Social Media

There is a good customer dissatisfaction video on YouTube about a band member that had his guitar damaged when flying United Airlines. According to the video, there were witnesses to baggage handlers throwing the guitar and taking absolutely no care with it. Currently, there are only a few hundred views of this video, but many, many comments – most of them saying they are appalled at how United has handled this issue.

Apart from being an interesting (and entertaining) video made by a dissatisfied customer, this also brings up something that we have recently been discussing here at AHA Creative Strategies: social media measurement – in all its forms. We provide evaluation on projects, media coverage and other initiatives to quite a few clients and the accuracy and credibility of that evaluation is very important to us. Social media is a challenge because the natural reaction is to use traditional evaluation methods, and that’s a little like comparing apples to oranges.

I had this discussion with my friend and colleague Stephen Hodgdon of Beaupre and I thought his response—while specifically about blogs—was worth repeating and could be applied to many forms of social media. He said: “Blog traffic has a number of advantages over traditional media reader metrics, including that it tends to drive more customers directly to your business website, enables you to engage with your customers directly, and increases your search engine visibility, to name a few.”

In the case of the United Breaks Guitars video, it is interesting to note that there are companies that specialize in the transportation of band gear (full disclosure, one of the top companies out of the U.S. that does this is an AHA client.). Think about the gear of big name acts like The Rolling Stones, Britney Spears, U2, Matchbox 20, Kelly Clarkson and Nickleback and the hundreds of other acts flying around. (These acts aren’t necessarily connected to our client). They tour globally and for the most part – they take a lot of their gear with them. The shipment of guitars and drums and other instruments and equipment needed to put on a world-class show can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per band. So, not only has United put off this one particular customer, who happens to be in what appears to be a smaller band, it may also be showing other much larger clients that United can’t be trusted with this kind of cargo. What do you think would happen if someone had to explain to Bruce Springsteen or Jon Bon Jovi that their favourite guitar was damaged in transit? That wouldn’t be good for anyone.

So, from this video – not only do I now believe that as a single passenger, United Airlines will do nothing to help me, I have also sent it to my client, who runs a company that promises that a band’s gear will get to the next city on time and in one piece.

In this day and age, it’s not how many people hear the good or bad about your organization, it’s who hears about it and what that means to you.

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First off, let me state that I am not going to speculate about why Sarah Palin resigned her position as Governor of Alaska. I am, however, going to put forward a few things about her resignation that make you go hmmmm…

As communicator’s we know that sometimes the news (both mainstream and online) focuses on one big story and may exclude others. In the past couple of weeks that story has been about the death of Michael Jackson. Coverage about how the “King of Pop” died, his will and the custody of his children has been extensive. I found it curious that Sarah Palin decided to announce her resignation in the middle of this coverage and on the Friday of the July 4th long weekend.

I can remember as a young reporter being told by a gruff, old journalist that I should always keep an eye on news releases or announcements sent out on a Friday afternoon. He explained to me that they were done on purpose. It was done in order to slide bad news by us, so that by Monday, it was old news. I never forgot that and when I saw Palin’s announcement on Friday, I wondered about the timing. As I flipped through several U.S. news stations to see their coverage, they were all saying the same thing, they were surprised at the news and some described the news conference as “hastily arranged.” (Which, I would imagine, is why there is speculation about why she resigned.) Hastily arranged, surprising to political journalists and all on the Friday of a long weekend. It makes you go hmmmm…

I had put the Palin resignation out of my mind and wasn’t even going to blog about it, but then I heard all kinds of news coverage yesterday about Palin’s attorney saying she would sue journalists and bloggers speculating about her resignation. Because Palin responded, I thought about the timing of her resignation again. I learned about the speculation of why she resigned and I heard that she was threatening lawsuits. So did the use of the threat of lawsuits provided any benefit to Palin. I don’t think so. It just stirred the pot and got people talking more about the negative.

There is an interesting article on politico.com that talks about Palin’s Facebook response to mainstream media’s reaction to her resignation. It’s worth a read. Online media has changed how we receive our news and how we can respond and participate. It will be interesting to see how this will play out over the next few weeks.

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Your online presence, no matter whether you are a newspaper, a not-for-profit, a small business, a large corporation or government is important. We talk to clients and workshop participants about this a great deal. Your website is key in your communications strategy. Without a good site and using Twitter, Facebook or any of the social media tools available to us, you are really not doing your organization justice.

Twitter is great for sharing and discovering information, but if you follow some of the best Tweets, they lead you back to a blog, a website or somewhere you can get more information. Don’t lead people back to an old website that hasn’t been updated in months.

Take a good look at your website – is it dynamic, do you have fresh content posted regularly, is there an opportunity for feedback and interactivity? What are your stats and are you digging in to see who is coming to your site, what they are engaged in, and what they stick around to read?

Online communication is of great value, but don’t run before you walk. Take a good look at your website and make sure it is of value to the people you want to engage in conversation.

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There’s good news on the horizon for those businesses and celebrities that are being impersonated on Twitter.

Apparently, St. Louis Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa sued Twitter. It was reported by the Associated Press that La Russa was “claiming an unauthorized page used his name to make light of drunken driving and two Cardinals pitchers who died, [it] damaged his reputation and caused emotional distress.”

Sports Illustrated’s website SI.com is reporting that the two sides have reached an agreement. Twitter is paying legal fees and making a donation to La Russa’s Animal Rescue Foundation.

These types of impersonations are happening more and more on Twitter. TechCrunch has a blog post reporting that this summer, Twitter is planning to add a feature called “verified accounts.” This will help ensure people using the accounts are actually the person and not an impersonator. To start, Twitter will be looking at famous people.

I am sure many can’t wait until the time comes for Twitter to verify business and brand accounts.

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There was an interesting article in BusinessWeek last week about Web 2.0 and managing corporate reputations. I am often asked about the challenges that come with the open conversations created by social media. It’s a valid concern for organizations and one that should be taken seriously.

Some organizations choose to block employee access to social networking sites. That seems to be old paradigm thinking to me and it is a bit like locking the barn door after the horse has already walked out. There are all sorts of ways around being blocked. Think about how many staff members have an iPhone or a BlackBerry and can get online that way (and that number is only growing) or they can use an Internet stick (we use one quite often when we give presentations to organizations). And – there is always time away from the office.

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