Category Archives: Social Media

Are you leveraging advocacy to drive discussions in places where your social marketing team can’t go?

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View of Yosemite Falls and the Valley from from Glacier Point

As the photo above shows, my view right now is pretty impressive… In many ways it’s easy to think of this setting as completely detached from the world of social marketing or brand but as I listen to the conversations of the people around me they tell a different story: first a remark on the view, then a comment on how great it is to get away from it all followed by a quip about their energy drink, the new shoes they’re breaking in for the hike down, the car trip for those who drove in. Truth is, for better or worse, products are a part of our everyday lives and they don’t get talked about simply on a public Twitter stream – they get brought up in context.

Whether its chit chat on a 4-mile hike to reach an amazing view like this one or on a closed Facebook group, most of the conversations that happen about our brands takes place in a world which we as marketers have no direct access to. Yet in an attempt to become more transparent by speaking to customers, we’ve unwittingly backed into a corner and become stuck on only what is right in front of us — monitoring and “owning” the public conversations but missing the big opportunity.

Rather than focusing on what’s “in the open” and trying to be the master of every conversation, it’s best to focus on the power advocacy can bring to all mediums – whether it’s responding to a late night plea for support, sharing a review, or combating a negative belief in the line at the cafeteria. A trusted friend tops any other marketing, social included, and it doesn’t care what channel or privacy rules apply to the conversation.

Next time you’re out of your controlled environment, whether it’s a camp ground or an amusement park, listen to what’s being said about products & brands and ask yourself not how you could be speaking in that conversation but rather how you could win the attention of one of the participant’s time so they speak for you, or at least about you.

[This post was recorded on the trail to Glacier Point 7/16/2011 and typed up later. Thanks iTalk!]

Social Media ROI does not end at new sales… Measuring the big picture

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If we’re starting a brand new company and tomorrow you kicked off a TV campaign promoting the business you’d expect some immediate sales to walk in the door, you’d expect to hear about the efforts, but chances are you’d be downright surprised if you broke even on new sales. After decades and decades of advertising we’ve come to accept the value of building brand perception to grow business over the long haul. So why is it that so many companies’ measure social media only by the short term sales bump?

Just because you have data doesn’t mean you know the full story

Since the banner first hit the web marketers have been stuck in the same paradigm – the data is there so measure it. And why not, with data coming in seconds rather than days or even weeks, the temptation to assume it’s all right there is great. Yet we’ve started to learn that people are using multiple ads, are narrowing in with many searches over time and conversions are taking longer and longer as the web becomes a corner stone of shopping. Single metrics are dangerous.

The opportunity cost of using social media only to acquire

Instead digital marketing, and even more so social media, must be looked at as holistic program that is as much a necessity as creating brand awareness and consideration is.

Some 70% of Americans say they consult product reviews or consumer ratings before making a purchase, according to an October 2008 survey by Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates

One could look at driving user reviews as an acquisition effort. There’s an audience to target, an expense to drive, host and promote reviews and a lift associated with a product that has them over one that does not. But it’s deeper than that.

When the majority of your customers are seeking reviews it’s not just about what you can increment, it’s about what you stand to lose. If you opted not to push for reviews because you couldn’t justify the cost on new sales, you risk all sales, not just new ones as people turn to other sites or product lines that offer the support they’ve come to expect. That’s not captured in lift metrics.

There are no longer channels, even tactics outside of marketing, must complement to earn a sale

Your investments into all forms of media drive people back to you or your partner’s digital properties for research.  Just like with reviews, if someone who uses Twitter sends a message for pre-sales questions and gets nothing… not a customer support message, not a suggestion of a peer to peer area, just silence. That speaks volumes about what your brand will be like after they buy.

This extends to all channels… after being intrigued by a radio spot and going a company’s website a user who discovers a blog about the culture and expertise becomes a great choice, even a premium value, while the other company that just promotes their tradeshow booth feels empty, or “salesy”. Customers don’t care which channel gets attribution for the sale, they simply look for validation – a good buy or a bad one.

Let’s not forget the brand awareness opportunity either

This isn’t just about tactics that support a product purchase on the front end either. Just like TV is run on a negative upfront ROI basis to produce over the long haul, a social campaign can have the same value.

750 million people on Facebook outrank major sports events, dramas or reality tv, and they’re around just about every day. So if a customer goes knocking on your Facebook page and it isn’t there, or isn’t doing a good job of holding their attention when they “fan” up, that’s a wasted opportunity. But with social this isn’t just prospective awareness, this is true engagement opportunity where a good program can have that person showing affinity and even spreading it. How does that factor in to upfront sales?

Measure but measure the right picture

By no means do I advocate stopping or backing off on measuring your campaigns but instead it’s about making sure you understand their full impact and measure that. The problem with data is that we tend to focus on what we have easily available, and that’s new customers who come in directly or old ones who stay attached… but engagement, validation, cross-channel sales, and many of the other components of social are not easily studied and thus they are skipped and that not only short changes your programs but opens the door to cutting something that’s far more important than you may realize.

Google Plus… Can it move fast enough to attract mom or will it just be us early adopters [again]

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Just a day in and my Twitter stream resembles the comments section of a Google Plus blog post, but it’s too be expected, this is after all a potential game changer for social. The great thing is that we won’t have to wait long, a few weeks, possibly even less to know where Google Plus stands in the market. Here are three very immediate issues I see that could break, or make, this launch when the masses come flooding in [and yes, they’re starting to creep on over].

"Regular Friends" bringing Plus into their Facebook network

#1 – Are the features enough to compel people to make a switch?

No one is leaving a trusted tool for less and while circles are a slap in the face of the “optout” site model [heya Facebook], they are just one component. Clearly the site wasn’t built overnight [or if it was they had a heck of a lot of hands on] but it’s not perfect either. Friend circles can be circumvented with sharing, replies have no +1 or other micro interactions, events don’t exist, photo sharing is limit. When there’s an alternative that’s winning, the beta argument doesn’t hold for long.

Features also extend into privacy. Google may have the opt-in method down but with oogles of data, people are going to be wondering where those +1s are going, what a search tells their friends. Privacy is as much a feature as any site widget these days.

#2 – Can they get people in fast enough?

Google’s decision to be Google centric has cost them before and it’s clearly going to be a factor here as well. Rather than clicking an import button and Facebook [or Twitter, LinkedIn, etc] connecting in, users are stuck with a broadcast announcement that they’ve joined. As friend circles catch on auto-discovery will help people find each other but how do they go beyond the early adopters… Google has to find a way to get the technophobes, the indifferent, and even the currently happy users over… and stat.

As the invite hacking and the hype posts [like this one] wither way, there has to be the regular “life, love & work” remarks to keep people logging in. Those are what made Facebook exciting and for the non-tech crowd this is even more true… google gets just a few days with each user before they write it off and return home to see who is dating, vacationing or wants to see a movie.

#3 – Are people willing to multi-post?

This is a dicey one as Google really only gets partial control but it’s huge. When Facebook came into existence it wasn’t always overnight. Some people resisted, a few even held on for years with myspace [and the international sites] owning a few demographic groups even to this day. But what Facebook had was the niche model. One school, one group of people moved at a time and that made it extremely effective as you could literally wake up the day after joining and see all your friends had followed.

Google doesn’t get that ability, not 750 million users later. Every user who joins up has to decide, where do I post, and if 130 of their friends on Facebook we know that gets a vote. That means they have got to find a way to get people cross posting or additional posting and without any integration back or forth, that means a manual visit. It’s not an easy solve but it’s essential as every time someone heads back to see what their “bigger” network said, they risk not deciding to return.

Now since this post already has the distinct smell of doubt, I want to be clear, there’s something very compelling here and I’m hearing it not just from other social / tech / adopters but even from the more passive friends that I’ve snuck over.

It’s no secret that Facebook’s push for open is widely questioned [the “Facebook privacy chain mail” messages say enough]. With that in mind, circles represent a BIG [although by no means new] move and really do change the opportunity for social to be 360. No matter what people say there are lines in life and most of the world either steps back in what they post or who they let in… especially as you age down, and that’s where your powerhouse lies.

Where Google shines is clearly in tackling this and allowing you to combine mom, high school friends, go to vegas with friends, and coworkers into one.

Google also has the benefit of a whole host of tools which many people already use from gchat to gmail to rope in and get really feature rich. But those can hinder too… if they select something “on the shelf” rather than build what people want.

And Google doesn’t have to go “everyone” big, although it seems most logical that they will. Pushing into niches could have a solid outcome & help them avoid having to force a complete change over the short term. But there’s risk in that too… that they become a Twitter – and not in the sense of having huge power but rather having huge awareness but virtually no usage – another wasteland of early adopters who have moved on.

It goes without saying that only time will tell what happens when the “geeks” stop being the majority of users but the way things are rolling, that time will be mighty soon.

Inspirational post: First Night With Google Plus: This is Very Cool from Marshall Kirkpatrick of Read Write Web

Google Plus… success hinders on a handful of factors.

Just a day in and my Twitter stream resembles the comments section of a Google Plus blog post, but it’s too be expected, this is afterall a potential game changer for social. The great thing is that we won’t have to wait long, a few weeks, possibly even less to know where Google Plus stands in the market. Here are three very immediate issues I see that could break, or make, this launch when the masses come flooding in [and yes, they’re starting to creep on over].

#1 – Are the features enough to compel people to make a switch? No one is leaving a trusted tool for less and while circles are a slap in the face of the “optout” site model [heya Facebook], they are just one component. Clearly the site wasn’t built overnight [or if it was they had a heck of a lot of hands on] but it’s not perfect either. Friend circles can be circumvented with sharing, replies have no +1 or other micro interactions, events don’t exist, photo sharing is limit. When there’s an alternative that’s winning, the beta argument doesn’t hold for long.

Features also extend into privacy. Google may have the opt-in method down but with oogles of data, people are going to be wondering where those +1s are going, what a search tells their friends. Privacy is as much a feature as any site widget these days.

#2 – Can they get people in fast enough? Google’s decision to be Google centric has cost them before and it’s clearly going to be a factor here as well. Rather than clicking an import button and Facebook [or Twitter, LinkedIn, etc] connecting in, users are stuck with a broadcast announcement that they’ve joined. As friend circles catch on auto-discovery will help people find each other but how do they go beyond the early adopters… Google has to find a way to get the technophobes, the indifferent, and even the currently happy users over… and stat.

Right now it’s all techies and as the hype of commentary posts like this one wears off, there has to be the regular “life, love & work” remarks to keep people logging in. Those are what made Facebook exciting and for the non-tech crowd this is even more true… google gets just a few days with each user before they write it off and return home to see who is dating, vacationing or wants to see a movie.

#3 – Are people willing to multi-post? This is a dicey one as Google really only gets partial control but it’s huge. When Facebook came into existence it wasn’t always overnight. Some people resisted, a few even held on for years with myspace [and the international sites] owning a few demographic groups even to this day. But what Facebook had was the niche model. One school, one group of people moved at a time and that made it extremely effective as you could literally wake up the day after joining and see all your friends had followed.

Google doesn’t get that ability, not 750 million users later. Every user who joins up has to decide, where do I post, and if 130 of their friends on Facebook we know that gets a vote. That means they have got to find a way to get people cross posting or additional posting and without any integration back or forth, that means a manual visit. It’s not an easy solve but it’s essential as every time someone heads back to see what their “bigger” network said, they risk not deciding to return.

Now since this post already has the distinct smell of doubt, I want to be clear, there’s something very compelling here and I’m hearing it not just from other social / tech / adopters but even from the more passive friends that I’ve snuck over.

It’s no secret that Facebook’s push for open is widely questioned [the “Facebook privacy chain mail” messages say enough]. With that in mind, circles represent a BIG move and really do change the opportunity for social to be 360. No matter what people say there are lines in life and most of the world either steps back in what they post or who they let in… especially as you age down, and that’s where your powerhouse lies.

Where Google shines is clearly in tackling this and allowing you to combine mom, high school friends, go to vegas with friends, and coworkers into one.

Google also has the benefit of a whole host of tools which many people already use from gchat to gmail to rope in and get really feature rich. But those can hinder too… if they select something “on the shelf” rather than build what people want.

And Google doesn’t have to go “everyone” big, although it seems most logical that they will. Pushing into niches could have a solid outcome & help them avoid having to force a complete change over the short term. But there’s risk in that too… that they become a Twitter – and not in the sense of having huge power but rather having huge awareness but virtually no usage – another wasteland of early adopters who have moved on.

It goes without saying that only time will tell what happens when the “geeks” stop being the majority of users but the way things are rolling, that time will be mighty soon.

Inspirational post:

5 Ways to Use Social Media to Get More ROI from Tradeshows

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From mega tradeshows CES, IFA, E3, Comic Con to niche & industry shows DEMA, IRCE, NAMM, and many more that I’ve since thrown away the badge from, I’ve made it to a lot of tradeshows in the past few years and every show I tell myself I’m going to create a killer post about the great uses of social media I see yet after every show I walk away empty handed.

Most campaigns start – and stop at a QR code linking back to a contest, let’s face it, is no more social than a lead gen form. But with a campaign that goes the distance to bring people in and aggregate content out, social media offers the opportunity to not just sell more, but give your tradeshow a whole new type of ROI by creating buzz that lives long after the booth comes down.

Bring customer reviews to speak for you

It doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with a consumer comparing a couple show specials or a buyer for a major retailer who wants to be sure your product is going to sell through; people want to know they’re making the right choice offline as much as online. So at the risk of stating the oblivious: if people who buy turn to reviews, your booth should have them!

There’s many ways to do this from running reviews on monitored throughout the booth to putting the star ratings and the last 10 comments on the back of a PIL to summary cards in front of the product. Or, if you’re really innovative consider feeding them in via your vendor’s API to keep content super fresh. Regardless of the display medium the same rule applies as with reviews on your site: transparency rules. If it’s 100% positive, 4 word excerpts you’ve done nothing [except get people to use their smartphones to see the real story].

Get reviews out of the people you meet

Hundreds, thousands even tens of thousands of people will walk through your booth and, depending on your product; many will either try it or already be customers who own it. So why would your interaction stop at a demo or conversation?

Instead take some of those new tablets IT bought, remove angry birds [just during the day] and load up a mobile app to let people write their comments as demo users. Sure they’ve only used the product for a short time but you can turn that into a positive either badging your existing user review system [i.e. “Tried at E3”] or by making a “as said at ____” part of your site. The idea isn’t the depth; it’s the broadness and unbiased reality of having 500 or 5,000 comments show up in 3 days.

Use check-in tools & Twitter to create a reason to return [and talk]

You want buzz, you want traffic, and your sales team wants excitement to make your show come alive, after all, excitement breeds more excitement [and we all know the “stand outside your booth and look in” trick]. So what’s it going to be – another year of the business card into a fishbowl?

The goal here is simple: Give people a reason to stop on by daily, if only for a brief moment. It’s a chance for the team to sell, for tips #1, #2 and #3 to take effect and lure a deeper interaction and to get exposure outside the show.  So  pick your favorite, or the most show appropriate, check-in tool, Twitter or any other instant update service [or several] to turn that fishbowl into something digital.

Court influencers & general posters: get talked about

Sure tradeshows are about selling but that includes selling your brand. From bloggers to press to enthusiasts, the influencers and voices of the web are walking shows and it’s time marketing took a seat at the booth next to the sales team to greet them. The press event is not the end of the world’s involvement in your event.

These days much of the media coverage of tradeshows come in the form of blog posts, photo albums and video interviews so not only is it important to build a roster of these names for the long haul but it’s essential to insuring you get your time in the spotlight with someone   who is qualified, and willing to speak. Personally I prefer to use product / development team members on camera but that’s for another post.

Of course in addition to on-site coverage, this is also a great opportunity to side-step the extremely impersonal and sales like pitch process, get someone’s hands on your product and get them into your review program to take a deeper look. Nothing sells a product like the product its self.

Share the show with your follower: be the expert

For every attendee that can come to the show you’re at, many more of your fans and target audience won’t make it. Even those who do attend are pulled in a dozen directions at once… where to go, what to do… Either way people want to know what’s new, what’s exciting, what’s the story?!

This seems like the easiest item to check off, most say they do it, but there’s doing it and doing it right.

Consider a daily video interview to get a few customers’ reactions on your product. Try visiting your partner or complementary booths & events to talk about what’s happening with them as well. Bring in the well known events, show stunts and broaden up. You’re supposed to be expert in the category and that means you should have something to say about what’s going on all over, not just in your own 30×30 space.

And one last thing, time matters. Press, your competition, general attendees: they’re all talking in real time so if you’re not updating at least daily, you’re missing the point. If marketing is the most tired group at the booth call each morning that’s the tell you’re creating something people might actually share.

Got a tip or example of great social / engagement campaigns being run at tradeshows? Share it in the comments.

Reaching Influencers with Forum Seeding – Real world example: Gunnar OPTIKS on Alienware forums

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Last week I wrote about the importance of engaging on community forums to reach influencers and build up brand conversation. Ideas are good but real world is better and today I stumbled across a seeding program by Gunnar OPTIKS on the Alienware Arena forums that shows exactly why every brand should be looking at forums as a part of their social attack strategy.  Let’s take a look…

Gunnar Opticks provides “digital performance eyewear”. Yes, that’s a real category and according to the Gunnar marketing materials, a very important one given how much we stare at our monitors these days. For gamers vision become even more important as eye fatigue can lead to [virtual] death, as well as cause long term “real world” problems.  [my disclosure on gunnar optiks at the end of the post]

So what do you do when you’ve got a product that solves a problem people don’t know they have? You could talk up the benefits until you were blue in the face, or you could take the social road and get the top customers of arguably the top mainstream gaming system manufacturer in the world to do the talking for you. But getting people to talk requires them to have your product — and that’s where seeding comes into play.

Gunnar’s seeding program is straight forward – take the top 10 posters on the Alienware Arena forums, send them out a pair of shades and ask for their initial thoughts & a full review in return. Throw it all into its own sub-forum for branding & to keep the conversation visible and in less than a week you’ve got a few hundred comments and thousands of views from the core of your target market.

4 ways to social success with Gunnar’s seeding program

1. Encouraging honest reviews.

In their program overview the request is simple: Post an initial comment, in-depth review and final thoughts. No mention of the tone of the posts, no requirements for a good story, no pulling unknown members who may just be employees. It’s up to the, already respected, user. By not forcing “positive” you actually encourage it – transparency goes a long way to winning people over, add a solid product and you’re in business.

2. Asking for a follow up [keeping the conversation alive]

Gunnar didn’t just want to get a week’s visibility, they want mentions down the road and they want people to know the long term benefit too. So rather than taking a one hit & go approach they’ve asked for 3 phases of comments getting them 3 waves of exposure. On some forums people will put their gear & reviews right into their signature; it’s all about fitting into the individual community to make the most of it.

3. Engaging with the testers & other users

This isn’t set it & forget it. Gunnar’s done the right thing getting the forum staff involved and also bringing their own employees onto the site to answer questions and provide the facts. It’s full transparency since those employees are marked as a part of the company and are sticking towards the facts, offering positive thanks and leaving the opinion to the user. The seeding program shows their commitment to the community, the one to one engagement puts them in the “good brand” category.

4. Backing it up with sponsorship banners [the action opportunity]

You don’t want to stop in front of the finish line, you want to cross it. Gunnar’s program is all about conversation but with people talking, sharing comments, and hyping the product up, it’s essential to have a way for those not in the program, whether it’s other members or casual visitors of the site, to have a way to act. Gunnar chose to sponsor the forum their post is in with a few targeted banners – nothing too strong but an easy click to get members around the community into the area & reading the review.

As the Gunnar example shows, forum seeding is a great way to stir up conversation about a brand people may know about but not have tried or just aren’t talking about. In the world of community, nothing is going to outweigh a trusted member’s opinion on the overall perception of a product and getting involved with a few giveaways is at the same time a great way “in” to a community without having to worry about seeing as spamming or advertising – it’s value for consideration – a win all around.

* Disclosure:  I know the team at Gunnar [although finding this example was a pure coincidence thanks to @alienware on twitter] and use a pair of Gunnar 3D glasses and sunglasses in addition to my Oakley shades.

[HOW TO] Promote your business through forums, the original social network.

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In a rush to embrace Facebook, Twitter and the other mega-networks it would seem that the marketing community has put forums, the original social community, on the back burner. Now forums may not have the glamor of the modern social networks, the size of their user base or the sophistication of the business tools available but when it comes to building reputation, securing brand feedback and influencing the influencer, sometimes it’s better to put the big numbers aside and get focused.

As the original social network, forums dominated the web for since the early days and have grown along the way. Often started as a hobby or network between friends, these small sites can reach hundreds of thousands, even millions of users and unlike the big networks, the topics can be very focused from Frequent Fliers to Disneyland Tricks to Headphones. But just as the close-knit community built and user to user focus of forums give them huge reputation power, it makes entering into them tricky to say the least.

Here 4-steps to getting involved and unlocking the potential of forums.

Understand the community, its membership and dynamics.

The first part of getting involved in any niche community is of course knowing the niche. I’m not talking about product expertise here but rather community – does the forum allow businesses to post? Does it have certain requirements for disclosing information? When can links be used? Is it owned by a company or a few friends? Does it have rivals? Who uses the site? Novices in the space or the top players or both?

Make a plan to integrate, not just advertise

In the past most companies considered a social strategy to mean placing ads on a site where customers could interact with each other; not exactly engaging and thankfully we’ve learned a lot since then but old habits die hard. While it’s easy to write a check and treat it as another opportunity for direct marketing, that’s not utilizing the opportunity and not likely to succeed.

This doesn’t mean going in and selling but educating, answering and simply participating is a huge win and done right, generally welcomed. Stick to the facts like when a product hits, how it works, what support is available [social support goes great with forums if you have the CSR staff]. Leave opinion, debate and subjective analysis to other members or at best referring to a previous post that gives it. By showing that you’re more than an ad you can demonstrate domain expertise and the experience your company offers.

United Airlines may not get a good rep in every post but having a representative on FlyerTalk.com, the world’s largest frequent flier site, to share company updates and respond to comments insures the FT users know the airline is, at least, listening. That’s a critical first step for driving business.

Leverage sponsorship to show your commitment to the community

Since most forums are self funding or even unprofitable businesses and hobbies, brands, especially larger ones, that come on board aren’t just buying advertising, they’re helping to keep the lights on.

Whether it’s on the site, at events or even at your own trade or press events, reminding your industry of the commitment your company is making to the community and the ability for users to share with in it is a strong message that you can leverage as your sponsorship continues on over time.  No matter how much people may dislike ads, or even question your brand, if done right your sponsorship becomes a symbiotic relationship.

When I founded Scubaboard.com in 2000 we had no idea it would grow to become the largest site [and community] in the dive industry. As we grow, so did costs, and our early advertisers stood up not for the exposure value but to drive something they saw potential in. Many years later, the owners of the site still call on them for events and posts: they are a part of the community.

Devise ways to put your product in front of the user honestly

Of course the goal of your involvement is to drive your business. Whether it’s gathering feedback, market research or seeding a new item, forums are an ideal place to learn and influence but it’s got to be done right.

When it comes to topical communities like forums, the single most effective way I’ve ever found to build positive influence [in more than 11 years of experience] is getting product in the hands of users through challenges or, for a more general product, open sampling.

It’s a simple concept – you invite users of the community to try the product by chiming in with a few details. After a couple days or weeks of collecting submissions your team, along with a representative from the forum, selects a number of “testers” spanning different interests, experience levels and statuses within the community. Each gets the product, theirs to keep, in exchange for an honest review on the forum [with disclosure of the freebie of course].  Keep it easy, transparent [that means allowing a review good or bad and promoting this heavily] and large enough to be seen.

A couple weeks after launch you’ll find that not only did you get a pile of reviews but chatter about your brand is up all over the forum, after all, you’re the guys who believe enough in your product to give it to people to test.

Just like on the major networks, the big leap in truly leveraging forums comes when you stop seeing it as a silo and start seeing it as a part of your communication strategy.

Integrating a community into your business process is like having your own open focus group of target customers 24x7x365. Input and commentary, whether it’s positive or negative, flows freely for those willing to take it and use it.  The more you give, the more  you get seen, known and trusted.

So if you’ve integrated your business with a community brought product in and are looking to what comes next, start thinking about how the community can exist within your business…

  • Run new products by the community for first stage testing?
  • Invite members to special events at trade or consumer events?
  • Seed every launch out as a source for kick off marketing buzz?
  • Bring commentary on products & your company into team meetings, reports, and the flow of business…. It’s not good until the community says it is.

Urban Outfitters vs Social Media: A post about crises communication as if it was a crises.

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Right now it’s around 2:30pm pacific time and about 45 minutes ago I caught wind of an escalating crises the apparel brand Urban Outfitters is now facing. Updated comments now appear at the end of the post.

The background

As I understand it, 5 hours ago a tweet & blog post was made by independent artist / designer  / seller @amberkarnes stating that Urban Outfitters had stolen the style of several of her designed pieces. Amber’s network is just over 1,200 followers at this point and was presumably less when things started but that’s all it took to kick off enough fire that has gotten NY Mag, AllTop and enough other blogs and users talking that Urban Outfitters is now on the twitter trends list across the US — and not in a good way.

Urban Outfitters seems to have caught wind of this quickly, they maintain a fairly active social account so monitoring was probably not an issue, and their first reply went out about 2 hours after the incident flared up. Since then they’ve made other, unrelated tweets but have been dark on the issue while at the same time it’s growing. It’s crises communication time.

As interesting as it is, I’m going to put this incident aside and talk broader: How do you address a social “crises”

Given the real time nature of this story, I thought I’d take a similar approach to talking about crises management by putting myself under the same gun a company is under when facing an issue like this. Like I said in the opening, I caught wind of this post less than 45 minutes ago, and in crises mode that’s about how long it will take you to get the facts, make the right calls and startdown the management path if you’ve planned in advance, so I’m holding to the same standard.

1. It starts with awareness

If you’re lucky it’s not a monitoring tool or software that catches the issue but rather a great social manager who’s on the clock, logged in and sees something before it becomes a trend — that’s catching it early. Unfortunately issues don’t limit themselves to office hours and those monitoring tools as well as just having a well empowered and socially connected call center and employee base are critical to jumping on top of things. More of my “alerts” have been random twitter checks or a call from a colleague than anything else. When that phone rings you have to answer it.

2. Hopefully you’ve planned for a firedrill. I of course did not plan to firedrill a blog post about firedrilling.

This all works much better if you have a system in place that’s agreed on about who owns the issue, how they’re measured, escalated and handled. No template does it all but it’s about having the process to figure out the right plan rather than the plan to figure out the process. If you don’t have one handy, build it today – then come back next week for my post on tips about that.

3. Next you have to gather facts at lightning speed.

How big the issue? Where did it start? Why did it happen? How is it growing? Who has the authority to make a change? Should you make a change? What’s the blog buzz? How many tweets again? Did hit our Facebook page? Are we sure it’s a real issue?

There are a lot of questions and you won’t answer them all in 15 minutes, that’s not the goal. This is triage and your job is to figure out enough about the nature of the issue, the validity [real problem versus really big misunderstanding], the size and the spread so you can prioritize it according to an existing crises management plan. Know what’s important on the size, the scope and the impact to the company. That’s what’s needed to move along.

4. It’s judgment call time – prioritize the issue, ring the bell

Hopefully this is well documented in your crises communication plans but if not, you need to figure out how big of an issue this is and how that requires involving, alerting or getting input from.

Issues that trend on Twitter are by default going to be a full scale riot since you can about guarantee major PR coverage that week but from there it gets murky. Look at those facts on size, scope and validity – the more true an issue, the faster it’s growing, the worse the impact potential is. That said, something that’s big but misinformed can be very serious but also really benefits from having your ducks in a row as a strong with the support of your advocates will hit it hard. Most issues are more in the middle so it’s looking at the growth, where the conversation is coming from [widespread versus one site, known detractors versus every day users, new issue versus repeating].

5. Gather the right team and decide on the response strategy

From this point it’s very easy to slow down. Marketing l knows about the issue, has an idea for a response but others aren’t so sure, they want to see where it goes, or if it’s really a “big deal” [after all "it’s just on Twitter!"]. This is the most dangerous part of the process where you have to drive hard – no matter what the decision the goal is to reach it and quickly. You can move later, turn but whatever you do will be seen by the world so be ready to stand behind it… and the longer you wait the more you put yourself in a box… took too long to respond, didn’t admit a problem, admitted to something than recanted.

Now that’s not to say responding outright is always the right call. Sometimes an issue isn’t growing, sometimes it’s a flare up of an old problem by detractors that replying too will just flame, sometimes it’s something your advocates have already done a better job on than you could. Deciding to respond is a big step but in this world of open communication, it’s increasingly becoming the only. People want to know that you take an issue seriously and what you’re doing on it.

6. Writing your reply

This part is tricky. You need to be fast, get another group sign off but really think through the issue too. Are you ready to make a statement? If not, it’s only been an hour, you can state who is on it, what you’re working on, it’s ok. The decision to reply is a decision to either correct an inaccuracy, start a dialogue or to show you’re on top of figuring things out. Any of them are ok. And before you hit the post button, grab someone uninvolved to take a look — a last sanity check so fast doesn’t turn into poorly executed.

7. Make sure the response is unified.

It’s easy to jump in to a Twitter/ Facebook / blog strategy and totally forget about the rest of the world. If the issue is big enough to get to step 5 it’s big enough that you’ll get calls, people walking into stores, talking to their friend who works for you, etc.

Determine the spread and scope and issue the right response. Never stop conversation – that looks like you’re covering up, instead explain the issue, your response too it and why it’s important that your support / employee team speaks too it. Allow enough wiggle room that answers are real but be sure you’re not leaving your phone or store reps out to dry when they get a call they know nothing about.

8. Monitor. Follow up. Monitor. Follow up. Monitor. Follow up

On the business end: Whether you respond or not if the issue is big it should become your focus, your hour, your day. This morning Urban Outfitters ay have replied to a small string of tweets, now it’s a trending topic – that’s night and day difference [not saying it’s the case, just an example]. Bringing your whole social team plus representatives from all impacted areas either into a room or an email string and issue updates based on the severity from every half hour to every few hours. These should continue until the issue is gone decreasing as it fades away.

On the user end: If you replied, which is likely, you need to keep that dialogue going. The more your company is willing to open up, explain and respond, the more you can take back the issue even if you are in the wrong. Companies who made the call to keep talking through site shut downs, lawsuits, broken products get people to let them [the company] drive the understanding of the issue. People retweet, share, even defend when a company is explaining while not providing information is an invitation for just about anyone to become the voice of reason, no matter how unreasonable.

9.  You have the ball. Hold on to it.

I can recall an issue where I was boarding a plane several years ago and walked off – that raised a lot of eyebrows but it was the right call to make and it got people at a very senior level to pay attention too. I made the call because I had the ball. It was mine to run with and flying, even for 90 minutes, was just going to get in the way. Of course I’ve also gotten on the plane too [yup, more than one issue in an airport] — sometimes the right response isn’t to respond yet and sometimes you need to insure the process works without you since you won’t always be there for things to go wrong.

So there you have it, 45 minutes from issue to pushing back a few things, to posting. Not the best post, not the most comprehensive but that’s how it works… you pick up what you can see, you decide on the course, get a quick consensus and move. Next week I’ll post up some template examples of crises communication strategies to show how I approach them – but that’s not something one does during the issue, that comes after it.

If you’re looking for more on how Urban Outfitters handles this, while it’s already being judged, the next few days will be extremely telling with many great articles certain to cover the details. I may post on it myself but suggest you head to Twitter for a lot of commentary and insight – marketers and consumers alike.

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Update 5/26/2011 @ 10pm (pst):

It’s been around 13 hours since this issue broke on Twitter and while Urban Outfitters has still only issued one tweet on the topic, they’ve pulled the products in question off their site. IMO this poses two problems: First silence is a killer for an issue of this size. No matter how much is being done on the backend if it’s not seen up front the fuel keeps burning and in this case that’s tweets, facebook shares and blog posts by the second and to a target demographic that lives and buys by what’s trending. Second the decision to pull the products; while this may very well be the right call, the silence around it makes it deadly — acting without explaining is interrupted as being wrong and unable to explain why.

Having been in the shoes of their marketing team before I know how painful the process can be and being second guessed only makes it worse. Still, if there’s one upside to events like this it is the chance to learn whether you’re in the company or on the sidelines. Hopefully the decision to get more visible is made soon to give their brand’s response a chance to be seen but either way when the dust settles it’s time to evaluate what went wrong not just with the issue but with handling it. For those watching the story unfold, the question you should be asking is are you ready if the logo was changed to yours right now?

Update 5/31/2011

It took a few days but Urban Outfitters did issue a response on this late last week. Interestingly, despite the products coming down, they took an offensive, counter stance [just the article title is powerful: Urban Outfitters Responds to False Allegations by Necklace Designer]. This is the hard road but it’s often the right one — just because something comes out against you doesn’t mean it was so. However time remains a critical factor and by the time their comments made it online, visibility around the issue had decreased significantly meaning that many who read about the issue won’t see their comments.

Stop adding bad Facebook fans! Relevancy could be killing 60% of your Facebook traffic

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Pageviews, visitors, time on site have all been eclipsed by fans as the go to metrics for digital engagement. For most digital / social managers, management is looking at one thing and one thing alone to gauge success: how many fans do we have on Facebook?! But if pageviews were a misleading indicator for websites, fan counts could be a killer robbing your company of a chance to succeed in the social space due to a little system known as EdgeRank that at this very minute is reducing the impact of your every post! How’s that for an intro?

Before I explain what EdgeRank is and how it could be killing your Facebook program, we have to look at the history of Facebook. When the site was new people connected with their direct network, whether that was fellow students or good friends, but now the joke is about how your grandma, the geek from high school, even your middle school gym teacher are all your Facebook friends. Add to that tens of thousands of businesses, charities and organizations all vying for your “LIKE” and the network has become awfully big – too big to just show you everything at once.

Enter EdgeRank, Facebook’s system for devising the first posts to show a user when they login and look at their news feed. Contrary to popular belief, the feed is not rank ordered on time and even if a user clicks the “view most recent” override, it is still personalizing out updates. Exact figures aren’t published [nor is the full details of how EdgeRank works so everything is a bit of conjecture] but I’ve seen estimates that place as few as 40% of brand posts as “viewable” to a given user on their news feed. 6 out of 10 never have a chance.

Now consider that something in the realm of 90%++ of all action on Facebook starts via the news feed. Pretty important to be seen there.

Just how potent is EdgeRank? Recently I’ve been working with a page for a company where we are talking about literally giving up on adding fans and working to re-engage or even replace who they already have. Why? Effectiveness. When this brand had just 150,000 “fans” their views ratio was 2:1 meaning that for every post nearly 300,000 impressions were generated – awesome exposure. Growth accelerated significantly thanks to ads and viral momentum but quality took a dive and the ratio has flipped to 1:3. Today with 600k fans they get fewer views with 5 times the users.

So how do you influence your EdgeRank to keep your posts in the top news feed, getting seen and doing their job? You think about your page the same way Facebook does — like a user. Continue to part II for 10 tips on what to do, and what to avoid, to maximize your Facebook views.

Become a fan is not a call to action. Create better social following campaigns.

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So much emphasis is being placed on driving Facebook “likes”, Twitter followers, YouTube subscribers these days that we seem to be forgetting the user in the drive to grow, grow, grow. In the earl[ier] days of social networking it was fairly novel just to have a brand page that you promoted, regularly posted too, and *gasp* replied on. Now that’s the norm. That and a lot more. So standing out requires doing more than raising your hand and saying “I’m here”.

People may love your product but is that enough to get you selected as the brand they follow if you don't tell them why?

Step back and think about it… the call to action “become a fan” has got to be one of the most loaded statements in the history of marketing.

- A lifetime of purchases and evangelizing, was I not a fan before I joined your Facebook page?

- Is my “like” that strong of an endorsement that it makes me a fan versus just a follower?

- What is a fan? What’s so special about being one?

We can do better.

Exclusives, Useful Updates, Coupons, and even Just Brand Affinity can all be reasons to join up. But we have to spell them out so people know what they're getting.

Joining your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or other channels may joining something on a “social” site but it’s still a conversion action just like any other to the user. They’re a person, you’re a business. Thankfully, all that time we spend in building content strategies, making the right branded applications and offering a strong combination of “value” from discounts to inside looks to contests is all the ammo to sell joining up. It just needs to be sold.

So let’s stop telling people just to “fan” or “follow” or “like” us and tell them the full message.

  1. What is it you want them to do exactly?
  2. What does they get for doing this? What’s in it for them?
  3. What does becoming a fan really mean? What do you expect out of a fan? What can they do?

Without a defined offering for why someone should join it’s hard to know their value as a business either. How are you measuring likes versus loyalty in Facebook if the only goal is one action?

Thankfully the YouTube community has held onto some sense here and I’ve found a great video explaining how you get followers by PhilipDeFranco, a top followed channel. Not surprisingly, aside from a few gimmick ideas it all comes back down to having a clear offering that lets you stand out. Surprised?

Later this week I’ll be posting up a few examples of campaigns that successful brands are using to drive social interaction but if you have your own story, leave a comment.