Getting attention has always been “a commodity”. Companies pay for their products to be advertised in newspapers, on television or in Google’s keyword ads. In the past year, companies have also been able to pay for their discreet pop up in Facebook feeds.

But what if the same was true with our private lives? What if those of your friends with money could buy themselves more attention than the rest of us?  What if popularity became the force that controlled our actions?

Welcome to the new reality of Facebook. Facebook has made it possible to pay money to promote private Facebook updates, which means that you can get your update to reach more of your friends than usual… If you pay of course.

Pros and cons

On one hand, there are those who believe that the move is a natural extension of the fact that companies have been able to do the same for some time now. Why should it make a difference that we are individuals, not companies? With the rise of SM, are we not “selling our selves” in life in more or less the same way? On the other hand there are those who are strongly against the whole “buy popularity”-spirit. Pushed to the edge; The rich become popular and the poor get to die anonymous and unnoticed. Good old Habermas would laugh his ass off, as this confirms his theory of the evil capitalism taking over our lives.

Reflections

I WOULD DEFINITELY NOT pay to be popular. That said, the first part of the sentence is what I have been saying for a long time every time a new trend entered my world. I was the last one of my friends to get an Iphone and the one who disapproved whenever people were making updates about their fabulous lives on Facebook. I did not get it. Now I have been spending time learning SM and digital marketing from another perspective, and while I still have a fundamental belief questioning some of the aspects, I begin to see how these tools can be charming and not just persuasive and seductive. Maybe I should start embracing. Let me rephrase; I have begun to embrace SM and digital marketing tools. I can proudly say that I am the first of my friends (or third after Louise and Mads) to create a Twitter profile, I cannot help myself from looking at Hootsuite whenever I turn on the computer and when I get e-mail I am almost disappointed that it is not Google who wants to alert me with news on Odd Squad Productions. From my point of view I have done “the groundbreaking” and Social Media as one of my competences on LinkedIn. Thank you.

McD’s innovative and integrated marketing campaign; Your questions. Our answers made me think of customer relationships and ways to include customers in brands. Transparency and hence customers’ true perception of the brand is essential when building and maintaining a strong and solid brand. At the end of the day it’s the consumers who hold the key to your success so why not listen and learn?

I came across this singer’s Facebook page the other day. Now you might ask what John Legend has to do with building a strong customer relationship? To be honest I am not quite sure myself. I know that he has won nine Grammy awards and was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people. And then he managed to transform himself into an ordinary guy just like you and me (or maybe not me, I am a girl though), after starting to care for his fans and communicate with them in “eye level”. I guess Sandy brought some good. The hurricane was the trigger point that started conversation. On one of the roughest nights John Legend posted the following on his Facebook profile;

Within a few hours he got 440 answers and more than 4000 people liked his post. During the last couple of weeks I have been following his profile and throughout the week John Legend himself has begun to do these Q&A’s where he answers questions from fans.

If John Legend equals company this is an example of how consumers can leverage a message. Legend makes the consumers articulate their favorite piece of music, which singer they want to see Legend performs with and so on and hereby he creates this appealing down-on-earth personality. This is an example of a flipped funnel, and I wonder how even more popular this man gets in the future. He surely captures essence of SM that great companies haven not figured out yet. He is listening and his “customers” are in return transformed into committers. What would you do with 1.876.465 fans?

There is hardly a definite recipe for how to make the perfect speech, but there are tools that can help you improve and boost your speech abilities.  One of the tools that can be helpful when developing and aligning your company voice is the concept called TED. TED is a concept where ‘Ideas worth spreading’ are filmed at two annual live events and afterwards get uploaded online at ted.com, so everyone can see them. Basically it is the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers who are challenged to give the talk of their lives in under 20 minutes and TED’s goal is hereafter to give everyone on-demand access to the world’s most inspiring voices. As of November 2012, TED Talks have been viewed more than one billion times. On ted.com you can find online speeches about everything from brain activity to space exploration, management, architecture, health, culture and the moments that changed everything in a person’s life. Since the non-profit organization was founded in 1984 it has expanded with a multitude of initiatives. Hence when you see a video/event ending with an x, it means that it is arranged independently of the TED, but after TED concept. In addition a TedYouth channel and Youth events have become a part of the project.

These videos can be used for inspiration and as guidelines to improve your own speaker abilities, as well as for companies to elaborate a consistent and convincing voice. After looking through some of the most popular videos I find that there is a trend of humility, symbolic descriptions, emotional work, presence, personality and of course good advices in the videos. This can give you an idea of how to do a perfect speech online as well as offline. Maybe you should drop the Power Point and tell us something real, without a filter? Do not hide. Involve your audience. Speak to their hearts. Go home elevator speech and sandwich model. TED is here.

During the past ten years CSR has become a word that is nearly on all marketers lips. In the concept’s original form an assumption exists that companies are obligated towards doing something for society beyond just being a business. As the phenomenon expanded CSR became something that marketers were speculating in and in a slightly cynical sense; “just another tool in the ongoing struggle for attention”. I remember this case where MTV spent more money on doing advertising around their sustainable efforts than the amount of money they actually invested in the efforts. As technology and the digital world expands in to what is known as the information society companies are constantly looking for new ways to strengthen their brand’s image avoiding communication noise. But is this still the reality?

Josefine Cambell discuss in an article on markedsføring.dk how “meaningful marketing” has become the new marketing mantra. Her key point is that consumers have become more critical in their perceptions of companies CSR-initiatives. She argues that consumers have “developed an almost allergic reaction to the excesses and false promises” and that it is no longer sufficient to communicate statements about social marketing and green initiatives. Consumers want visible results, so companies are almost forced to ensure that social marketing initiatives are the core of the brand and thus the company’s identity. When I was reading through her article I came to think of digital media’s impact on this development. With the rise of SM eye-catching topics can be spread as a virus within a second. If companies are telling untrue stories about their brands the chances are that this will come to the surface sooner or later and when it does the price is high. A multitude of examples of such marketing disasters can be identified which amplifies how transparency has become a thing you can’t avoid. And therefore should not. If you do not provide the transparency, the chances are that your customers will.

With a reference to my entry about social customer service and the topic conversation discussed in E-marketing, this post will address leveraging conversation through clever social customer service. If managed well critics can be turned in to beneficial conversation, but it can be a tough act to find the right balance between delivering “boring”, clear and factual communication and the more “fun”, surprising and out-of-the-box communication.

Well-organized Customer Service is a result of ongoing monitoring and a thoughtful response plan. When YouSee, a Danish TV- and Internet supplier recently was met with a “break-up” on Facebook from one of its customers, they grasped the opportunity to frame the conversation.

An excerpt of the conversation:

Alexander, the customer:

“Dear YouSee. I don’t know where to start. In the past couple of months I’ve been struggling a bit with some things, and I’m afraid that the two of us don’t fit together anymore. I don’t think we’re in the same place. And now I have met someone else. She’s called Netflix and we fit perfectly  together. I’m really sorry, but I have to break up with you. This isn’t working. But you should know that it’s not you, it’s me.Take care and goodbye”

YouSee’s response:

“Dear Alexander,

I’m sorry that you’ve found someone else. I’m not stupid, and I knew, it was coming, for you have semmed so detached and indifferent to me recently. It was almost only when you and the guys were watching football, you’d be interested in me. When football was on there was no limit to how happy you were to me – or angry if just wasn’t there when YOU absolutely needed me.

But I have not been blind to the fact that you often would rather sit behind the small stupid computer screen. You were more interested in jumping from one more blurry and tacky home video on YouTube than me and my HD channels. And when I recently found a used Netflix coupon between sofa cushions, I knew it was over.

I’m not the first to experience a man who falls for a younger model, and probably not the last. I also know that I’m not 17 anymore, and that I’ve probably got a wrinkle or two. But I’m not ashamed of myself. I know a lot about men and women and children. I know how to care for a family and make sure that there’s room for everyone in a household – including the youngest and the oldest.

Goodbye Alexander”

One thing that can be very crucial when answering critics is that your response easily can be hidden as one of many comments. This is a thing to think about when replying to unsatisfied customers. YouSee did not need to post their reply in a separate update; the message was already widespread by entertained customers, within the first hours. After seven hours YouSee’s response had close to 35,000 Facebook-likes  and more than 950 had commented. Only a portion of them on YouSee’s own page. Several others had shared the correspondence, as well as uploaded pictures and separate statuses cheering for YouSee. Soon the story spread to other Media who created articles about the incident.

Why did this become ‘one to like and share’?

This is clearly the result of brilliant conversation and good monitoring. YouSee’s response was surprising, instant and used humor as the main theme throughout the correspondence, two themes that contributes to the chances of going viral according to the ComMotion framework on virality by Brainjuicer.

Furthermore YouSee managed to forward the message in a tone that fits with the “user-language” of social media. If they had just responded in a regular “boring” way, the customer would have won the price as the creative one and the users and customers’ perception of the brand would not have changed, at least not to the better. Additionally YouSee are using a vulnerable approach by putting their brand in the question zone. By mentioning Netflix entry in Denmark and acknowledging some of their advantages this could lead to more harm than good for the brand. This is a fine line. According to Joel Yashinsky, who was the guest speaker at our E-marketing class today “being vulnerable is how great marketing rises” and maybe why YouSee succeeded with their honest and transparent response.

But it’s not easy and what it all comes down to is single words. Framed in another discourse YouSee could have been the bad guy by crossing the line or by being this big company that does not care for the customers. Both could lead to disasters of dimensions.

Be wise. Monitor well. Know your customers AND your organization. Reply away!