Marketing Roadmaps

Social media

Internet stats

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Last week, I was a panelist on a Bulldog Reporter audio conference about using social media in public relations. I mentioned some statistics on adoption of various tools, both by companies and individuals. Quite a few attendees asked for the sources of the data, so I figured it might be of general interest to Roadmaps readers.

Universal McCann Research (pdf) is an excellent source on social media usage across all demographics and region.

E-marketer has a report on older Internet users. The abstract is no longer free, but the reports aren’t too expensive as I recall. Report is titled Seniors and E-Commerce    
Publication Date: July 15, 2008
Subjects: Seniors; Retail E-Commerce
Geographies: United States

Some general stats on World Internet Usage

BlogHer’s study on women bloggers 

The Pew Internet and American Life Project is a great resource. Start with this summary page.

The Society for New Communications Research study on customer care has not been published in full yet, but you can find the highlights in the social media 101 presentation I did for SOCAP last spring.  Be sure to check www.sncr.org for the final results this fall as well as some other research that might prove interesting.

BlogWorld Expo and the entertainment industry

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If you’re interested in the shift currently happening in the entertainment industry from the traditional studio driven model, in which a few media moguls control the purse strings and our screens, to a user-generated creativity-driven online model — for example, Joss Whedon’s recent direct-to-Internet project Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog —  I’m moderating two panels at BlogWorld Expo next month in Las Vegas that you might find interesting.

They’ll certainly be entertaining. Read on, check out the panelists and you will see why.

The point of departure for both panels is the Writers Strike, and how the writers used social media like blogs and YouTube to get their message across.  I came up with the idea for the panels shortly after the strike ended last spring. I was struck by how effectively the writers used social media to communicate with the media, fans and indeed with each other to keep themselves motivated during the long months on the picket line. I pitched the idea to BlogWorld Expo, they said yes, and the gods must have been smiling on me, because I was able to recruit some truly awesome panelists.

Here’s the scoop on the panels. I hope to see you there.

Social Media and the Writers Strike: Blogs, Fans and Community
Saturday September 20, 2:45-3:45 pm
This panel, the first of two about Social Media and the Writers Strike, will offer an overview of how the writers used social media during the strike to inform the public, encourage and reward fan support and keep union members motivated. We’ll focus on community-developed sites like United Hollywood and the impact of fan support as we discuss the overall impact of social media, vs. mainstream media, on the outcome.

Panelists
Jeffrey Berman
Jeffrey Berman’s first spec script was purchased by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard at Imagine Films. Since then he has written feature film projects for Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures and The Walt Disney Studio, as well as several independent film companies. In the television market, Berman has written and sold several MOWs including The J.K Rowling bio-pic for NBC television and The Last Rainmaker for Hallmark. Recently, Berman co-founded UnitedHollywood.com and is producer/co-host of UnitedHollywood Live. He also created and hosts The Write Environment, a compelling series of one-on-one interviews with some of today’s most prolific writers.  He ran the Pencils 2 Media Moguls campaign during the strike; read more here.

Erica Blitz, Galactica Sitrep
Erica Blitz, who often goes by the online handle "ProgGrrl," is co-editor of the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA fansite Galactica Sitrep, and blogs about miscellaneous TV, film and pop culture at FanGrrl Magnet. She currently works in film advertising in New York City and has a background in both film and music marketing. For a closer look at how Sitrep covered the WGA strike from the fan perspective, check out these tagged posts. 

Steve Diamond, Vallywood
Steve Diamond is a law professor and political scientist on the faculty of Santa Clara University School of Law in Santa Clara, California, which is in the heart of Silicon Valley. He has an extensive background in the labor movement and advise a wide range of unions, workers and institutional investors on financial and legal issues. He was a candidate to become National Executive Director of the Screen Actors Guild in 2006.

Mark Verheiden, Famous Mark Verheidens of Filmland
Mark Verheiden is currently the Co-Executive Producer of the Peabody Award winning television series BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, screenwriter of the Fall 2008 feature MY NAME IS BRUCE (starring Bruce Campbell), and screenwriter on the original feature film ARK (Sony Pictures), produced by Neal (I AM LEGEND, FAST & THE FURIOUS) Moritz and Mike (Dark Horse Productions Chief) Richardson. Past work includes writing and producing the first three seasons of SMALLVILLE, writing the scripts for the feature films TIMECOP & THE MASK, and scribbling out nearly 125 comic books including THE AMERICAN, ALIENS, PREDATOR, THE PHANTOM, SUPERMAN and SUPERMAN/BATMAN.”

Social Media and the Writers Strike: How user-generated content won the war of the words
Saturday September 20, 5:00-6:00 pm
The use of user generated content during the Writers Strike to both inform and entertain further validated the importance of the Internet medium. This panel, the second of two about Social Media and the Writers Strike, will dive deeper into the impact of websites and videos written (and often performed) by the writers and distributed through YouTube, United Hollywood and other Internet sites. Why did they work so well, and how has user generated content changed the entertainment landscape? What lessons can we apply to our own endeavors, personal, professional and corporate?

Panelists
Jeffrey Berman (see bio above)

Michael Colton, www.coltonaboud.com
Michael Colton writes for film and television, and is currently working on a new Fox animated show set to air next spring. He and partner John Aboud also appear regularly as panelists on VH1’s "Best Week Ever," "I Love the 80s" and other shows. Before moving to L.A., they ran the Web magazine Modern Humorist, and prior to that, Colton was a staff writer for the Washington Post. During the Writers strike, Colton & Aboud created the much-discussed parody website AMPTP.com (now housed at AMPTP.humortron.net). Joss Whedon praised them as "heroes," which is obviously an understatement.

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See what I mean? It’s gonna be a fun time, and I hope some of my readers can join us. If you can make it, use discount code SGVIP for 20% off your admission. The code is good until September 1st, but early bird registration ends on August 22d; if you are planning to go, you can save even more by registering by then.

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Special thanks to Erica Blitz and Rob Kutner, a writer for The Daily Show and author of Apocalypse How. They were invaluable in connecting me with potential panelists, and I am forever grateful for their help.

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Blogging, social media & customer service (Part 7)

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Part 7: Tweet, tweet: Microblogging considerations

Microblogs like Twitter are getting a lot of attention these days, in no small part because some big companies are using them to talk to their customers. If you are considering it, here are the key considerations:

  • Are your customers there?
  • Do you have the bandwidth to staff this rapid fire communications channel?
  • Can your reps take action to solve any issues? Sympathy is nice but people will want solutions.
  • Popular microblogging services frequently have availability issues. What alternative channel will you provide the users and how will they learn about it?

 

Blogging, social media & customer service (Part 5)

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Part 5: Comments. They’re what keep you up at night.

Without a doubt, the issue at the forefront of most customer care professionals is how to respond to comments, whether on your own company’s blog or elsewhere. You are really worried about the negative ones. This is not only a real concern but also a realistic one.

Some folks out there are crazy and there’s nothing to be gained by engaging with them. The good news is, the Internet is a fairly self-correcting environment. If someone is talking trash about your products without cause, the community tends to self-police.

Some, hopefully many, comments will be positive. More importantly, the conversation will happen with or without you. The only thing I can guarantee is that if you make no effort, nothing will change. But if you do, your customers will notice.

When people say positive things online about your company and products, thank them. When they criticize or have a problem, respond. Solve the problem if you can. If you can’t, develop the mechanisms in your firm so you can escalate the issue. If there is no solution, explain, clearly and honestly. The customer may not be happy, but the rational ones will appreciate the response.

Depending on the situation this conversation could happen publicly on a blog or microblog like Twitter or privately in email. Choose the response that fits the situation and your company culture. What matters is that your customer spoke online and you heard him.

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Update: Netflix recently demonstrated that it is paying attention to its customers when it rescinded a decision to remove a popular feature after customers protested online. Hat tip to Sandra. 

Next up: Part 6, Should you build a community?

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Blogging, social media & customer service (Part 4)

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Part 4: What should customer service and consumer affairs do?

You’ve decided that some involvement in social media makes sense. But what should you do? I recommend a phased approach that I call the Four Ps of Online Engagement:

  • Prepare
  • Participate
  • Pitch or Publish

Let’s take them in order. First, you need to prepare by listening to the online conversation. Monitor the blogosphere for mentions of your company name. Find out who is writing about your products and industry. It’s a virtual, informal focus group that lets you take the pulse of your key constituents. You can do this monitoring on your own, using Google, the Technorati blog search engine and a myriad of free tools that do everything from track Twitter  to measure the impact of a blogger’s posts.

 

Or you can get some help. There are many third party options available, at various price points, from the custom and often costly monitoring programs developed by companies like Cymfony to do-it-yourself dashboards that assemble the information for analysis such as those offered by KD Paine & Partners and Radian6.

If you do proceed with a social media effort, these same tools can also help with the measurement of results, but don’t confuse the two steps. Initially, monitoring is done to assess the commentary about your company and products so you solve the right problems. Ongoing measurement is about results. Have you achieved whatever objectives you set for your social media effort?

Once you know what’s being said about your company online, and by whom, you can start thinking about how to participate in the conversation. This can be anything from simply replying privately, to posting public responses when and where appropriate, to starting a blog, as Dell did, to make it easier for your customers to communicate with you. All of these are perfectly acceptable responses.

The most important thing to remember about engaging publicly is that you have to be able to take action. Sympathy and empathy are a good start, but they are not enough.

Also, keep in mind that not all commentary is negative. When you start listening to what your customers are saying online, you might find evangelists who love your company and products, and are already sharing the love with the people who read their blogs or listen to their podcasts. These folks are a great channel for sharing information with other customers, and nothing would please them more than a little recognition and communication from you.

The final phase of online engagement is actively telling the company’s story, versus simply responding to the ongoing conversation. This is what I call pitch or publish. The company may choose to publish a blog, launch a community or start a proactive program of outreach to bloggers. For most companies, these efforts will be part of the marketing or corporate communications functions, but if your firm is considering one or more of these strategies, I highly recommend that customer care professionals get involved or at least stay informed. Guaranteed, whatever the company does will impact customer satisfaction, one way or the other.

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Next post, Part 5: Comments. They’re what keep you up at night.

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