Posted April 17, 2012 at 10:28am
All Apologies
Corporate blogs have become a platform of choice for executives to address issues concerning their companies and organizations. As a tool for reputation management a corporate blog gives a company and its leadership a personal, more human voice to speak with its audience. A blog from the CEO or top management sends a message that an issue is being taken seriously and requires the attention of the people in charge in a timely manner.
Taking inspiration from a recent example in the news of an ESPN mobile headline entitled ‘a chink in the amour,’ in reference to rising NBA super star Jeremy Lin, I have composed an apology blog post that addresses a company’s unconscious use of a derogatory term. In regards to Jeremy Lin, though I don’t believe the term was employed in a racist manner, the ethnic sensitivities still exist. The statement acknowledging the issue and an apology by ESPN was posted on the ESPN website three days after the incident occurred.
In order to avoid causing offense to any readers, the corporate apology example I have drafted is in reference to a fictional line of cosmetics, ‘Cake Face & Co.’ and the release of a nail polish line called ‘Dead Head’. Unfortunately, the name of the line has sparked an unexpected outcry and criticism from the ‘living dead’ (zombie) community as well as living dead supporters. If you are a zombie and have taken offense to the term ‘dead head’, please accept the apology below as truth.
Cake Face & Co. Cosmetics sincerely apologizes for insensitivity in the naming of nail polish line: A message from the CEO
To our dear and valued customers,
Please accept our apologies for the inappropriate nature of the recent naming of the ‘Dead Head’ nail polish line. Though there is no excuse for our insensitivity in using this term, please know that no malice was intended in the naming. We now understand the sensitivity surrounding this term and do not wish to cause further offense to our customers, both living dead and otherwise.
As a response to the feedback we’ve received since releasing the line, we have decided to immediately withdraw all nail polishes associated with the line as well as stop all advertisements for the product. Although this does not rectify our poor judgment in releasing the line, my hope is that it will demonstrate how seriously we are taking your concern.
Though upsetting, this issue has been a loud wake up call to Cake Face & Co.’s lack of understanding in regards to the living dead population, both as fellow citizens as well as active customers. In order to ensure that a similar situation does not occur again our executive staff has been in close conversations with representatives from the Living Dead Alliance and Living Dead Citizens Group. Our hope is that these discussions will result in educating our company to the needs and views of the living dead so that we are better equipped to serve them in the future.
I would also like to thank our customers for keeping us accountable in this issue. Please continue to do so as we are committed to providing a high quality, innovative product that can be enjoyed without inclusion. Despite this bump in the road, we are thankful for a customer base that has both supported us in our successes but also been firm with us when we have failed to live up to the high expectations set before us.
With sincerity,
Victoria Cake - CEO, Cake Face & Co. Cosmetics
(Cake Face & Co.’s demographic profile for the living dead customer):
Source: geektyrant.com via Jennifer on Pinterest
My hope is that the apology issued by Victoria Cake was able to meet each point of “The formula” laid out by Rosanna M. Fiske of the Harvard Business Review:
“Keep it simple. Get to the point and don’t deviate. Carefully consider the goals of your message: Is it to atone for your company’s errors, or is it a veiled attempt to appease investors? If it’s the latter, don’t even bother. You’ll just upset your customers and further muddle your company’s message.
Mean what you say, and say what you mean. If you’re truly sorry for your company’s actions, say so and leave it at that. By adding multiple clarifying phrases and long, self-lauding explanations, CEOs risk further backlash. Customers view these as “excuses” and only that. In the case of Netflix, Hastings should have clearly said, “Here is what we will be doing to fix this problem” and left it at that.
Reaffirm your company’s core values and commitments. In a crisis, many will jump to ask how a company could have gone so wrong. When faced with these circumstances, business leaders should reaffirm their commitment to the values that underpin their companies. People already know your business has gotten off-track. Now is the time to communicate how you intend to bring the company back to the values that guided it to success in the first place.”
For more information/examples on corporate blogs as a tool for reputation management:
Using corporate blogging as crisis management
Social Media Today – 10 best corporate blogs
Marriot stays committed to global travel after hotel bombing:
Five Reasons why corporate blogs fail
Clay Shirky talks on “How social media can make history”
“Now that media is increasingly social, innovation can happen anywhere that people can take for granted the idea that we are all in this together”
Posted November 24, 2011 at 11:23am
It just makes sense
A great quote by my Social Media professor, Boyd Neil, in regards to the value of a Community Manager to an organization, from his blog post Wanted: More Community Managers:
“if you accept there is power in harnessing the energy of committed people — and their social graphs — to further your product strategy, service or cause, then giving someone the mandate to be your voice in online communities, to listen, share and help members of these communities just makes sense.”
Posted October 29, 2011 at 9:09pm
A Measure of Influence
We tweet, we post, we blog, but the question is, do we have influence?
Luckily there is a way to answer this question with several measurement tools offered online. Probably the most well known tool available is Klout, but social media measurement tools are not only gaining in popularity, they are also multiplying in number. Here’s a look at a few different (mostly FREE) options one can use to see how far their influence can reach:
1.) Klout is making quite a name for itself. In a recent article from Fast Company, Klout is named to have attracted marketers form HP, Disney, and Nike. They even assisted luxury car maker Audi in their #progressis twitter campaign during this year’s Super Bowl.
What Klout Does: Klout tracks activity on ten different social networks – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, FourSquare, YouTube, Blogger, Tumblr, Flickr, Instagram and Last.fm – to get a better understanding of a user’s online profile.
To get your measurement sync your accounts or enter your username, and Klout will generate a ‘Score Analysis’ to reflect your influence according to: your True Reach, your Amplification, and your Network.
Klout will also give you a break down of topics you are most influential in, the people you most influence and who you are most influenced by, and most interestingly - your ‘Klout Style’. According to Klout, I am a ‘Networker’.
2.) Brand new to the measurement market is Kred. Kread makes the claim of being ‘the first totally transparent social scoring system to evaluate influence among communities and reward generously’. Since I have to wait for an invitation to join Kred, all I can do is relay information from their slide show:
Kred - Measurable influence. We all have Influence Somewhere View more presentations from PeopleBrowsr
According to an article on techcrunch.com, “Every person or account on Twitter has a Kred score, which is made up of two parts: the influence score and the outreach score. Your influence score is a measure of your ability to inspire others. It is a number on a scale from 1 to 1,000, and is based on how often your tweets are retweeted, how many new followers you are gaining, and how many replies you generate.” The article also points out that what differentiates Kred from Klout is that Kred breaks down the point allowing you to see how each tweet is valued.
Kred also takes into account things like degrees, honors, awards, and certificates and adds these achievements to your Kred score.
3.) Peer Index a another popular measurement tool, like the others it will build a profile that tells you:
- PeerIndex: a measure of your online social capital
- Comparisons: compare yourself to your friends and peers
But, its niche in helping you understand what topics you and others are influential about by measuring your:
- Topic fingerprint: a snapshot of what you talk about
- Topic resonance: how much other people find what you share valuable
I decided to test this out with my friend Andrew, who is becoming quite popular in the Toronto blogging scene. This is what I found out:
His topic finger print reads that in the timeline of the last four months he had quite high ‘resonance’ in leisure and lifestyle, as well as news, politics and society. He also discusses cheese and cuisine quite frequently. All quite true. His overall Peer Index score was 43 (an average of his Activity (45), Audience (45), and Authority (43)).
However when I put my own name in, Peer Index tells me that I have an ‘N/A’ ranking with Zero Activity, Audience, or Authority. Humph! Curious, and a little bit hurtful!
4.) The last tool I’m going to discuss is Lithium Social MediaMonitoring. Unlike the other tools we looked at, which are offered for free, Lithium is a paid service. Though frequency of posts and areas of interest or authority are measured on Lithium, the insite is much more specific. Lithium also offers sentiment measurement using a text analytic engine that employs natural language processing to identify posts with a strong brand sentiment. Similar to Sysomos, insight is given on whether online discussion of the brand is positive or negative, and to what degree. An added feature on Lithium offers a ‘Quotes’ feature that focuses attention on specific posts that highlight the strongest examples of customer emotions, attitudes, and behaviours - important knowledge for any business.
Other services offered with Social Media Monitoring in Lithium’s Social Customer Suite are Customer Platform, Customer Intelligence Suite, and LevelUp for Facebook.
Despite the various tools and ways to measure influence, not everyone is convinced that these are the best way to know your true authority. In his article ‘My Klout is Bigger Than You Klout - the truth about Influence ‘Measurement’, Matthew Rideout says, “There is a fundamental flaw with these systems, they measure outputs not outcomes. These influence scores will not necessarily correlate to real world business performance, or give any indication of whether or not social media is helping a business to accomplish any of its goals.“ True or False?
Posted October 29, 2011 at 3:31pm
Who’s Stopping the Mega Quarry?
Though Occupy Wall Street seems to be the main viral issue occupying our news feeds these days, there is another grassroots movement gaining ground, as well as a social media prominence. However, rather then taking to the city streets (be it Wall or Bay), this collective gathering is happening 120km north west of Toronto on the farmlands of Melancthon and Mulmur Townships, in the County of Dufferin. 2,316 acres of farmland, to be exact. The ‘Stop the Quarry’ movement spouted in opposition of an application filled by the Highland Companies for a 200-foot-below-the-water-table-open-pit-limestone quarry to be situated on lands they own in Melancthon Township (for more background information see U.S.-backed company proposes mega-quarry north of Orangeville).
Last weekend, as ‘Occupy Wall Street’ continued to maintain its place in the media spotlight and the occupy movements began spreading around the world, support for the Mega Quarry opposition rose to 28,000 strong as another, more delicious, revolution stormed the Melancthon Township farmlands - Foodstock. So, besides the better then average back wood bar-b-que, how are Mega Quarry protesters gaining attention? And more importantly, how are they using social media to boost their support?
From a basic Google search I have discovered two main websites giving information and rallying support against the Mega Quarry: nomegaquarry.ca and ndact.com. Though the NDACT (North Dufferin Agriculture and Community Taskforce) site provides more content in terms of back ground history of the Highland group in Dufferin County - offering downloadable PDF’s, maps, info sheets, and information on where and how to volunteer - it is nomegaquarry.ca that has developed an online presence across platforms like twitter and Facebook. Using the phrase ‘STOP the quarry’ as it’s profile identifier, the cause has currently acquired 4,686 Facebook likes and 1,727 twitter followers (while following 2,001).
However, one of the movements most valuable and effective tools are their YouTube videos. These short info-videos are well made and feature public Canadian figures. They elicit emotion and highlight people in the local community and the potential impact the Mega Quarry might have on them and their livelihood. These make for an easy one-stop shop for the average curious citizen to get all the information that Mega Quarry protesters want them to have. Maybe convincing enough to turn the curiosity into real concern and potential engagement in the movement. The end of the video posted below directs the watcher to three websites: ndact.com (as discussed above), canadians.org, and citizensalliance.ca (whose Facebook tab leads us back to ‘No Mega Quarry’s Facbook page). Interesting that nomegaquarry.ca doesn’t show up there.
The biggest problem that I’m seeing with the social media organization of the Mega Quarry protesters, is that there doesn’t seem to be any. When trying to rally support, why not make it as EASY as possible for your potential supporters?
This is an area where occupywallstreet.org got it right - centralizing all of their information in one place. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a single site with all the information from each Mega Quarry protest group? All the videos, photos, and news feeds? What if nomegaquarry.ca served as a central hub to host all these other sites and their information? Why doesn’t it?
In essence ‘Stop the Quarry’ and the ‘Occupy’ movement are fighting the same battle. Both are are protesting billionaire hedge funds whose influence has spread from economy to agriculture. To each of these grassroots movements financial giants have stepped in, gratuitously taking what they want with little regard for the remaining population or the environment. Both movements sprung from small groups of concerned citizens and have amassed, in no minor part to social media, to campaigns that the public is forced to stand up an take notice of.
Hopefully ‘Stop the Quarry’ will take a lesson from it’s bigger urban brother in online organization, and though out-powered and out-financed the small voices of rural citizens will become louder as they continue to fight the good fight.
Posted October 27, 2011 at 11:01pm
Posted October 21, 2011 at 9:14am
Career Change?
How about becoming a Social Media Manager?
From Social Media Today: Why Do Businesses Need Social Media Managers?
Posted October 11, 2011 at 11:52pm
Community Matters
Source: someecards.com via Jennifer on Pinterest
Recently I’ve been hearing the term ‘Community Management’ a lot. With social media moving to the forefront of marketing and public relations, many companies and organizations are incorporating the role of ‘Community Manager’ into their infrastructure. Earlier this year Mashable posed a good piece identifying the 5 (Personality) Qualities of Highly Effective Community Managers, and In 2008 Jeremiah Owyang compiled a massive list of Community Managers for Enterprise Corporations. In the three years since, I can only imagine how much more the list has grown. But for us layman, the question still stands, What IS a Community Manager?
On her blog, Erin Bury (who also wrote the previously mentioned article for Mashable) defines a Community Manager as:
…the face of your company, the person who builds the community (whether online or offline) and ensures your existing community is supported, and cultivates a new group of evangelists for your brand…it’s no longer rare to see a team of Community Managers working to manage larger brands or in an agency environment, or even as a startup grows.
She continues to say that they are your company’s:
- Eyes and Ears
- The face of your brand
- your 1-800 number
Sounds simple enough, but how is this all put into practice?
Last week, my friend Davina and I attended a panel discussion entitled ‘Facebook and Business: A super fun panel event’ or #FB4bizTO. Among the panelists was Marina Arnaout (@marinarn), Digital Communications at Steam Whistle Brewing (@SteamWhistle).
According to the criteria above, Steam Whistle is doing a lot to keep their community engaged and informed. Marina talked about the importance of understanding the psychographic and demographic of a businesses’ users, followers, and fans. For example, Steam Whistle doesn’t only tweet and post about beer, it stays relevant to its users interest by exploring the vintage and the urban, as well. This is consistent with the local brewery’s brand and keeps things interesting for its community.
My favourite piece of advice taken from the discussion is that social media gives a company a platform to OVER DELIVER on customer service. The customer is king and Steam Whistle pays attention to what their customers do and say about them. They are quick to reward brand ambassadors or address issues or complaints.
On the same note Marina also emphasized paying attention to your fans. Like Erin said, community management is being the eyes and ears of a company. Earlier that day I had had tweeted Steam Whistle requesting details about their annual Halloween party. Within an hour I had a response. Though a small act of attention to detail, it was enough to impress me into following Steam Whistle on twitter, make the decision to purchase them over my beloved Mill Street Organic during this weekend’s beer run, AND even write about them in this blog post.
Well done.
