Social networks

Emptying the bit bucket: books, pitches and too fat to fly?

February 16, 2010 by Susan Getgood

Heard on Twitter about a big brand: Apparently the brand is using multiple word of mouth agencies on blogger outreach programs for the same company initiative. Some of the agencies are offering compensation for posts, others not. Here’s the kicker though: some bloggers are getting both sorts of pitches. For the same program. Ouch!

And before you ask: yes I know who it is, no I am not telling, and I’d appreciate it if my readers do not “out” the brand in the comments either. I’m telling this story to make a point, not to embarrass anyone.

Here’s the lesson. It’s okay to have different programs for the same initiative. Just make sure the programs are highly differentiated, especially if some include compensation and others do not. And for heaven’s sake, de-dupe the lists, and do your best to make sure that bloggers only get ONE of the pitches.

Too fat to fly? The ‘net was all a-twitter over the weekend and yesterday about the @ThatKevinSmith and Southwest Air incident Saturday. It was all over the mainstream media as well, but just in case you missed it (on vacation at the South Pole, crossing Alaska with a dog team, climbing Mt. Everest, etc.), here’s the short story.

Director Kevin Smith (“Clerks”) was asked to get off a full Southwest flight from Oakland to Burbank last Saturday for “safety reasons.” He twittered about it as it was happening, and later released a special, very long, very ranty episode of his podcast with the blow by blow.

Smith has 1.6 million Twitter followers, so the whole thing blew up hard and fast. And of course, the whole situation was further fueled by the fat/thin debate.

Eventually, Southwest apologized, sort of but not really, which further inflamed Smith. They then apologized again, as detailed in both this Nuts about Southwest post and Smith’s final word on the subject in his blog.

I’m not going to do a blow by blow analysis. The pundits have analyzed this thing to death, and it’s pretty clear that this was a customer service snafu that evolved into a full-blown communications crisis due to bad decisions and the power of social networks.

Southwest has learned a hard lesson. What can we learn from it?

First, exercise a little common sense. The entire situation could have been avoided in multiple ways. First, the obvious — just let the man fly. Southwest also could have chosen to NOT clear Smith from the standby list if they were truly already hyper-aware of fliers with “safety issues.” Is that right? No, of course not. It’s awful and stupid and ugly. But, it would have avoided the problem. Putting the man on the flight and then taking him off is the problem, because, truly, he didn’t get any fatter while waiting to board the flight.

Second, and I know others have said this as well: When you apologize to someone, you really should apologize for the thing that actually upset the other party. Otherwise, it isn’t an apology. It’s a justification. The lawyers may not like it, but good customer relations demands it. When you screw up, own it. All of it.

Enough of this. I may write about this on my travel blog this weekend — after I fly Southwest to Houston for Mom 2.0. The airlines — all of them — do have a problem. As they try to pack more seats into each plane and then pack each plane to capacity to improve the bottom line, the US population is getting larger. It’s not good. It just is.

Finally, I meant to post this weeks ago, but forgot. The second edition of David Meerman Scott’s book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR (Amazon affiliate link), has just been released. While I don’t agree with all of David’s tactics, it’s a good introductory text on how to use social media in your marketing plan.

What don’t I agree with? I am a profound opponent of using press releases to reach customers. News, yes. The press release form, no. Otherwise, our approaches to integrating marketing and social media are pretty similar.

Women are more than mommies: More Women

September 1, 2009 by Susan Getgood

crossposted to Snapshot Chronicles

I’m sure it will be a surprise to the mainstream media, but women are more than mommies.

Many women aren’t mommies at all, for a variety of reasons that are their business, not ours. Those of us that are parents don’t define ourselves solely by that role, even if we write a mom blog. And definitely when we do not write a blog about our parenting experiences. When our blogs are about other things important to us — our jobs, our hobbies, our causes, our politics, our opinions, our rants and our raves.

Our lives. Ourselves.

We find our identity beyond our motherhood. It may encompass it, but women are not simply wombs who walk.

But in the minds of the media and many marketers, women bloggers are mom bloggers. The consumer products companies reach out to moms. The media companies create opportunities for moms. Moms moms moms.

It’s a perennial frustration for women’s blogging community BlogHer, which works overtime to focus attention on the full spectrum of women’s blogging, but regularly sees the media hone in on the one segment. Mom.

Some — myself included — see this repeated reduction of women to our reproductive status as a form of sexism. Moms are about kids. Men are about the world. Moms aren’t serious.

It’s part of a cultural mentality in which a company can argue that lactation is not a condition of pregnancy, and dismiss an employee for taking unauthorized breaks to pump while allowing smoke and pee breaks. Isotoner/Totes, if you are wondering. That Danielle has a nice summary with links to other posts.

Bullshit.

But, you know, we are more than our reproductive organs. Media, marketers should pay attention. We’ve got disposable income. Even if we are moms, we do not spend every cent on floor wax, juice boxes and school supplies. If we aren’t supporting the Disney and LEGO franchises, we’ve got even more money to spend on stuff.

So, why aren’t companies reaching out to us in greater numbers? Why isn’t the media telling the stories about women entrepreneurs, women bloggers, women philanthropists? Grandmas and grad students. Women doing all sorts of things to make a difference in the world beyond just the genetic material we created or might create.

It’s been a refrain for years at the BlogHer conference. This year, the indomitable Grace Davis decided to do something about it. Something to call attention to More Women (than just moms.)

She’s created an online community called More Women.

Why is this important?

If you are a woman blogger, with or without offspring, check it out. We need to make our voices heard as women, not just as mothers.

If you are a marketer, pay attention. We will be heard, and you might want to be among the first to catch our ear.

Laugh if you will. I know the song is a bit hokey and outdated. But for many of us in Generation Jones, it was large part of our development as women and feminists. More than 30 years later, I Am Woman still says we won’t give up.

I am woman, hear me roar. In numbers too big to ignore…

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood: Some thoughts about community.

July 7, 2009 by Susan Getgood

What makes a community?

The most important element of community is conversation. You don’t need to log-in to a website to have a conversation online with friends, colleagues and peers. Software, authentication, “enabling technology,” a fan page or a URL all play a part in how we use or access our communities online, but they don’t make the community.

Communities form around shared interests and common problems. That doesn’t preclude products, but most product-based communities are transactional rather than social. We drop in with a question or to see if there’s someone we can help, but we generally don’t “hang out” to talk about products. For example, computer and consumer electronics manufacturers Dell, Sony and HP all have community sites. While a few expert volunteers will literally set up shop within forums like these because they like to help and they like the recognition they get from both the companies and fellow consumers, most users will flow in and out depending on information/support needs and purchase plans.

Successful company-sponsored social communities establish around shared interests, not the product per se. An example is National Geographic’s WildCam community, originally hosted on the site but now using a Facebook fan page. The conversation in the community is about the animals, not National Geographic, but the brand is reinforced continually and subtly.

What do online communities look like?

Let’s take the common picture of online community and break it down a bit.

The simplest online communities form around blogs of like subject matter, with the conversation happening on blog comments, in blog posts and across the public networks like Twitter and Facebook.

When we think about online community, though, our minds usually turn to more formal social networks. With a username and password and features such as forums, discussion boards, in-system mail, blogs and friend lists. But these communities are not a homogeneous lot by any stretch of the imagination.

You’ll find enthusiast or advocate sites. Some are barebones, others are more sophisticated, and while they may monetize with advertising or grow into businesses, they generally start because somebody cared and so did her friends. They had passion about something.

Businesses of all sizes are adding community features to their websites. Some by simply adding a discussion board or customer content area, others by building full-fledged community sites.

The tool set is just as varied, ranging from simple tools like open-source forum/discussion board software and content management systems to free community platforms like Ning to comprehensive solutions from companies like Powered.

Layered over the private networks are the big public social networks, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. Of these big three, Facebook has the most traction as a consumer social network and multiple options for companies to use it as part of their social media strategy: advertising, fan (company) pages and Facebook Connect. LinkedIn seems better suited for business-to-business strategies, particularly referrals and networking and I’d put MySpace at the opposite end of the spectrum from LinkedIn — strong in entertainment, particularly music, and definitely consumer, skewing younger than both Facebook and LinkedIn.

If a company wants to actively embrace or create a community, what should it do?

The very first question you need to ask — even before where are my customers and what tools should I use — is: Are we willing to make the long-term commitment to the community? Do we have a plan for sustaining the engagement? It’s one thing to start a conversation with the customer. It’s another to keep it going.

If you aren’t certain you will be able to sustain the engagement, you are much better off doing a short-term campaign with a defined beginning and end. This sets the right expectation for the customer while giving you some experience with the community. Blogger outreach is a good starting point. Read my blogger relations category for strategy and tactics.

Let’s say, though, that everyone has deeply drunk the kool-aid and wants to charge ahead and build a social media base site beyond the company website. It’s time for questions two, three and four:

Where are your customers? Facebook? Twitter? Some other social network? Waiting for someone (like you) to build a space that’s “just right.” Or has someone already built a social network or online space that meets the same need, attracts the same consumer? If so, you may be better off exploring a relationship with that site.
How active are your customers likely to be? Active creators or passive consumers? You’ll want to tailor the content of a community site to the needs of your customer. You don’t want to create a slick (and expensive) site with video mashups and interactive games if your consumers don’t like to do that sort of thing. It’ll look like you threw a party and nobody came. Starting point: check out the Pew and Forrester demographic models.
Do you have, or can you create, regular content for a site? Blog content. Video. Podcasts. Case studies. FAQs. Educational content. Content about interests you share with your customers. Things they will want to use and share with others. This is very important when considering the scope of your online site. The more of this “stuff” you have, the more you can do with and on a community site. If the pickings are slimmer, you need to narrow your scope to something you can execute flawlessly and with flair. In doubt? It is always better to start small and expand the scope as you experience success.

The answers to these questions will form the base of your strategy. Some general thoughts:

Odds are pretty good that many of your customers will be on Facebook, so it should form part of your strategy.
If you have the content to populate a rich community site, you might benefit from incorporating Facebook Connect to allow your users to easily share content with their friends on Facebook. Other benefits of Facebook Connect: simple authentication using Facebook credentials and increased potential to recruit new members at a lower acquisition cost. BUT: there has to be stuff to share. Worth sharing. Product Spec Sheets do NOT count.
If your content is a little slimmer, you should start simply. Perhaps add a single forum or discussion board to your company website or build a Facebook Fan Page. Use it to test the waters, including the capacity of your firm to generate robust, share-worthy content and the level of potential participation of your market.

—

I was briefed recently by the folks at Powered about their Facebook Connect functionality. For large companies with the budget (typically $250K and up), a social networking company can cut the learning curve and lighten the management burden of a big community site. As the saying goes, they can do it all for you. Smaller to mid-sized companies that don’t have that much available budget? You can still learn a lot from what the big boys and girls are doing. Check it out and adapt what works for you. Need some help? Call me. 🙂

My Facebook Page Experiment, initial results

June 17, 2009 by Susan Getgood

With all the hullaballoo about Facebook Pages, I thought it was time I experimented with one for myself. As I wrote in yesterday’s post, there are a few instances where it may make sense for a blogger to have a Facebook Page. One is for a multi-author blog such as Snapshot Chronicles Roadtrip, the family travel blog I launched about eight weeks ago. Each author can be an admin, use his/her own Facebook following to help build the brand and share the load of adding unique content — beyond just the blog posts that get fed automatically.

I’m still experimenting but I want to warn readers to be very very careful when selecting the initial category for their page. There are three basic categories, each with sub options, and once you’ve selected your choice, there is no going back. The only way to change once you’ve created a page is to START OVER. If you’ve actually published the page and started publicizing it, this means losing those fans, and hoping they follow you.

Why is this so important?
Two reasons. First, discoverability. Facebook uses the categories in search, and if you are in the wrong one, fewer people will find you in general searches, versus specific ones based on your blog or brand name.

Second is that the options under the Info tab are different for each basic category. Local Business allows you to list your physical address, hours of operation, website address and information about parking and public transit. No free-form fields. For a Brand Product or Organization, you can list typical business information, including company overview and products in free-form fields. Artists, Bands & Public Figures are presented with options very similar to the ones in the personal profile. These cannot be changed or added to.

The Facebook Page for Snapshot Chronicles Roadtrip ended up in the wrong category – Local Other Business. Not because I didn’t pick the one I wanted (Brand, Travel). I did. However, I initially typed my electronic signature with my middle initial; Facebook wanted my Facebook name exactly, without the initial, so it posted an error message. I realized the error, fixed it, and saved.

What I didn’t realize was that in the refresh Facebook had also reset the category to Local Other Business. I pulled a similar sequence of screens to illustrate this for you.

Initial Screen:

Signature Error:

Refresh:

The good news? I mostly did the fan page to find out what might go wrong when creating one, and lo and behold I was not disappointed. Not having the right options on the Info tab is not a big deal for my family travel blog, but it might be for your company or brand.

What should you do?

Take a look at the three types of pages and pick the right one for your brand, blog or business.
When you are filling out the initial creation screen, check the box, type in your profile name correctly and carefully review the selection of category before you hit Create Page.
If you get the error message, check twice.

You can start over at any time until you actually publish your page, but in my case, I just didn’t notice that the category had defaulted to something else until I started trying to customize the info page much, much later in my process.

I’ll just chalk it up to one of those things I do, so you don’t have to, and hope that my experience helps at least one other person avoid the same mistake. I do know I am not the only one who has run into the problem, as there is a support topic in the Facebook FAQs.

So pick carefully!

Some additional nits:
I wish you could have a different image for the thumbnail and the main graphic. Unlike headshots, which most people use on their personal Facebook profiles, logos don’t always size down to something acceptable in a teeny thumbnail square, and certainly not when the same image is used for both with no resizing possible.

I have a devil of a time getting back to my page to edit it. I hope I am just missing something obvious, but the only way I’ve found so far is to navigate to all the pages I follow and then pick mine. There has to be an easier way….