Tag Archives: marketing

July 26, 2012 · 11:37 am

How NOT To Do Social Media

 

Sometimes you see something that reminds you to start a folder called “stupid corporate tricks.”

Chick-Fil-A

(Photo credit: Link576)

What I’m writing about today would be top of that heap.  In fact, it sets a new kind of standard for stupid behavior but let’s see what you think.

Gizmodo published a piece yesterday about Chick-Fil-A and their social efforts.  As you might know, that company is engaged in a controversy with the gay community over same-sex marriage.  Now since we don’t do politics here, let’s put aside the cause of the controversy and just acknowledge that there is one.  This issue caused another company – The Jim Henson Company – to announce that it would no longer allow Chick-Fil-A to distribute miniature muppets in its children’s meals.  Again, let’s not argue right,wrong, good, or bad – those are the facts.  As a preemptive move, Chick-Fil-A announced it was ceasing to distribute the toys because of a safety issue – kids were getting their fingers stuck in the puppets.  With me so far?

Now comes the business part.  On Chick-Fil-A’s Facebook page, there were quite a few comments.  One commenter accused the company of making up a lie about the cause and asked them to admit they were dumped because they were “bigots.”  I suppose we could have a long chat here about how to handle negative comments in social media and that would be a valuable discussion.  However, I bet we would all agree that one way we would never endorse is to have a PR staffer create a fake Facebook account in the personality of a teenaged girl and respond with corporate talking points through that mechanism.  Want to guess what Chick-Fil-A did?

The company denied having done it.  However, the account was created hours before it began posting and the profile picture is from a stock photo house – a fair amount of circumstantial evidence that this is not a real person.  Regardless, it’s a lesson on how NOT to handle a problem is social media.  Yes, we need to respond quickly but not by hiding or lying about who is talking.  Transparency is one imperative; knowing that if you’re using social you no longer control the conversation is another.

I don’t suppose we’ll know for sure if this was a corporate flack or not.  We do know for sure that in addition to the original controversy there now is another.  Thoughts?

 

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July 24, 2012 · 8:41 am

Painting A More Complete Picture

Two pieces from eMarketer caught my eye last week.  Both have to do with marketers’ usage of social media.  From the first, you might be tempted to short Facebook stock and wonder why Google is spending so much time on G+.  From the second, you might just realize that once again we find that getting beyond a sexy headline and into some facts can help paint a very different picture.

The first piece was all gloom and doom:

Social Media Usage Plateaus Among Marketers

Oh no!  Is this whole sector of the digital economy heading right down the tubes??:

When the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) surveyed US marketers this year, 90% said they were using social networks for their efforts—about even with last year, at 89%. While this percentage has risen dramatically since 2007, when just 20% of marketers used social media, growth has plateaued—and shifted to other new digital media platforms instead.

It goes on to talk about mobile and location-based services.  Of course, it also mentions that the investment in social was $3.63 billion in the US and over $4 billion more in the rest of the world. And that’s just paid ad spending.  Which leads to the other piece, which asks the obvious question:

What Are Marketers Spending on Social Media?

It turns out that:

most marketers have less than 20% of their marketing budget set aside for outreach on social sites—including advertising and maintaining a social media presence…While these percentages may seem small, marketers reported that budgets were increasing. AdAge and Citigroup found that 72.9% of respondents said they expected their overall social media budget to increase over the next year. This is in line with data from Useful Social Media, which, in April 2012, found that 54% of US companies planned to increase their social media budgets by up to 25% in 2012.

If 90% of marketers are, in fact, already using social (and there’s an entire book to be written on how badly most of them are doing so), of course the growth rate is slow – there’s hardly any room to grow.  If nearly 3/4 of them are expanding their budgets, the dollars flowing to social are going to be the envy of many other media.  It’s on the social companies and the marketers’ agencies (and consultants!) to help develop metrics and other criteria to assure and measure success so the investment pays off.

Interesting when we get past the headlines and start asking questions, right?

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July 19, 2012 · 10:43 am

Old Goats And New Technology

My birthday is coming up in a few weeks.

English: Custom made birthday cake

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I think I’m officially what would be classified as an Older American (seems like that’s anyone over 25 these days), so I read the press release from the folks at Perion with some interest.  They’re “a developer of software tailored for 40+ Second Wave Adopters (SWAs) of technology”.   I’m not sure if that means all their products are in large type, but nevertheless the research they conducted concluded that:

Older Americans have a cautious approach to technology, but are still willing to embrace it depending on the practical impact it will have on their lives. The study shows that 88.5% of Americans over 45 surveyed consider themselves slow to adopt technology. However, 84.8% adopt a new technology when it fits their current lifestyle, 89% will use new technology if it’s better than what they use today, and 79.2% enjoy technology and new gadgets.

Only 50% of respondents felt that greater usage of technology has hurt social interactions, and 89% said that they were good at keeping in touch with friends.  Key to understanding the segment is the recognition that SWAs over 45 do not fear technology, but they need to be a little more convinced to use it than others. Surprisingly, 76% said that technology was fun; not a term usually associated with technology amongst SWAs.

Add to that this nugget:

A new study by Euro RSCG says people are tired of having to act and look younger than they are and live up to some sort of unattainable youth ideal.  Just about three-quarters of those who surveyed expressed the belief that society has grown much too youth-obsessed — an opinion shared not just by the older set but also by 6 in 10 Millennials.

In other words, if you’re thinking that we oldsters don’t “get” what you’re doing you’re insulting not only a potentially lucrative business segment but maybe angering our kids as well (most of them do love us, after all).  Ever use the phrase “you’re not the demo” when receiving business commentary from an older person?  Maybe we really are.

The real underlying message is that older folks will use whatever means they can to stay in touch and make our lives easier.   We’re pragmatists, balancing the discomfort of the learning with the desire to make use of every minute we have.  Birthdays are great incentives!

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