Archive for 'Social Media' category
- Are you Pinterest-ed?
Posted by Heidi Wurpel
In the past few weeks a number of Crescendo's Maine - based, not-for-profit clients have asked me about Pinterest. For those of you unfamiliar with Pinterest, it is a social media website that allows you to bookmark or "pin" images from anywhere online onto your personal Pinterest page's "boards" and view all other Pinterest user's boards to garner fresh ideas. People use boards differently but some examples of what boards are used to do are:
- Easily collect or aggregate websites you might want to visit again or be reminded of - My "Places to Go/Things to Do" board is checked on weekends for ideas of what to do. It is mostly comprised of Portland restaurants to try, mountains to hike or snowshoe, and fun upcoming charity events.
- Compare items against each other - Friends who are getting married have boards where they post all of the shoes that they might buy or the bouquets they like so that they can later weigh all of their options in one place before making a final decision.
- Start pulling together items to see how they might work in a collective - Interior designers and fashion designers have been doing this for years, but basically having all of the items you might put in a room or fashion show together allows you to see if all of the items "work" well visually together.
- Get inspired - Need to think of a new ad design? Collect images on an inspirations board that you can refer back to and ...
- What is a (Social) Network?
Posted by Jim Kupel
I know you just googled the question and went to Wikipedia for the answer. But for busy human resource and marketing professionals the Wiki answer isn't much help if you're trying to apply the theory in your organization. That's why I found my colleague Beth Austin's recent white paper, "Using Organizational Social Networks to Promote Positive Change[1]" very helpful. Not only does she provide some interesting illustrations that range from mapping an individual's personal network to mapping the whole New Testament, the white paper suggests nine considerations and action ideas that will help you utilize the theory in your organization. It also provides some evidence to help answer some classic questions like: What is the average number of (true) friends for most people? (6.5) The average number of e-friends? (100) and How many Twitter followers does Actress Alyssa Milano have? (In excess of 1,000,000)
On the serious side, the white paper also suggest ways in which Prochaska and DiClemente's work on the stages of behavior change can be integrated with social network theory to help reduce the disease burden in your organization and positively impact your health claims cost. After reading the paper, I also realized that contagion and weak ties can be very positive things.
[1] Austin, Beth. Using Organizational Social Networks to Promote Positive Change. Crescendo Consulting Group, LLC. 2011- Flash Mobs: America's Modern Happenings
Posted by Heidi Wurpel
Friends have been asking me why there has been a sudden emergence of Flash Mobs* and what I think about their utility as a marketing tactic.
From my perspective, a Flash Mob is not a new art form but actually a revitalized and slightly more choreographed version of Allan Kaprow and John Cage's "Happenings" of the 1950s and 1960s. Like Flash Mobs, Happenings of the mid 20th Century took place in unexpected places (streets, stores, apartment buildings, fields, etc.) and integrated various forms of multi-media (music, dance). Viewers never knew when or where a Happening might occur and who was "in" on it, and Happenings allowed the audience to play a part in the experience so that no two performances could ever be exactly alike.
The re-emergence of the Happening or Flash Mob as we call the modern exhibits is flourishing, thanks to a profusion of hand-held video recording devices. The observer-as-participant's new role in the event, and in the art of creating or adding to it, is to be the videographer and write/ document its story - often uploading their unique perspective to YouTube, Vimeo, or Facebook. While Happenings occurred solely for artistic value and expression, Flash Mobs often, but not always, take on a role as Public Service Announcement or subtle advertisement.
In addition to the saturation of hand-held video equipment among Americans (via Smart Phones or Flip recorders), a skepticism of advertising through traditional media has moved marketers to utilize new forms of buzz/guerilla/viral marketing. The ...
- Reductionist Sound Bites From Maine to Egypt
Posted by Jim Kupel
It is a bit disingenuous to use a blog posting to complain about the reductionist impulse that leads to sound bite interpretations of complex subjects like the Egyptian democracy movement or the State of Maine budget challenges, but I wanted to give a thumbs up to those who try to honestly deal with complex subjects in a limited space or time. Some do a good job by assuming that the reader is willing to grapple with the nuances. A recent example of this is Tony Payne's article commentary in the Press Herald about remedy's for the Maine Pension Program[1].
Another approach is the hallmark of the Associated Press: solid facts with little frills. With this approach sometimes things get lost in translation as the wire story is picked up by others and given different headlines to suggest a spin. A recent example of this is the recap of a two-year-old analysis we did for the executive department of the state of Maine that ran in Forbes[2], CNBC[3] and Bloomberg[4]. The AP paragraph on our actual work tries to summarize a complex analysis and does a reasonable job. The problem is that using our analysis to suggest generalizations like state workers are overpaid and underworked or the converse is just not accurate. Further, the data is two years old. It was collected before the Great Recession. Extrapolating this information to today's data can be done, but not without some substantial effort. And the nuances get lost ...
- Addressing Consumer Complaints Through Social Media - the Good, the Bad... and the Cold
Posted by Beth Austin
This week - in exquisite synchronicity with the temperature plunge - something malfunctioned with my oil tank's fuel line, leaving me without my primary source of heat. I'd had problems with the tank consistently in the past, but this time I realized I needed to bite the bullet and pay for the service call. So, I called the local fuel company that had installed the tanks, only to be told that they wouldn't do any service because...I wasn't a customer. The conversation degenerated from there, as I tried in vain to understand how one becomes a customer if ordering a product or service didn't qualify. I hung up the phone, confounded, and pondered my next move. It was now after 5, so I thought I might try a social media channel. I scraped the frost off my laptop and posted a somewhat pathetic plea for help and a request for more information on their Facebook page.
When I speak to organizations about developing a social media strategy, almost without fail, people express trepidation about how to handle a customer complaint through a social media channel. So, in addition to trying to restore my home's temperature to something above 50 degrees, I was anxious to see how this real-world example would play out. I thought you might enjoy playing along as well.
Question: A (hopeful) customer posts on your wall that she has had a somewhat bewildering phone conversation with a service representative, but that she's still ...
- Fly Away
Posted by Heidi Wurpel
Consider this post tough love: if you manage a B2C company and don't really know what Facebook and Twitter are, have not claimed your company name on them, or still feel that social media is a fad you need to learn quickly - or get left behind. This isn't about being hip or attracting "the youth market". A business's social media presence is not only rapidly becoming a customer expectation, but is also a necessary tool for basic business, brand management, and marketing communication.
Basic Business: There are a few objections I hear frequently about why social media isn't right for a company, but in the end it comes down to the fact that social media is now basic business and you don't have a choice to avoid it anymore.
"I don't have time" - do you have time to listen to your voicemail? What about check your email? Or even to read your text messages? Social media is exactly the same. It is a communication tool that your customers use every day. How would you feel to hear a company you do business with has no voice mail, no e-mail, or has never heard of this "texting thing"? It would probably not inspire confidence, and would likely have a negative effect on your perception of their product.
"Customers don't care about what I have to say" - if this is really true than you have a bigger problem on your hands than lack of a social media ...
- The Secret to Youth Marketing: don't listen to me, listen to us - then speak to me
Posted by Heidi Wurpel
There is a dangerous tendency in many organizations to look at the youngest person in the room and ask their opinion to help guide the company’s “Youth Marketing” initiatives. Using one person’s off-the-cuff response to guide your strategic initiatives is dangerous, no matter whom the person is. “Young people” are a very broad and diverse demographic. Instead of building your campaign around anecdotal evidence or broad stereotypes about 18-34 year olds, ask the following:
- What are the major life-events of sub-sets of your demographic?
- What role can your organization’s products or services play in day-to-day life? In special days/ events?
- Why you? Why not your competitor? (Generic descriptors such as “value”, “selection”, and “customer service” are not acceptable answers here – delve deeper and explain the subtle differences)
- What are the emotions and motivators behind your customers’ needs?
- How is this demographic similar to you? How is it different?
Changes in life often equate to changes in purchasing behavior. The many “firsts” (year of college, apartment, marriage, house, child, job, promotion, business trip, corner office, time hosting a holiday) that the “youth market” experiences offer you many opportunities to be tried and tested. Though the words and visuals that will best resonate with a generation other than your own will likely differ, the emotions that are the basis of your message and the respect that you give to your audience as individuals should not.
The secret to youth marketing is that: it is dangerous to base a campaign and strategy ...
- The Future of Location-based Mobile Technologies
Posted by Heidi Wurpel
Location-based mobile technologies, such as Foursquare, BrightKite, and Gowalla, are largely considered to be just social media "games" at this point in time. However, as we have seen with other emergent technological innovations, businesses quickly learn to utilize new tools to increase consumer awareness. Savvy businesses are already offering incentives to users of these technologies, and we are beginning to incorporate these tools into our Employee Communications and Program Management services in areas such as wellness, quality healthcare selection, incentive programs, and community affiliations.
The question becomes, where do we go from here? In my opinion, location-based mobile technologies can plug into business in a big way on multiple, but not mutually exclusive, trajectories. We'll discuss other applications in future posts, but today I'll focus on the exciting opportunities for retailers specifically. GPS or location-based mobile technologies can be turned into retail search platforms, which could have a dramatic impact on supply-chain management, merchandising schemas, and customers' shopping experiences. Stop for a minute and reflect on the last time you went clothing shopping. If you shop like I do, you probably had a general idea of the item(s) you were considering buying and a limited amount of time and money to dedicate to obtaining those items. Currently, there are three options:
- [Pre]-Shop online at specific websites for the items I am interested in finding. If they have an item that seems to fit the bill, and I am on my phone and close to a store, I might ...