Henshaw

As students stagger towards the end of UBC’s MBA program there appears to be one thing they are all doing– blogging.

Sauder’s emphasis on blogging as part of the regular curriculum leads one to question… will students continue once they are done?

I’ve asked a few classmates of mine and the reaction is pretty universal, “we’d like to but what would happen if our bosses found out?” Well what would happen?

Do the two things have to be mututally exclusive? Does the personal brand that you have worked so hard to develop with the help of a blog have to be absorbed by the organization you work for?

My answer is no – social media, specifically blogs, can be mutually beneficial for employers and employees. Now I’m not saying that employee bloggers should pack up their sites and converge into being exclusive bloggers for their employers, I’m saying that they should be transparent in who they are employed by. Organizations who recognize those bloggers can also support them by using that organization’s communication channels to promote relevant stories.

This democratization of information could indeed be viewed as a “game changer” but I believe giving employees at all levels the opportunity to be supported by their organization in their blogging activity is win-win for both parties, here are some points:

Benefits for employees:

• By receiving corporate support of a blog that blogger may receive promotion through communication channels owned by that organization. This could lead to a signifigantly larger audience then they had previously.
• A blog can be like a slef directed interview, you get to answer questions that you like and pursue areas that are of interest to you.

Benefits for employers:

• An opportunity to access large groups of people through employee blogs. Let’s face it, if you have built a community of 3,000 subscribers to your blog, you are probably doing a number of things right – most company’s will want to be a part of that.
• Deeper employee engagement. If those employees who are passionate about the company that they work for

Of course there need to be rules in place but they should not be so draconian as to stifle the creativity of employees. Chances are those employees that are sponsored “get” that they shouldn’t be dumping on their employers, if they are they have good reason to be concerned about their bosses finding out!

Here are some basic rules of thumb to get your organization started on developing a policy:

• Do no harm: In short, no one should ever post something that they wouldn’t feel comfortable saying directly to someone.
• Clarity: Be crystal clear on what is expectable, what is not and who is responsible.
• Don’t re-invent the wheel: Many employee communication policies are already in place in organizations. Use these policies wherever appropriate.
• Common Sense: don’t disclose sensitive information. Ever.

For reference here are policies developed by:

US Federal Government 

Best Buy

IBM 

Now I’m off to propose this to my employer – wish me luck!

As I stood on the Skytrain platform at Terminal station during yesterday morning’s snow storm I couldn’t help but wonder why Translink hasn’t begun to use Twitter as a more effective communications tool.

My thinking was that it could alleviate a general customer service principle – customers hate uncertainty or unreliability around a service. Anything that can be done to mitigate that will keep customers generally happier. Coupled with unseasonably cold weather and blowing snow this was especially the case yesterday. Five minutes felt more like 20 minutes.

The waiting and poor weather was compounded by Translink staff on the platform who didn’t know the reason for the delay, neither did mobile news or Translink’s site. I didn’t have information on Translink’s Twitter account (turns out it’s @SkyTrainLady). When I did find it I found the information was unintelligible…. there were lots of tweets on Bridgeport station but not too much on my station. In fact there were so many mentioned of “Bridgeport” that apparently it has become one of the ten fastest trending topics across all of Canada. Seriously.

By not fully participating on Twitter Translink is missing an opportunity. Twitter offers Translink a relatively inexpensive (labour may be associated with this) way to alleviate the anxiety of customers by letting them know of issues as they occur, and this certainly does not have to be a one way push of information, Translink can also listen to customers on immediate issues and on larger issues. In addition Translink could use this as a way to communicate with employees or better yet let employees inform passengers of areas that are being impacted by events.

The beauty of this is how easily Translink could test this. By posting Twitter account information at some high traffic stations and even arming some staff with iPhones Translink could trial empowering employees and giving customers a Twitter account as a call to action very easily.

The alternative? Misinformation, information overload, confusion and a potentially a tarnished brand. What does this look like, something like this “Skytrain platform at Brighouse is packed. Not a single @translink staff in sight to control crowds. It’s gonna get rioty here soon!” Translink’s customers will use whay information they have, if Translink wants to make sure they are using informed information they need to have a harder look at Twitter.

Love him or hate him – Kanye West proves once again that he has a better handle on social media then any other artist in the world.

Recently West stated that he wanted to be as big as Michael Jackson. Jackson’s reach was enormous thanks in part to his ability to promote himself beyond being just a musician. West has done largely the same, despite avoiding interviews for the most part – he has relied on online and social media to build his equity as an artist.

Right or wrong West’s “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” comment was a viral phenom, as was his public diss of Taylor Swift, on stage at the Grammy’s.

But at the heart of West’s success is content, passion and more content. What West does with this content is extremely innovative, giving music, ideas and art away for free. If anyone has something to say or contribute it is West. And love him or leave him he delivers as an extraordinarily talented artist, who gives you access to his world:

• This week West’s album “My dark twisted fantasy” was coupled with a mini movie, which has an incredibly high production quality and has been posted on Youtube and Vimeo.Kanye’s  
• West posts free mp3s to his on his website and then immediately links to the new songs as part of his G.O.O.D. Fridays. These mp3s are high quality
• Kanye’s Twitter account is raw and profound, and really, really good.

By bearing his soul and his work, Kanye let’s us into his world, and as flawed as it may be you are compelled to recognize his talent (and potentially buy his new album).

As a member of the Toronto Raptors, Bosh, considered by many to be an established star in the NBA, had made five all star games, played on the US national team and most recently had the ultimate in flattery, he’d been “picked” by Lebron James and Dwayne Wade to join them on the Miami Heat.

There were a number of reasons Bosh gave for leaving the Raptors, one of which was the opportunity to expand his career beyond basketball. Media, TV, music all appeared to be in Bosh’s sights. But 14 games into his first season Bosh’s Heat are disappointments and Bosh himself has become something of a laughing stock.

So what happened?

Could it be social media?

In Bosh’s case social media appears to have amplified and accelerated his ascent into the highs of stardom but also greased his descent into the lows of

Accelerated Ascent:

Prior to joining the Heat, Bosh had been a good legitimate good guy – some might have even considered him somewhat savvy when it came to self promotion:

• He launched a campaign to get himself selected to NBA’s allstar team, and was successful.
• Bosh even challenged other NBA players to challenges, who could add the larger amount of followers.

These activities combined with solid play on the basketball court, appear to have allowed Bosh to increase the awareness of his brand outside of Canada and into the US market.

Accelerated Descent:

What Bosh proved was that like any brand – poor use of social media can be damaging. This is particularly true if it is used inappropriately, without an apparent strategy or alignment to goals.

Bosh has touched all of these examples of poor uses:

• Upon becoming a free agent Bosh used Twitter to communicate his struggles with which team he was going to join. Given he was the Raptor’s franchise player this had the effect of alienating fans and the local media who easily interpreted his activity as indications he was looking to leave. If Bosh’s strategy was engagement with his fans this was not a sincere way to do things, he should have selected a different form of communications.
• Although the NBA has a no tweeting policy during games someone tweeted from Bosh’s account during a recent game. Obviously it wasn’t Bosh…which makes Bosh seem further disconnected from fans as the tweets are very clearly not coming directly from him.

Bosh’s play with the Heat has been poor this season. This combined with his presence in social media has led to the development of a video by jilted Toronto fans – “Like a Bosh” which has taken off online. This video has the potential to make Bosh untouchable for new endorsements for a while, hindering his objective of making himself bigger then the game of basketball. It would appear that all Bosh can do at this stage is let his basketball do the talking.

This week I was struck by a social media marketer’s response to measuring ROI on social media – it shouldn’t be done if it is a part of a larger campaign….seriously?!

 Social media, just like any other media tactic must be measured. There are a multitude of reasons for this – measuring effectiveness and developing credibility for internal audiences are just two examples. In addition social media channels can be used as a call to action which supports traditional media campaigns, and of course it can be used to meauere the success of a campaign that has an exclusive social media focus.

There are a number of questions to consider when looking at which metrics to use:

• What are your objectives?
• What metrics will help us to determine our progress towards that objective?
• Is the metric prone to manipulation, is it reliable, is it precise?
• How frequently to we need to measure? How often does it take to collect the data? How much does it cost?

Now these questions look very much like traditional forms of media measurement. That’s where the differences come in.

From a channel selection perspective social media offers a multitude of metrics which support the measurement of specific objectives, these could include:

Monitoring company reputation:

• Mentions
• Tone
• Number of negative posts

Measuring the success of a promotion:

• Number of unique page views
• Trackbacks
• Number of comments/likes/bookmarks/digs
• Responses/retweets

Community growth:

• Number of groups/group members
• Active creators/contributors
• Number of connections 

This list includes a combination of attitudinal (reputation and community) and transactional (measuring a promotion) buckets. These two categories could compliment each other nicely if they are used in coordination – positive reputation and strong communities can drive transactions.

Foursquare has yet to solidify a competitive advantage. 

Asides from a basic ‘friend’ system, Foursquare’s social features have always been pretty limited, compared to a service like Brightkite.

What did give Foursquare a brief competitive advantage was the points and merit badges for ‘checking in’ at a variety of locations. It’s here that the app shined: these rewards give users an incentive to check-in frequently. Now this could be seen as a necessity especially given the fact that the iPhone can’t automatically update your location as you travel. That said I found the wore off pretty quickly and it sounds like I’m not the only one. One might argue that the partnerships with the New York Times and Huffington post might give them an advantage but I’m not sure how sustainable those would be – I’m pretty sure if something better comes along Foursquare might not have a leg to stand on, speaking of which…

Now it looks like Facebook could potentially eat Foursquare’s lunch with this month’s announcement of “Locations API” and “Deals”. And from my layman’s perspective isn’t it logical to just use one app to do three things versus two? I suspect that the folks at Foursquare are hoping for a call from Google right now…

What I see for Foursquare.

The principles that originally made Foursquare so appealing from a marketer’s perspective will of course live on. Mobile, location based apps are very, very attractive – especially from a retail perspective.

 What I’ve learned is that rather then fall in love with an application, understand the strategy behind it and align it with your own. This way if that application fails you can pick the next one that has the most potential to stick.

In an article written for Marketing Week MaryLou Costa examines the role of social media in building brand communities. Specifically Coasta looks at closed and open communities and how best to use them. This blog will look at key differences between open and closed communities, how to effectively use them and also offer an analysis of Costa’s article.

Closed and Open Communities

Community type is an important consideration when companies consider how best to use social media channels and the communities they access to develop their brands. As mentioned above Costa ultimately breaks online groups into two types: closed and open communities. Closed communities are ones in which members must meet a criteria to join, membership is not open and they are typically incentivized to contribute something beneficial to the group or company. Open communities are just that, open to anyone to join.

The emphasis that online community selection should be driven by strategy is an obvious one for any good marketer. That said Costa takes this analysis a step further by connecting channel selection with objectives, for example:

• Closed communities are best for engagement. Therefore they can also be referred to as “consumer input” communities.
• Open communities, for example Nike’s running community, are best for brand advocacy and opportunities for output by that company that has generated it.  

Using Mass Social Media Channels to reach Open Communities

Of course there are social media channels that offer a potential fast track to a massive audiences – Facebook being perhaps the greatest example. Costa’s analysis offers few insights here, Coke certainly has an advantage, leveraging its brand in the creation of campaigns and using it effectively as an additional communications channel. Another example is used of Philips using LinkedIn as part of the brand’s strategy to be recognized as the thought leader in the health and wellbeing sector. That said, this does not seem particularly insightful, it feels like a very logical application. One possibly powerful tactic to move beyond simply using social media channels as another communications channel and one in which the idea of community is leveraged is that of crowdsourcing. Here Giffgaff is used and explored as an example.

Crowdsourcing

Giffgaff, a new entrant into the United Kingdom mobile market is cited as an example of crowd sourcing, using its own online community to answer the majority of customer queries as they arise, typically in five minutes or less. The savings from this model are then passed on to the consumer. What is not covered in this analysis is that this concept is at the heart of the Giffgaff business model.  The term “giffgaff” is Scottish meaning mutual giving. It was chosen as the brand name to fit with the company’s strategy. Members receive points (which can be converted into cash) for answering questions and for other activties that support the company, including:

• Developing marketing materials and promoting the brand.
• Recruiting new members.

Whether or not this model actually does keep rates low for Giffgaff is beyond the scope of this blog and not covered in Costa’s report. But it does raise an interesting issue; that is whether this type of customer maintained support is sustainable. The benefits would appear to be signifigant, not only could it keep costs low but it gives an online community some of the attributes of a traditional community. There are of course challenges and risks associated with crowd sourcing, again not covered in Costa’s analysis. These would include:

• There are benefits to being in a longer term relationship when working with suppliers – particularly of creative material. Crowdsourcing does not enable long term relationships.
• It could be difficult to complete projects via crowdsourcing.

Closed Communities:

Closed communities are online communities that can allow for the development of powerful insights on brands. Promise Communities facilitates these types of communities and currently runs about 15 live, closed communities for a range of brands, involving more than 10,000 participants. The company describes its operation as a “24-hour stakeholder advisory board”. This “board” can help brands gather insights towards a number of strategies, such as the development of new products, services and marketing activity, as well as exploring consumer attitudes and needs.

Brands use closed communities for a number of reasons:

• conduct co-creation projects towards new products
• strategy development

The most powerful attributes of using closed communities are twofold:

• It can be a cost-effective market research tool, especially if used in the long term and in industries or companies where research is used frequently.
• It can be very timely, which has a number of benefits. Development time is reduced, which can result in quicker access to research. Because research can be gathered more quickly it can be used more frequently to inform decisions.

Costa acknowledges that motivation could be an issue in closed communities – how are particpants incentivized to contribute? It is not clear. Costa also cites challenges with product secrecy but does not delve too deeply into how big of a concern that could actually be. Costa misses other significant issues with these sorts of communities, for example:

• Increased likelihood that a crowdsourced project will fail due to lack of monetary motivation, too few participants, lower quality of work, lack of personal interest in the project, global language barriers, or difficulty managing a large-scale, crowdsourced project.
• Authenticity around why members join. Much like restrictions put on focus group regristrants, if someone seems a chance to contribute as simply monetary their contribution could be misleading.

Implications

Coasta’s point is ultimately a powerful one to consider; simply approaching social media channels as additional communication channels is a mistake. Marketers must align their social media channel selection with their marketing strategy. This specifically holds true for closed communities, which if used properly could offer companies access to online communities.