there

Here are some tips on how companies can use social media smartly as part of their business strategy.

1. Answer the critics: It is important to listen and respond to all clients, not just those who rave about your company and product(s).
2. Empower users to engage: This means giving them a voice and content to work with; allowing them to comment on blog posts and NOT removing negative comments from user forums, blogs, etc., but responding respectfully with facts.
3. Be personable: It is a delicate balance to strike between being a personable social media user and representing the brand in a professional way on personal Twitter or Facebook accounts.
4. Empower your staff: Everybody is a social media evangelist and to make it work properly, staff across the enterprise must be empowered to leverage social media in support of the brand and its product(s).
5. Tend your garden: Social media takes effort and time, whereby better customer service and client engagement help build a dedicated following – word-of-mouth marketing supports the company’s sales efforts.
6. Start, set and re-assess proper objectives: Do not expect to do it perfectly right from the start, but rather start today than tomorrow and watch the trends in order to make adjustments as needed.
7. Provide staff with guidance: Decide what guidance to give all staff on expressing their own, and their company’s opinions through their personal social media channels. Corporate social media guidelines are a prerequisite.
8. Connect with your audience: Whatever tool or channel you try, social media content is read by people from different countries, cultures, religions and levels of education, requiring that you write like the average wise and polite person on the street, and speak the lingua franca (universal language) so people get the message right away.

Bottom line
If the company follows the above DOs and DON’Ts, a level of savvy and understanding can be attained that allows the effective use of this technology to leverage your brand.

We will continue our DOs and DON’Ts series throughout the summer, so please join us.

Have an opinion on this? Did we forget a DO or DON’T for social media that you know about? Please share in the comments; I love to hear what works for you!

Article source: ComMetrics – Social media DOs and DON’Ts: 8 pivotal tips

This week’s social media DOs and DON’Ts: Social media measurement, marketing buzz tidbits, tools and other happenings we came across while surfing the internet, blogging and posting on Facebook, Identi.ca, Naijapulse or Twitter.

Our focus includes Apple’s iPhone 4 Antenna-gate, Goldman’s fraud fine, Radian 6 and its partners’ test disclosure issues; Toyota’s accelerator issues, and other heavyweight brands’ trials and tribulations.

In case you missed previous weeks’ memorable moments on social media monitoring, just point your browser to:

ComMetrics weekly review – social media going’s on

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up right now with your email to get the social media metrics insights first:

So here come the highs, lows and oddities I discovered through my various social media channels.

Tuesday

Consumer Reports (US) reported that its tests show a hardware defect in the new iPhone 4 that causes the device to lose reception when held a certain way.

Moreover, Consumer Reports is calling into question Apple’s claim that the phenomenon is rooted in a software problem.

Incidentally, the hardware glitch has been known since mid-June and Cameron Hunt released a video demonstrating the glitch on June 25. Please be patient until it loads; it is definitely worth the wait.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs told those attending the July 16 press conference in Cupertino (see Friday) that the company learned of iPhone 4’s reception glitch 22 days previous, or the same day Cameron Hunt released his video (June 25).

I am not sure whether Steve Jobs’ statement means Apple monitors social media and/or its customer hotline. Jobs added that they are “working our butts off” to figure out the problem, which he called “Antenna-gate.”

Apple has recommended that customers put rubber protective sleeves or ‘bumpers’ around the phone, while Consumer Reports suggested using duct tape to cover a gap in the antenna.

But neither of these fixes help the look and feel of the iPhone 4 or fix the root cause of the hardware problem.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What is your experience with the iPhone 4? Have you tried warranty service yet for an iPhone or iPod product; what was the result?

In the meantime, Apple has been dropping negative comments in user forums while Apple chief executive Steve Jobs remained strangely quiet until the press conference.

Another social media DON’T is removing negative comments: it never looks good. Instead, provide factual information about the issue (see below).

- ComMetrics – Toyota: How to commit brand and reputation suicide
- ComMetrics University – Building one’s reputation on social networks
- ComMetrics – Building a social networking reputation: 4 golden rules
- ComMetrics – Managing the brand to improve your reputation: Jeff Bezos, Josef Ackermann and Richard Branson to the rescue
- ComMetrics University – Coffee break webinar: Why cross-media campaigns fail

Even David Letterman added his two cents’ worth, telling us in his nightly show how bad the iPhone is.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Wednesday

Then Antenna-gate crossed the pond to the UK’s Top Gear, a popular TV show for car pundits. During one episode, the host made some funny comparisons about how the hardware problem in Apple’s iPhone 4 would play out if the happened in your car — wow.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Before I forget, we held another webinar, and you can listen to the podcast:

2010-07-14 ComMetrics University – Coffee break webinar: Social media measurement: Help! I am drowning in data

Visit ComMetrics University – webinars held and download the podcast and slides – all you need is a free login.

The public’s greater demand for transparency in financial markets also seems to resonate with social media measurement afficionados.

Like the designers who presented their wares during Fashion Week, instead of talking, people should show the goods. In particular, greater transparency and conflict of interest considerations are a must.

For instance, when doing an assessment of various social media monitoring tools, state any possible conflict of interest. If, for instance, you have a commercial relationship with Radian, your assessment might not be considered neutral.

Social media monitoring – what about declaring possible conflicts of interest?
Bottomless goody bag for journalists

Thursday

In another great example of how a consumer brand can use social media besides Twitter, the Old Spice crew produced 87 short comedic YouTube videos that were made in 11 hours – meaning each video took about 7 minutes to be put together.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Of course, whether these short video episodes go viral, increase customer engagement and ultimately have a positive effect on the bottom line remains to be seen. They surely do not play with Old Spice clients in Europe (i.e. language, innuendos, etc.) and with social media, containing things within specific geographically defined markets is impossible.

Surprisingly, Toyota experienced a boost regarding safety concerns, since US officials have pointed to driver error and no fault was found with throttle controls.

Friday

“It looks like the iPhone 4 might be their Vista, and I’m okay with that,” said Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s chief operating officer, in a keynote speech at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC).

What Apple says you can do with the defective product – amazing

And to top it all off, the final comment made about Antenna-gate during the Cupertino press conference was a doozy – and by Steve Jobs, no less:

11:25AM Q: Will the bumper offer extend outside of the US?
A: Yes.
Q: And beyond September 30th?
A: We’ll evaluate.

Ouch!!

Saturday

In a deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), US bank Goldman Sachs agreed to pay US$550 million to settle civil fraud charges of misleading investors.

While Goldman’s settlement with the SEC may seem impressive at first glance, it is small potatoes: Goldman earned US$3.84 billion during the quarter, on top of a staggering US$12.78 billion in net revenues.

By that measure, the settlement is worth about 10.2 trading days of earnings, based on first-quarter results. Not really that big a fine, apparently.

Sunday

To round out the week, here is a funny song about Apple’s iPhone Antenna-gate.

Click here to view the embedded video.

That wraps up this week’s social media diary. Please let me know how you feel about it – your opinions matter to me! Please leave a comment below.

Additional resources

=> Case studies – successes, flops and disasters
=> Learn from history – identify the trends before they happen
=> Freakalytics – statistics lie: assume nothing, question everything
=> Social media ROI – the budget committee is laughing at you

Article source: ComMetrics weekly review: Apple smacked by Antenna-gate

These days, it seems a communications or social media conference is incomplete without obligatory mentions of social media measurement, social media metrics and web analytics.

Unfortunately, more often than not it is difficult to show that social media can help improve ROI (Return on Investment).

Is it possible to manage the big headaches of super-abundant information to reap the rewards?

ComMetrics University – Coffee break webinar: Social media measurement: Help! I am drowning in data

If you sometimes feel that you are overwhelmed with data, this post outlines four steps for reaping the rewards – from social media measurement to boosting ROI through social media efforts.

But first, we offer some irony: sign up with your email to be among the first to get our next blog post.

Information management step 1: Remember, efficient is not always effective

Whatever we do we have to describe and define the purpose of social media analytics.

We need two definitions to understand the issues at hand:

- effectiveness of collecting a particular social media metric means that it achieves its stated purpose – requiring a business or individual to spell out: What should collecting a particular social media measurement or social media analytics accomplish?
- efficiency means the desired results are worth more than the resources required to achieve them: measurements collected and insights gained from them must be worth more than the efforts and money needed to get them.

Number of unique visitors to a blog post can be collected efficiently (i.e. quickly and easily). Unfortunately, this metric may not provide us with the information we need.

Rule 1: Collect one or two ‘efficient’ metrics such as pageviews or unique visitors, but focus on the trends over time. Most importantly, define a couple of ‘effective’ measures that help you achieve your strategic objectives.

Sentiment analysis is an efficient way to collect data, but the findings are often invalid = ineffective way to do things.

Information management step 2: Immediately take real action – you must walk the walk

Retailers commonly collect data from their customers and Wal-Mart has confirmed that it handles more than 1 million transactions every hour, feeding databases estimated at more than 2.5 petabytes in size (i.e. 167 times the books in the US Library of Congress).

The above numbers are certainly impressive, but for your business you should ask: Why are we collecting data, or put differently, what actions are taken once the numbers are in?

If no actions are taken within 30 days after receiving numbers about lower pageviews or higher conversion rates, why collect the numbers?

Rule 2: Any collected metrics must result in actions. If no decisions get made based on the insights gained from your data, collecting data becomes a waste of resources and should stop immediately.

Information management step 3: Your data is never accurate – guaranteed

While we collect increasing data, they are often inaccurate, such as those collected through a customer loyalty program. For instance, sometimes I forget my loyalty cards when shopping or purchase my favorite toothpaste or shaving gel at another store.

My Ph.D. advisor once cautioned me, saying:

“Urs, the challenge is to acquire quality data that one can gain insights from in order to improve one’s understanding of the phenomenon investigated.”

In fact, we tend to collect more data than we need, and its quality may not allow us to reach the correct conclusions.

Rule 3: Collected information is never perfect, thereby requiring that inferences be made by watching trends. However, insights gained and decisions made may not be what they first appear.

Information management step 4: Focus groups cannot design products

Often users are given samples or an opportunity to take a test-drive (e.g., toothpaste, laundry detergent, My.ComMetrics.com) in the hopes that after testing the product, they will purchase it.

For instance, Flexity, Tangotram and Combino are all tram manufacturing companies that were invited to Zurich for a 2-week test-drive on Route 11. Passenger feedback was collected with the help of surveys and used to improve tender specifications (i.e. for some seats passengers wanted more leg room which was then included in the tender specifications).

Test-driving any product for a while will result in insights that would not be gained otherwise and can markedly improve user experience. The data can also help improve technical specifications, as well as lowering warranty and maintenance costs.

It is hard to design products ‘by focus group’ or ‘by engineer’. Focus group participants may not know that they hate or love a feature until they try using it in their everyday. And believe it or not, engineers can forget things. A/B testing and product tests are relatively simple and cheap ways to help reduce the risk of a product flop in the case of a new webpage, user-community or corporate blog.

Rule 4: Instead of just using focus groups or asking engineers to design the product or service, take the prototype for an extensive test-drive. Use the data to make strategic decisions for improving your social media measurement ROI.

Bottom line
Somewhere, somehow, more data is always available. Following these four rules should help reduce the hazards of having too much unimportant data. Eyeball measures are easy, but rarely tell you whether you achieved your strategic goals with the help of social media, thereby boosting ROI.

Effective data collection means getting data that is good enough to gain insight as far as your Key Performance Indicator (KPIs) are concerned. In turn, one can take action to improve the company’s bottom line. Unless you have good-quality data at an affordable price, decisions will be based on an unstable foundation and could result in disaster.

Have an opinion on this? How do you manage best? Please share in the comments; I love to hear what works for you!

2010-07-14 you can listen to the podcast – ComMetrics University – Coffee break webinar: Social media measurement: Help! I am drowning in data

Article source: ComMetrics – Measuring social media to boost ROI

This week’s social media measurement, social media metrics, ambush marketing and marketing buzz tidbits, tools and other happenings we came across while surfing the internet, blogging and posting on Facebook, Identi.ca, Naijapulse or Twitter.

Our focus is on Aldi, Amazon, Asda, FC Barcelona, Philips, Sainsbury, Tesco, UniCredit and other heavyweight brands, as well as the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa.

In case you missed previous weeks’ memorable moments on social media monitoring, just point your browser to:

ComMetrics weekly review – social media going’s on

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up right now with your email to get the social media metrics insights first:

So here come the highs, lows and oddities I discovered through my various social media channels.

Tuesday

Today I came across this tweet from @RebeccaDenison. Of course, I was pleased to read it and I hope some of you will provide me with feedback on Twitter, Facebook, or even better, in a comment below.

Wednesday

We had another webinar entitled 2010-07-07 ComMetrics University – Coffee break webinar: Social media addiction: Steps to Facebook and Twitter detox

Visit ComMetrics University – webinars held and download the podcast and slides – all you need is a free login.

Please join us this Wednesday for 2010-07-14 ComMetrics University – Coffee break webinar: Social media measurement: Help! I am drowning in data

Incidentally, last week we reported that Barcelona claimed to be the biggest sports team by revenue, with sales for the 12 months to June 30, 2010 increasing by 16 percent to €445,5 million. Barcelona also stated that its net income was €9 million.

Nevertheless, this week saw Barcelona reporting on its webpage that, while it is not bankrupt, it is trying to secure a €150 million emergency loan to pay player and staff wages.

The club’s board is imposing austerity measures to make financial ends meet. Moreover, the club’s €1 billion TV rights contract with Mediapro, which rests on “a verbal guarantee of payment” and runs until 2013, might also be threatened. In June, Mediapro announced it was seeking bankruptcy protection over a dispute with a pay-TV company.

=> Is FC Barcelona going bankrupt?

Interestingly, Barcelona had six players on the Spanish squad that won the semi-final against Germany on Wednesday night. Several players have outstanding wages from FC Barcelona – #WorldCup

Thursday

2010-07-07 Amazon UK announced that it would be taking on Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda with the launch of an online grocery store offering “free delivery on thousands of great value household, niche, ethnic and international products.” This is not Amazon’s first foray into selling food: it launched Amazon Fresh as a test project in 2007 in the US, but has limited deliveries to its hometown of Seattle.

=> Tesco watch out – new competitor in town

On 2010-07-01, Amazon Germany also started selling food and drinks online through its website.

=> Aldi, Lidl – here comes Amazon

Delivery to the nearest pick-up station is free for any order of at least €20. Express overnight delivery costs extra, so you may still want to purchase dairy products elsewhere during the heat of summer.

=> Watch 2.5-minute German video

As the world’s largest online retailer, Amazon has the resources and imagination to give Tesco and Metro a run for their money. Nevertheless, large retailers in most countries, such as Tesco in the UK, and Migros and Coop in Switzerland already have successful online shops.

The difference is the charge for same-day delivery, but dairy products are always delivered unspoiled.

My question is why anybody would want to shop at Amazon if you have to wait until the next day to collect your order at the nearest pick-up station, when other shops on my way home are open until 21:00. Ordering is not even practical when buying bulky items (e.g., the elderly), since I have to visit the pick-up point to get my order or pay an express surcharge to have it delivered to my house.

Finally, Amazon pricing is not necessarily attractive (I checked) and nothing beats seeing the produce before spending your hard-earned money on it.

Friday

This week I also came across a post on the LinkedIn blog about Philips starting a group on the platform that included an interview with Hans Notenboom, Global Director Online – CRM – Analytics – Commerce at Philips International B.V.

Most interesting are the things that seem to be missing from the interview.

=> LinkedIn group: “Innovations in Health”

For instance, neither the group owner (a US marketing professional from Philips) nor the managers (a director from Philips’ PR agency, a LinkedIn manager and Hans Notenboom) ever suggest healthcare professionals lead these discussions.

Browsing through the last 30 days shows that most contributions come from marketing-savvy individuals who dabble in healthcare, but I fail to see any serious discussions involving doctors or nurses. As Hans Notenboom states in the interview, such a group is a great way to reach one’s clients – doctors and nurses – which is the group’s stated objective.

=> How Philips engages with the global healthcare community on LinkedIn

But to achieve this laudable objective, managers need to bring in the expertise and know-how that can help steer discussions so the target group perceives the community’s content as valuable. As I have learned with Law and Social Networking, this is very difficult.

Saturday

Michel Platini, president of European football’s governing body UEFA, feels that Holland and Spain’s presence in Sunday’s World Cup final in Johannesburg is a tribute to their investment in education and training.

With the June release and implementation of its Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations, UEFA is hoping that this work will continue by forcing clubs in European competition to spend only what they earn.

1. Clubs must not return losses of more than €45 million for the 2012-15 period,
2. After 2015, clubs are given €30 million leeway for three-year losses after which the figure will be reduced still further, AND
3. If clubs do not meet these rules, they cannot acquire a UEFA club license, required to take part in European competition.

=> UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations Edition 2010 – pdf file, 91 pages

These rules can be quite a challenge, considering that Roman Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour subsidized losses of £47 million and £93 million for Chelsea and Manchester City, respectively. Both owners converted debt in their clubs to equity, in anticipation of the new financial regime.

Loans can also be given to build infrastructure such as training grounds or youth development programs. However, loans are no longer an option when overspending on wages or transfers results in a shortfall, as Barcelona is currently experiencing (see Thursday).

UEFA estimates net debt across European clubs was €6.3 billion and is still rising (see chart).

As Spain takes home the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa trophy, attention turns to the start of Europe’s domestic league seasons.

Incidentally, AS Roma, winner of three A Series titles, is now effectively owned by UniCredit after Thursday’s deal between the bank and majority owners the Sensi family to settle their debts.

P.S. – UniCredit is one of the major sponsors of the Champions League.

Finally, the work of UEFA’s Club Financial Control Panel assumes considerable importance. Under the chairmanship of former Belgian prime minister Jean-Luc Dehaene, this is the body that has begun to analyze cases of clubs running into financial problems.

That wraps up this week’s social media diary. Please let me know how you feel about it – your opinions matter to me! Please leave a comment below.

Additional resources

=> Case studies – successes, flops and disasters
=> Learn from history – identify the trends before they happen
=> Freakalytics – statistics lie: assume nothing, question everything
=> Social media ROI – the budget committee is laughing at you

Article source: ComMetrics weekly review: Where the money is

Have you measured your workers’ social media use or monitored their social media consumption? Right now, they are probably online, using the internet for email or to participate in social networks.

Social media addiction can be defined as the inability of individuals to control their use of digital devices, resulting in marked distress and/or functional impairment in daily life.

Addiction is fundamentally a condition of substantial and prolonged disease (suffering), accompanied by significant degrees of physical, social or vocational impairment (incapacity).

So is it possible to achieve balance or is detox, meaning successfully unplugging from social media, the best option?

We discuss these issues in more detail below, but first we offer some irony: sign up with your email to be among the first to get our next blog post.

Digital detox step 1: What is the point?

Whatever we do we have to describe and define the purpose of social media or smartphone use. It seems perfectly fine to send text messages or tweets whilst commuting to and from work on public transport using a smartphone.

Also, one might enjoy spending several hours most evenings using online social networking sites (OSNs) such as Facebook or Xing.

Nevertheless, users have to separate private and professional use of the Internet.

Rule 1: Distinguish between private and work-related use of OSNs and technology gadgets. Too much of a good thing really is bad.

Digital detox step 2: Stick to your routine!

Checking email three to four times a day at the office is part of a productive workday, just like having three meals a day is part of a well-balanced diet.

ComMetrics weekly review: Sponsors get kick out of World Cup – read about how using Facebook lowers performance at university in the Saturday section.

Rule 2: Things are generally not as urgent as they seem, which allows 24 hours to answer questions and ensuring the client is still satisfied. Otherwise phone or instant messaging should be used.

Digital detox step 3: Time is finite – budget accordingly!

Like chickens making a lot of noise but failing to lay eggs, always checking OSN messages keeps you busy all day, but also keeps you from completing critical tasks.

Of course, what people do during a coffee break is their business, but in our office we have an unspoken agreement that we do not use smartphones in the lounge (i.e. picking up the phone, checking email is frowned upon). Instead, we socialize and interact with others over something (non-alcoholic) to drink and/or some food.

Roberts, D.F., Foehr, U.G., & Rideout, V. (2005)  Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8– to 18-year-olds – Kaiser Family Foundation

Rule 3: Our social media policy states that digital media use or consumption cannot lower job performance, and unless absolutely necessary (e.g., helping a client) it should not be done during business hours.

Digital detox step 4: Stop interrupting yourself – see your productivity soar

Tools like Tweetdeck allow constant monitoring of Xing, LinkedIn, Viadeo, Facebook and so forth, but getting an alert every few seconds interrupts the task you are trying to focus on completing.

Interrupting an important task to check one’s email or Twitter feed necessitates time to get back into the task you interrupted – not effective! It might be more useful to step away from one’s desk and take a break instead.

And even though the workplace is a multitasking social system, one person’s information need is an interruption to colleagues. So we should refrain from sending messages to colleagues unless it is truly necessary… Otherwise ask during a break.

ComMetrics –  libraries, doctorates and Web 2.0

Rule 4: Don’t believe that switching back and forth between different tasks makes you more effective and will ultimately result in a better research report, strategy paper or marketing plan. On the contary, such work interruptions guarantee you will take more time to produce the final report than otherwise needed.

Digital detox step 5: Take a break, for your family’s sake

Incessantly checking email and using electronic devices is turning us into novelty-seeking zombies. In fact, some suggest that our bonds with these devices work through the same brain mechanisms that govern addictions to drugs, food, and many other things (e.g., Russell Poldrack - Multitasking: The brain seeks novelty - research is showing that such immersion can cause more fractured thinking in multitaskers and trouble shutting out irrelevant information – many Americans feel stress from juggling too much incoming information.

Moreover, your girlfriend will not be amused if you check your BlackBerry or iPhone for incoming messages during a romantic dinner.

Rule 5: Focus on doing one thing well. Remember that people do not appreciate you answering emails while you speak with them on the phone (they hear your typing)… it sends a signal that you do not value their time.

Bottom line
At the beginning I asked if a mix of abstention from and use of social media and computers was possible, or whether detoxification is necessary.

In short, yes. Sometimes having a miniature printed timetable in your pocket instead of using an iPhone app can save you time, grief (in case the app does not work right now) and make you less likely to waste time by checking other apps while looking for the next train or plane (see right).

Be mindful of how you use social media and devices. Exert some control over the technology and don’t give in to that itch during downtime. Instead, spend time with your loved ones.

Using multitasking because new information attracts you or because watching TV is boring suggests that some changes in your social media usage and device habits could be helpful.

While we can define social media addiction as the inability of individuals to control their use of digital devices, resulting in marked distress and/or functional impairment in daily life, measuring this concept is another story altogether.

=> Ronald Pies (Feb. 2009). Should DSM-V Designate “Internet Addiction” a Mental Disorder? Psychiatry (Edgmont). Vol. 6(2), pp. 31–37

Have an opinion on this? How do you manage best?  Please share in the comments; I love to hear what works for you!

Article source: ComMetrics – Digital detox: Confessions of a social media addict

o2010-07-08 you can listen to the podcast – ComMetrics University – Coffee break webinar: Social media addiction: Steps to Facebook and Twitter detox

This week’s social media measurement, social media metrics, ambush marketing and marketing buzz tidbits, tools and other happenings we came across while surfing the internet, blogging and posting on Facebook, Identi.ca, Naijapulse or Twitter.

Our focus is on Adidas, Nike, Toyota, Emirates, Visa and other heavyweight brands as well as the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa.

In case you missed previous weeks’ memorable moments on social media monitoring, just point your browser to:

ComMetrics weekly review – social media going’s on

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up right now with your email to get the social media metrics insights first:

So here come the highs, lows and oddities I discovered through my various social media channels.

Wednesday

We had another webinar entitled ComMetrics University – Turning social media metrics into money.

Visit ComMetrics University – webinars held and download the podcast and slides – all you need is a free login.

Please join us this Wednesday for 2010-07-07 – ComMetrics University – Coffee break webinar: Social media addiction: Steps to Facebook and Twitter detox

Thursday

Late Thursday we got around to releasing Beta version 0.3 of My.ComMetrics.com – benchmark smart – improve performance for your blog. The screenshot below shows improvements to graphics that are produced depending on the blogs tracked.

A few more services will be released sometime during the summer. Have a look and check out your blog’s data.

Friday

The 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa is in full swing and we have previously reported on it on this blog and our XING SM Monitoring group.

Official sponsors have used this event extensively to push their product(s), but ambush marketing by Bavaria beer and a clever advertising campaign by Nike have shifted the limelight away.

While sportswear company and FIFA partner Adidas has won regained marketing ground since the World Cup began, Nike is trying to create some buzz for its environmental efforts. Nike’s bottles-to-T-shirts operation is one example. Apparently, each shirt consists of:

=> 100 percent recycled polyester, and approximately 8 plastic bottles.

The result of this effort is that:

- 13 million plastic bottles are used to produce jerseys for fans, resulting in
- 254,000 kg of polyester waste NOT getting dumped in landfills.

While this campaign is a laudable initiative, we all learned about the three R’s, namely: recycle, reduce and reuse.

Hence, glass bottles with a deposit get re-used 16 to 22 times, and do not create the recycling challenge or environmental menace of PVC bottles.

In a recent story, The Guardian quoted Nina Stevenson from the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion as saying that Nike’s choice of material could be considered genuinely ‘green’:

“Using recycled PET in performancewear is a recognised innovation with real environmental benefits. By using existing resources, Nike are supporting closed loop design that is not compromising ecological balance…”

But Ms Stevenson is probably incorrect in claiming that Nike’s approach is innovative because:

- already in 1993, Patagonia started manufacturing fleece out of post-consumer bottles,
- in 2007, Coca-Cola started producing its Drink2Wear series of t-shirts from recycled bottles, and
- in 2010 – using the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa sports event – Nike a Johnny-come-lately is letting the world know that the technology is worth our attention.

You can read more in the press release from the Information Office of the Republic of China (Taiwan). It also indicates how much energy it takes to transform PVC bottles into t-shirts for Kaka and friends.

=> 2010-06-09 Made-in-Taiwan products to help Brazil win the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa Carbon Footprint battle – three-page pdf file (139 KB)

Incidentally, heavy investing for new players by Barcelona and its rival Real Madrid are continuing their epic war during the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa tournament. As the chart above shows, a new record will likely be set after the #WorldCup , making us mortals wonder once again.

Saturday
We all know that media use by teenagers and young adults is continuously increasing and has been for the last few years.

An exploratory study was recently conducted using college students at Ohio State University as subjects. Those who use Facebook spend less time studying and have lower grade point averages than students who have not signed up for the social networking website.

=> Using Facebook – if a student – watch your grades go down

This week I came across another study that indicates that extensive use of social networks and high media use (e.g., computer, watching TV, using Facebook) lowers a student’s high school grades.

The study proves once again that there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

I wonder when we will get the first study that shows that people’s work performance drops if they use social media too extensively? What about negative effects to one’s career prospects by being iPhone-, BlackBerry-, Facebook- and/or LinkedIn-addicted?

Finally, are you addicted to Facebook, or do you maybe fail to do your job properly or spend too much time online instead of taking care of your family?

=> Facebook addiction vs Twitter geeks – which are you?

Sunday
FIFA has six partners (e.g., Sony, Emirates – the airline, Adidas, Coca-Cola, Visa and Hyundai/Kia Motors). In addition, the 2010 World Cup South Africa has six national supporters and eight international sponsors. The latter includes such companies as India’s Mahindra Satyam, South Africa’s MTN, South Korea’s Yingli Solar and America’s Budweiser, Castrol – one of BP’s brands, Continental and McDonald’s as sponsors. So what do we know:

- approximately €88 million (US$110 million) was paid by each partner, giving them access to 9 minutes of advertising time per match;
- international sponsors get 4.5 minutes of TV advertising per game; and,
- the 8 national supporters pay less for less coverage.

The tournament, Africa’s first World Cup, attracted nearly US$1 billion in sponsorship. Emirates claims that the sponsorship deal allows it to reach 2 billion people and provides online exposure worth about US$3 billion. Whether the 2 billion people exposed to Emirates will ever fly with the airline is unknown. How can Emirates prove its claims of increased exposure through social media measurement?

We would love to know, because according to a quick analysis we did around our office, the company gets much less than it claims… Of course, telling us otherwise would certainly have resulted in Emirates’ CMO (chief marketing officer) and ad agency having their contracts promptly terminated.

Incidentally, Nike’s pre-tournament ambush marketing campaign against rival sportswear maker Adidas apparently fizzled between June 11 – 25, if we were to believe the NM Incite folks. But how the buzz was measured is unclear:

The NM Incite follow-up study compared the share of online buzz between World Cup sponsors and their major competitors in relation to the World Cup in the run up to the event (month-long period ending June 6th) and during the first two weeks of the tournament (11th -25th June). English language World Cup-related messages on blogs, message boards, groups, video and image sites – including Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter – were monitored for the study.

I prefer more simple and less convoluted approaches to measure whether something works, like this South African restaurant owner, who said:

“Two years ago I sold three cases of Coca-Cola a week in my restaurant in Soweto, now it is more than three cases. I attribute it in part to me having been kitted out as site to allow my customers to view World Cup games. As you can see, Coca-Cola provided myriad decorations including the flat screen with frame in the drinkmaker’s colors to help push its brand. Looks as if it is working…”

Final note
Toyota is still damaging its brand, having been forced to recall more than a quarter of a million Lexus cars after discovering that an engine component was susceptible to cracking, which it said could cause the vehicles to stall.

That wraps up this week’s social media diary. Please let me know how you feel about it – your opinions matter to me!

Please leave a comment below.

Article source: ComMetrics weekly review: Sponsors get kick out of World Cup

The importance of marketing metrics is skyrocketing thanks to the challenges of the current economy – and the higher performance expectations brought with it.

But how do you turn data into dollars when you don’t have the right metrics to tell you why you’re getting your current results? How do you prevent future failure?

The key is actionable metrics: data that help you understand the ‘why’ behind a result, while supporting your efforts to reach higher performance targets. Such metrics are the little heroes of the data world, because they deliver actionable insights to help you make smart decisions that positively affect your bottom line.

Step 1: You need more than just eyeballs

On Wednesday (2010-06-23), Coca-Cola became the second company to sponsor a trending topic on Twitter and the first to do so for the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa tournament.

Coke’s Twitter messages congratulated the England and US teams, linked to videos on YouTube and invited people to “share their celebration” of their teams’ successes.

In just 24 hours, Coca-Cola’s first Promoted Trend garnered 86 million impressions and an engagement rate of 6 percent, according to Global Interactive Marketing Vice President Carol Kruse.

However, pageviews and unique visitors are not necessarily best practice when it comes to useful Key Performance Indicator(s) (KPIs).

Unique visitors come in many guises and while these web analytics are interesting, exactly what decisions will be made based on these numbers? Most importantly, how could this affect the bottom line? While this might matter less for Coca-Cola or Starbucks, it makes a huge difference for a medium-sized business.

Tip 1: Metrics are in the eye of the beholder - whatever you decide to use, you have to use what is most important to you and your stakeholders and make sure your stakeholders understand it all.

=> ComMetrics – 6 steps for starting social media activity measurement

Step 2: Focus on operating - not financial – metrics

Primarily using traffic or volume to measure potential success may not result in profits.

It is critical to understand the most important drivers or operating metrics when it comes to success or failure. Accordingly, you must address what contribution(s) for achieving the company’s operating metrics, such as higher customer retention, will come from social media efforts.

Tip 2: Agree on the operating metrics you want to use and define down how social media should help you accomplish these KPIs in writing.

=> ComMetrics – social media: Metrics to know and metrics to skip FAQ #3
=> ComMetrics – KPI experts’ top 5 secrets

We illustrate the above using three examples:

Example 1 – restaurant: The restaurant’s Twitter followers may receive a daily code around 10:30. If the code is used before 11:30 or after 13:30 to order lunch, a 10 percent discount is given.

Here, the idea is to satisfy regulars while enticing them to come before or after the lunch rush in order not to have to wait to be seated. In turn, lunch hour walk-ins have a better chance of getting seated right away. Accordingly, the percentage of clients forced to wait before getting a table during lunch time – an important operating metric – is lowered.

Example 2 – business brochures: Most businesses need a brochure to explain their product(s) or the company’s mission and services. To reduce costs - an operating metric – a smaller number is printed.

In one case, we found that beyond the 1,000 print brochures, another 600 (fictitious number) were downloaded from the internet. Here social media not only helped save costs, but it also increased diffusion of the information.

Example 3 – advisory services: Many businesses start groups on social networks such as LinkedIn, Xing or Viadeo (some suggest that there are four types of social networks). Unfortunately, building a social networking group’s membership while supporting the company’s brand and reputation takes time – a few months to build a following and hard work each week to provide valuable content that keeps the group alive and kicking.

As a consultant, one needs contracts (an operating metric) and social media (e.g., visibility) can help increase opportunities. However, rarely does one get a call from a group member to bid for a job. Often, it starts with meeting a Social Media Monitoring group member at a conference or networking event, which facilitates building a better rapport that might ultimately result in the chance to bid for a job or another subscription for one of our services.

=> ComMetrics – why social networking groups fail
=> ComMetrics – Recipe for success: Facebook, LinkedIn and Xing metrics
=> ComMetrics – 3 golden rules for best practice: LinkedIn and Xing

Bottom line
Metrics may appear accurate, objective and simple. But rarely – if ever – is it that simple (see example 1) and often social media’s contribution comes in a more elusive or roundabout way (see example 3).

Whatever we decide to do, cost-benefit analysis is required to obtain more insight into whether the effort is justified.

Figure out the benefits of social media and how these help with key operators in the business. If stakeholders need convincing, ask for the same type of analysis for newspaper ads or attending an exhibition. It is hard to show a clear link between an advertising campaign and sales in most businesses, except possibly consumer products. Often advertising helps with operators, but not the bottom line – the same applies for social media.

More resources
=> Measuring ROI: Why it fails
=> Budgeting for SM: Cost-benefit analysis vs. ROI
=> Using the right blog metrics
=> Engaging comments: Where is the beef?
=> 3 metrics: Impact, influence and outcome

What is your take? How do you see these issues? Have you tried to apply any of these approaches to any company you manage? What operating metrics are supported best by social media activities?

Please let us know in the comments!

Article source: ComMetrics – Boosting ROI through social media measurement
Podcast: ComMetrics University – Coffee break webinar: Turning social media metrics into money – get slides and listen to podcast

This week’s social media measurement, social media metrics, ambush marketing and marketing buzz tidbits, tools and other happenings we came across, while surfing the internet, blogging and posting on Facebook or Identi.ca, Naijapulse or Twitter.

In case you missed previous weeks’ memorable moments on social media monitoring, just point your browser to:

ComMetrics weekly review – social media going’s on

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up right now with your email to get the social media metrics insights first:

So here come the highs, lows and oddities I discovered through my various social media channels.

Wednesday

We were supposed to have another coffee break webinar entitled ComMetrics University – Turning social media metrics into money, but had to postpone it due to some unforeseen circumstances.

Please join us this Wednesday for 2010-06-30 – ComMetrics University – Turning social media metrics into money

Thursday

Researchers Steffen Huck and Brian Wallace tested respondents’ decision-making using five different price frames. The study was conducted for the UK’s Office of Fair Trading, Britain’s main competition policy watchdog.

166 students from University College London participated in a controlled experiment, playing shoppers in a computer game with the following price scenarios:

1. “drip pricing”, where only part of the price is revealed at first and extra charges are levied as the sale progresses (think of buying an airline ticket online);
2. “sales”, where the price is contrasted with a higher price (was $2, now $1);
3. “complex pricing”, such as three-for-two offers, where the unit price has to be worked out;
4. “baiting”, where a cheap deal is advertised but restricted to a few lucky shoppers; and
5. “time-limited offers” that are available for a short period.

The study’s findings indicate that consumers are suckers for ’special’ deals that are costlier than they first appear.

Unfortunately, it appears most shoppers are vulnerable to being fooled when such price scenarios are used. Reading some of these findings provides some valuable insights for how to serve clients better while avoiding bad deals that negatively affect one’s reputation for providing value for money.

The link below includes info about the press release and several pdf downloads. Invest ten minutes and check this out, you’ll be glad you did:

=> Consumers are suckers for ’special’ deals that may cost more than they should

Friday

Risk management is an interesting topic, especially considering the current financial crisis and Greece’s problems with refinancing its debt.

So when I came across this really interesting article about Somali pirates, I thought I needed to share this information with you.

Pirates Inc. describes a debt fueled economy with high stakes and risks for those participating in the looting. As with any pyramid scheme (see right), the real winner is the one at the top.

Considering the risks taken by those attacking the vessels, the pay for the person at the top is considerably higher than anybody else’s:

• 1-2 percent chance of being killed,
• 0.5-1 percent chance of being wounded, and
• 5-6 percent chance of being captured and jailed abroad.

The article points out that the deadliest civilian occupation in the US is king-crab fishing, but on-the-job fatalities are 0.4 percent or 400 per 100,000 – a big difference to the ‘attackers’ of the Somali pirate gangs, those who carry out the hijackings.

=>  Pirates Inc. – holding vessels and their crews hostage

Sunday

Sponsors have paid almost US$1.2 billion for the right to be officially associated with the World Cup and Coca-Cola is the ‘chosen’ 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa soft drink sponsor. It makes use of its sponsorship deal whenever possible, including using product placement. For instance, during each post-game press conference, a few Coke bottles are strategically placed next to the microphones to be seen by a worldwide audience.

Last week, the company became the second brand to sponsor a ‘trending topic’ using Twitter’s ‘promoted tweets’ to tap into online discussion about the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa. It saw 86 million ‘impressions’ or views of the ads in 24 hours at a cost of a few thousand dollars – sounds great.

But are these so-called impressions or ‘eyeballs’ really building engagement with the Coca-Cola company or its Coke brand? Here are some reasons why it might fail:

=> Twitter advertising and Coca-Cola – 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa – will it work?

While FIFAcom – the official FIFA Twitter account – has suggested that we use the #WorldCup as the ‘official’ hashtag, many tweeters in the US prefer #WC2010. And others, like Mashable, refrain from using any hashtag for the event. Using the official hashtag adds a soccer ball to one’s tweets: #WorldCup – but not everyone likes that.

As well, trying to find Coke’s ‘trending’ or sponsored tweets with the help of the Twitter search function or your favorite search engine requires patience and time. In comparison, it is much easier to find a TV spot on YouTube. Hence, Twitter has its work cut out to improve on this score. If one cannot even find these sponsored tweets, another opportunity to reach interested people is lost.

And NO, impressions and eyeballs do not automatically mean an advertising campaign has ROI (Return on Investment) or is a success.

Carol Kruse, vice-president for global interactive marketing at Coca-Cola, has her work cut out to improve social media measurement and social media monitoring for Coke using Twitter and Facebook. Everything I have seen so far indicates that the metrics do not provide the information required to assess whether bottom line outcomes were reached.

Having more eyeballs see a logo or brand is nice, but does it help sell more product or foster more engagement… Can you see it? I cannot.

Additional resources
That wraps up this week’s social media diary. Please let me know how you feel about it – your opinions matter to me!

Please leave a comment below.

Article source: ComMetrics weekly review: Coca-Cola crashes World Cup, pirates cause mayhem

We are back with another week’s worth of tidbits, tools and other happenings we came across while surfing the internet, blogging and posting on Facebook or Identi.ca, Naijapulse or Twitter.

In case you missed previous weeks’ memorable moments on social media, just point your browser to:

ComMetrics weekly review – social media going’s on

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up right now with your email to get it first:

So here come the highs, lows and oddities I discovered through my various social media channels.

Monday

Chiara Bolognini pointed me to an interesting study regarding myYearbook users in the US and how they could be influenced by their peers.

One interesting finding is based on the following survey question: “How can brands can influence the teenagers influencers?”

Findings showed that teens prefer brands to communicate straightforwardly and not act as if they were friends.

Appreciation was also shown for brands that can be “edgy, funny or shocking – as long as it is done well” and in new ways.

=> Straightforward communication versus brands as friends: a teen trend

Tuesday

We had our third social media apéro in Basel, and as usual, it was very interesting: meeting people one may know through cyberspace in person in nice surroundings. So much fun to do in person.

The discussions are always very interesting. My thanks go to Chiara Bolognini for organizing the event.

=> Third social media apéro in Basel

Wednesday

We held another successful webinar entitled ComMetrics University – Do customer reviews really matter.

The answer seems to be yes, but sometimes – as the BP situation suggests – social media may not always affect the brand. Nevertheless, our Starbucks example shows that sometimes things can get out of hand (see here).

Read some of the ideas, feedback and opinions we got from attendees.

Join us for this Wednesday’s webinar: 2010-06-23 – ComMetrics University – Turning social media metrics into money

Thursday

Ambush marketing is the talk among advertisers at the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa. The term can be defined as a marketing technique to associate a company, product, or service with a particular event, or to attract the attention of people attending the event.

Bavaria has a prior history of ambush marketing during the 2006 World Cup in Germany, where dozens of Dutch men watched the Netherlands play in a Stuttgart stadium in their underwear after ushers ordered them to remove orange lederhosen bearing Bavaria’s name.

The key is that this is done without the expense of any official sponsorship payment.

Soccer pundit Robbie Earle was sacked by ITV on 2010-06-15 over a World Cup ticket scandal.

The former Wimbledon player was dismissed on the spot after an inquiry revealed that a “substantial number” of tickets given to Earle for “family and friends” ended up in the hands of a group of blond models. The 36 models, recruited to advertise Bavaria during Holland’s match with Denmark in Johannesburg on Monday, were quizzed by FIFA officials over an ambush marketing scam.

Two women face charges under the Merchandise Marks Act and the Special Measures Regulations, and are accused of “unauthorised use of a trade mark at a protected event” and “entry into a designated area while in possession of a prohibited commercial object.” They are due to appear in the Johannesburg Magistrates’ Court again on June 22.

Official sponsor Budweiser is the only beer company allowed to advertise within FIFA venues and the dresses worn by the models were provided by rival beer firm Bavaria, a company known for fighting for its trademarks and not being shy about taking the gloves off.

Maybe it is time for this company to consider the poorest of the poor and support Loewenmut – Die initiative der IFB fuer behinderte Kinder in Suedafrika e.V. (Courage of Lions: An initiative of the interest group of disabled persons for children with disabilities in South Africa – registered charity).

=> Bavaria marketing stunt with orange-clad women: view videos for insight, not hindsight

“FIFA has filed charges against the organizer of the ambush marketing stunt pulled between the Netherlands-Denmark match at Soccer City two days ago,” spokesman Nicolas Maingot said at FIFA’s daily news briefing.

Sponsors have paid just about US$1.2 billion for the right to be officially associated with the World Cup. FIFA lawyers have filed more than 2,500 cases globally against parties it accuses of ambush marketing.

But does ambush marketing even work? Every one of the 36 women wearing skimpy orange dresses getting ejected by ushers made sure that the company would gain worldwide publicity. Plus, the spread through social media has not only ensured that a huge audience has become aware of the brand but, as importantly, that FIFA got the wrap because public opinion has clearly sided with the two women appearing before a judge.

Friday

I found some really interesting information in conjunction with the beginning of the #worldcup in South Africa.

JD Power Associates published its survey about new car defects. The study, based on 82,000 responses, measures the number of new-vehicle defects after 90 days of ownership.

According to this survey, Daimler’s assembly plant in East London, South Africa, built vehicles with the fewest defects last year – another #worldcup news item that should help to build the country’s image.

=> Initial Quality Study – JD Powers

Saturday

Today I came across some statistics regarding Facebook. The growth in user numbers between 2009 and 2010 has been very interesting, to say the least. And once again, some people are trying to figure out how much a Facebook fan is worth. I am always a bit skeptical about such numbers but here, have a look:

=> Annual value of a Facebook fan

And just to add a little more spice to this Saturday, I learned about Starbucks making a fool of itself and messing up its social media strategy in Hungary.

It is clear that reading this material got me to revise my verdict about Starbucks’ social media savvy – it gets a failing grade. It seems Starbucks still fails to understand that social media means participation, not control. When you try to control the situation, the result is fan backlash. How can a brand make such a mistake? What do you think?

Sunday

Just to round out the week, social media moguls seem to be top-notch when it comes to destroying value as far as social networks are concerned: Besides Bebo, MySpace and more… amazing.

Additional resources

=> Case studies – successes, flops and disasters
=> Learn from history – identify the trends before they happen
=> Freakalytics – statistics lie: assume nothing, question everything
=> Social media ROI – the budget committee is laughing at you

That wraps up this week’s social media diary. Please let me know how you feel about it – your opinions matter to me!

Please leave a comment below.

Article source: ComMetrics weekly review: Orange women ambush FIFA, Starbucks fails

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a disaster that has lowered Barack Obama’s standing with voters and, as importantly, BP’s image has landed in the toilet while its shareholders have incurred massive losses.

Such a disastrous situation begs the question: Do social media mentions and consumer or product reviews really make a difference?

1. US targets $20 billion BP pay-out - when the crisis hits, forget social media monitoring

As the Toyota case illustrated, during a crisis the fumbling of a press conference by the company chairman may be what matters most – social media mentions are not even a blip on the screen.

But will this cripple the brand or can the company’s reputation be restored?

BP’s share-price tumbled more than 9 percent this past Monday. US Democratic senators called on the multinational oil company to immediately inject US$20 billion into a ring-fenced fund to clean up the spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Spending about US$50 million on newspaper and internet ads to improve BP’s image has garnered an icy response from US consumers.

Today, BP faces a bill that analysts say could run up to US$40 billion (€33 billion). The oil spill is so big that a major part of Alsace (France), Switzerland and southern Germany would be covered if it had happened in Europe (see graphic).

ComMetrics - BP’s Texas City refinery disaster suggests that plenty of regulation was in place, but the devil is in the details

My take: If you have a major disaster on your hands, stay low and for God’s sake fix the problem yesterday. The rest is peanuts.

2. Defamation or free speech

T&J Towing towed Justin Kurtz’s car from his apartment complex parking lot, despite his permit to park there. Mr Kurtz went to Facebook and started a new page called “Kalamazoo Residents against T&J Towing”. Within two days, 800 people had joined the group, and by June 14 it was about 14,000.

T&J Towing filed a defamation suit against Mr Kurtz. In the suit the company claims the site hurt business and seeks US$750,000 in damages (see below).

Click here to view the embedded video.

The issue seems to be one of free speech for consumer or defamation against business. In the US these lawsuits are called Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs). These are civil complaints or counter-claims against either an individual or an organization in which the alleged injury was the result of petitioning or free speech activities protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

My take: If Kurtz loses this case more consumers will get sued in the US. In turn, they will try to use fake identities or permission-based social networks to reduce the risk of getting named in a lawsuit.

I don’t believe that consumers complaining about a company on Facebook, or writing reviews about its sloppy customer service can be stopped with lawsuits.

P.S. – Germany has another form of this called Abmahnung, which is basically a cease-and-desist order or consent decree. We reported:

ComMetrics: Frankfurt court issues cease and desist order (see Saturday section)

News channel 3 – T&J Towing responds to allegations of shady business practices (2010-02-11)

3. Fake reviews or how to remove an unfair review

Peer reviews are seen as more objective than the company line. Recent research in the US indicates that reaching teen influencers means taking advantage of earned-media opportunities and word-of-mouth through highly trusted friends. Apparently, teenage influencers on myYearbook tend to be more likely to recommend various products to their friends than others.

Professor Orlando Figes is an expert on Russian history from Birkbeck College, London University. He admitted to posting anonymous reviews on Amazon’s UK site criticizing the work of such authors as Robert Service and Rachel Polonsky, while lavishly praising his own book.

Did his review lower sales of the books and authors he attacked? We cannot know for certain.

My take: Smaller businesses that trade heavily online or rely on word of mouth must be concerned with online reviews. For instance, a really negative review on travel website TripAdvisor of a family-owned and managed hotel’s breakfast buffet can be a devastating blow to bookings for the next few months. So the impact can be huge.

Nikolaos Korfiatis - Evaluating Content Quality and Usefulness of Online Product Reviews (2008-07-07)

Take-aways
The above indicates online reviews and testimonials matter to many businesses, but may be a lesser concern for large brands. In cases of a disaster they might even be completely useless.

1. Things are mostly unfair – that is life ! The US administration saw a political advantage in being perceived as rough, tough and even arbitrary. Last week President Obama announced he would ‘ride herd’ on BP and that he was trying to find out “whose ass to kick”.

Of course, the public has forgotten Occidental Petroleum’s Piper Alpha platform, which exploded in 1988 in British waters due to poor safety precautions, killing 167 people. The media has failed to recount this disaster.

In cases like these, social media monitoring or collecting social media metrics might not reveal much new. But trying harder to fix the oil spill instead of trying to influence the conversation could be the only answer that matters for the company’s long-term survival.

2. Reviews can be beside the point – but don’t bet on it! Sex and the City matters from a Zeitgeist standpoint. Accordingly, this makes the sequel review-proof, since reviewing it at all is completely beside the point.

Similarly, KitKat will recover from the Greenpeace attack, if its brand was ever actually dented by it. However, for most smaller firms, one cannot count on this phenomenon. A negative review on an important website that spreads virally with the help of Facebook or Twitter could destroy a business.

Linda Holmes - The ‘Sex and the City’ sequel is getting horrible reviews that don’t matter

3. Anonymous critics can be devastating! Tracking down an individual that sent a negative tweet or left a negative review on some website can be tricky. The server might not be in your jurisdiction and if it is, a court order might be needed to get access.

If you find out that the comment was written at an Internet café, then only studying the closed-caption TV (CCTV) tapes may reveal the identity of the posters.

For social network participants – considering the chances of a defamation lawsuit  - this tells us that one should not post anything online that one does not stand by.

Nikolaos Korfiatis - Evaluating Content Quality and Usefulness of Online Product Reviews (July 7, 2008)

Xing SM Monitoring – more cases about social media and marketing flops and successes

What is your take? How do you see these issues? Have you tried to apply any of these approaches to any brand you manage? Do customer reviews really make a difference in times of crisis?

Please let us know in the comments!

Article source: ComMetrics – How BP shrugs off negative reviews

Also, please check out our upcoming complimentary ComMetrics University coffee break webinars and register yourself for the next one - 2010-06-23 ComMetrics University – turning metrics into dollars

We are back with another week’s worth of tidbits, tools and other happenings we came across while surfing the internet, blogging and posting on Facebook or Identi.ca, Naijapulse or Twitter.

In case you missed previous weeks’ memorable moments on social media, just point your browser to:

ComMetrics weekly review – social media going’s on

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up right now with your email to get it first:

So here come the highs, lows and oddities I discovered through my various social media channels.

Monday

I got a reminder that the third Social Media Apéro Basel will happen on June 15. Thankfully I have already registered and marked my calendar.

=> Third social media apéro in Basel

Tuesday

It is always an issue whether people report facts or beliefs in a survey, and whether they really did do things as they remember them.

Info Sander shared some information in the Xing Social Media Monitoring Group about how actual social media behavior data is supplemented by interviews.

Very interesting read of the discussion and the materials:

=> Single-source combination of recording Social Media behavior with market research interviews

And here is an update on the Greenpeace vs. Nestlé social media tussle. It perfectly illustrates why Nestlé’s CEO Mr Brabeck-Letmathe’s way of communicating may not stop the emotional tide started by Greenpeace. But it also shows that consumers are neither rational nor do they check the facts before following and supporting a cause… seems a bit like sheep.

=> Will Greenpeace see the wood for the trees next time it starts a social media tussle?

Wednesday

We held another successful webinar entitled ComMetrics University – Twitter: a glorified autoresponder.

It is amazing what works and what seems to fail with Twitter, especially if you are trying to use it for a company that has little to do with consumer products.

Read some of the ideas, feedback and opinions we got from attendees.

Join us for this Wednesday’s webinar: 2010-06-16 – Do product reviews really matter?

=> Want to influence upcoming webinars?
What is your opinion? Sex and the City 2 – have your say on why reviews do not matter!

Thursday

It is always very interesting when somebody, like Olga Henggi, raises a question that every person wants to answer:

=> Do you think the Internet makes you smarter?

Friday

The #worldcup started today in South Africa and I found two interesting things happening in conjunction with the world’s biggest sporting event. For one thing, the event has a hashtag (#worldcup), and some people have added a football (or soccer to some) to each of their tweets: .

Second, on June 9 FIFA finally discovered micro-blogging and opened an account on Twitter. That’s great, especially since after only two days it had over 18,000 followers (about 26,000 followers by the night of Saturday, June 12).

I’m taking bets whether it will hit two million, five million or anywhere in between by the end of the Cup. Place your bets in the comments and tell me what you think.

=> Do you really care about the @WorldCup?

Saturday

Founded in 1995 by Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia, Hotmail is Microsoft’s web-based email provider and now also serves as a web portal for users. By contrast, Google’s Gmail only just went public a little over three years ago, on February 14, 2007. While Google has exploded, Microsoft seems to have fizzled.

Google leveraged its 180 million Gmail users to launch Google Buzz, a smart attempt to integrate Twitter with Facebook’s commenting and ‘like’ system. But while Google got all the buzz, Microsoft is now trying to catch up and offer attractive new features:

=> Trendwatch – Microsoft trying to leverage its user base via Hotmail

Sunday

I just learned that FIFA has its own social-networking service called ’The Club’. It is nothing to sneeze at, with 1.6 million members, but considering that the sport has more than a billion fans, this is a rather small percentage.

=> Get facts, figures about the social media extravaganza… or is it a stillbirth?

It is also Interesting that six percent of these fans come from Britain, indicating that the website’s reach is disproportionately high in certain markets.

Some social media will make less of a difference in Africa than you think. Yes, mobile is booming, but certainly not Internet browsing via smartphone. Smartphone pricing will probably fall to about US$100 later this year, but until it falls to about US$50, it remains non-viable as an option for most users in Africa.

=> ComMetrics SM Monitoring: Google loses the battle but wins the price war for smartphone consumers
=> ComMetrics – Warren Buffett: What works with social media – Internet and smartphones not an option
=> African Development Bank Group – Why broadband access via mobile is not an issue in Africa – but text messaging can make a difference

Will sponsors get enough bang for their buck from this event? At the moment, some factors suggest that Nike got a bigger bang for its gorilla campaign than Adidas did as the official sponsor.

Ambush ads by Nike and Carlsberg are generating more buzz than rivals who have paid millions to be official World Cup sponsors. The “Write the future” ad has helped Nike achieve twice as many mentions on English-language blogs, forums and social networks such as Twitter and Facebook… quite a feat and frustrating for Adidas. Watch the ad, featuring Wayne Rooney of England and Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal, below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Additional resources

=> Case studies – successes, flops and disasters
=> Learn from history – identify the trends before they happen
=> Freakalytics – statistics lie: assume nothing, question everything
=> Social media ROI – the budget committee is laughing at you

That wraps up this week’s social media diary. Please let me know how you feel about it – your opinions matter to me!

Please leave a comment below.

Article source: ComMetrics weekly review: FIFA advertising sputters

Many of us use micro-blogging services such as Identi.ca, Naijapulse and/or Twitter. But are they worth the time it takes to use them or just another megaphone to blast your message to people who don’t really care?

=> Twitter – what works and what fails for Pepsi, HSBC, Coca-Cola, Dell may not do the same for your business

I recently had a chat with two entrepreneurs – let’s call them Michael and Judy – whose business provides services such as telephone sales workshops and technical translations.

Judy and Michael have been tweeting regularly for at least six months. While they enjoy it, they believe much of what comes up on Twitter is like an autoresponder: a cacophony of sound with little, if any, intelligible language in the mix. Another platform for some to toot their own horn to the few who care to listen. Here we share some of their insights.

By the way, you can get updates for this blog on Twitter by following @ComMetrics, get a free subscription by RSS, or get new posts via email:

I will follow you on Twitter – but only in return for a discount

Judy came across various Twitter accounts that belong to Dell and seem to offer discount coupons and other valuable stuff.

=> Dell Twitter accounts – from investor relations to sales

The problem is, discount coupons are unlikely to make a difference in Judy and Michael’s business.

Bottom line: Judy and Michael’s business philosophy is to provide their clients value for money and personal service, so those waiting for discount coupons need not apply.

=> ComMetrics: What is worse, Dell claiming it sold more or…?

I am loyal – but what I really want is more reward points

Last week Judy and Michael read my blog post entitled 4 roads to success? Microsoft, NBC, Toyota and Swiss PostBus, in which we also mentioned dairy-based soft serve frozen dessert Tasti D-Lite. It was the first company to offer a loyalty program: customers who enroll can sign in online and connect their Twitter and Foursquare accounts to their my.Tasti.com loyalty account.

But when Judy talked to her pal Deborah in New York, she learned that getting tweets from someone you follow about their latest Tasti D-Lite purchase can quickly become a nuisance.

Bottom line: Michael and Judy fear that a loyalty account that is connected to their client’s Twitter account makes no sense in their business.

Instead, they will continue to have a more personalized customer loyalty event twice a year (e.g., barbecue, reception, etc.).

=> No one reads anything on Twitter – a test case

I have a customer problem – Twitter cannot help me

Obviously, solving a customer relations challenge in 140 characters or less on Twitter is virtually impossible. Posting things to a blog does not help matters much either, but people may vent their frustrations using either medium.

In this way, social media can amplify a customer issue, forcing the company to use Twitter or its blog to keep the public abreast of efforts to resolve the disgruntled consumer’s problem.

Bottom line: Judy and Michael’s clients prefer to talk to them over the phone or – better yet – face-to-face to discuss matters. Rarely, if ever, does a customer send a direct message on Twitter. Twitter does not seem to add much depth or quality to their communications strategy.

=> Southwest Airlines tweets – Trying to refund ‘Silent Bob’ actor Kevin Smith’s ticket

Having a public relations war – I slept through the battle

Judy and Michael have followed the recent Nestlé vs. Greenpeace battle on Facebook.

=> Being thorough and precise fails to stop the emotional tide – Nestlé versus Greenpeace – update and videos

The case illustrates that Twitter can spread things even faster than the bush telephone or traditional media. But it’s a flash – though a rather large one – in the pan and a couple of months later, Twitter users have moved on to more urgent matters.

Identi.ca did show a few more problem tweets regarding this issue. But even here, two months later things have quieted on the public relations battlefield.

Bottom line: Michael and Judy will monitor mentions on Twitter, but they doubt that customers will use a hashtag like #ComMetrics when tweeting.

So what does this mean for Giuseppe?
Giuseppe has a one-man bricklaying business and joined us for discussions last Friday afternoon.

He took away the following from our discussions:

1. Twitter might just be a tempest in a teapot: Twitter might continue to be popular, but for a micro-business it is hardly the way to raise awareness among those who may bring you your next job. But Michael, Judy and Giuseppe all agreed that exceptions are possible.
2. Don’t read about it, start practicing by playing the game instead! Try tweeting and see how it works – dip your toe in the water, but don’t spend too much time on it.
3. Shift resources to actually talking to your customers, instead of tweeting! Talk to current customers and avoid the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ syndrome. Two phone calls a day can do wonders for your bottom line a few weeks down the road. Imagine that.
4. Move your Twitter users to the 2nd phase of your marketing funnel! To get Twitter followers to eventually become clients, get them to join our LinkedIn or Xing group, subscribe to your blog and talk to them (see point 3 above). Having followers from far away will hardly get you work as a brick layer or translator for a local client.

Xing SM Monitoring – more cases about social media and marketing flops and successes

So here are some of my questions to you.
Why do you, or why do you not use Twitter for business?
No trap, but inquiring minds want to know because Twitter seems to provide some things for many, a few for others and maybe nothing for a majority outside the US?
How do you see these issues? Have you tried to apply any of these approaches to any business  you manage. Are you using Twitter?

Share, please! Please let us know in the comments!

Article source: ComMetrics – Twitter: Glorified autoresponder?

Discussion thread about this issue  by our SM Monitoring group members

Also, please check out our upcoming complimentary ComMetrics University coffee break webinars and register yourself for the next one!

We are back with another week’s worth of tidbits, tools and other happenings we came across while surfing the internet, blogging and posting on Facebook or Identi.ca, Naijapulse or Twitter.

In case you missed previous weeks’ memorable moments on social media, just point your browser to:

ComMetrics weekly review – social media going’s on

Don’t miss the upcoming week! Sign up right now with your email to get it first:

So here come the highs, lows and oddities I discovered through my various social media channels.

Sunday/Monday

A rainy Sunday gave me some time to think a bit about history…

Until @Chrissmessina pioneered hashtags it was even more difficult to search for relevant tweets than it is now, making it smarter to use summize.com until early 2009.

Now that Twitter has acquired summize.com, searching using Twitter is once more feasible, but the usefulness of the hashtag remains.

Monday

Free versus paid press or ‘to be or not to be’ is all about how print media is struggling to secure necessary resources. Incidentally, Ringier is said to be looking at possibly buying French daily Le Monde, which needs cash to offset continuing losses.

The newspaper’s journalists collectively own 52 percent of the company already.

We shared some trends and graphics that indicate print media’s drop in revenue in the US. Regardless of this dismal situation, Rupert Murdoch is getting himself into a bare-knuckle fight over advertising revenue in the New York market.

=> Wall Street Journal, New York Post, New York Times, Le Monde – Dropping ad revenues and continuing losses

Tuesday

Facebook was launched in February 2004 by college pals Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin, while Twitter was launched publicly by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in July 2006.

Neither really took off until about mid-2008, but these days many countries have increasingly large user groups. Facebook’s growth in the last year in countries like Germany, Denmark, Belgium and Spain has been phenomenal:

=> Where do people use Facebook most? Check these stats

Wednesday

We held another successful webinar entitled ComMetrics University – Twitter: serving your clients better.

It is amazing what works and what seems to fail with Twitter, especially if you are trying to use it for a company that has little to do with consumer products.

Read some of the ideas, feedback and opinions we got from attendees.

Join us for this Wednesday’s webinar: 2010-06-09 – is Twitter a glorified but useless autoresponder?

=> Want to influence the content of the upcoming webinar? What is your opinion?  - have your say – why Twitter works or fails for you!

Thursday

Pew did a study about reputation management and phone-interviewed 2,253 adults in August and September of 2009. Some 57 percent of Internet users said they have used Google, Bing, Yahoo or some other search engine to look up their name and see what information was available about them online. That number is up from 47 percent of people in 2006.

What puzzled me is that they concluded younger people are more careful about their privacy than older respondents. One thing that led to this conclusion is that youngsters apparently change privacy settings on profiles more frequently than older users, customizing who can see certain updates and deleting unwanted information about themselves.

This study represents great work, but based on my own research I am still not convinced youth are more careful with their privacy than the over-50 crowd. Ever tried to find pictures of yourself in a compromising position? It’s easy on the web with today’s teenagers… I rest my case.

=> PEW – reputation management – youngsters do better?

Friday

Today I came across an interesting marketing campaign by Swiss Air Lines. A particular event (i.e. its inaugural flight to San Francisco) was the anchor for promoting the brand using various channels, including video, a Facebook fanpage and Twitter.

The campaign promotes the company’s new destination through the crew’s impressions of San Francisco, shared by tweeting.

More details about this campaign, including video:

=> Cross-channel marketing FIRST – Swiss Air Lines – June 2 flight to San Francisco

The company also used sweepstakes to get more attention. For instance, people were invited to upload pictures they took of the plane (and a lovely plane it is – check the video above) to Swiss Air Lines’ Facebook fanpage.

Interesting – the marketing folks forgot the ‘out of site, out of mind’ motto a bit (according to our work it is better to continue tweeting or posting to a Facebook wall after such events than letting activity drop…).

The tweeting and Facebook wall posts pretty much stopped by Friday, June 4 (two days after the flight), when the company invited its Twitter followers to participate in a video karaoke competition (more details, see above link).

CNN reports another first: its online news portal is making as much ad revenue as it generates from its primetime US channel. Very interesting indeed… could this be a choice for smaller newspapers and news channels?

=> CNN FIRST – making more money from online ads than US primetime

Saturday

I have reported about blogcamps and my experiences with them before (2010-03-26 Blogcamp 4 Zurich, 2009-10-25 – Barcamp Rapperswil, 2010-11-15 Barcamp Liechtenstein), and today we (my young son and I) hitched the train to attend another Barcamp in Constance (Germany) – just across the Swiss border.

Already on the train I re-connected with Patrice Neff and his three mates, whom I had met at the Rapperswil barcamp. We arrived in Constance and walked through the old town to get to the venue.

Just as we arrived, I ran into Sacha Schlegel, one of the co-organizers of Barcamp Liechtenstein, which had the best child-care for conference-attending parents.

As usual, we introduced ourselves during the first session – a standard routine – and then volunteered for another session (see image below).

Once again the day was fascinating, talking to interesting people from different backgrounds, countries (e.g., France, Luxembourg, Belgium, etc.) and skills. Unfortunately, I could not attend all the sessions.

The child-care was one reason I brought my kid along… His review: while he liked it, he felt there were not enough kids. He actually told me that I had to make sure there would be more pals to play with next time or he might not come back…

He especially liked one of the morning talks, because people disagreed! During another session, the speaker got his attention because he repeatedly raised his hand to indicate he had not used some free tools, including Dropbox and Backupify.

We left and enjoyed our train ride back to Zurich while enjoying the cake we had not managed to finish during the afternoon coffee break. The well-stocked buffet organizers had arranged was not ideal for those on a diet.

Sunday

Sunday I came across another great resource listing various interesting networking events, barcamps and so forth – with a focus on Europe. Among many other interesting events, I came across FrOSCamp, to be held at the ETH Zurich in September. Looks very interesting and since it is near our offices, I just might have to attend.

I also had some time to follow up on things I had learned at Barcamp Bodensee, such as checking out freenode and its community features for groups. Although I doubt it will replace Facebook any time soon, it is a not-for-profit community and… it’s probably better you check it out yourself, than me trying to explain it here.

Thanks to Deborah Drake I also learned that the UK tabloid The Sun (one of Rupert Murdoch’s titles) decided to attempt a first in the publishing industry:

=> The June 5, 2010 edition of The Sun with 3D page, 3D editorial, 3D wall chart and 3D ads

Whether this helps stop eroding advertising revenues and subscription numbers remains to be seen (see above for what Mr Murdoch did in New York on Monday).

Additional resources

=> Case studies – successes, flops and disasters
=> Learn from history – identify the trends before they happen
=> Freakalytics – statistics lie: assume nothing, question everything
=> Social media ROI – the budget committee is laughing at you

That wraps up this week’s social media diary. Please let me know how you feel about it – your opinions matter to me!

Article source: ComMetrics weekly review: Advertising firsts in social media