Image courtesy of Swamibu

Following the Jimmy Choo treasure hunt on Foursquare, the topic of social networking for luxury brands is starting to get discussed more and more. We can certainly say that it’s an emerging area ; adoption of social network technologies for luxury brands is slow and that’s completely understandable. Luxury brands are built around the premise of being aspirational and exclusive, hardly words that you would immediately associate with social media. So what are the opportunities online like for luxury brands and who’s paving the way?

Case study – Tiffany & Co

Tiffany’s is a great example of a luxury brand going from strength to strength in social media. Their Facebook page boasts over 410,000 fans, but aside from the numbers there is an active community on there regularly commenting and updating the wall, without detracting from the luxury nature of the brand. There are a few spam comments on there, but the majority of posts are people discussing how much they love Tiffany’s, sharing articles and importanly, pictures of their own Tiffany products. They’ve managed to sustain a community on there that is completely in line with the brand values and core messages of Tiffany & Co.

As well as their Facebook page though, they’re also branching out into other media, having recently launched their Engagement Ring iPhone app and produce videos to share online that showcase their new products. This video is an example of their new jewellery range that is shared through their Facebook page. Now it may not be the most thrilling of videos but importantly, it is the sort of thing you would expect from a luxury brand.

What Tiffany & Co are doing particularly well, and is a good opportunity for many other luxury brands, is sharing photos of celebrities wearing their products. This represents the ultimate in aspiration, particularly for the female audience and adds a level to their social media presence that encourages conversation without losing the exclusivity. The potential for this spreads outside of Facebook and would be a perfect fit for a blog for a luxury brand, creating engaging content that all the while focuses on the luxury and elegance of the product. This would work particularly well for luxury hotels.

Maintaining Aspiration

You may find it odd that I mentioned ‘exclusivity’ above, in a post about social media! Some of you may disagree with this and think that luxury brands should completely open themselves up online. They absolutely should, but it’s exclusivity and aspiration that keeps a luxury brand exactly that and I don’t think that’s something that should be lost through social media. Instead, I think luxury brands should use the very tools available to them through social media to create aspirational communities. I’m talking here about an ‘invite-only’ community for example, that unlocks even more content and perks such as invites to preview-sales. The added extras for the true fans. The potential here is huge and I think it’s something you’ll see more and more higher-end brands adopting.

One of the first examples we saw of this was the social network  ‘A Small World’, which, although not aligned to a particular brand, was a closed community for the rich and powerful. This was more aligned to the business community and focused on shared connections. What the site did however, was present an opportunity for those brands that wanted to reach the decision makers and trend-setters, through incredibly targeted advertising. Now this is obviously an elitist community and not one I’m particularly a fan of (and no, I’ve never been invited!) because it’s basis is just on being powerful and connected. But if this were aligned to a particular brand, then it becomes a different story. Then you’re a fan because of a shared connection and love of a particular service or product. Then it starts to get a bit of substance.

While the market for luxury brands is ultimately different than mainstream brands, many of the same rules still apply. As companies are forced to come online because that’s where their customers are going and talking about them, this still applies for higher end brands. Perhaps even more so. Luxury brands need to know what their key influencers and stakeholders are saying about them online, because they really are setting trends. They need to carry out media monitoring just like any other and really need to assess the influence and relevance of the individuals that are talking about them online. Luxury brands thrive on the premise of trend-setters – you want the product because someone very important, or ultimately enviable has it. And this rule still applies online, with the influence that fashion blogs can have for example.

This year I think we will see more and more high-end brands coming online and starting to do exciting things. Trend-setters like Tiffany & Co. and Jimmy Choo have shown that not only this is possible, but that great things can be achieved without having to lose the values that your brand survives on.

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Vodafone World Cup iPad Competition

First Quote Which Football Player Would You Insure

Another one of our clients First Quote who provide insurance in Ireland wanted to find out which footballer people would insure at the world cup this year so we took to Grafton Street this week to ask the Irish public. Some good answers here and make sure to let us know down below in the comments which player you think First Quote should be insured at this year’s world cup…

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]]> http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/world-cup-videos-ipad-competitions/feed/ 8 http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/hear-average-brands/ http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/hear-average-brands/#comments Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:19:21 +0000 Lauren Fisher http://www.simplyzesty.com/?p=9268

Image courtesty of svenwerk

I recently read a very interesting article, on how the internet is churning out by-products of the inexperienced, whereby you no longer have to become an expert or an authority on something to be heard ; you just have to know how to create a Tumblr or upload a youtube video. The author concludes, and I tend to agree, that this is actually an incredible thing, as the internet has enabled us to share our experiences as we learn and, hopefully, learn from others as we do so. It’s a fascinating concept, so what happens when you apply it to brands?

I want to take a closer look at the benefit that the internet (specifically social media) has afforded those average brands – the brands that aren’t quite there yet, that are young and developing, that are still prone to making mistakes. Can these organisations use social media to change the way they do things? Firstly, let’s set something straight…

Social media won’t save you

I want to examine here the benefits of social technologies to a brand that you typically wouldn’t have got to hear about unless you walked past their shop window. What I’m not advocating is that all failing, small or average brands use social media in the hope that it will save them. No. If you have a rotten product at the core, people will still think it’s rotten even if you’ve got a Facebook page. They’ll just say it on there instead. But what social media does have the power to do is to guide your brand, if you listen to what people are saying. This is one of the most fascinating (and, admittedly dangerous) things about bringing your average brand online. The technologies and channels available through social media have meant that the smallest or average brands can get right in front of their target consumers and build hype online, you just need a bit of smarts about you. There are both clear advantages and disadvantages to this.

The first thing to tackle when talking about how the internet has benefited the average brands, is of course, the democratic state of the web. In much the same way that Powazek discusses the fact that you see an awful lot of dross before you get to the good stuff online, the same can be said of brands’ websites. You no longer need to afford a physical premise to serve your customers, you can do it all online for free. While this has bought us some excellent web-based brands in the small business bracket – Wiggly Wigglers for example, this has also clearly bought us some absolute rubbish.

The great thing is however, that as the brand owner, you can choose to listen to what people are saying about your brand and, importantly, act accordingly. The social web has opened up a dialogue with your consumers, which may never before have been possible. It’s what you do with this information that counts.

Knowing when to listen, and when not to

One of the more difficult thing for younger, average brands, is knowing when to listen to what people are saying, and when to block it out. I don’t mean to block it out in the obstinate sense and actually not absorb it, but knowing which feedback is actually applicable to you. The fact is you can never please all the people all the time, and this can be one of the most dangerous things about being one of these brands that’s ‘learning’ in the public eye. What one person wants for 100% free, the other will want a charge for, to get a more premium service. Just as the practising pianist will be subject to a multitude of conflicting advice, so will the young (or most) brands. The average brands that will come out stronger are those that are able to disseminate the advice they’re getting, solicited or not, and make an educated decision as to whether or not this will ultimately improve or tarnish their service or product. Here is where the theory for brands becomes somewhat separate to what Powazek was examining. Whereas someone like the phat gay kid (his moniker, not mine) can choose to ignore the haters and convince himself he’s a good singer by listening to the small group of loyal fans, an organisation that has to make money doesn’t have such freedom.

Bringing your average or new brand online in the era of social media mayhem isn’t an easy thing to do. If you’re an established brand then you already have your brand values in place, you know your key messages and you will have had the privilege of making a lot of your earlier mistakes in private. We all know now however, that very little, if anything, is private any more. It is a brave thing for a new and emerging brand to open up online and be willing to learn and adapt right there in the public eye. If as a brand you’re willing to ‘practice’ in the public domain, you have to risk opening up your core brand to multiple interpretations and learning some hard truths that everyone can see. Just as the person who writes their first blog post or uploads their first dance video will be susceptible to. This isn’t easy for a new or average brand to do, which is why I think we should be celebrating those that are willing to do this.

The brands that I commend, the ones that really have some guts, are those that are actually willing to be receptive to public opinion and advice, to actually change and do something right. The ones that recognise they could be average on their own, but if they actually listen to the people they want to convert, then they can emerge as fantastic. The importance of listening to your consumers, knowing their wants and needs can not be overestimated.

This is demonstrated perfectly by the founder of Billabong – Gordon Merchant. A keen surfer himself, he realised the need for quality and fashionable clothing for surfers, when he attended the surfing world championships. He spotted the winner ripping up his shorts before he went into the water, in order to get the movement he needed -something that conventional board shorts at the time weren’t providing. It was here that the seed was sewn (pardon the pun!) and the multinational brand that we know today was born. What the average brands must never forget, is the power of consumer insight. Sometimes it’s staring you right in the face.

The strong brands are not the ones that ignore the advice and carry on as if they know best, the strong brands are the ones that recognise that social media allows them to learn publicly and go from average to amazing.

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]]> http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/hear-average-brands/feed/ 0 http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/lg-cookie/ http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/lg-cookie/#comments Wed, 02 Jun 2010 15:20:56 +0000 Lauren Fisher http://www.simplyzesty.com/?p=9172 We’re running this pretty cool competition for our client – Vodafone Ireland. In order to get your hands on the new LG Cookie Fresh, which is customisable, you just have to enter your best designs through the app below. You can also enter on Facebook. The best 3 entries as picked by Vodafone will win an LG Cookie. You can play with the app below, and link to your design through the Facebook or Twitter share options. You can also embed the app on your own blog! Obviously we’re biased, but we think it’s a pretty nifty app… The good news as well is that if you enter on the app itself you can win one of the great phones on offer and the app will also be appearing on various other blogs and sites where spot prizes and phones will also be on offer. Have a go and see what you think…

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]]> http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/lg-cookie/feed/ 1 http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/online-reputation-monster-2/ http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/online-reputation-monster-2/#comments Sun, 09 May 2010 18:08:14 +0000 Lauren Fisher http://www.simplyzesty.com/?p=8939

Picture courtesy of autumn_bliss

Managing your online reputation has, quite frankly, become a bit of a beast. With the ‘real time’ web, companies need to be reactive and proactive 24/7 and lately this has been taken to the extreme. When the social web first emerged, there used to be some form of best practice that could be followed and adhered to. Negative blog post? Leave a nice reply, get the issue sorted and nip it in the bud. Bad thread on a forum? Try and deal with the issue openly and honestly and better still, get it off the first page of Google in the hope that no-one ever finds it. That however, is no longer the case. The speed with which a crisis can emerge online means that it is near-impossible to control it. It’s no longer confined to one space and before you know it, there’ll be a group set up on Facebook and you’ll find a spoof Twitter account, happily tweeting away.

Now I’m sure the kneejerk reaction to a post like this is to say that companies should just treat their customers well and you won’t have a problem. Nice as that is, unfortunately it doesn’t work in the real world. Sure, there are examples where companies could have done better (think Amazon, Nestle etc..) but in many cases reputations are being tarnished unfairly. I know plenty of examples (both client and non) where companies have fallen victim to reputation management issues that turn out to be a disgruntled former employee, someone just having a bad day, or similiar. And we’re not just talking businesses here, individuals now too can be subject to reputation management problems. The Stephen Fry example demonstrates this, as an individual who, in my opinion, unfairly felt the wrath of online. No matter how good, clean or innocent you are, you can always be vulnerable to a tarnished reputation.

PR as customer service?

There are still of course, areas of best practice to adhere to. How you handle yourself online during a crisis, whether justified or not, is going to speak volumes. The issue for companies is how you control it and herein lies the problem. Do you prioritise those quiet customers with a genuine problem, or the ones wreaking havoc online? The lines of PR and customer service become blurred. And it’s not hard to understand why companies might focus on the loudest tweeters, the most prolific bloggers. Those who are skilled in social media, know how to get the attention of companies and create a rather large storm in a very big teacup.

Bad reputation – so what?

The organisation has a difficult decision to make. Some – invariably, decide to ignore what’s going on. Michael O’Leary deemed the blogosphere irrelevant. Certainly not the best PR move, but considering the amount of people who have heard of the Ryanair incident,  I can count on one hand, those who said they wouldn’t fly with them as a result. In this case you have to ask yourself what is the significance of these crises, when they’re not actually affecting sales? If something like your reputation can be quickly broken, it can just as easily be forgotten. Mike Arrington even went so far as to announce that reputation is dead, and that eventually we will just learn to accept indiscretions. He speaks a lot of sense.

This is a tricky one for brands to handle. Try as you might, some organisations just aren’t going to be able to answer every tweet, blog post or Facebook comment immediately. Is it then just a case of doing what you can at the time, maintain best practice and wait for it to blow over? Traditionally the downside to this would be that a bad review or blog post would be in Google for everyone to see. But this is changing and this is where the real-time benefits companies. If you find yourself in the middle of a crisis management situation, in a matter of days it could be replaced with  new content or a new discussion. Everything that’s made reputation management a moster, also makes it equally liable to run away and claim the next victim.

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]]> http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/online-reputation-monster-2/feed/ 3 http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/amnesty-internationals-user-generated-lobbying/ http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/amnesty-internationals-user-generated-lobbying/#comments Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:56:23 +0000 Lauren Fisher http://www.simplyzesty.com/?p=8726 I stumbled across a fascinating and inspiring campaign by Amnesty International Ireland that I wanted to highlight here on the blog. It is an excellent example of user generated content being used for the power of good and to effect actual change.  Over a 4 week period (ending 8th May) Amnesty will be collecting videos submitted by the public from all over the country, as part of their mental health campaign. The videos collected, part of their Demanding Change campaign, will then be edited into the main film  which will be presented to Brian Cowen in a bid to make mental health a political priority.

What Amnesty say

I spoke to Pippa Woolnough, Communications Officer (Mental Health) at Amnesty International Ireland, to see what made them want to do the campaign, which is being run in partnership with production company Tengger. Impressively, as Amnesty is running the campaign on a tight budget, the entire process is being managed inhouse. Pippa explained that this is the first time they’ve run a campaign like this and they wanted to explore the possibility of using new media to affect and change their usual lobbying process. As much as this campaign is about mental health, there is a bigger picture here. Pippa is hopeful that the campaign will affect Amnesty’s more traditional approach to  mental health and human rights campaigns in general.

What I like about this campaign is that it uses social media to strongly carry through the messages and approach that is at the heart of Amnesty International. This quote from Colm O’Gorman, Executive Director of Amnesty Ireland, puts this into perspective “Since its foundation nearly 50 years ago, Amnesty International owes much of its success to individual people who have stood up for universally recognised human rights. We have more than 2.2 million members and supporters internationally, with more than 15,000 of those based in Ireland.” The fact that Amnesty are supporting giving a voice to these individuals through social media is commendable.

The campaign is also being supported through their Facebook page , which is the largest of Irish NGO’s and an inspiration to any charity or voluntary organisations in Ireland :

Get Involved

So far Amnesty have received around 20 video submissions and they need more! To submit your video, you can email it in to info@tengger.ie , or find out more about how to get involved here. (links to pdf). Remember that to submit a video you don’t need any fancy technology, just a powerful voice and a mobile phone. The submission process itself is a little clunky, having to paste a consent form into your email and without the ability to publicly see submitted entries, but I think this is reflective of the fact that this is being run on a small budget. No fancy Facebook apps here, just a great idea, and an inspiring one at that.

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]]> http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/amnesty-internationals-user-generated-lobbying/feed/ 0 http://www.simplyzesty.com/social-media/find-follow-transact/ http://www.simplyzesty.com/social-media/find-follow-transact/#comments Thu, 01 Apr 2010 11:13:45 +0000 Robin http://www.simplyzesty.com/?p=8456 The ultimate goal of your business is to exchange something in return for the money in your customers pocket – it’s called a transaction. In this transaction you can exchange anything – a service, a product, a piece of information, an experience, or simply an emotion. Let’s focus on how we can use social media to improve the number of transactions you make.

Let’s meet Nicola – her business is running exercise classes in local parks. The transaction occurs when people exchange their money for Nicola’s energy and time. Look wider – that’s what they’re getting, but is that what they are trying to buy? No.

Nicola’s customers are actually indirectly buying their perceived fitness, relative to their friends. This is the problem that Nicola needs to crack.

She realises that an extremely effective way to advertise her classes is by providing people who want to get fit with free information. To distribute this information she would walk around the park and talk to strangers, and photocopy a newsletter and leave it in gyms. Explaining her business to me, I show her how social media could help her increase transactions.

Social media is an ideal tool for this task – and we help Nicola create a Facebook Page “Get Fit With Nicola”. She begins to create a network around her, first with her friends, then with her customers. Nicola begins to seed interactions into the network, “Your challenge today is 10 minute jog lifting your heels 6 inches from ground…” and she adds in some education, “…this will tone your legs better than normal”.

Suddenly Nicola has empowered her followers with information they can share with their friends, and you can guess what the next conversation on the treadmills will be, “lift those heels, my friend Nicola says that…”! Her clients are getting what they’re buying – perceived fitness among their peers. This is the “Always-On” information power of Social Media – it is available to them outside of classes and something to feel part of.

Let’s move this up a notch using more power of social media “Everything Is Connected”. Nicola’s customers regularly give feedback on the Facebook Page. A client, Sara, writes “Great session on Monday – you really worked us hard Nicola. Thanks.”. As everything is connected, Sara’s friend Sally see’s,

“Sara posted: ‘You really worked us hard’ on ‘Get Fit With Nicola’ 7 minutes ago”.

You can guess what happens – human nature takes over and her friends can’t help but find out what fitness Sara is doing. Sally see’s all these juicy bits of fitness information posted by Nicola – and she presses “Become A Fan” too.

Going forward another step with the power of “Ability To Trust” in social media, Nicola continues posting – and as this absorption of information grows amongst her fans – a karma builds. They learn to read her fitness tips and trust her. Nicola now has reached the point of “Permission Marketing”, where her fans are glad to read her marketing as it’s highly relevant and trusted. Nicola begins to talk a little bit more about what they did at that weeks class and weave’s a story – it’s genuinely interesting content, and her Fans are empowered by the information she is giving.

Six months pass, and Sally makes a new years resolution to get fit – who do you think she goes to for fitness classes? Although it took a long time to come, the transaction happens, but using social media it’s a very solid one. The beauty of all this? Remember the rule that “Everything Is Connected”, well that transaction you were working towards was connected too. It starts all over again,

“Sally posted: ‘You really worked us hard’ on ‘Get Fit With Nicola’ 1 minutes ago”.

–
An article by guest author Robin Blandford (also see Part I – Never Forget Where You’re Going To). In this part, Robin discusses how businesses can use the 3 powers of  Social Media – “Always-On”, “Everything Is Connected”, and “Ability To Trust” with the Find Me, Follow Me, Transact With Me method of online engagement.

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]]> http://www.simplyzesty.com/social-media/find-follow-transact/feed/ 0 http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/social-media-kill-micro-sites/ http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/social-media-kill-micro-sites/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:45:38 +0000 Niall Harbison http://www.simplyzesty.com/?p=7673 I hate micro sites. Even though there are some great examples I shudder when I hear the word in terms of brand building. The reason I don’t like them is that at best they usually only have a finite life and at worst they seem like an easy way for agencies to get money out of brands and businesses. If I had a penny for every time I have heard “we will need to build a micro site so as consumers can get the information they need” I would be a very rich man indeed. Social media profiles (and Facebook in particular) provide a brilliant alternative and I would be advising brands to stop paying 10,000 Euros a pop for a fancy useless flash micro sites that nobody will visit and replace it instead with a good solid long term social media plan. Lets start by looking at a couple of graphs to drive the point hone…

Social Media V. Campaign Microsites

The Internet is like one big graveyard of micro sites that have been filled with brilliant content and then just discarded as campaigns come to an end. Looking at these 2 graphs it is pretty clear which route I would want to follow as a brand with a view of keeping my fans engaged in the long term…

I have based the graph on one of the graphs we have for our own presence on social media and matched it up with the general cycle for micro sites (I got the idea to build this post from yesterday’s social media presentation by Coca Cola). There is no doubt that micro sites will get you a good quick bang for your buck but when it comes to getting a long term following for your brand you really can’t top social media. The beauty of social media as a platform is that you have a springboard for future campaigns that doesn’t require any media spend, you have a ready made audience who have interacted with your brand in the past.

Reasons Why Micro sites Don’t Work

I have a lot of issues with micro sites in general and would prefer a good social media alternative 99% of the time as it gives you a continuous lasting presence but here are some of the main issues I have…

Hard To Promote

Micro sites will often have unique URLs that are specific to each campaign and as such they will usually be supported by large online banner advertising campaigns or Television or traditional media spend to build awareness about the new site. Most brands will have a couple of these sites over the last couple of years and the message they are trying to get across really gets diluted and spread across different sites rather than living in one central location.

Starting From Scratch

I just can’t see the logic of starting a campaign on a website that has no incoming links, no Google Page rank, no traffic and building that site in to something that does have some traffic and credibility before just abandoning it and moving on to the next big campaign. Every single time you start a new site you are literally starting from scratch and trying to tell the whole world about your new site and hoping they interact with it even though they may never have seen it before and have no trust in it whatsoever.

Limited Interaction

I often see micro sites that have amazing competition giveaways and huge prizes and it is only since I have started working on this side of the industry that I hear the stories and see the metrics of just how little interaction some of these competitions generate that I wonder even more about the logic of using these one off sites. Most of us only really interact with things we trust online and even though the latest trend of adding Facebook connect to these sites has increased interaction it is only really a small step in the right direction.

Wasted Content

I see hundreds of amazing videos, photos and other interactive bits of content added to these micro sites to help draw users in and engage them but as soon as the campaign is over the site and all the content on it goes in to a great big black hole never to be seen again. I would love to know what the logic would be to create all this amazing expensive content only to dispose of it as soon as the campaign was over? Why not have people make use of it over and over again in to the future?

The Alternative

Without going in to too much detail you don’t have to be a genius to work out that social media provides a better long term solution. Most of the functionality that we see in micro sites can be built in to Facebook pages where once you have an interaction it is likely that you will acquire a new fan who is not just a fan of your new campaign but a fan for the long term if you treat them well. Instead of letting that video content you created fall in to a big black hole why not create a branded YouTube channel so as your fans can access it whenever they need it and further enhance your brand and even push them back in to Facebook and through other video sharing platforms so as your messages keeps spreading rather than just being campaign based.
Social media is changing a lot of industries and I really hope that people do start seeing the huge appeal in creating long term content hubs through social media because as the graph above shows it is the way forward and the best thing about it is that you are not going to be spending 10k on something that will be useless in 6 months anyway

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]]> http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/social-media-kill-micro-sites/feed/ 10 http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/excellent-coca-cola-social-media-strategy-presentation/ http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/excellent-coca-cola-social-media-strategy-presentation/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:49:55 +0000 Niall Harbison http://www.simplyzesty.com/?p=7662 Sometimes I spend hours writing blog posts and then other times you just find something that does all the talking for you and makes your life easy and conveys great information. Paul Savage shared a link this morning for this presentation and after flicking through it I could see that it summed up some of the ways I think about social media perfectly. I am not saying that I think like Coke but the points like Google being your homepage, creating great content and about how you need to engage your fans over the long term rather than on a campaign form the basis of what we try to do. Coke have been very innovative in the social media space and we have featured them here on the blog in the past and it is great to see a company of their sheer size stepping up to the table and driving social media forward. This presentation is well worth viewing…

Coke’s ‘fans first’ approach in social communities

View more presentations from iStrategy.

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]]> http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/excellent-coca-cola-social-media-strategy-presentation/feed/ 6 http://www.simplyzesty.com/social-media/social-media-trend-apology-youtube-video/ http://www.simplyzesty.com/social-media/social-media-trend-apology-youtube-video/#comments Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:34:19 +0000 Niall Harbison http://www.simplyzesty.com/?p=7316 I have been noticing a new trend over the last year where companies use social media and in particular Youtube to apologize to their customers and as a key tool in crisis management. The latest example was the video below from Toyota commercial director Jon Williams explaining just how sorry he was about all the drama they have been having over the last couple of weeks with recalls of their cars. The interesting thing is that because people think that this type of communication is so innovative and exciting some of the blame around the incident itself is actually removed. It is almost a case of “ah look at them getting their CEO on Youtube, how forward thinking of them”.

It’s Just media

There is no doubting that it is smart to get an interview up on Youtube but truth be told it is just another stop on the circle of interviews that Jon Williams will be doing. The fact that it is on Youtube is interesting but this will quickly become the norm and lose it’s magic dust as a small PR win while facing a wave of critisism on other fronts. Lots of us consume our media online now rather than through televisions so there really isn’t anything new or unique about this, they are simply delivering the message through a new channel.

It Lasts Forever

The good thing about this sort of coverage is unlike television this clip should be around forever (perhaps when the fuss has died down it may not seem like a good idea to leave a Toyota executive grovelling up on Youtube but that is another discussion) and it can be embedded on blogs like this, liked on Facebook, subscribed to on Youtube and generally pushed around online so there is extra power in the message

It’s Not That Big A Deal

I don’t drive a Toyota, I don’t even drive a car so this type of story really holds no interest to me. If I saw him speaking on the news I would switch it over immediately but the fact that it is online and a great example of social media crisis management I have picked up on it. Amazingly I think if you questioned me in great detail I would probably have a more positive view on the Toyota brand than I did 10 days ago (I guess I wouldn’t if I owned one of their cars). This sort of stuff is new and will be exciting for a while but as soon as all companies start using YouTube like this and these things become more of the norm the novelty will ware off and the PR effect will diminish with only directly affected customers wanting to hear some remorse from the company.

Some Other Examples

There have been a few other examples in the last six months of Youtube being used by social media savvy companies and corporations. Here are a couple of other examples that you may have noticed yourself…

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]]> http://www.simplyzesty.com/social-media/social-media-trend-apology-youtube-video/feed/ 2 http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/social-media-reputation/ http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/social-media-reputation/#comments Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:38:40 +0000 Lauren Fisher http://www.simplyzesty.com/?p=7152 The answer is, a lot. Nowhere is this more evident than with Tripadvisor’s recent release of the top 10 dirtiest hotels, as well as the top 10 best in the world. The list is based on Tripadvisor’s member reviews of hotels and is one of the best examples of the power of social media to influence your reputation.  Unfortunately for those hotels featured on the naughty list, there’s no easy answer other than improving your hotel and conversing with your customers on these platforms to find and remedy their problems.

It is becoming increasingly important for companies to be aware of their reputation online, especially now we’re in an age when UGC rules. Word of mouth is still the most trusted source of information, it probably always will be, so if you’re a company with a reputation management issue, the best thing you can do is to find the people that are hacked off and start conversing with them to solve their problems. (See my recent post on customer service for more info on this).

With the Tripadvisor example, you would hope that this isn’t the first notification that these hotels have that someone has a problem with them. If they’re continually monitoring their company online they should already be well aware of the issues. The truth may be ugly, but you need to be aware of what your customers are saying. Just because you’re not listening, doesn’t mean that people will stop talking. It’s an unfortunate truth that fear of negative reviews is often one of the  main factors that prevents companies from opening up online and embracing social media. This is understandable, but the alternative – closing the door and pretending you can’t hear, isn’t going to do much long-term benefit for your business.

The importance of owning your web real estate

This is an important factor for every business. Each of the hotel’s listings on tripadvisor is a piece of their web real estate, as is their Facebook page, Twitter account, Google SERP for brand terms or any other area online where people may be looking for you. Owning this is incredibly important. We’re not talking about ‘owning’ something as having complete control over what people say, but owning it as intervening where possible and trying to turn a positive into a negative. Search is incredibly important here. You need to be aware of the first thing people are seeing when they search for your name. And if you don’t like what you see, then you probably need to do something about it.

The issue of reputation management is yet another reason why companies need to stop thinking about their social media activity in ‘campaign’ terms and realise that you need to monitor and act within social media on an ongoing basis. Great if you have a shiny social media campaign for which to sell your product, but once this is over and you forget about social media, it doesn’t mean your customers have. They’ll still be there talking about you and you need to be talking back. It’s no use trying to make social media fit with your traditional marketing activities, because it’s a whole different beast altogether.

The trick, of course, as with traditional PR is to prevent a crisis before it happens. Let me tell you, if you’re waiting for something to hit the first page of Google before you consider getting involved, then you’re far too late. By taking a complaint in hand early, you can hopefully sort the problem before it becomes a bigger issue for you. Take it as a given that now, not saying anything is one of the worst things you can do. Now that consumers are empowered through social media channels, we have many avenues through which to vent frustrations and ultimately influence your customer’s and potential customer’s opinions of you. Everything is up for review now, take Rate My Hospital for example…

What about real-time?

The emergence of real-time search is having the biggest impact on reputation management companies will have encountered in a long time. It can certainly be scary and it’s changing a lot of the old rules that apply. While it typically would have taken a combination of time, inbound links, fresh content etc.. to appear on the front page of Google, now they’re including real-time search results, businesses have more of a need than ever to start listening to what customers are saying. Your reputation can be shot in just a few hours and we’ve seen countless examples to support this. Domino’s Pizza anyone? Habitat UK?

If you’re a company, then take all this as an advantage. It means that you have (free) access to your customer’s opinions and that you can learn the bad about your business early on and start implementing changes. This last point is key and is the most important take-away from this post. It’s one thing to listen but this is ultimately pointless unless you’re acting on this feedback, whether good or bad. Keep the communication going with your customers. Let them know when real change has been affected and recognise the benefits of social media for your business and your reputation.

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]]> http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/social-media-reputation/feed/ 0 http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/social-media-branding-order/ http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/social-media-branding-order/#comments Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:28:54 +0000 Niall Harbison http://www.simplyzesty.com/?p=7125 I like to read a lot about branding. It’s one of the topics that I like to take a little bit of time to think about and when carried out correctly it is incredibly powerful. I only drink one type of Cola because Coca Cola have instilled their brand values deep in to my consciousness and I lust after an iPad not because I know anything about the specs or think it is a superior product to what is on the market but because I love the Apple brand and as I have said in the past they could take a shit in a white bag and I’d probably buy it. Getting your branding correct will help you charge more money for your product or services and bring more business through the door so investing some time money and resources in to these areas is very important. Getting your branding correct across your various social media profiles is also incredibly important and something that we wanted to look at today…

Be Consistent

Chances are you are going to have a fair few profiles online and you want to make sure you keep these as uniform as possible. You might have a more playful Twitter account than your Linkedin profile but you want to make sure that people know where they are with you at all times. Not everybody has the resources to come up with a unified brand strategy but just have a look at our various social media profiles and you can see how our profiles all follow one central theme even though we produce different content on each one. Nothing complicated here we simply use one photo that we love and use that as a central theme…

Website

We wanted to keep the style of the site very informal and personal and make the blog the main feature so as we had plenty of fresh content and a reason to keep people coming back. Not a conventional agency website but we hoped to create something a little bit more fun.

Facebook

Our Facebook page is really just somewhere that we can have a little bit of fun and post pictures of what we eat, ask people questions and post the odd video. Nothing to serious and just a simple way of keeping people engaged.

YouTube

We use this for video diaries and to do short video tutorials. We don’t use it that often and only have about 50 videos on there but we have had 1 sales lead and lots of new readers on the blog thanks to YouTube so important for it to be on brand.

Twitter

We like to keep most of our personal stuff on our own Twitter feeds and use the company account to share our blog posts and respond to queries. Lots of leads and business queries come through this channel so important to be on brand.

Focus On The Details

Small things matter when you are taking about your brand. There is no point having an expensive flashy website that cost you thousands when your Twitter profile features an out of focus picture of you that has nothing to do with your brand. People will be interacting with your brand on so many fronts now that it is crucial that it is consistent wherever people find you online. Look at the gravatrar we use on the left, that is the little picture that appears when you leave a comment online and is a tiny detail but if you are out there leaving comments and interacting with others that is also a representation of your brand and it is essential that you are consistent at all times. The details really matter.

Find Your Identity Early

Large companies and organizations will have teams of people dedicated to their brand and keeping it uniform across as many channels as possible and making sure everybody within the company know about the brand values. For a small company you are not going to have as many resources or time to dedicate to your brand but for myself and Lauren here at Simply Zesty it was as simple as sitting down for an hour over a long coffee and deciding that we wanted to be fun, edgy and keep things creative. We loved the photos that Phil took so much for our website that we decided to use those as a central theme to everything that we do. There wasn’t any strategic planning or huge decision making process involved so just find something within your company that you love and that typifies what you do (please try and avoid a logo as there are too many people out there doing that) and run with it. Try being abstract as I find that works really well even if it will take you longer to build up the brand recognition.

Personal Branding

Gary Vaynerchuk sells more wine because of his personal branding

With all the tools at our disposal these days personal branding is something than can be achieved very quickly online and it can be an important tool in helping to shape your brand. It won’t apply to bigger businesses but for small businesses looking to make an impression creating a brand around the personality of some of the key members on the team can be a great way to leverage social media. The key is turning that person in to an advocate of what they do and establishing themselves as an expert in their given field. There are some challenges in this method though namely that it only really works best when it is the owner of the business rather than an employee as you don’t want to build a brand around a personality who could leave the company in a couple of months. The upside is that if you do find the right person them it can really help drive your brand forward as people relate to a personality online much more than to a brand.

Is There A Payoff?

All this branding is going to be a bit of hard work and it does take time. Branding is the reason that I will pay 20 Euros for a fancy hamburger when the same product is available elsewhere at half the price, it’s the reason why the only type of smoothie I will ever drink is an Innocent smoothie and the reason why I always head straight for the can of Coke in the fridge. If you do it correctly online you will have more customers and those customers will be willing to pay you more for your services so that has to be something that is worth doing. When you take in to consideration that everything is so transparent online these days and consumers can get a quick snapshot of everything you do by looking you up on Google in a couple of seconds it is massively important that you get your branding eight from day 1. It really is that important.

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]]> http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/social-media-branding-order/feed/ 1 http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/social-media-customer-service/ http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/social-media-customer-service/#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:18:45 +0000 Lauren Fisher http://www.simplyzesty.com/?p=7085 Social media as customer service is an area that is rapidly developing, throwing up as many complications as there are solutions and it often, understandably, leaves many people scratching their heads. Social media has come along and shaken up everything we know about customer service. It has, in effect, turned it completely on its head. The benefits of social media as a customer service channel are more and more apparent and steadily becoming a necessity for businesses rather than a ‘nice to have’. The fact is that businesses will always have to go where their customers are and right now, these customers are turning to social media.

If you’re a regular user of social networks, you’ll be familiar with people using social media channels in their various iterations, to make complaints, praise companies, open a dialogue around a particular issue or indulge in a slanging match that would turn the air around you a deeper shade of blue. Now for the most part, this is an incredibly good thing. It puts the power into the hands of the consumer and forces companies to do good, not just tell us they do good. Online, there is nowhere for companies to hide. What is increasingly difficult for companies, is to know how to handle their customer service relations through this new medium.

There are no rules

This is perhaps the most difficult thing for companies to comprehend, especially when they’re just starting out in social media. The issue comes from the fact that social media is so vast and sprawling an area, so new to so many of us that most people, when faced with a bad reputation and complaining customers online haven’t got a clue what they can and can’t say and how this should or shouldn’t be said. Many of those well versed in social media like to lecture that it’s just talking to people, but unfortunately it isn’t as simple as that. If a small business owner stumbles across a negative thread in a forum, the chances are that he will have no idea how he can enter the conversation and how he should conduct himself. This is similar for any social media channel, as each has its own subtleties to conform to. The basic rules of disclosing who you work for etc.. are great, but many people don’t even know they have the right to do this. So they say nothing and the problem escalates.

This is a fundamental problem that has no easy solution. Knowing how to handle complaints through social media is something that only comes from experience and if you’re attempting this yourself, then the chances are you’re going to make some very nasty and very public mistakes online. I’ve spoken to people who have made the mistake of posing as a genuine customer to combat a complaint with high (fake) praise. When I’ve corrected them and told them the right, honest way to do it, 9 times out of 10 the answer is that they didn’t even know they could do that. However simple it may seem to those that use social media all the time, this is a problem.

The other problem that is beginning to emerge, is that as more and more companies are engaging with social media to handle complaints, praise, problems etc… we sort of expect them to always be there because, well, we are. The only problem is that for a lot of companies, customer service isn’t ‘always on’ as social media is. Again, there’s no formulaic answer for this. Do you put customer service hours up on your bio, do you send a tweet to let people know there’s no-one there to answer queries? Do you work in your own time to ensure someone’s always there to answer questions? Again there’s no easy solution and this stems from the problem that the functions of a customer service department don’t quite fit with how social media works, so we end up forcing a square peg into a round hole.

Be prepared to encounter critism

Take the speed of communication as an example. Some companies are great at answering queries online – take Peter at Skype for example. It’s not always that straightforward though, unfortunately. Someone making a complaint about a problem with their insurance claim might send a tweet outlining a very important issue. That customer might not see a tweet back until 6 hours later – not great for an instant medium. But what that customer might not know is that with this particular issue, hundreds of customers are actually affected and the person manning the account knew they couldn’t say anything until it had been passed by legal and the complaint had been followed up in full. On the surface, it looks like the company isn’t very responsive to their customers, but in actual fact, are taking the time to follow the complaints up in full and need approval before making a public reply. This is not a great process and I think it’s becoming evident that it can’t continue in this way for much longer. In a situation like this, there are three possible outcomes : internal systems and processes aren’t updated to take advantage of social media so customers are presumably left ‘hanging’ i.e. things stay the same because corporations are too regimented to change; internal processes are brought into the 21st century and companies are more able to take advantage of the 24 hour culture; or the third, most interesting option – your community intervenes.

The fascinating thing about social media is that communities will often help each other out. In lieu of an official response from a company, many people on Twitter, forums etc… will begin to answer each other questions, either solving a solution or confirming your complaint so you know you’re not an isolated case. This is one of the benefits you may gain as a company, if you spend time fostering a loyal community around your brand. I’ve seen this happen many times on Facebook pages and as this happens more and more, it is even cited as an example of ROI on social media. Why? Because you can lay off staff in your customer service department because people are out there doing the job for free. Not a particularly ethical example of ROI, but one that has been used on more than one occasion. You can of course, encourage this as a company, by introducing forums onto your site for example.

I’d recommend you have a look at this presentation to find out more about the ROI of social media customer service

Dr. Natalie Petouhoff ROI Of Social Media Social Media Club Presentation/ Forrester Research

View more presentations from drnatalie.

Crowd-sourcing your customer services does help to troubleshoot an emerging issue around using social media as a customer service channel. Many companies choose to allocate social media channels to one person in the company. They build up a rapport with customers, know their history, are trusted in the community. But then they’re off sick, or worse, they leave the company. Suddenly you’re faced with the fact that a very large and very significant area of your business was trusted to one person and there’s no easy handover. They’ve gotten to know people personally through Twitter etc.. and all of a sudden they leave the company, leaving you with quite a mess on your hands and also having to make staff departures a very public thing. This supports the idea that social media should be adopted at a company-wide level and can’t be confined to one staff member whose job it is to ‘do’ social media.

The alignment of your social media strategy and customer service strategy should not be underestimated. Increasingly there is a call for the two to be connected, with more permeable organisational structures in place. It’s no use your community manager handling issues online, if someone they’re talking to then goes through to the ‘traditional’ customer service channels and has to start from scratch. This doesn’t provide the customer with a good experience, nor the company with an ROI-effective strategy. Again and again it comes back to the fact that the organisation has to change to reflect changing communication and behaviour by your customers.

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]]> http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/social-media-customer-service/feed/ 3 http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/site-christmas/ http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/site-christmas/#comments Thu, 24 Dec 2009 09:14:46 +0000 Lauren Fisher http://www.simplyzesty.com/?p=6093 We all like to take a break over Christmas, ther’s nothing wrong with that. But the internet never takes a holiday, regardless of whether there’s a turkey dinner involved, so I’ve got a few tips to make your online life a little easier this Christmas and to help ensure your website or blog is still being looked after. Contrary to common belief the internet doesn’t go that quiet over Xmas with people online checking out advice on their new presents, looking at products in the sale and checking out all their social media profiles to see what all their friends are up to and what santa has brought. Not all these tips might be relevant to you but if you do have a business presence online they might be worth considering this Xmas…

Schedule a blog post

Scheduling blog posts over the holidays is a good way to ensure you’re still getting content out to your audience while taking a well deserved break yourself. Now I wouldn’t recommend doing this too much as you still want to create current, relevant content that you can respond to (If you’re not there to write a post, chances are you can’t write comments either). It’s probably best to explain at the start that it’s a scheduled post so you avoid any confusion.

If you’re using Wordpress, simply edit the date in the ‘Publish’ screen, next to where your write the post by clicking Edit’ on ‘Publish Immediately’ and then selecting a time and date that suits you. This works great over the holidays as you can do all your work in advance and make it seem like you are still posting blogs posts.

Use your social media profiles

You should use your presence on social media to communicate with your audience and customers over the festive period. If you’re not able to provide your full support hours over Christmas, make sure you let people know this by posting a short message on your Twitter account, Facebook page or customer forum. It’s much better to set expectation with your customers, so they’re not posting questions or queries that aren’t going to get answered. Just make sure you do reply to any comments when you get back.

Get creative with your out of office

We’re all used to the usual out of office messages, it’s hardly something that’s going to get your interest. But what about recording an out of office message? You can film a simple video, telling people when you’re going to be away and wishing them a Happy Christmas and New Year while you’re at it. The chances are that someone’s going to remember that a lot more!

To set your video out of office, you can record and upload a short video into Youtube, then include the link in your out of office message. I remember getting a video out-of-office from Gary Vaynerchcuck once and it’s always stuck in my mind as a great way to give a little twist to something ordinary.

Schedule Facebook ads

If you’ve got a sale starting just after Christmas, why not schedule your ads to start on a certain date?. Most people know about scheduling Google ads, but now you can do this on Facebook.

To schedule your ad to start at a certain date or time, go through the usual process of creating a campaign, then click ‘Run my ad only during specified dates’ and select your date and time. You can also set the usual factors such as target audience and cost per click too.

Being there yourself

It’s a sign of changing times; but the holidays may well be one of the busiest times for people going online. This graph from Inside Facebook shows that last year, Facebook in the UK had its busiest day on Christmas day.
Whether it’s people uploading pictures, wishing each other Happy Christmas or just testing out their shiny new laptop, people are clearly active on social networks on Christmas Day. This could be a great opportunity to get one up on your competitors by being online when they might not be.
Let’s take the example of someone that sells cameras: A popular present at Christmas, that many people will probably be trying out by uploading their pictures online. What if you’re also online and able to help them out if they’re asking for tips on Twitter? This could be a great opportunity for you, especially if that same person is also looking to upgrade their present with a few accessories.

Hopefully these few simple tips have helped you make sure your website and online profiles are being well looked after this Christmas. It could easily be one of your busiest times of year, so it’s worth spending a bit of extra time before you go away, to make sure everything’s in order.

From us at Simply Zesty, have a very Happy Christmas

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]]> http://www.simplyzesty.com/brands/site-christmas/feed/ 5 http://www.simplyzesty.com/social-media/monitor-competitors-social-media/ http://www.simplyzesty.com/social-media/monitor-competitors-social-media/#comments Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:54:21 +0000 Niall Harbison http://www.simplyzesty.com/?p=5735 I want to use that old saying “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” with regards to social media and in particular your competitors. Now it doesn’t matter what business you are in as you are sure to have competitors who are taking you on and possibly stealing business from you. Some people go with the logic of just ignoring their competitors and just saying “Ah sure we will just do better” leaving their competitors to go about their business. In the old days you might pop in and see the competition or word would filter through on the grapevine as to what they were up to but luckily with social media and the web you can now watch every single move your competitor makes. It is scary what you can find out about your competitors these days and if used correctly it can give you a massive advantage in business terms…

Who Should Use This?

Most people will need to keep an eye on their competitors in some shape or another but you also shouldn’t get caught up in spending too much time on them either. See what they are doing, better it and move on to concentrating on your own product. some people who could use the following tools…

Start Ups

You want to bring something new to market and there is only one other competitor out there. Employ all of the tools below and it will be as if you are inside your competitors head. People who run start ups are usually proud about their product and will shout about it to anybody who will listen. Sit back and let all that info come to you.

Local Business

If you run a local business you’ll need to know everything that is going on in your area. You don’t want the competition around the block offering the same product as you but at half the price. Get tuned in to all your competitors social media channels and find out when they are offering special deals so as you can come back with your own.

The Big Guys

Large companies and corporations spend millions figuring out what their competitors are up to and what they are going to be releasing next. Large companies also have lots of employees so get yourself tuned into their culture. You may also want to listen to what blogs are saying about your competitor’s products and prices to improve your own.

The Tools To Use

There are as always a bunch of expensive brand monitoring tools out there that will cost you thousands to use but the good news is that the little selection we have used here are all free so you can get stuck in immediately.

Google Alerts

Set up alerts around your competitors company name, names of people within the company, product names and even their clients names. You’ll be sent a daily update with all mentions from the web of what they are up to and you’ll easily be able to find out if anything significant is happening around the company or any of it’s team. Google Alerts

Twitter Search

Very similar to the last one but you’ll be able to drill down into a lot more detail and you should focus on the personality or management team behind the company. If they have a presence on Twitter you can always follow but don’t need to say anything to them. This should help you find out if they are working on any big releases or chatter between employees might even give some secrets away. Twitter Search

Backtype

The beauty of this little tool is that you can get alerts about where your competitors are talking all over the web. Follow their trail as they aim to promote their own website and see who they have interactions with online. Have they discovered websites and communities that you haven’t? Not anymore! Back Type

Website Grader

You can use this simple little tool to generate a report not only about your own site but about your competitor’s website as well. Find out who is linking to them, what their Google PR is and lots of other juicy information that you need to be competing on. Website Grader

Subscribing

You need to subscribe to your competitor in any way you possibly can. If they offer any way to subscribe to their blog or newsletter or latest updates then you need to be on that list. Immediately! Chances are that if they think something is important enough to be sending out to their loyal subscribers or mailing list them you want to know about it too.

Way Back Machine

Your competitors might have been around for a while and you’ll want to see what they have tried in the past and what has worked and they have decided to keep on their site. Use this tool to look back on their website over time and paint a picture of how their site has been changing. Way Back Machine

What To Do With All This Info?

This is mostly a listening excercise and it is in your best interests to stay under the radar on this one but you should be doing a lot with all this great information you are gathering. Ask yourself some of the following questions…

1. What is my competitor doing better than me and can I apply that to my business?
2. What is my competitors’ relationship like with their customers? Can I replicate their customer service?
3. Are there areas where I am already better but need to improve further?
4. Who are their key relationships with/customers. How can I have similar relationships?
5. What sales channels are working for them?

If you follow these steps you’ll start to build up a picture of where your competitors are at and what makes them tick. You’ll know how they drive traffic to their websites, you’ll know what the founders are talking about, you’ll have every advertising mention of them as well as how they reply to positive and negative feedback. You will in effect have used social media to get under the bonnet of their company and you will have the information at hand to make the right decisions around your own orginisation.

Do you already listen to what your competitors are saying? Should you be?

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