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.

“Is the world really flat?”

The thought of flying half way around the world to immerse myself in a culture so alien to that which I was accustomed to didn’t really seem real until the plane took off from YVR, leaving the Vancouver skyline slowly fading away behind me. With a hectic final week before leaving to go to India for Sauder’s first Global Immersion, I barely even had time to think about what I was going to bring with me, never mind consider what I really wanted to take away from the immersion experience or what I wanted to learn about the Indian economy and business environment. I therefore decided it was best to go with an open mind.

Bangalore – Part 1: Nine Stars & 2AdPro

Although we only spent a few days in Bangalore initially, they were tightly packed enough to ensure that we started our India immersion in full flow. The highlight of the first few days was a trip to listen to presentations from Nine Stars and 2AdPro. Both presentations provided interesting insights into how Indian IT companies initially leveraged their competitive advantage in being able to provide quality service for low prices but had now moved on to be innovators in their field, as well as providing quality service for low prices. Both presentations also provided interesting insights into the global ambitions and mindsets of two of India’s best and fastest growing IT companies. These companies compete on a global level, and are successful largely because of their innovative approaches and ability to adapt to a rapidly evolving marketplace.

Madurai: Aravind eye hospital & Aurolab

In visiting Madurai, we were exposed to two world-class operations, in Aravind eye hospital and its commercial arm, Aurolab. We were given tours of both the eye hospital and Aurolab, and although it was pleasant to relax and be guided around, we were all aware of the immediate and underlying purpose of the tours, namely to give us some real life context for our presentations to the Aurolab and Aravind boards on expanding both organizations’ reach within India and into Africa. That thought aside, what soon became obvious when touring both operations was that the Aurolab facility could have been located anywhere in the world and would not have looked out of place. With regard to Aravind eye hospital, although parts of the hospital, such as the waiting areas, where evident of a hospital in a developing nation, the process fundamentals of the hospital would surely be the envy of many Western hospitals. Following the tours, it was straight to an intense evening of group meetings and individual prep. As the next day dawned, most of us were already up and putting the finishing touches to our presentations after a long night. As we entered the meeting room that had been set aside for the presentations, we were greeted with expectant and keen looking expressions from the great and the good of Aurolab and Aravind. Each presentation was well received and probing questions were asked on subtle aspects of what was presented. After the intensity of the previous 24 hours, it was a welcome relief to spend some time enjoying the cultural offerings of Madurai.

Meenakshi Hindu Temple in Madurai

Enjoying the tour of Aravind Eye Hospital

Infosys  – Mysore

The Infosys campus in Mysore was surely the most impressive corporate campus I have ever seen, more like a 5* resort than a corporate campus. The buildings, grounds and even the roads were immaculately clean (as well they should be with an army of grounds people patrolling the campus) and the hospitality provided to us was first class.

The impressive interior of one of
Infosys’ learning centre’s

Following the tour of the campus, we listened to 2 presentations from senior Infosys employees. It was during these presentations that I realized that although Infosys can compete with the biggest and best companies in the world in terms of quality of IT services provided, they are still some way behind their Western and perhaps Asian counterparts in terms of the quality of their presentations to an audience. Both presentations were quite poorly delivered and were surely not a fair reflection of what Infosys wanted us to take away from our tour. Indeed if such presentations were delivered to potential clients, Infosys would surely not win much business. Nevertheless, visiting Infosys was a very good lesson in demonstrating that anything the US can achieve in terms of producing companies like Google and Microsoft, so too can India in Infosys.

5* resort or corporate campus??

Bangalore – part 2: Akshaya Patra

Of all the organizations we visited, the one I was most impressed with was Akshaya Patra. Akshaya Patra is an NGO registered in Bangalore. It provides healthy mid-day meals to 1.3 million children studying in Government schools and Government-aided schools. It is the world’s largest NGO-run Mid-day meal program. In addition to the outstanding work it is doing in helping to alleviate child hunger in poor Indian communities, Akshaya Patra is a marvel in process driven operational efficiency. As with 2AdPro and NineStars, here is another example of an Indian company that can produce high quality products (healthy meals) for a low cost. There is no doubt that given the passion of those involved with Akshaya Patra, combined with its operational efficiency and focus on lean process management, it is only a matter of time before even greater strides will be made towards eliminating childhood hunger in India. Moreover, it is clear that Western countries are taking note of Akshaya Patra’s success, as members of a number of top US business schools are regular visitors to the NGO’s facilities and a Harvard Business School case study has been written about the company.

Ultimately, seeing organizations such as 2AdPro, Aurolab, Infosys and Akshaya Patra clearly demonstrated to me that developments in the global economic landscape have leveled the playing field in terms of opportunities for competitors to engage with commerce or to use modern business practices to alleviate societal problems. Despite the impressive nature of these companies however, there is still much of India that suggests that there is more development required in the country’s economic landscape before the world can be considered flat.

Working with some of India’s future business leaders

One of the highlights of our immersion experience in India, was to work with students from India’s leading business school, IIM-B on a childhood malnutrition case.

Working with such obviously intelligent, motivated and hard working people was a great learning experience, in particular it was fascinating to see a snapshot of the work ethic which India’s future business leaders will put into practice to help further fuel the growth of the Indian economy. Despite the intelligence and hard working nature of the IIM-B students, their youth betrayed them in that they did not demonstrate the leadership skills or the creativity that someone with more worldly and business experience would have demonstrated. Indeed in most instances the general dynamic of our team was such the IIM-B students carried out much of the core research, and the Sauder MBA’s as well as the Deloitte representative decided upon the structure of our presentation and how best to relate our “story”. My key takeaway from this experience therefore was to realize how important it is to have real world business experience before embarking upon an advanced business degree. It was also confirmed to me, having worked with high performance teams at Sauder, that my leadership skills are such that I am able to guide the decision making process of a high performance team with differing skill sets, but that it is important to know how best to leverage the abilities of each team member.

A few members of team Sauder checking out the IIM-B grounds

Following my experience with the IIM-B students, I will look to make more use of team members’ skill sets so that each member can focus on what they are best at and what they enjoy the most so the team will perform better.

And so it begins……

Having been in Vancouver for just over a month prior to Orientation week, I felt fairly comfortable in my new surroundings. In addition, as a result of taking part in the MBA Prep program, I had had the benefit of meeting many of my new classmates. And yet, I still didn’t quite feel “orientated” into the MBA program.

Enter Orientation week….

The first day of Orientation week was nothing if not exciting. Shortly after meeting and greeting my classmates over coffee and then listening to a presentation from the MBA teaching team, I found myself maneuvering through a series of tyres that were suspended 40 feet in air, during which time I had little more than a rope to prevent my fall. This was certainly an exercise in building trust in one’s future classmates.

Later in the week, all new Full Time MBA students were required to meet with their academic period 1 teams, learn about each other’s background and interests and then present our findings, in our teams, to the rest of the class. Although I was used to public speaking in Court in my capacity as a lawyer prior to the MBA, I had not spoken in front of such a large group for quite a few years. It was an intimidating prospect. Fortunately, I was in a team with some pretty interesting and inspiring people and so the task of presenting their respective backgrounds and interests was certainly made easier. We also had the good fortune to be presenting near the end and so had the benefit of listening to a number of other highly entertaining presentations!

Mid way through the week, I attended the MBA Gala Dinner at UBC Golf Club. This was a fantastic evening, which included an opportunity to meet the Dean of the Business School as well as a number of the school’s Professors and Alumni. It was also a good opportunity to enjoy some “free” drinks!

After a number of introductory lectures earlier in the week in subject areas ranging from responsible business to creativity, Orientation ended with a BBQ outside the Sauder building. The BBQ was attended by a number of MBA student’s families, significant others and boyfriends/girlfriends. It was a pleasant and relaxing ending to what otherwise a really busy week.

Now I feel Orientated!