Social Media Leadership Forum

Thriving on openness and collaboration

Once confined to its own silo inside companies, customer service is becoming a keystone of communications and strategy. But to succeed fully, companies need to attract and engage a new generation  of ‘social customers’, argues Dr Andrew Currah.

Last year arguably marked a tipping point where social media finally entered the mainstream.  According to a recent survey by IAB and Lightspeed, over 44% of adults now use the web to share grievances about products and services. The result can be disastrous, as brands worldwide have already discovered, with social media wielding the power to bring a company to its knees.

This has propelled customer service to the front of strategic thinking. “The Arab spring will soon be followed by a corporate spring,” argued Marc Benioff at last year’s Dreamforce event: “We’ve seen Mubarak fall, we’ve seen Qaddafi fall. When will we see the first corporate CEO fall for the same reason, because his or her customers are rising up, or not listening to their employees, or not paying attention?”

Customers desire to be heard and respected, and to get an immediate reply when  they interact with a company via social media. One survey, by Useful Social Media, suggests that 55% of customers expect a response the same day, yet only 29% receive one. Similar research by Cap Gemini suggests that 20% of Facebook users expect a reply within 60 minutes when they post on a company’s page.

The social customer has given rise to the social company, one that listens to its customers in real-time and asks them to collaborate in future developments. In turn this has led to the emergence of hosted community platforms, through which companies can harness the support of their most loyal and  passionate customers.
Momentum towards the social  enterprise continues to develop worldwide,  as witnessed by the record attendance at the Dreamforce event. As a result, it is taking root  in a widening array of markets, including heavily regulated domains such as financial services.  In the UK, for example, HSBC recently launched an online newsroom integrating Facebook, Twitter and blog posts, as a means to outline the company’s position on key issues and seek the engagement of customers.  The UK’s Financial Ombudsman Service plans to significantly expand the use of social media in the resolution of disputes between customers and financial service providers.

A fully-fledged social enterprise thrives on openness and collaboration. Its lifeblood is a set of reliable and realtime flows of information, that span every level of the company and involve every employee.  The customer is placed at the very heart of the company’s vision, so that the entire workforce is equipped with the tools to ensure customer satisfaction, both directly and indirectly.

There is also a shift away from the old belief that power comes from hoarding information, as Yammer’s CEO David Sacks has noted. “Now we’re seeing that sharing information is power. The more you can share, the more you can help other people – and the more it becomes apparent you’re an expert and a valuable contributor,” he comments.

However this requires all kinds of cultural, functional and technical changes, and to move forward, support is needed at the highest level. Executive leaders need to stop treating social media as  a passing fad. Instead, they must recognise the positive impact on both costs and satisfaction ratings as customers themselves contribute towards service and marketing functions.

Executives also need to look beyond standard metrics to the value of brand loyalty, advocacy and a sense of community.  They should make themselves more visible, providing all employees with the training, tools and authority to engage with  customers. Investment is needed in the systems and guidelines that will facilitate realtime communications between employees and with customers.

The social enterprise will need to  listen and engage across a range of media: telephone, email, mobile, web. The catalyst is the next generation of customer relationship management (CRM) technology, which is largely platform-agnostic. CRM software can help harness the  collective knowledge within the company, a powerful analytics and monitoring platform that can be tapped into without requiring significant capital investment.

That said, the technology behind the  social enterprise is still young, and a company needs to understand the online social dynamics of its customers before committing to any investment in social CRM.  It should conduct a wide-ranging audit to identify in which parts of the ‘conversation prism’ it needs to establish a presence, and what types of engagement would  be appropriate in the context of the wider market and regulatory obligations.

It’s fair to envision a bright social future for customer service. The rise of the social customer has powered a broader transition to the social enterprise, that seeks to emulate the speed and simplicity of the social web. We can expect to see a new kind of realtime and ‘frictionless’ sharing begin to reshape the modern enterprise, in turn transforming the relationship between managers, employees and customers.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD: Social Business magazine – Q1, 2012 (PDF. 2.4Mb)

Social media is a key ingredient when it comes to marketing food and drinks brands

It’s Open talked to Kate Woolf, media relations manager for PepsiCo UK & Ireland, about the part it plays in integrated campaigns for products such as Walkers crisps and Tropicana juices.

On a dark January morning this year, London commuters’ spirits were lifted by the sight of an artificial sun glowing brightly over Trafalgar Square. The one-day art installation, commissioned by Tropicana, was well received in Britain where it featured on live television. But the publicity event also caused a stir around the world, with a video posted on YouTube and word quickly spreading on Facebook and Twitter.

It’s an example of creative innovation working to raise brand awareness, and also of how social media can amplify a campaign’s reach.  “The Tropicana Sun captured people’s imaginations as far away as Russia, and they told us they’d like that for their own cities,” says Woolf.

Social media also features strongly in the campaign for Walkers Crisps held between January and March this year, a competition to guess three mystery flavours and win a £50,000 prize.  Prior to breaking the campaign on TV, the brand posted a YouTube video of Gary Lineker and other celebrities making guesses, and this too was further publicised on Twitter and Facebook.

“We had record numbers of guesses online, which was really great. It’s an early indication of how good a campaign has been,” Woolf says.  So far the total exceeds 793,000, with 1.7 million visits to the website  and over a quarter of a million views of the YouTube content. Meanwhile the Facebook page has grown by around 100,000 fans. Sales are tracking well ahead of last year’s hugely successful Comic Relief campaign, she adds.

Both brands maintain a strong presence on Twitter, where named employees respond to comments about samples and promotions, and follow up queries. For the Walkers competition, celebrities tweeted to keep the conversation going until the climax, and ‘Sam’, who runs the feed, went round the country finding well-known people to interview.  Participants included the popular boy band The Wanted and cast members of the TV programme The Only Way is Essex, both of which attract a lot of attention online.

“This idea is to offer content that is exclusive to both Twitter and Facebook, trying to give followers and fans something special. For instance with the Walkers campaign we dropped hints about the mystery flavours via a special app,” says Woolf.

As a global company, Pepsico owns hundreds of brands across different territories, each with their unique characteristics.  Accordingly the tone used in social media varies greatly. “They do things in their own ways,” says Woolf. “Copella, our UK apple juice brand, has a very different kind of tone with its audience. It’s more homegrown, for instance talking about what we’re doing on the orchards today.”

In line with a growing trend in companies, the brands’ representatives are given the freedom to represent it on social networks, within established guidelines. “Our colleagues are empowered to share relevant information responsibly – absolutely,” Woolf says. “We have colleagues who blog on our main US homepage, and the corporate Twitter feed has a named personality behind it, so that it doesn’t feel as though it’s just coming from the business, but from a real individual who works here.”

“Social media is a key aspect, although one of many,” Woolf concludes. “There’s sampling happening in stores, there’s engagement happening with our customers and our buyers, and then there is also the social part of it – that ongoing conversation.”

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD: Social Business magazine – Q1, 2012 (PDF. 2.4Mb)

by Justin Hunt

The late Douglas Adams had some entertaining insights into how we react to new technologies (ie TV, phone, cinema, radio, printing, the wheel and so on):

1. Everything that is already in the world when you are born is just normal
2. Anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it
3. Anything that gets invented after you are thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it until it has been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.

Sounds familiar?

by Justin Hunt

Social media used to mean setting up a Facebook or Twitter presence. To an extent, it still does. However, social media and the value it provides to businesses and organisations is fundamentally shifting.

Social media is becoming ‘social production’. Social media is providing platforms for different modes of production which offer businesses and organisations the opportunity to reinvent themselves.

Social media technologies provide the powerful tools for businesses and organisations to collaborate with customers and key stakeholders to create, produce, distribute and support new products and services.

We are already seeing examples of these new modes of production emerging as forward looking companies seek the possibilities that social media tools offers to be innovative.

Starbucks and Procter and Gamble are already taking advantage of these new modes of production and new era companies are emerging such as Threadless (www.threadless.com) and Local Motors (www.local-motors.com).

The potential for these new modes of production to be introduced into the world of science can be seen through Galaxy Zoo (www.galaxyzoo.org) and already the ‘open science’ or ‘networked science’ movement is gaining momentum.

These new modes of production present opportunities for companies to change the way they work and become more innovative for future growth and success.

It is the dominant social media networks who are already putting these principles into practice. For example, YouTube provides a compelling platform for people to create videos for public consumption. Wikipedia is also a well known example of how people are prepared to collaborate online to create, distribute and share knowledge.

The key business questions will become: ‘How can we, as a business, act as a platorm and how can we create and produce value in collaboration with our key stakeholders using social media technologies?’

In order for these new modes of production to emerge, there needs to be a change in mindsets. Social collaboration and production is a state of mind which demands different principles and values if it is to be successfully applied in this networked information economy.

For example, organisations and businesses which are more open will find it easier to collaborate and produce new services and products with their key stakeholders than those organisations which are more closed. The open organisations and businesses will be able to identify potential assets and be able to connect to them more easily to produce new value in this social network age. Social media is not just a communications channel, it is a different mode of production, distribution and exchange.

Today’s Financial Times highlights the Future Of Customer Service report in an article entitled “Social CRM mirrors rise in customer power“.

Also see previous posts on the report:

• Podcast interviews of the author Dr Andrew Currah and first direct’s Natalie Cowen
• Downloads of the report and presentation

To accompany the report, Justin Hunt and Ben Davies of ItsOpen conducted interviews with the report’s author, Dr Andrew Currah and first direct’s Head of Brand and Communications, Natalie Cowen.

Podcasts
These are available for download from the following links:

• Dr Andrew Currah interview
• Natalie Cowen interview

A report from ItsOpen and first direct
Report by Dr Andrew Currah
Executive Summary by Natalie Cowen, Head of Brand and Communications, first direct

This report examines the role played by social media within the rapidly changing landscape of customer service. The report was commissioned by first direct and is based on the insights of executives, technologists and theoretical experts.

Downloads

• Report (PDF 1Mb)
• Scribd Version
• Presentation (PDF 5.2Mb)
• Podcast interviews

A few top line Social Media Stats to bear in mind. These were passed on to us from Dream Systems Media:

• Auto-posting to Facebook decreases likes and comments by 70%
• B2C Facebook results go up by 30% on Sundays
• 34% of marketers have generated leads using Twitter and 20% have closed deals using Twitter
• 55% of people access Twitter via their mobiles
• 40% of bloggers consider themselves professionals
• 56% of college students said that if they were offered a job by a company that banned social media use, they’d turn it down

Welcome to Social Business, a discerning guide to the world of social media.

This is a fast changing field and new developments are coming thick and fast.  To help you keep up to speed, we focus on the essentials and bring you some of the most up-to-date thinking from experts in the field.

The quarterly magazine includes articles, reports and highlights of talks given to members of the Social Media Leadership Forum, from thought leaders passionate about the benefits of social media to businesses, to brands who are walking the walk.

In this issue we learn from first direct about a groundbreaking project to let customers add their voices to the bank’s new plans and ideas.  We hear too from Zappos, the online shoes and accessories retailer, which embedded the idea of social relations with customers in its practices long before Facebook and Twitter were even thought of.

There’s no shortage of social media tools available to businesses, but how can they be made to work? In this issue we have a special feature on the challenges and how they can be overcome. We also look at the fast-developing issues around privacy on Facebook.

And for companies who remain nervous about social media, Jeff Jarvis, an influential advocate of openness in business, reminds of the benefits and offers reassurance.

We hope you find the magazine useful and look forward to seeing you at future Social Media Leadership Forum events.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD: Social Business magazine – Q4, 2011 (PDF. 1.9Mb)

Social is everything

The online shoes and accessories retailer Zappos is legendary for the quality of its customer service. Graham Kahr, the company’s social engagement scientist, talked with us recently about finding new ways  for customers to interact on social

Zappos’ philosophy is that we’re a customer service company which just happens to sell shoes. We think that people like shopping with us because it’s a fun connection. We like to treat them as friends and make them smile. So when it comes to social media, we’re not at all passive about it. It’s all about surprise and delight – creating a shareable experience.

When Twitter started up, our CEO Tony Hsieh jumped in right away and was one of the first users to hit a million fans (he’s now closing on two million).  But Zappos staff can tweet on their own, without anyone telling them what to say. Now about five hundred of our employees tweet regularly – not just about what we sell, but whatever they feel like.

The culture is the most important thing for us, and obviously the clothing and shoes are part of it. But we don’t give any more weight to that than putting up a video of a doughnut-eating contest from our IT department. It’s an all-things-considered approach that we take.

On Facebook one time we saw a woman in Massachusetts saying that she and her family were snowed in, and had been without power for four days. So we sent her a pizza.  Recently we put out a video for all our fans, describing how we helped one of our employees to become  US citizen. He has worked here for several years and was going to have to go back to Hong Kong, but we paid for his naturalization.  People love it when we do that sort of thing, and it’s what they expect of us.

Zappos has a smaller footprint on Facebook, where its fan size is a relatively modest 180,000. We should probably be at the million mark, giving away a pair of shoes every day, interviewing top celebrities, and so on. But we are purposely trying not do that. Instead we’re trying to be your attainable fashion friend, someone you can call up any time to see what kind of shoes will match your dress.

We haven’t ever had a ‘like’ button for Zappos itself, however – you can only ‘like’ product and brands. That’s because we wanted to see what kind of interaction we would get if our fans interacted with us organically, and I’m happy to say that almost all of them have been active in the last month.

We’ve found that videos are the most amazing way for people to experience our culture. In fact video ranks higher than just about anything else, and we’re using it a lot more in Facebook than before. We have evidence that 65% of mobile Facebook users check it twice before they get out of bed, so we keep our content short, punchy and easy to interact with. We put out longer content later in the day, when people are on their computers at work, or commuting home.

Is there a risk in being open to customers at all levels? Actually we think there are more risks in not being completely open. Our culture is our biggest asset, and that comes from all the individuals who work here.  We don’t want to stop them from being themselves. If someone tweets or posts something that screams ‘I’m not a culture fit with Zappos’, that’s a much bigger issue for us than whatever it was they said.

For sure, this is not an approach that will work for everyone. Companies like banking and pharmaceuticals are responsible for their customers in a much different way than we are with shoes, and wouldn’t necessarily want to talk to them about car races and doughnut eating contests. It would not be perceived as genuine. But we built Zappos around customer service, before Facebook and Twitter appeared, so it’s right for us.

A lot of companies are scared about social media but I’d urge them to let go.  Of course they’re concerned about getting a return on investment. But they tend to be  too concerned with the R and not enough with the I. What’s the downside of talking to customers about anything? We don’t have a bunch of data that says that if we were pushing product this is what we get back. We know from the awards and what fans say that they appreciate us interacting with customers in the way we do.

It’s tough to measure true impressions, although we use an SAS programme to measure sentiment on Twitter and monitor tweets on a weekly basis. If there are any negative spikes, we deal with it quickly. We have had 97% positive ratings in last year and a half. But we don’t measure value with social media. It’s not about reaching a count – we think that each smile we create is a win.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD: Social Business magazine – Q4, 2011 (PDF. 1.9Mb)