With the invention of the Internet,
consumers have the power to connect and engage with others who share similar
interests whether it is a hobby, profession, etc. While many businesses use
tracking tools to monitor brand conversations on important social media
channels like Facebook and Twitter, few are monitoring and participating in
online forums that relate to the business.
As David Scott mentions in The New Rules of Marketing & PR, “ignoring
forums can be hazardous to your brand, while participating as a member allows
you to reap rewards
(Scott, 2013, p.61).
(Scott, 2013, p.61).
Here are a few reasons why companies NEED to be
monitoring online forums:
- Consumers may address ongoing problems with a specific product/service that the company may not be aware of
- It can increase brand attitude. “Just having a presence on the blogs, forums, and chat rooms that your customers frequent shows that you care about the people who spend money with your organization” (Scott, 2013, p.64).
- You can drive traffic to your site if you actively participate on the page (Vermeren, 2013).
Still not convinced? Let’s give a real example of how monitoring forums helped one retailer avoid a disaster. When Nikon introduced a new digital camera model, they not only offered it at high-end camera stores, but they decided to also launch it at large electronic stores like Circuit City and Best Buy. Since this was during the holiday season, the demand exceeded the supply.
This clearly created a poor
user experience for consumers. As to be expected, consumers went online to
Nikon and digital photography forums to complain about the product. “The forums
were active with lots of people complaining that they couldn't get the camera
from their normal long-term suppliers but that the big box stores had them”
(Scott, 2013, p.64).
One retailer in particular,
B&H, was involved in the crisis, as they had to cancel orders from
consumers because of the lack of supply. People started mentioning B&H
specifically offering additional complaints about the problem. Since a
respected B&H employee was active in the forum, they immediately stepped in
and described the Nikon issue while offering their apologies about the problem.
“By acknowledging the issue,
one guy with one post changed the whole tone of the thread and the reputation
of B&H. After that, the posts changed to become incredibly positive”
(Scott, 2013, p.66).
Yes, B&H could not make
the problem go away, but by addressing the issue, they were able to change the
attitude of the consumers and eliminate any future negative comments about the
company.
For more insights on the
importance of monitoring online forums, watch this video below.
Sources:
Vermeren, I. (2013,
October 25). Monitoring Forums: Why Should You Care?
Retrieved February 11, 2014, from http://www.brandwatch.com/2013/10/how-to-leverage-a-first-mover-advantage-by-tracking-forums
Scott, David Meerman (2013,
June 19). The New Rules of Marketing
& PR: How to Use Social Media, Online Video, Mobile Applications, Blogs,
News Releases, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly (p. 61, 64 and 66). Wiley.
Amanda,
ReplyDeleteWe chose to discuss the same chapter this week and took away the same key lesson: "ignoring forums can be hazardous to your brand" (p. 61).
Scott gives some strong examples in the chapter, but there are certainly some others that illustrate his points. One that we've read about in a previous class in our program is "United Breaks Guitars." Long story short: a musician's guitar was broken on a flight. United declined to reimburse.He wrote a song, which went viral.
As a result, United lost a lot of brand equity (which eventually led to a huge stock plummet) (Sawhney, 2009). Now, the man with the broken guitar, Dave Carrol, has made a nice career for himself as a musician, writer and public speaker. All from a video complaint!
Obviously addressing the issue immediately would have prevented the song from being written and the negative PR storm that followed suit. Do you think any other lessons can be gleaned from this example?
Kait
References:
Sawhney, R. (2009, July 30). Broken Guitar Has United Playing the Blues to the Tune of $180 Million. Fast Companyhttp://www.fastcompany.com/1320152/broken-guitar-has-united-playing-blues-tune-180-million
Scott, D.M. (2013) The New Rules of Marketing and PR. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Kait – the United Breaks Guitars is a great example of a consumer post that impacted a national brand image. This is an example that has been brought up in many prior class discussions as well. United Airlines confessed to receiving e-mails from the unhappy customer, but chose not to respond until the music video went viral.
DeleteWhat should United Airlines done to address this? If they had responded more quickly, how do you think it would have impacted the national attention to this issue?
Hey Kait, you bring up a great example. United is known for not exactly having the best customer service. What the article fails to mention is whether Dave used Twitter or Facebook to complain about the issue in addition to email and phone calls.
DeleteAs Erik Qualman mentioned, JetBlue is a great example of a company that uses social media well. Not only do they tweet specific deals, but they also connect directly with followers. Sometimes they will even direct message them. "It's not marketing, it's trying to engage on a level other than mass broadcast" said Morgan Johnston, Manager of Corporate Communications for JetBlue (Qualman 32).
Source:
Qualman, E. (2012). Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Hi Amanda,
DeleteGreat recap - I personally enjoyed reading this chapter since it ties in with my role of managing Consumer Relations for my organization. It floors me to think of the infinite number of places consumers write about our products. It also scares me that it's virtually impossible to address every concern. I can appreciate the way that B&H, a very well-known specialty camera shop, chose to listen in on an equally specific forum to identify and address concerns. It tied in with Chapter 11 where Scott discussed engaging with persona segments.
As I was reading Chapter 4, it brought to mind Ryanair's customer engagement issues. Ryanair is an Irish airline known for horrendous customer service, but are one the most successful airlines in Europe despite their bare-bones / cheap business model. They do engage with consumers in social media and have a reputation for being mean and brutally honest at times. There's even a website someone created to air (no pun intended) concerns and issues (see www.ihateryanair.org). Recently, they announced that they will be working on softening their harsh approach and I wonder if forums like the ones Scott describes opened their minds to creating a more strategic communication strategy.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/20/ryanair-idUSL5N0HG1F020130920
Amanda – You mention Jet Blue is an airline company that uses social media well. With all of the snowy weather lately, airlines are being tested to utilize social media better than ever before.
DeleteSkiftIQ conducted research to find out how airlines’ social media teams are responding to flyers’ complaints and requests. American Airlines is dominating its rivals by sheer volume. On Sunday it sent nearly twice as many tweets (1,869) as its nearest rival JetBlue (989). United sent 583 tweets (Clampet, 2013).
American Airlines is also the fastest and most responsive with an average response time on Twitter of twelve minutes and 97.9% of the tweets are responses to consumers (Clampet, 2013). JetBlue’s response time is averaging 15 minutes, while Delta is averaging 13 minutes. United is at the end of the pack averaging 2 hours and 17 minutes.
What do you think of these reports? Does anything surprise you?
-----
Clampet, Jason (2014, January 7). How Airlines Are Using Social Media to Deal With This Week’s Weather. Skift. Retrieved on February 13, 2014 from http://skift.com/2014/01/07/how-airlines-are-using-social-media-to-deal-with-this-weeks-weather/#1
Hey Tara, that was an interesting article. It is amazing how many different outlets there are out there for consumers to voice their opinion. Companies can't afford not to listen now.
DeleteI actually found this infographic that contradicts Scott's statements about listening to brands. In the infographic, it says 51% of people actually want to complain on social media about a company without them listening. Breaking it down even further, 43% think listening in social media intrudes on privacy. You can view the infographic here: http://www.netbase.com/wp-content/uploads/NetBase-Social-Listening-InfoGraphic.jpg
I'm interested in hearing about what others in the group think. Do you use social media to vent or do you complain about a company to garner a response from them?
-Amanda
Source:
NetBase, & J.D. Power and Associates (2013). Social Listening [Infographic]. Retrieved from http://www.netbase.com/wp-content/uploads/NetBase-Social-Listening-InfoGraphic.jpg
I have a fun little personal experience to share. I work at a college and at commencement last year someone had started a beach ball bouncing around the graduates, until a University Police officer caught and took it away. I'm on stage and my phone buzzes with Twitter update...from the student who started it and had taken a photo of the next ball he had ready to go.
DeleteOf course, using the College account, I tweet "A HA!!! We found you!!!" followed closely by "Just kidding! Congrats to the Class of 2013." The student remarks on being seen, and then has fun with it and the next thing you know it is being retweeted by graduates across the ceremony.
Now, this graduate is one of our most involved "friends" online, giving us ideas, commenting on posts, etc.
It was a great win for us in our small little piece of the social media landscape.
Mike
I just read that it took seven months for Dave Carroll to write the United Breaks Guitars song (Lacey-Bordeaux, 2012). Seven months! I'd be interested in reading an in-depth case study that involves some of the correspondence (or lack thereof) that happened between each party during those seven months.
DeleteLacey-Bordeaux, E. (2012, June 25). The customer service blues: Going viral with complaints. CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/22/living/customer-service-social-media/
It looks like this is the most popular topic for classmates this week. Your Nikon example shows just how influential customer comments on social media can be. The most successful brand son social are those who not only post original content, but retweet, reply and repost crowdsourced information from their fans and followers.
ReplyDeleteYou offered a great example of a brand – Nikon – effectively managed social media discussions to reverse a negative consumer experience. What are some examples of brands who did not manage their social pages as efficiently and suffered from it?
Hey Kristen, there are a few companies who suffered from not managing their social networking sites properly. A few that come to mind are:
DeleteMcDonald's - In 2012, they promoted the hashtag #mcdstories to get consumers engaged and talk about the company. Instead, people began to tweet bad experiences they had with the company.
Chick-Fil-A - Consumers took to social media to speak out about the company after the founder spoke out against same-sex marriage. Their company Facebook page was taken over by angry posts from users.
Source:
Fiegerman, S. (2012, November 25). 11 Biggest Social Media Disasters of 2012. Retrieved February 12, 2014, from http://mashable.com/2012/11/25/social-media-business-disasters-2012
Amanda – these are certainly some good examples and I’m sure we should all add a few more to the pile. All of these failed social media programs have one thing in common: not having a strategic social media policy.
DeleteTo tie this back to your original point, because rolling out any social media plans, companies need to think strategically about how these platforms will be used by consumers and how it could potentially negatively impact their brands. They also need to know how they will monitor and address these comments on forum and blog pages. Companies should do significant research and surveys to ensure they are activating a successful program.
Thanks for your insightful posts this week. Keep up the good work!
The social media crisis that still sticks with me s the one Domino's Pizza experienced in 2009. Read The New York Times coverage here.
DeleteIt was two days and about 1,000,000 views on YouTube before they were able to get the video pulled.
There were smart to then enter the Twitter-verse to start engaging with questioners, but they were slow to protect their position.
MIke
Great examples cited for companies who did not capitalize on social media effectively or timely to manage a crisis. Having worked in the pharmaceutical world for many years, I'm probably more cautionary when recommending we engage with consumers on certain issues. But, on the other hand, social media does not allow us the luxury of time to hem and haw over a response.
DeleteI have seen instances (non mission critical) where we have responded and it's not the answer the consumer wanted to hear. Then, that sparks either more comments or criticism of our brand. Have any of you come across similar situations? Do you take it off-line or stand firm in your responses?
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteTara,
DeleteOur college experiences that all the time as students tend to combat the business rationale of the campus frequently.
Of particular concern is the shrinking timeframe and attention span from which we all seem to be suffering. Daniel Goleman advocates in his new book, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, that our attention span is suffering because everything is just a click away (2013). He notes that we are having more and more difficulty weighing the actual meaning of most of the information we get simply because we get caught up in the volume of information available and the need to sort (physically and mentally) through it all.
I fear that the wealth of information available to all of us actually sometimes hinders us because it just creates a great cacophony to which we pay less and less attention and therefore are actually less and less informed about what is going on around us.
I would love to hear people's thoughts on that and, if you agree, where you think we need to go from here.
Mike
Reference:
Goleman, D. (2013). Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence. New York, NY: Harper.
Hey Tara, we have definitely been in that situation before too. I'll give you an example. One time, a client from Australia was making a complaint about being charged for something they didn't order. We responded back that we would get in contact with the Australia office who would contact him shortly. Of course, the employee never emailed him, so the client sent us another furious post on Facebook. I then used his personal email to apologize again about the matter, and I CC'd him on an email with the contact in Australia.
DeleteAfterwards, he thanked me for being so responsive on Facebook and for getting him in contact with the rep.
Thanks Mike and Amanda for providing your perspectives. Mike is correct to note that everything is just a click away and speed to answer is so important on the digital stage.
DeleteAmanda, I like the example you provided and can appreciate the fact that the client posted positive sentiment about your response. I belong to an industry organization and sit on a task force for social media best practices specific to consumer affairs. A similar example to yours was brought up and it sparked conversation about whether or not consumers appreciate the resolution off-line or within the tool they chose to communicate with you. There were mixed reviews, some felt that addressing off-line in email was a off-putting because it didn't reveal the solution on the Facebook wall. Others felt that as long as the consumer was satisfied with the resolution it was sufficient. Both sides had valid points, however, I felt that if you take it off-line and the consumer doesn't comment back to support the response, other consumers may not think it was handled.
Hi Amanda,
ReplyDeleteGood summation here. I think writings and examples you've pulled from Scott here marry well to what we read in Qualman's Chapter 5 this week: "Companies and marketers had better spend more time listening to their customers and less time spending countless hours creating the next award-winning 30-second television commercial" (pg. 78).
Of course, listening is one thing. Acting on what you hear is quite another. I have found that engaging in conversation with customers via social media, even in times of difficulty, always ends up being a "win" for our college. It shows we care enough to hear them out, if nothing else.
Of course, especially when someone has a complaint, you often times cannot satisfy them. Can you give us some insight on how McDonald's handled the negative correspondence they received via the #mcdstories incident? I'd be interested to hear how they maneuvered within that.
Mike
Sorry. Forgot me reference:
DeleteQualman, E. (2012). Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Thanks Michael. As I'm sure you're aware, the McDonald's scandal was a #fail. They pulled the tweet about two hours after they first promoted it. Then the social media director sent out an email explaining the purpose of the campaign citing, "with all social media campaigns, we include contingency plans should the conversation not go as planned. The ability to change midstream helped this small blip from becoming something larger" (Lubin 2012).
DeleteI couldn't find anything more about how they resolved it, but two hours seems like a long time in the digital world.
Source:
Lubin, G. (2012, January 24). McDonald's Twitter Campaign Goes Horribly Wrong #McDStories. Retrieved February 13, 2014, from http://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-twitter-campaign-goes-horribly-wrong-mcdstories-2012-1#ixzz2tGD8vKB0
Great post, Amanda.
ReplyDeleteOnline forums are definitely something marketers should be more aware of as they plan on tracking and participating in social media. In fact, I think they tend to be forgotten and ignored in favor of bigger, flashier tools like Facebook and Twitter.
Forums can, in some ways, be even more important to pay attention to as this will be the first wave of customer engagement. Consumers on forums tend to be more engaged, informed, and interested in your product or service as opposed to the one of many people passing through on Twitter or Facebook. The online forum is a place where regular enthusiasts of that specific area continuously and regularly meet to discuss and complain about what your company may or may not be doing.
The conversation on Twitter tends to be scattershot with a wide variety of conversations and topics being aired simultaneously. On the Internet forum, the discussion is focused and being talked about amongst those with a keen interest in what you may have to say. The Nikon example demonstrates the strengths of forums. These are consumers who are dedicated to cameras, either as a hobby or professionally, and they will be the ground floor of influencers who will spread the good word about your product. If they are dissatisfied, that dissatisfaction will spread fast to those with a passing interest in your product elsewhere. But, stemming that negativity at the source can really help a company dodge potential future headaches.
Forums helpfully segment those you most want to be communicating with. “In the entire social web...forums are where the deepest, most engaging conversation around specific topics and interests occurs.” (Falls, 2012) This is where you will be able to find the first cracks in your product/service and engaging with them in this early stage when its first noticed is crucial. As stated by other comments here, speed also plays a crucial factor in customer service in the digital age. Using forums as a starting point can be crucial towards forming a message for the rest of the social web.
Works Cited
Falls, J. (2012, May 11). How to Engage In Online Forums For Your Brand. Retrieved from Social Media Explorer: http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/social-media-marketing/how-to-engage-in-online-forums-for-your-brand/
I'd be interested to hear what forums people here actually use. I myself don't use them often (could that be an age thing?).
ReplyDeleteI know people use TripAdvisor, Angie's List and Yelp but what else?
Hey Michael, I also use Seamless (a food delivery app) that's pretty big in New York City. When you're choosing where to order food from, it shows customer reviews for those specific restaurants they list.
ReplyDeleteAmanda - thanks for your great insight this week on the importance of monitoring social dialogue. The discussions on your blog post expanded to a range of social platforms that are applicable to corporate social media monitoring, showing that it's important to expand strategic planning beyond Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDelete