Customer communication through Social Media: THE BATTLE IS ON!

It's been a while since I last blogged, but did enjoy a bit of time away from University.  With the firs semester of my final year approaching, I thought I'd get a new blog post up.  I will continue to blog but probably not at such a frequent rate as I have been during the previous semesters.

I am also going to move away from a themed blog and blog about general social media issues, but focussing on the marketing aspects of social media.

Over the holidays I encountered two particularly interesting examples of one company using social media, one I would rate as good and another one as not so good.

I am an Optus customer for both my mobile phone and internet.

BATTLE 1

Around 22 December my internet didn't work.  It wasn't the first time I encountered this issue.  So I do as I usually do...I do all the testing they will ask me to do in an attempt to get through the phone call with them quicker.  Reset the modem, plugged it into a different phone socket etc.  When I called them, I was on hold once I made my selection and whilst on hold, they encouraged me to contact them through Twitter or Facebook.  I thought I've held on for quite some time and knowing that a Telstra Tech would have been required, I thought I would just stay on the line and when I was done, hop on to Twitter.

The phone conversation concluded and as thought, they needed to send a Telstra Tech out because it was an infrastructure issue.  This would however take up to 48 hours to book and then after booked, could take up to 72 hours for the Tech to come out.  These are business hours.  Now worrying that there are so many public holidays ahead, I was concerned that I may not have internet until close to 2012.

I took their advice and sent them a tweet from my phone.  Before I go ahead, I will say that I have quite a unique name so wherever I have an account, its quite easy to look me up on the database.  The tweet read something like this @Optus, Internet broken again and doesn't seem like the issue will be fixed before xmas, I need it urgently #fixitnow.

Within an hour I had a tweet back saying @RossEngelbrecht, Hi ross looks like your issue has already been escalated to tier 2 support, but please DM your fault number so we can further investigate.

I didn't go on to twitter for a few weeks, but after I sent that tweet, my internet was fixed before Christmas.  Was it the use of SM that helped speed up the process? As I didn't send my fault number, I would assume no. But having a very uncommon surname, was the fault number really that needed. I say no, they already knew it was escalated to tier two by looking me up and being that I went into the public domain, they may have pushed it a little.  My opinion is they did really well.

I thanked them on twitter for their great work and felt that this was a quick response and issue resolved quickly.

@Optus 1, @RossEngelbrecht 0

BATTLE 2

Early Feb my internet was again not working.  I did the same as above.  This time however when I called, their pre-recording indicated that they are aware of issues with their internet services and that their engineers are on site working to resolve the problem asap.

Being the impatient person I am, I resorted to the faithful twitter again (from my phone) and posted something along the lines of: @Optus, called your customer service line and they indicated they are aware of the current internet issues, any estimate on when it will be fixed.  Again within in minutes I received a response "@RossEngelbrecht Our Engineers will be on site shortly Ross. We dont have an estimate yet until they get here". 

Conflicting advice??? Indeed! Of course in a public domain you have be very careful of what you say because the smallest wrong bit of advice could have a sever negative impact on your brand, but I still believe the message through various channels should be consistent.

@Optus 1, @RossEngelbrecht 1

My opinion is that Optus did really well with their use of SM. Granted the info I received in BATTLE 2 was inconsistent to another method of communication with the company, but it wasn't all that bad.  Of course running a company that large may mean that you will encounter some times where internal communication between departments are not as quick as you'd want it to be, but the fact of the matter is, they were right onto it every time I sent a tweet and managed to keep me happy.  Using this sort of method of communication to keep your customers up to date or informed and give them personal advice fits in perfectly with the busy lifestyles that everyone seems to live these days.  Its quick, short, sweet and to the point and keeps customers involved.  In my view, an excellent strategy to keep customers loyal.

Goodbye MKF5601

The last Friday before the semester commenced, I had no idea that I would B more Social after 12 weeks.  Not only was I more social, but I learnt about social media marketing, and even more social media marketing.  Amongst all this learning i had some serious social media fun.

The Social media explosion certainly saw the rise and fall of social network and we attempted to combat this crazy up and down trend through our social media marketing assignment1.

Saint Pro and Paulette Roulieze were definitely playing with social media!

Life in the social lane is an open road that leads to either Pai's Room or Stephy's fiield where you can feel welcome to Share, Like and Comment, or even be a little Socially inappropriate!

Mikesline has become a place where Circles, Fans and Followers can Go, hype it! when the continual Mushings of an international chick and Yenga make them feel like a complete Social media geek.

The social media lab has discovered that if you have an ithink ican attitude towards all things social media, you will be rewarded with the gift of the gab.

I can't set can't spike, but at least now I know I can Swipe to Like - Renault on Facebook which makes me feel like I can now answer the important question that was asked over the last 12 weeks: what are social networking sites...????  Thanks to some amazing Marketing yum, I can spread the word that social media as a worldwide revolution has really created some buzz inside social media scenes around the world.

This semester its all about social media where my blog for SMM has helped me discover my top 10 favourite things!

Thank you all for a great semester and making the subject extremely exciting!

Ross

The evolution and the future

Social media has become a very strong marketing tool.  Companies from everywhere are attempting to be part of this phenomenon to ensure they too get a slice of the cake.  SM has in fact changed the way a number of traditional marketing tools are used.  In the past, we have seen commercials with a phone number at the end, this evolved to word phone numbers (such as 13 CABS), which then moved to calling on consumers to visit the company's website, and now, there is a call for consumers to join their SM presence.    See for instance the end of this McDonald's ad:

Not only has the traditional call for action in traditional marketing changed, but combine this with other SM activities that organisations use to market such as updates on Twitter, discussions with customers on Facebook and blogging about new products or innovations and you have a very powerful tool.

So where is this all heading.  A few discussions in class as well as on other blogs have suggested that SM is a fad and within a few years will be gone.  I disagree.  I think SM is just starting out.  Fragmentation will continue to be a problem as more and more SM sites are launched, however, this fragmentation will soon become a marketer's dream.  SM sites will continue to be launched, each one will have its unique attraction in terms of attributes.  This will mean that a number of SM consumers will have a number of SM accounts on different platforms, but this will make it easier for marketers.  As more SM sites are launched, it will become clearer as to what a particular site is used for and what that site specialises in.  MySpace is an example.  Although they are loosing market share, it will never get to a point where they will have lost everything.  They will now start to serve a substantial market for music lovers and specialise in this market.  Marketers in the music industry will soon realise that they now have a perfect channel to reach almost a perfect target.  Therefore, as the SM market grows with the launch of new products and sites, what initially may seem a cluttered, fragmented market, could soon provide a perfectly segmented market based on functionality and who it is used by.

My view is still that Google plus will become the powerhouse, but the growth of other sites will continue and will serve great purposes with immense opportunities for marketers.

I would love to hear what you think the future of SM is.

Ross

Small but powerful

Small business seem to be slow adopters of social media as a marketing tool.  In Australia, Sensis (2011) found that only 14 percent of small businesses use social media.

A successful example of a small company that uses SM as part of its strategy is Hotel Renew, a small boutique hotel in Honolulu Hawaii.  They have an active Facebook page, as well as and active Twitter account.  What makes this an interesting case, they offer more than just an online service to sort out guest issues and retweet positive tweets from guests.  As you will note on the two pages, the Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF) is happening soon and to keep likes and tweets active, they are offering guests the chance to win tickets to the HIFF by stating what their ultimate HIFF experience would be.  This has nothing to do with the hotel.  In a way, it is a very unique way of getting your brand out there.  You are not pushing your brand to the consumers (which a lot find annoying), you are simply engaging them with your brand by offering them something.  

Looking back at some of the coke examples, can we see any similarities?  I think so.  Have a look at a recent post on FB by coke:

They posted something about an artist that is liked by the general public.  This created a fair amount of discussion and likes and shares.  Although the numbers are small compared to Coke's overall number of likes, but as we know, a post on FB can quickly disappear in the newsfeed.  The same as Hotel Renew, they offer something that the general public likes, this in turn gets people involved with the brand, even though there is no hard selling.

I would love to hear whether you think that this opens a case for smaller businesses to learn from the larger companies, and whether you think there are any more examples of how a small organisation has (at a smaller scale) used SM the same way as a larger business, especially if you have a successful example.  I doubt very much that Hotel Renew is approaching this the way they are because Coke is, but when looking at examples such as this where there seems to be a link between success and what was done, I think there is a case where smaller businesses can learn from bigger companies.

Ross

From Big to Small

Over the last few weeks we have looked at how a large organisation such as Coke use SM as part of their marketing activities.  In my view, Coke really does it well.  One of the reasons is that they have no doubt got quite a large budget to work with and are therefore able to employ the best strategies to make SM work for them.

In "How do the big guns do it", we looked at some of the ground rules that Coke set up on how SM is part of the company and how it should be used to the company's advantage through their SM policy.

The discussions then moved to "Who pays and who plays" where consideration was given to how much SM strategies cost and who the best person is to do the job.  Although no exact costs associated with Coke was discussed due to obvious reasons, some indications suggested that a well designed integrated SM campaign could cost as much as $260k.  Discussions didn't answer the question as to who the best person is, but it may not always be the person you imagine.  Think of the Brown Brother SM guru example.

From there we looked at how you integrate your SM strategies with the rest of your communication strategies in "Communication, I've heard its important".  Discussions were around a company that operates across borders where advertising messages were quite different for different countries and the difficulty this created because using SM (facebook in particular was mentioned) provides, on a number of occasions one platform (or fan page) for many countries and cultures.  The best way to suggested to use this, speak your central company meaning/motto to all (in this case "open happiness"".

"Objectives" looked at the importance of having objectives for your SM strategies as well as how to best set these objectives.  Some suggestions of how Coke does it (which works really well for them) were looked at.

In "Measuring (again!)" the importance of objectives were highlighted again with a link to a blog that suggested that Coke is getting it wrong because they only engaged with 9% of their audience.  Suggestions were given that it could be 9% of their audience, but a much larger percentage of their "online audience".  A few measuring techniques were discussed, highlighting the importance for future marketing activities and business growth.

"Is it working" was the last post in the series looking at a successful case of Coke's use of SM as a marketing tool.

Now having some understanding how the world's most valuable brand effectively use SM, what can we take from this and move across to a small business.

Small businesses certainly don't have the cash to develop an extravagant campaign sending people all around the world, but my view is that they can certainly learn from this.  Too often do we see businesses starting a FB page just because they think they should, do they even know if their target is active on FB.  Sure they may get a follower or two, but from what we have seen done very well by Coke, what do you guys think small businesses can learn from this?

Ross

SM to the rescue!

So I am moving away from my Coke theme for a week because something recently happened that I thought I would get some help on from my fellow marketing superstars.

We have seen a number of Non Profits get involved with SM to some great and perhaps not such great success.  As an individual (with by now at least some knowledge of marketing) who has been personally hit by something that I really do not stand for, I thought I would see if we could get 40 marketing brains together and see if we can change something in the world.  This something is more powerful than gold in some places.

For those who don't know me, I was born and raised in South Africa, I moved to Australia in 2003.  In South Africa it is not uncommon for people to own or be part owner of "Game Farms" (I have since found it is better to refer to them here as Safari Parks as it describes what it is better).  Basically a game farm is a piece of land where animals roam freely and live naturally.

My dad is (I think he now was, not sure if he sold his share yet) part owner of one of these game farms.  It was the best place on earth!  We would go there quite a few weekends a year and you are just forced to relax.  My two favourite animals on the farm....well here they are:

Unfortunately these two amazing creatures were killed three weeks ago by poachers who took their horns and sent it overseas.  This becomes a major problem for the survival of the species as no longer does my dad have his two rhinos, the world has two rhinos less, and this means with the spike in demand for rhino horn, no breeder is going to bother any more because they spend millions of dollars on research and breading programs just to have the animals killed.

The reason I'm posting this???

Well, how about we look at how we can use SM and our Marketing superpowers to see if we can change attitudes towards this elusive product.  No company, no NFP, just between the group, see if we can throw ideas around how individuals armed with knowledge and our SM weapon could make a difference.

I am going to list a number of difficulties we will face:

• The main importer of rhino horn is China, this brings with it obvious language issues
• We have so far learned that the more common SM sites we use in Australia are banned in China
• The poachers are extremely poor people, hence taking risks and doing what they are doing, these people have no idea what an SM site is
• The trade is amazingly big and valuable (some suggestions even go as far as to say that rhino horn may be worth more than gold in some areas)

So, if you know of more difficulties, let me know, but I would also like to hear how you think we could do this, what cool ideas you have to could be effective.

Ross

Is it working?

Now that we have discussed a few things about how to use SM as a marketing tool, lets see if it is working for Coke.


I will give an example of SMM activity that Coke has done and from a marketing (and my) point of view give you my opinions on why I think the campaign was successful.


Coke's expedition 206
Coke offered a chance to three happiness ambassadors to travel the world and find out what it is that makes people happy.  The three ambassadors were selected from an online vote.  As the travelled the world, they kept all fans up to date with their movements and told their happiness stories using a number of SM platforms.  


These can be found here:


Facebook
Flickr
Youtube
Twitter


Coke also used a number of other social media platforms for particular countries, therefore, ensuring that as they travel the world, the world travels with them.  For example, they used QQ (a chinese instant messaging service) and this alone received approximately 1 billion visits related to expedition 206.


So did it work?


Yes, in my view it did.  Coke wanted to raise awareness of their brand and what a way to do this.  The whole world was reached, and even when the ambassadors left for another country, they were still followed through the use of social media.


Why did it work?


Coke generated conversation, they didn't purely advertise to their markets, they generated conversation with their consumers, in a space where their consumers like to be, social media.  They coupled this with their brand of happiness, which is what everyone wants and this generated amazing conversations.  Good stories from all around the world were spread, showing to everyone that happiness is very much alive.  The brand wasn't directly pushed, so it didn't annoy consumers, the brand was supported by something people want, and associated itself with happiness.


From a marketing perspective, the interest in this campaign started well before the campaign started.  People got involved by voting, therefore feeling part of the whole campaign, and because these people voted, they felt that they had a say in how this campaign will run.  This then kept them interested and they remained followers, spreading the word about this awesome campaign, leading to the generation of more followers, and all the way, Coke is achieving its objectives of raising awareness and developing two way conversations with their consumers.


I would love to hear if any of you took part in this campaign (by voting perhaps), whether you ever came across this campaign and in your view, whether you think it was a success and why.


Ross