I won't abide it Jess!
Organisations need to spread their social media function across their business and stop thinking about it purely as a ‘task’ to be ‘managed’ by the marketing department.
That’s my reaction to Nina Hendy’s story in the SMH this week on the question of whether its appropriate for brands to outsource their social media programs to agency partners.
Outsourcing social media is ghost posting. As voters, we don’t accept it from politicians and as consumers we shouldn’t accept it from business. As advisors to brands we should push back against it.
I don’t blame marketers that look to agencies to help them engage in social media. In most cases, those outside of the marketing department are failing to ‘get’ the role of social media in business and an even smaller number are prepared (or they’re unable) to provide resources (human or $) in support of social media programs. Social media has no mandate in many organisations, despite everyone’s general sense ‘that they should be doing something’.
In an ideal world (which is a place I hope we’ll eventually get to at least in the context of this issue) the responsibility for brand engagement within social media is insourced, its shared amongst multiple departments within an organisation i.e. customer service, product development, sales, product management etc. These customer facing functions or specific individuals within them would represent the organisation in accordance with a set of social media policies.
Responsibility for social media engagement i
s built into job descriptions. The organisation is demonstrably open and communicative, it has a scalable engagement strategy that doesn’t come to a screaming halt because the marketing manager is on holiday or the agency has used up its retainer for the month!
It’s authentic. Employees learn directly from customers. The list of advantages goes on.
In fact, I’d argue that the marketing team shouldn’t be engaging in social media as brand representatives. Consumers want to hear from specialists in their field with the authority to take action and provide information, in the same way that media and analysts don’t want to speak to marketing people.
The role of the marketing team in this best practice scenario is to create the strategies and the policies, oversee the process, advise on issues, create content, track results and design and deliver training content.
The agency (probably PR agency):
This is best practice (if you ask me).
Fundamentally, I believe that employees should be representing organisations in social media, not agencies.
Not only is it more authentic and credible, it will also provide your customers with a more valuable experience and most importantly, its sustainable. Even better, if managed in the right way it can become a strategy for employee engagement.
Social media provides the opportunity to bring brands to life online by directly engaging with individual consumers – this is a whole-of-business function, which cannot be dependant on the unpredictable and often transient relationships that exist between client and agency.
Marketing people should be advocating this approach and they should be knocking on their CEOs door to make it happen. For a case study, look at Ford Motor Company in the US, which has a goal to get 1% of its global workforce (2,000 people) active in social media sharing their own perspectives, experiences, thoughts and knowledge as Ford employees.
Tags: brands, engagement, SMH, socialmedia, strategy
A recent research project by Edelman and Brandtology identified Twitter as the top channel for technology brand mentions in Australia. The Whirlpool and Overclockers forums ranked in second and third place respectively. I believe that these findings are reflective of a mature social media environment for technology brands in Australia.
Google, Apple and Microsoft ranked as the most talked about technology brands in the study which uncovered more than 154,000 mentions of 60 major technology brands across 581 influential online channels between April and June 2010.
The survey found that 27 of the 60 technology brands researched did not have a local presence on Twitter. This represents an ‘opportunity for brands to…become smarter about communicating through this channel,’ according to Edelman.
But is Twitter the right channel for all technology brands? I don’t think so.
Take the enterprise tech sector as an example (the study covered: ‘Internet and Software, Consumer Electronics, Mobile and Telecommunications, Business and Consulting and IT and Technology brands). This sector of the IT industry is characterised by complex technology and business issues that aren’t well suited to the open Twitter platform limited as it is to 140 character updates.
Enterprise tech brands tend to be most interested in reaching senior decision makers within medium to large organisations – individuals that are less likely to be spending time on Twitter. These brands need to demonstrate authoritative positions on commercially sensitive and strategic issues. Twitter just isn’t designed or suitable as a platform for this sort of discussion or engagement.
With these facts in mind, I would be inclined to recommend that enterprise tech brands seek to establish online communities where customers can engage with experts and product specialists but also – importantly – share ideas and experiences with other customers. I would look to the social media platforms where these targets are already active, the most obvious one being Linkedin.
It’s important that organisations monitor conversations about their brands across all forms of social media, including Twitter, but the most ‘active’ channels aren’t necesarily the best places to actually engage your target audience in a meaningful way.
Tags: australia, engagement, PR, socialmedia, Technology, twitter
Arnotts announced the launch of an integrated campaign in support of the Wagon Wheel in early August with the positioning ‘Random. But Right’.
The campaign is asking consumers to help reinvent the Wagon Wheel with a big social media play.
The objective of the campaign seems to be to create a new more youthful audience / consumer for the Wagon Wheel.
One observation is that the retro 1970s angle seem more tightly aligned with the original consumer (now in their 30s), rather than the new. It is nostalgic, the prizes (a random selection of iconic yet low value 80s products and games – there is an $8008 ‘Random. But Right’ cash prize on offer) take us back to our childhood, more innocent days that probably featured the Wagon Wheel.
The campaign is fronted by four crusty fictional characters (the Production Innovation Team) that I don’t think resonate, engage or amuse. In fact, they simply reinforce the perception that the product is dusty, out-dated and un-cool.
Arnotts acknowledge the passion that consumers have for the brand (in this case ‘mums’):
“It really is an incredible brand that consumers have an amazing amount of passion for. And one of the main attractions in the acquisition was the fact that it hadn’t been looked after as much as we would like to look after the brand. It hadn’t had a great deal of investment.”
But does the campaign look after the brand? The older audience for this campaign (grocery decision makers now) are asked to reinvent something that they love. They’re being asked to change something that holds a special place in their hearts (by Arnott’s own admission).
Consumers can enter the competition via the microsite, either by submitting their own design for the ‘reinvent-ion of the perfect wagon wheel’ or by combining a variety of options to create their own version. They can chose from a variety of shapes (snowman, football, triangle, flower, dinosaur etc.) and select a flavour (chicken, pizza, white choc, marmalade) and then opt for one of six coatings, including white choc, dark choc, cheese and honeycomb.
Who is this campaign aimed at – the competition entry mechanic might appeal to a young teenager but its not going to work for the community that is famliar with the Wagon Wheel.
There are some tactical errors in my opinion as well. The campaign seems to carry too many ‘labels’. We have the ‘WagonWheeler‘ Twitter profile, the ‘EatZeeWagonWheel‘ YouTube channel, the ‘WagonWheels‘ Facebook Page/ ‘Wagon Wheels‘ campaign microsite (including images, which can’t be downloaded) and ‘Random but Right’.
The integration between the various social media elements seems haphazard, there are 5 videos on the YouTube channel but only two of those are included in the Facebook Page. The Community Guidelines are very formal, they’re not presented in the voice of any member of the Product Reinvention Team. The Info Tab on the Page looks like a cut and paste, it bears no resemblance with the campaign or its messaging.
The microsite does pop up in the first page of Google Australia search results for ‘Wagon Wheel’.
The social media elements of the campaign seem to have stalled from what I can see. The Twitter following(49 followers/following 57) is not going anywhere fast and the Facebook ‘likes’ are at a similar point to my last check a few weeks back. The most popular video on YouTube has received just under 1,500 views in a week (not bad). The microsite has gained 165 Facebook ‘likes’ since its launch a few weeks back.
This is just one part of an integrated campaign for the Wagon Wheel. It may all come together in a coherent package at some point but, for me, the various dots aren’t yet lining up. It seems like someone had a lot of fun creating this but I don’t think the result is engaging or compelling for the target audience, whoever that is.
Arnotts, as an Australian brand, has huge potential to do some fun stuff in social media but this feels like a campaign that is looking for an audience.
It certainly lives up to the ‘Random’ part of its catchphrase but is it ‘Right?’
Tags: arnotts, competitions promotion, engagement, socialmedia, WagonWheel
On becoming a dad almost two weeks ago, I thought it would be appropriate for me to post here to mark the arrival of our boy Noah Thomas and to reflect on an amazing experience.
So here follows 17 reasons why managing a social media program is like having a baby.
I am sure that there are many more – please add in comments.
And here is Noah. Ain’t he gorgeous!!
Tags: childbirth, labour, parenting, socialmedia, strategy
On the topic of recent Facebook ‘outrage’ around privacy issues.
A significant section of the media/Web commentariat has expressed its dis-satisfiaction with Facebook’s policies and management. I can’t help noticing the irony here. (more…)
Tags: data, facebook, information, irony, Likes, privacy, SocialNetworks, User, Zuckerberg
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