“Be human, all this is still experimental” is how Media140 founder Ande Gregson summarised everybody’s expectations of Twitter and social media at the end of the Media140 Brands conference in London this week. And he is right.
A lot has been said about social media and how it is the saviour of all things marketing and communications. Yet, it is the saviour of nothing, or at least the saviour of nothing yet. What social media is though is a great concept that helps brands come alive. It gives brands the humanity that so many have lacked.
Robin Grant, managing Director of London agency We Are Social, captured this feeling perfectly when he said, “social media is making peoples experiences with brands transparent”. It gives consumers power, the power to choose. It is making brands work for their money and loyalty. In fact, as Grant pointed out, “social media is helping define a brand”. If a consumer has a bad experience with a brand at the drop of a tweet they can share this with their own community, who in sympathy might re-tweet it to their own followers.
This shift in power is starting to have an effect on business. Nuria Garrido, British Airways Digital Marketing Innovations Manager, commented “social media is good for companies that are born on the web. For us [at BA] it is complex to work to the same objectives. A lot of people do not understand internally the power of social media. The PR department, they are coming around. We do have them onside”. And that’s the issue. Internally, within many companies, social media is seen as something you do, you add on, just because it is still seen as the latest cool thing.
Getting social media understood and integrated into a business is a slow process. You have to have your facts, your case studies and your metrics to hand to get senior executives on board. And all this is available.
Some people might only accept social media if it can be used as an income generating tool. Others will see social media as a tool that allows their companies and brands to develop and enhance relationships. It is seen as a tool with which you can have a dialogue with consumers and thanks to this enhance the brand. Think about is, if you use it for the latter and a customer’s expectations haven’t been met then you are better positioned to react and by doing so, in the future, to promote other offerings.
Mel Exon from BBH Labs summed it up by saying that, “there is a move from short term campaigns to longer term conversational initiatives”. Relationships take time to be built and social media is a platform that will help brands with this. But there has to be buy-in from the top, from traditional marketers.
Twitter is human, it is a snap-shot of conversations that we are all having about brands that we have or want. To give you an example, we turned up at RIBA to blog and tweet from the event only to discover that while the wifi was working the net wasn’t. So we had to do as much as we could through our iPhone, not ideal but we managed. Anyway, we decided to share our complaint with @btcare – BT’s twitter account. It took them some time but just after lunch they subscribed to our feed and started posting updates on the problem. One of the best updates came at 14.29, and said, “We’re investigating this issue and will update you in two hours #media140”. Then at 17.09 another update, “I can confirm that all is up and running. If there is anything else let me know”. Of course by the time I got this the conference had finished. But, credit where it is due, they contacted me and gave me an update. All this after letting them know that their service in London W1 amounted to a ‘FAIL’. So, if you have a complaint they will listen. Shame it came too late, but at least it showed that they are real-time.
There are a lot of dos and don’ts in social media. The main point for me being, as Daljit Dhurji from Diffusion PR said, “rules go out of the window. Most marketing directors are clever, when agencies are going in and be prescriptive you are not doing it right”.
What we need is common sense. We need to remember what we as people and consumers want. What we react to. And that is attention. We want to feel unique, special. George Nimeh from Iris summed it perfectly, “You listen first. And then you engage with them [the consumer]”.
Social media is a tool that goes across the company. It isn’t just for advertising, marketing, PR or customer care, it is for the company, the brand. It is a door for consumers into the brand, and that is the fear that directors have to deal with. How do you engage with customers who can now go public and share their opinions with their own network?
Social media is making consumers critics that brands must influence for their favour. That is the best way to put it, and business better wake up to this new world.
And to all those who say that it is a tool for the intelligentsia, think again. The number of people on Twitter, YouTube and other sites is rising. People who’ve in the past complained privately are learning to do so publicly. Not just that, but they are sharing their positive and negative experiences with their own networks.
Social media is about the now, it is real-time and as PRs that is what we should be ready for. Promoting and protecting brands now, today.
Media140 is doing a great job of championing social media, of making sense of social media for companies, of demystifying it so that companies can better communicate with people. If you haven’t been to an event yet then look them up.
The Changing Business Culture – Reacting To Consumers And Social Media
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009It has been an interesting year for public relations. The recession has affected how businesses communicate. Reputation and issues management have been the watchwords as companies throughout the world battled to safeguard their image and reputation during what could be described as the first major downturn in this globalised era. And it has taken no prisoners as it spread across sectors and continents, highlighting how interconnected we all are today.
What’s been interesting is that while the recession was causing havoc around the world, consumers became better connected. Issues that once might have only affected reputations in a small geographic region spread like wild fire thanks to social media and networking. Media outlets across the world wasted no time in reporting issues that were trending online.
While this was happening companies continued in their monologue culture, dictating at consumers while they engaged and networked online – sharing feedback and their experiences through websites, blogs and real-time platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube
And that is the point. Social media and networking has empowered consumers. It has given them a platform through which they can share knowledge and experience. It has also raised their expectations with regards to what they want and how they want it. They expect good service and that expectation crosses sectors. Today, if you have outstanding service when buying a car, you expect the same level of service when dealing with your bank or utility company. Social media has unified the expectations of people and it is now up to companies to realise this.
The fear that the business community has is that it isn’t able to control the conversation. Entering into a conversation with current or potential consumers on a digital platform “entails considerable risk” as the Accenture report says. Risk because if your levels of service do not meet the expectations of your empowered audience, said stakeholders will amplify their displeasure and share it with others, may others. In fact, the Accenture says that “one-quarter of respondents have used these channels [digital] to relate their negative experiences to others.” In fact, nearly nine in 10 consumers globally told the people around them about their bad experiences. And this is not what businesses want during an economic recovery.
You just have to look at how Eurostar created a rod for its own back by behaving in such as detached way from what was affecting their customers. A lack of empathy and the use of corporate language only helped turn an issue into a crisis. Such was the reaction to horrendous customer service that customers turned to Facebook and other online sites to vent their anger at how they were treated.
And let’s not forget how Rage Against The Machine became the UK’s Christmas Number 1. Tired of being fed ‘pop-tastic’ fodder, people joined a Facebook group that attracted over 1 million supporters who wanted to break the monopoly of X-Factor. People power at it’s best.
So, what should businesses do in order to meet the ever-increasing expectations of consumers? Accenture rightly says that companies should dump the ‘one-size-fits-all’ customer service model and “embrace a service model that provides differentiated service experiences based on the expectations and requirements of individual—and closely understood—customer segments.”
Businesses in the so-called emerging markets have become more vulnerable to the power of people. One could argue that it’s because consumers are keener on making the most of their new found wealth, while customers in mature markets are more patient and will only as a last resort take their business elsewhere.
For quite some time consumers have had customer service that’s been designed for them rather than with them. With the speed at which the public can create a backlash it is going to be essential that businesses learn to listen and start developing models that can be customised by customers. Collaboration and prompt attention and the understanding that each consumer is unique will help businesses succeed as the economy climbs out of recession. This culture and philosophy will work to turn consumers into advocates, turn people into an invisible word-of-mouth and online sales force.
I believe that 2010 will be a year where public relations forces businesses to take note of what customers want. A year where cultures will need to change, because if they don’t and consumers ever increasing expectations are not met reputations will suffer. Businesses will start noticing that their customers are now critics that will make their opinions known not just through word-of-mouth but online, to a much wider audience.
In 2010 consumers that share their positive or negative thoughts and experiences will attract cult following. Of course on issues such as banking we already have this with MoneySavingExpert.com’s Martin Lewis. Just think of what he’s achieved and wonder what others could do in sectors in which they are customers.
We are witnessing a change and social media is the platform through which consumers will fight for the service that they expect.
But as Niccolo Machiavelli said, “whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.”
Tags: accenture, blogging, business, communications, consumer, customer, customer service, eurostar, facebook, networking, online, pr, public relations, reputation, social media, social networking, twitter, ugc, user generated content
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