When the Red Sox were in Japan to start the season, thousands of members of Red Sox nation turned on their TVs early in the morning to watch the broadcast from the Far East. Except for many DirectTV subscribers, there was a problem; for whatever reason, the satellite TV service could not deliver the signal.
Fans hit the Internet hard with their complaints, sharing stories and quickly learning that Comcast cable customers were also having trouble receiving the broadcast.
Last night, ABC's World News Tonight aired a segment on how Comcast has quickly realized that the Internet can be a great way to listen to its users; in fact, Comcast employees are on Twitter specifically for the task.
The process is a great example of a consumer company understanding the value of social media. The user profiled in the ABC News piece saw Twitter as a way to vent frustration. This type of "flashpoint" customer service issue is ideal for a service like Twitter.
Comcast, in general, has done a great job of harnessing the Internet to provide better customer support--in ways that make best use of available methods while most certainly reducing Comcast's support costs. For example, Comcast's online presence let's users initiate real-time chats with customer support. Many issues with cable boxes can be fixed simply by restarting the box, and the real-time chat format is great for teaching users how to perform that remedy. (A user might be reluctant to follow an online set of troubleshoot directions if one instruction is "disconnect power to the cable box.")
The real-time chat feature via Comcast's site has been available for some time. More recently, Comcast has realized that Twitter's use as a frustration vent is a newer phenomenon. Users that resort to Twitter to complain about Comcast, it follows logically, may have lost their Internet connection and are using a mobile device to update their Twitter post (the exact example in the ABC News piece).
Comcast's use of Twitter has been well covered in the blogosphere. Of note, well-known blogger Michael Arrington has had very public issues with Comcast, and the cable company dealt with them.
Beyond what has been covered by many other blogs, Comcast's ongoing success hints at some important lessons for B2B companies and their use of social media for customer relations. Since many of Schwartz's work is done in the B2B arena, these lessons are of interest to me. Here is what I have learned:
1) The world *is* listening. Comcast is, and prospective customers are as well. If you are a B2B company, you should add Twitter-watching to your customer support operations, and you should tell your customers that. The added benefit of conversing with your customers via Twitter is that your customer’s colleagues on Twitter--many of whom are likely prospects--will see it.
2) Twitter is the ideal venting medium. As a Twitter user myself, I take satisfaction in using Twitter to simply express frustration. This is both good and bad for B2B companies. It's good because it's a quick way to cool down hot tempers, but it's bad because it means the customer has likely already tried other means to either correct the issue or navigate the vendor's customer support. As some bloggers have stated, Twitter is the last line of defense. It should not be a substitute for other, more proactive, means of keeping customers in the loop.
3) Don't use Twitter unless you are ready to use Twitter. Social media creates new ways to communicate with customers, prospects, and everyone else. Relative to a company's overall communication infrastructure, it may not necessarily introduce new efficiencies. Companies must be prepared to invest when they use Twitter (bear in mind, for example, that Twitter is on 24/7). With the power and viral nature of the Internet, a tweet falling on deaf ears could turn into a PR crisis.
I arrived at RSA, the largest tradeshow in the security industry, and in no fewer than 15 minutes had run into a dozen industry people. The main security reporters, analysts and key vendors (including numerous Schwartz clients) within IT security are here.
It got me thinking about Facebook, Twitter and the other social media applications I have been testing for some time. Without question, these applications have their uses, but when it comes down to it, there is no substitute for seeing someone face to face.
When I first started at Schwartz in 1997, we would organize elaborate tours to introduce companies to reporters and analysts who would follow their wares. Tours would typically involve multiple cities and would be timed to coincide with a company product launch (the news hook).
Such tours are rarely planned now in certain industries. Reporters tend to be far more geographically dispersed than they were in the late 90's. More importantly, reporters are busier than they have ever been--a result of many changes in the publishing industry. It's too hard to coordinate schedules to make a tour worth the effort.
For that reason, tradeshows are the best way to meet and catch up with the influencers in a given industry. They provide central gathering points. Also for that reason, perhaps, have I noticed that many aspects of RSA have not changed much. And perhaps, for just that reason, the show seems more crowded this year than in recent years.
Considering how the media have lavished attention on the 2008 Presidential race, it's surprising that it does not show up more on this blog. For me, the reason for not writing on the topic is my personal interest in the race; I have made an effort *not* to write about the campaign here since I am so interested in the contest outside of the office.
But Fast Company, a publication I respect and read to provide guidance to my growing clients, crossed the chasm between tech and politics in this month's issue, and it has pushed me to write about the connection now. Fast Company is not the first to discover how tech can help politics. Many other blogs report on this topic regularly, including how political social media campaigns are eliminating the need for the politicos to advertise online.
A reporter and friend of mine at the Denver Post, Kimberly Johnson, wrote about Facebook and campaign fundraising last month. Interestingly enough, Kim called me and asked for my insight on the topic after notcing a Facebook post I made referencing a previous entry on this blog (a mini-example of the power of Facebook marketing).
A quick summary of my thoughts on the topic: Both Democratic Presidential rivals are using new media to reach important demographics; as it turns out, the audience influeced by social media is a more likely Obama voter, and for that reason, Obama's online efforts have been more extensive. In each case, proper use of social media tactics depends on the strategic target for the overall campaign brand.
The article in the April 2008 Fast Company discussed the Obama brand. I had not heard that the whiz behind Obama's online efforts was none other than Facebook founder Chris Hughes. What he has done to define and extend the Obama brand is a lesson to any company:
-- Giving the power to the supporters. Through a portion of the Obama campaign website, supporters can launch their own Obama blogs. They can also use their Obama websites to organize fundraisers. The key here is the Obama site powers the transactions, and automates receiving necessary contribution information to comply with federal laws. A supporter could set up a mini site and run a fundraiser with zero involvement from the campaign staff.
-- Bringing information directly to other online communities. The article talks about how a post on a Community Connect niche demographic website drove a lot of traffic to the Obama web presence. The Obama team noticed this and responding by reaching out to Communicy Connect and ultimately setting up a presence through the Community Connect online community.
-- Understanding that social marketing is about giving up some control. A lesson to all marketers: The days of having 100-percent control over your message are long gone. While this reality is not new, Obama is the first candidate to embrace this. His team understands that bringing constituents into the process is part of Obama's brand itself---that he is about letting people invest in the campaign in any way they can. Social media is a great platform to let voters exercise this, and at the same time accentuate the campaign's brand and image.
The now-infamous "Yes We Can" video, starring a singer from the Black Eyed Peas and several of his friends, is a perfect example noted in the Fast Company article. The video is extemporaneous and viral, and some have called it the best marketing vehicle for Obama to date, which is ironic given it was made free from Obama campaign involvement or investment.
An online video created by Clinton's campaign is in many ways the exact opposite. "Hillary's Leaving the Band" is a scripted story with hired actors and is described in Fast Company as being too slick to be accepted by the online demographic.
Obama's use of social media reflects his need to connect to one of his crucial demographics-- young and tech savvy voters-- so called "millennials" who want content brought to them in a method of their choosing. One cannot fault Hillary for not catering to this demographic. It's not really her target. For her voters, the scripted, slick actors work just fine.
While Obama is more flashy, new and connected, in reality his brand is just catering to the voters he must influence, while Hillary's brand is far different. In either case, the teams behind the brands are using social media wisely. How the overall brands will impact voters is a separate discussion.
Twitter is not a new application to many PR pros. As with Facebook, though, we are all still trying to learn how Twitter can help our clients and their marketing programs.
My recent interest in Twitter was inspired, in part, by a Schwartz podcast segment featuring Paul Gillen, who himself has recently become more of a believer in Twitter's potential.
A few weeks back I linked my Twitter account to my Facebook account, so that any update on Twitter would automatically update the "status" of my Facebook profile.
The response to my move from some of my high-school and college friends provides insight into how PR pros are early in the micro-blogging hype curve. Here's a sampling of what my friends posted to my Facebook wall:
"What the heck is a tweet?"
"Dude, was 'twittering' like the word of the week on your desk calender or something?"
or my personal favorite:
"Ross--you've been twittering a lot lately--do you think you should cut down on the caffeine?"
A few months ago, I wrote that many friends who I saw at a holiday party did not have Facebook pages. It is now clear that many of my friends who have Facebook pages have never heard of Twitter. It is another example I can use when cautioning clients about getting wrapped up in the craze of social media marketing.
Discussing the value of social media in tech marketing is important, and unfortunately, it can be hard to do. As someone who has tried out many social media services, I feel like a social pariah among peers when suggesting that social media campaigns may not be appropriate for every company. I can relate to Mike Rothman in this respect, who wrote in his blog about an experience with Twitter at last week's SourceBoston security conference in Boston.
What I don't argue is that Facebook and Twitter do have an emerging place within marketing. I just spoke to a current client about ways to appropriately use Facebook Groups to promote new online content that relates to certain groups' fan bases. My colleague Mark McClennan saw significant result by using Twitter to promote his client Epocrates, when that company's application was demonstrated by Steve Jobs on stage during the recent Apple iPhone SDK launch.
On a basic level, I see Twitter as a great way to learn more about reporters and analysts. For example, I noted via Twitter that many key social media bloggers and reporters attended SXSW (shorthand for South by Southwest). At a high level, Twitter and Facebook tap what I see as a golden rule of marketing: We are most influenced by what our friends and families do. If I post a tweet or Facebook status message saying that "No Country for Old Men" is a fantastic film, people who know me might share that review or go see the movie themselves.
The marketing possibilities for Facebook, Twitter and other social media apps are evident. It's just a matter of those services gathering members, and then for companies to better understand who, from their key target audiences, is actually signing up. If for a given company those audiences have not adopted the social media tools, then you don't have to worry about a social media campaign...at least not yet.
A friend and respected high-tech marketer at EMC sent me a link to this movie, which she recently produced to help introduce a new EMC storage product.
For many reasons, the video, the related URL and website, and the marketing efforts at a trade show announcing the product this week, are commendable. I like them because they present EMC as hip and innovative. The video reinforces the strategic messages for the new product, and it's best summarized in the name of the video, "The Revenge of the Mainframe."
Perhaps most importantly, I enjoy the humor. And I am not alone.
The video is one of many that EMC has produced, and many of them are equally humorous. Certainly EMC is on to something here. Perhaps there are additional ways to integrate the video and other marketing efforts using social media into PR.
For example, I notice there is no mention of the video in the "Revenge of the Mainframe" press release announcing the product. Certainly the press release is for the media, and the video was not produced for that audience, but isn't the press release also reaching other audiences, such as potential customers and prospects?
I am not saying I have the answers, but EMC's example is a good one to study.
One of the latest waves of new Facebook applications is the ability to create a "cause" Facebook page and encourage fundraising from that page. The CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess hospital in Boston launched a cause page to raise funds for a harp player who visits the hospital.
Using the web to fundraise is not new, but the sheer viral power of Facebook is new, especially since Facebook cause "pages" can enhance the giving experience for donors. Facebook makes giving more personal than the simple chain email asking for a check. Moreover, if you deliver an invitation to the cause page with a nice personalized invitation, it might replace the need for a hand written note.
Of greatest interest to me were the comments after the post by the hospital's CEO, Paul Levy. A consultant notes that the efficacy of a Facebook fundraising campaign might eliminate the need for the classic charity golf tournament. Levy, in a later post, agrees.
But before you put those clubs away, or revel at the thought of no longer having to duck to avoid an errant tee shot, bear in mind that there has to be a saturation point with all of the various applications and causes popping up on Facebook. I wonder if the best Facebook campaigns, ultimately, will be those that combine Facebook-based applications with real human interaction. It could be the new definition of an "integrated" campaign... or at least, an expanded definition.
Mike Farber and I are at the AlwaysOn OnMedia show in New York City. One early theme I am seeing: Part of the issue with new media campaigns is resistance from companies toward taking a risk.
Traditional advertising has ways to track and rate results. New media does not.
On a panel I watched yesterday morning, Jean-Philippe Maheau of Ogilvy noted that companies need to crack the code on measurement to feel comfortable with new media campaigns.
In response to a question I asked about virtual worlds and their affect on brands, Maheau noted some interesting work he's doing in those areas, however he said the budget for those investments does not come from the advertising budget, but rather from an experimental part of the marketing budget.
The burden is on agencies, like Schwartz, to continue to push the envelope for our clients in strategic ways. Soon those new media campaigns-- integrated into PR-- will no longer be "experimental."
The high-tech industry is booming again, and smart PR and advertising firms are growing thanks to creative campaigns using new social media technologies. I am paraphrasing Doug Scott, the executive director of branded content and entertainment at Ogilvy. He spoke Friday, November 9 at a breakfast in New York City hosted by AlwaysOn. I attended with a Schwartz colleague to get an update on AlwaysOn and its upcoming OnMedia conference, and found the event very informative.
Scott is in charge of introducing social media to existing Olgivy clients as well as finding new business that would rely on social media exclusively. Olgivy clients are very different than ours, most having big, defined consumer brands. He spoke about how many of these established brands are exploring social media tools to extend brands for their products.
What I found enlightening was Scott went way beyond talking about how the Internet levels the playing field for companies by giving them a direct route to consumers. That was a given; Scott is talking about how every company needs to capitalize on this with a unique program to deliver a brand essence to consumers. I will not go into detail about some of the campaigns he mentioned, since I am not sure if they are public, but suffice it to say he's working on some very interesting programs.
Following Scott, Anthony Noto, the Internet, entertainment, and cable analyst at Goldman Sachs spoke to a topic that is one of my current fascinations: Facebook. Noto predicts that Facebook will be a highly disruptive technology, much in the same way that Google has been. He believes that while Google disrupted the publishing model by eliminating the cost to create content that would generate traffic, Facebook will disrupt the content distribution model.
AlwaysOn is organizing what looks to be a pretty informative event in New York in late January: AlwaysOn OnMedia NYC. From what I heard at the breakfast, the January event likely will provide quality content and advice.
What excites PR people the most about Web 2.0 is that some of the social media companies that are hot can help us do our jobs. A red-letter date for the relationship between PR and Web 2.0 came earlier this year when Facebook let third-parties develop applications to extend Facebook's functionality.
On November 2, Forbes published a Q&A with the founder of RockYou, Jia Shen. RockYou offers a very interesting business model. The company creates these third-party applications that can be selected by Facebook or MySpace users to augment their memberships to those social networking sites. As a consequence, the applications attract more users and encourage social interaction. RockYou can then "monetize" the user base by selling advertising.
From my perspective, there is certainly potential for using RockYou-powered applications as part of coordinated marketing campaigns that would combine PR and social media to drive web traffic. We are thinking about those campaigns each and every day at Schwartz.
They are already starting to happen. If you are a Facebook user, you see Facebook applications that invite participation in contests or other collaborative experiences run by companies. By relying just on your own list of friends, an interesting contest spreads rapidly. If it does not catch on, the cost for developing and executing these contests is fairly low.
Bringing this idea very close to home, more and more reporters have Facebook accounts. My colleagues and I will occasionally post news from our clients as part of our Facebook status messages. It's a non-assuming way to alert the reporters and analysts on our friends' lists, and certainly the topics we post are relevant to the Web 2.0-savvy Facebook audience.
Facebook offers its own marketing vehicles, where companies can "rent" space to include small little applications on Facebook home pages that promote an offering or encourage interactivity. Beyond these sponsored opportunities, there are a number of unique ways to use the social networking sites to augment PR programs.
The key is to use these sites judiciously and transparently. As recently noted in Twitter conversations including Robert Scoble and others, what you place on Facebook can be read by all of your "friends," so everything one does is open to criticism.
Add this to your file on the long-discussed difference between the entrepreneurial climates on the two U.S. coasts. Recently, I traveled on a press tour with a client to meet with business press---reporters and bloggers---in Boston, New York and Washington. My client also went to San Francisco, and we compared notes on all the meetings.
The reporters in San Francisco did not ask any questions related to the client's business model. They were impressed with the technology demonstration. They like gadgets.
The reporters on the east coast generally asked about revenue models in the first five minutes. The common question: "How do you make money?"
Questions about west coast versus east coast have permeated my entire career in PR. My first-hand experience provides clear on-the-ground evidence of the split.
Extra Credit: If you have not seen it yet, you should read an account by Scott Kirsner, who freelances for the Boston Globe, on why Boston lost Facebook. It describes how an idea hatched on the east coast ultimately earned financing out west.
I propose a new theory: You can tell whether a specific market is hot based on the value of the give-aways at that market's tradeshows.
Tradeshows are part of the foundation of any good PR program. Perhaps most importantly, a trade show offers a chance for key players and influencers (including reporters, partners, analysts and end users) to congregate at the same location. The concept of a press tour today is somewhat hard to grasp--reporters, analysts and bloggers tend to live and work all over the place. But they all come to a tradeshow if it represents a market they follow.
So can one base the "hottness" of a technology market by its trade show? Sure. Look at the number of attendees, number of exhibitors, and number of reporters and analysts attending. See if large recognizable vendors are sponsors. And, perhaps, per my theory, take a look at what exhibitors are giving away.
Joan Geoghegan, a senior vice president at Schwartz, recently attended VMworld, the trade show run by VMware, a leader in the virtualization market. Anyone will tell you virtualization is hot. So given that, let's take a look at what certain vendors were calling tchotchkes at the event:
-- EqualLogic: A $40K Harley
-- Wyse: A Mercedes Smart Car
-- Dunes: A hardened PC fully loaded with their software (one a day)
-- Microsoft: A 42-inch flat TV screen (one a day)
There were too many iPods, Nintendo Wii consoles and other "basic" give-aways to count, she notes.
I don't know about you, but if giving away a Wii at a specific show is blase, that show must be very hot.
