In case you thought that the potential fall out from not paying close attention to your brand’s social networks was fairly minor, this blog post will hopefully convince you otherwise.

If I were to ask you to name two of the most famous soccer clubs in the world, which two would you think of? Chances are, Liverpool and Manchester United would be top of mind. These two soccer clubs are famous not just for their success in winning trophies over the decades; they are also famous for their bitter rivalry. In part, this rivalry has been stoked by inappropriate chants by “fans” that think it’s amusing to sing of the various misfortunes that have befallen their rival. One such misfortune that befell Manchester United was the Munich airplane crash of 1958 in which the lives of 23 people were tragically lost, including 8 Manchester United players. Clearly, this is a sensitive topic, and one which other clubs should not officially comment upon except to express their condolences. Indeed, with the advent of social media outlets such as Twitter, any comments that come from the club can be quickly disseminated to the entire world.

In August this year, Liverpool FC realized the potentially devastating effect one unwise comment could have had on the club’s reputation, when someone with the right to speak for the club on their official Twitter page commented on a fan’s tweet, suggesting that the club approved of the choice of songs a fan suggested should be played before the upcoming Liverpool V. Man United match (two of which related negatively to the Munich airplane crash)[1]. Within minutes of the club’s comment being tweeted, there was outrage in the soccer community. Fortunately, the club acted quickly once it saw the negative reaction, by deleting the tweet and issuing an unreserved apology. As naïve as it was to have made the comment in the first place, at least the club responded quickly and decisively to prevent the situation from escalating.

In this instance, one brand managed to reduce the fall out from an inappropriate comment by closely monitoring their social networks.

Not all brands have reacted so decisively though[2].

In order to ensure that your brand does not fall into the same traps as some unfortunate brands, check out the advice in this Vocas Whitepaper about monitoring the social media conversation:

http://www.prnewsonline.com/Assets/Monitorsocialmediaconversationfromtwittertofacebook.pdf

In a nutshell, you should:

1)   Establish guidelines

2)   Identify what to monitor

3)   Gauge Impact

4)   Set up Integrated Media Monitoring

Good luck!

During a recent internet marketing consulting project I and a few classmates carried out on a local company, I was tasked with providing the blog content for our campaign which would be offered out to various bloggers in North America.

Although I found the subject matter interesting, I learnt how hard it is to write a meaningful blog post that would capture our intended blogger’s attention as well as that of his/her audience without trying to sell the brand, while at the same time promoting the interests of the brand. I realized that the most effective way in which to do this was to focus on what the blogger and his/her community would be interested in reading. If I could stoke interest in the product more broadly, then it would surely be a natural extension for the blogger and his/her communities to look to the source of this new information for more advice on using the product and ultimately a sampling of the product.

In order to get the blog content out into the “blogosphere” however, it was necessary for me to craft an introductory email to the bloggers introducing the product, the company, what the blogger and his/her community would gain by disseminating the information and ultimately what we hoped to gain by writing and promoting the blog posts. As with the blog content, I realized that it was important to focus on what the blogger and his/her community would gain from promoting the post. Primarily, I highlighted that it was our intention to enrich the content already posted by the blogger, and to provide more useful and practical information to the bloggers’ community. This may seem like common sense, but it is harder to carry out than it seems!

During our presentation to the client, it was noticeable that we were “in the real world” as opposed to the safety of the business school classroom, as we did not get the polite feedback that we have grown accustomed to over the past 15 months. Although the client was by no means negative (in fact he really did seem quite pleased with our work), it was clear that he saw quite an uphill battle ahead of him in terms of actually being able to implement this project and then iterate to implement future projects. He has a lot going on in is family business at the moment and it is possible that our work may not get implemented for some time. If nothing else, the presentation was a great reminder of the gap between what we think should happen based on our classroom learning, and what actually happens in the real world.

I recently completed my Hootsuite Pro certification. This lets others know that having been through Hootsuite University training, I am now familiar with how the applications of Hootsuite can add value to business’ social media campaigns.

In brief, Hootsuite is one of the most comprehensive social media management tools on the market. Hootsuite helps you track and manage your various social network channels. It helps you to monitor what others are saying about your brand, and lets you respond immediately. Ultimately, Hootsuite alleviates much of the headache companies experience when trying to effectively manage their social networks.

In case you weren’t already aware, Hootsuite is currently being used by some of the world’s top global brands, as indexed by Interbrand, including IBM, H&M and Tiffany & Co.[1]

Prior to starting my MBA, I worked as a Marketing Manager at a medium sized law firm in the UK. We used social media because we thought we had to. However, because we didn’t know how to effectively measure our Return On Objective or how to effectively manage the numerous different social networks we used, the company did not reap the full benefits of social media. If I, or any other staff member, had had Hootsuite University training, not only would we have been unique amongst law firms for knowing how to effectively leverage social media, but we would have gained a better understanding of client needs without having to spend thousands of dollars on focus groups, and we may have been able to preempt angry calls by responding to concerns in real time rather than allowing anger to fester and increase.

I will certainly be spreading the word about the benefits of Hootsuite when I reenter the workforce, and who knows, I may get the opportunity to right the wrongs I did in my role pre MBA…

Ever wondered why your website bounce rate was so high? Ever wondered why your website was not the effective selling tool that you thought it should be?

The 7C’s of the Customer Interface is one of the more well-known methods used as the basis of website evaluation. By applying the 7C’s method to your website, you may obtain a better understanding of why potential customers do not think of your website the way you do.

Context – Think about your site’s layout and design. Is your website simple to look at and does it have easy user interface?

Content – Look at the text, pictures, sound and video that your website contains.

Commerce – What are the site’s capabilities to enable commercial transactions. How easy is it to buy or sell on your website?

Connection – How the site links to other sites. Does your site directly link to another site, or do you link content through an affiliate program?

Communication – This is the dialog between your site and your intended users or 2-way dialog between users.

Customization – Can your site self modify for different users or allow users to personalize the site?

Community – How does your site enable user-to-user communication? Does your site enable closer relationships between users?

The 7C’s of the Customer Interface is discussed in more detail by Rafi Mohammed et al in their book, “Internet Marketing”.

A few other “C’s” you may want to think about are: Customer Service and Comparison versus other sites.

For those who aren’t familiar with the POST (People, Objectives, Strategy and Technology) Method, this is a technique devised by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff and written about in their famous book, “Groundswell”. This method is designed to help companies and individuals define their social media strategies. Social media strategies are invariable a grey area for many businesses, and so this method really helps provide some structure and clarity to ensure businesses have a more effective social media presence.
In brief, the POST method can be broken down as follows:

People – Understand WHO you’re targeting. Li and Bernoff advise segmenting your intended audience by measuring and categorizing their ownership, use patterns, and attitudes toward information, communication and entertainment technologies. Think “where are your customers online? What are your customer’s social behaviors online? What social information or people do your customers rely on?” This is known as Socialgraphics/Technographics.

Objectives – What is the purpose of the campaign? Do you want to engage with your customers or to listen to them? Or both?

Strategy – How do you plan to measure the success of your objectives? What will be different after you’ve finished the campaign compared to the situation before the campaign?

Technology – Only at this point, should you think about which social technologies to use. Based on P,O and S, should use a corporate blog , multiple blogs or even Wiki?

The above structure may sound fairly straight forward, but it requires discipline and a great deal of though to implement. Yet if you can follow through on implementing the POST method, your business will have a clear, structured and well thought out social media strategy that will hopefully lead to great results for your business.