A quick read of the free commuter newspaper I read yesterday morning mentioned Lufthansa complaint lines that don’t work, rude Eurostar staff, empty British Airways information desks and a general feeling of despair at BAA’s Heathrow airport. Last night as I feel asleep, BBC news informed me of a disastrous Southeastern train journey which took 6 hours to get from London to Kent and left 100 people stuck until 3am. The fact I still remember these details hours later is a sign that I will be less trusting of those brands and firms next time I may need to use them.

Passengers at Heathrow

In this day and age there is no longer any excuse for not having an information feed direct from your organisation, unless you really are involved in a government cover-up.

Websites, email, SMS, Twitter, Facebook… the list of possible contact points for many of those helpless, stranded, weather victims is now almost unbelievable, yet it seems as if the snow has paralysed not only the roads outside but also the information highway.

The funny thing is, a clear, honest, up to date online news feed could also very easily be used by those self-same evasive members of staff who never seem to know what’s going on in the organisations they work for. Can you imagine BA staff showing users how to follow the Twitter feed for all the London-New York flights, to get free SMS updates? In one fell swoop you would clear a vast chunk of constant questions while leaving staff free to help those who were not just asking the same 50 or so FAQs. Not only that, but good brand sentiment travels just as fast as bad – as BA travellers at airports, homes and offices around the world tell their peers they are being kept up to date via BA Twitter for all their enquiries. This would generate long-tail conversions to the BA brand, as next time they think of booking a ticket they would remember the good things they heard about BA last time.

It’s easy to be communicative when you have something to sell or something to crow about. But if you really want to help your customers, build relationships with them and keep them loyal, then why not try being more communicative when you have a problem?

As the industry matures and becomes increasingly sophisticated, guidelines are key to protect both consumers and marketers and to make sure that everything is open and transparent. Long-term, industry self-regulation is vital in order to negate the need for legislative solutions driven by political expediency.

Both in the US and now in the UK, WOMMA have defined a Code of Ethics and a set of Standards of Conduct in order to set an initial framework through which this self-regulation can take place. Much of this framework is common sense, such as the rules involving advertising to minors. A core element of the Standards however, revolves around disclosure of either identity, relationships or compensation. In short, marketers are expected to ensure that any online contacts they use for promotional purposes are honest and up front about who they are, how they are connected and how they have benefited. Examples of this could be a blogger who had received items to review or who had been given free items as promotional competition prizes.

It makes sense that the onus should lie with marketers themselves to regulate their contacts and activities – much as they would clear any other element of a campaign. Equally, key advocates and influencers shouldn’t really have a reason not to be open about being brand ambassadors. However, WOMMA are clear that the purpose of the Standards is not to stifle editorial opinion but rather to make it obvious to consumers when bloggers have a connection to brands or agencies. There is no reason why disclosure should be either complicated or obstructive: it could be as easy as saying: “I was sent this by X”.

During the seminar some of the discussion talked about the idea that in the near future blogs could include a standard “disclosure and relationships” section which clarifies how they work and what marketing they are connected to. Further debate centred around how marketing messages on Twitter could be identified with hash tags such as #ad and #spon (for advert and sponsored respectively).

WOMMA’s work is very much a work in progress so far, but it’s important for the industry to have both a position to debate and a set of guiding principles to aim towards. It’s also a good indicator of a firm’s reliability – after all, if all things are equal, wouldn’t you rather work with a company which has signed up to an industry wide set of ethical guidelines, rather than a company which has no position at all?

The WOMMA Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct can be found at http://www.womma.org/ethics/code.

If you would like to have an informal chat to Benn about ethical Social CRM or WOMMA UK and the work they carry out, contact him here: http://www.neoco.com/benn.

Social CRM assignments rarely get any better than this!  Going to a lovely beach side festival on a summers day and posting on the goings on / activity unfolding at the event.  Pitched up by the Just Dance Disco Bus, with my laptop on a speaker and perched on a deck chair I posted, tweeted, updated and blogged about all the fun that was happening on the bus and the cool goings on around the festival.

Where will I be blogging from next…

V festival, oh yes.. Bring it on!

Find out more about the Just Dance Disco Bus by clicking here

Emanuel Rosen, the author of the very much talked about book “The Anatomy of Buzz” and expert of word of mouth marketing, gave an eye-opening talk with examples from his books and life experience. He claims that there are two main factors that contribute to the success of generating word of mouth – how contagious the product is and what action are made to accelerate its buzz. Rosen shared his top list of characteristics that will ‘make it contagious’ including compatibility, making things simpler, allowing for creativity and also evoking emotional response. Note that many of these are internal factors that derive from the product itself.

Emanuel Rosen on Buzz at WOM UK

What about the external factors? What could we do to accelerate contagiousness? Here are a few actions that could help in increasing word of mouth for your product:
•    Wide scale seeding. We live in small social clusters, so by seeding the product into multiple social clusters in different areas will increase the chance of the product getting buzz.
•    Surprise. This may seem old and used but it always works! The element of surprise will always catch people’s attention.
•    Find a hook. Introduce an interesting or unique conversation piece about the product and people will talk about it.
•    Uneven distribution of information.  When you know something that others don’t know about, word of mouth will happen. Secrets tend to spread…
•    Stimulate interactions.  Whether in forms of competitions or viral campaigns, if you can get people to interact with each other then buzz will emerge.
•    Connecting to passion. Take the example of American Express’ and their campaign to renovate local landmarks in different cities in the US. By introducing a poll to the public they were able to get communities that are passionate about landmarks to gather up and vote.

Do you have any other useful hints and tips for creating buzz? Do you think that the effort marketers put in to producing buzz will see results if the product itself is not contagious?

interaction vs proximity graph

Brands are no longer able pitch the credentials of their products to the current social media generation. Push is almost out, but pull is sky rocketing in. Buyers and consumers want trusted and real information from people like themselves and know where to go, to get it. They need it stamped as trustworthy and good for usage (with extra features) not by any company that dreamed up the slogan at a coffee shop meeting, but by the members of a social network that they can see, interact with, and most importantly something that they chose to join. They all have an appetite for the real interaction that generate buzz in which they are a part of. Facebook’s 350 million user posts and its shared 3.5 Billion different content per week, is what these consumers want.

Talk about a lot of possible brand awareness and brand management. People know the members of their social media networks and trust what they have to say. They can access all this information quickly and easily to help them learn about the product, and step into a shop knowing more about the goods compared to the shopkeeper himself.

Social media is about investing in relationships that create more economic value than they cost. It is about engaging with the people who decide whether to buy or not buy what you are selling, like it or dislike it, recommend it or trash it, and even to mould it or to throw it out the window.

A great (and very fun) way to show the power of social media marketing is to enter “(BRAND NAME) sucks” into Google. Put into consideration the fact that around 80% of the information read on the Internet today is not read on the site that it was originally published, but through social media, the word is spread to different websites, blogs, forums and networks. It is no longer just a fad for kids or a way to spread the word about your fart app; social media is evolving as a powerful and a fast paced low-cost, high-reward tool for making the sales, turning profits and taking home the big prize.  The price tag is appealing and it is no holds barred.

It would probably have been useful if the organisers had determined the definition of social media before the debate begun, as this was the main part of the whole debate and its aftermath.

There were a few interesting questions that came up during the debate though; if you pay for viral is it still viral? If you pay for social, have you really earned it? Are social media users, and more importantly bloggers, really in it for the money, or for increasing status, their passion and personal expertise?

For sure, the social platforms are all out there, open for any user or organisation for free. But there is a huge benefit from getting help from people who knows the drill. The debate took silly proportions as there is no way of neglecting the value time and money spent on social media brings to businesses. Social media management is a long-term investment that requires people’s time. The pay-offs are amazing though.

At the end of the event all present took a vote, and it became clear that over 65% of the audience thought that social media could or should be paid for – and thereby got Neoco’s sign of approval!

Weak Ties (in Word of Mouth)

Word of mouth spreads through people’s connections with each other. The looser those connections are, the faster and farther it can spread…

In 1973 sociologist Mark Granovetter published what is now regarded as one of the most influential and cited sociology papers ever written. ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’ explores the idea that society is held together by weak and strong bonds that exist between people. Crucially Granovetter pointed out that most advantage is conferred through Weak Ties – as he, at the time, proved by demonstrating that most people found new jobs through their Weak Ties, rather than through their Strong Ties.

What are Weak and Strong Ties?

Strong Ties are the relationships we have with close friends and family which have more bearing on our identity. They are our support system, the relationships in which we invest more of our time and energy. Weak Ties are the more distant, functional relationships we have with colleagues, friends of friends, or people we may have met through an activity, interest or online that have less bearing on our identity. The two types of tie have very different functions. Strong Ties provide our emotional safety net, they are our social glue. Weak Ties help us with social mobility, they are our social oil.

With regard to word of mouth Weak Ties are an important part of what makes someone influential. To explain why we must first look at how information travels. Clearly information spreads from person to person, but when a social network consists of a large number of Strong Ties information can become trapped. This is because the lack of Weak Ties in the group reduces the opportunity to transfer information to another social network. For the same reason members of very close friendship circles based on many Strong Ties tend to be exposed to fewer new ideas. The absence of Weak Ties in their network impacts on their ability to connect to other social circles where different information is being discussed. Weak Ties act as the conduits for new ideas, helping information to move from group to group.

This means that Weak Ties are essential for word of mouth and influence. They are the channels through which people access information and resources beyond those available in their own social circle. It follows, therefore, that people with a greater number of Weak Ties are more exposed to new ideas and are in a stronger position to inject those ideas into otherwise unconnected networks.

Weak Ties increase massively in a digital context. People who actively participate online – in terms of social networking, social media, and the maintenance of their relationships through email – are able to sustain many more Weak Ties than they would otherwise achieve offline. Moreover, because of the functional nature of Weak Ties (i.e. largely informational rather than emotional transactions), people who use review aggregation sites, pay attention to peer rating systems and follow threads effectively establish a Weak Tie with every contributor. This exponential boost to the volume of an individual’s Weak Ties also increases their access to new information and their ability to spread word of mouth to new networks of people.

Information flows more easily, traverses a greater social distance and reaches a greater number of people through Weak Ties. Weak Ties are a key component of word of mouth.

We suggest going over to the site and reading up on the other content too.

There is also a PDF report that you can download:

Guardian Word Of Mouth report – Word of mouth is a very big topic, and one that is being discussed by many brands and agencies across the world at the moment. Read on to find out how we have built on existing theories and developed a new way of understanding and identifying influential people…

"the Park & Ride shoppers definitely looked different this year"

Because the Wii girlfriend was just to subtle, Alton Towers and Ultimo combined for this viral.

“Alton Towers Resort teamed up with Britains leading underwear brand, Ultimo to make sure women don’t make a boob on the rides this summer.

A group of test-riders donned a variety of Ultimo bras and were put through their paces on several rides, including Rita Queen of Speed and Spinball Whizzer, to test the durability and lift support of bras-and to make sure they were a snug fit.”

Whilst it’s an obvious viral choice for the guys, it just feels a little a little wide of the mark for the core audiences of Alton Towers and Ultimo. Yes, it will no doubt get a lot of viewers and maybe even some press but are they right viewers? Will it be the right press? We constantly work with clients to educate them about the difference between quantity and quality when it comes ot social media and this is a good example of quantity at the expense of quality. It’s much better to have lower exposure but to a more targetted audience. Neoco have delivered loads of word of mouth, viral and social media campaigns and consistently, when you look at the ROI, 1,000 qualitive targeted users are better than 50,000 quantitive broad-base users. Don’t fall for the trap of thinking high viewers/ fans/ friends = success.

How does it relate to you?

Social Media/”Consumer Generated Media”, although fairly new compared to other forms of online communication is the third most popular way to spend time online, in fact 1/5 of all time spent online, in the UK is spent on Social Networks. Added to this is the perception, among the more traditional among you is that Social Networks are there just for younger audiences that just spend most their time on Facebook/Myspace/YouTube. Yes these are key sites, and yes young people are still in these spaces, but there is a huge space online that is inhabited by all ages, in fact between April 08 – April 09 18-34 age group lost a 8.3% share of online user composition, in community member sites. There is almost an equal share between 18-34 and 35-49 age groups, if you then add in 50-64 group, the share held by 18-34’s is looking rather small.

Once you take away the big sites I have mentioned above, naming another 7 Social Media sites which reach over 3m unique users (in the UK) per month might be a bit of stretch and no Twitter isn’t one of them! But this just points out there is huge untapped market, where you can interact, it doesn’t have to be through the initial channels that you would think of.

So basically, pretty much all age groups are using Social Media, you know their interests, age group and where they live. For Marketers, this is a dream, as all over the internet users can be talking about your brand, doing some of the leg work for you.

Who rules online?

This would be fantastic if everything being said was positive, however as we all know, this is not the case! What has happened is that control has been taken away from brand’s and instead given to the public. A scary thought indeed, but you can help even the balance through buzz monitoring, such as Neoco’s PoNo service. But added to this you can interact with disgruntled consumers in a very public place and can in fact turn negative publicity into a very positive outcome. Toyota did this in the states with one of their best selling car’s, the Camry. They opened a dialogue with key bloggers who were unhappy with the product, helped improve the product and in front of a huge audience of readers solved the problems for them. This was great PR, and was widely praised in blogs. For organisations who do latch on to this new approach to marketing, that sometimes you do make mistakes, but you are happy to rectify them, its a huge step forward and can forge trust in a brand that cannot be repeated elsewhere.

One thing you need to think of before approaching the world of social media is planning. With both negative and positive outcomes in mind, knowing how to react to them before they come. Having key set of objectives and KPI’s in place so you can track how well your campaign is doing, whether this is brand awareness or ROI. When it comes to planning and experience Neoco are digital experts, so please drop us a line to find out how are tools and services can help you.

Thanks to the guest speaker Alex Burmaster, from Nielsen.

For the fourth report in a row, Peter found his face replaced with a title graphic and now regrets dumping the Nielsen graphic designer.

As a founding member and part of the council for the industry body for Word of Mouth (marketing) UK, I manage to get my hands on all manner of interesting gubbins – just like this new Nielsen report on the global impact of Social Networking. It highlights some interesting facts and behaviours that any marketer looking at this space (which should be every marketer) should know.

Download the Global Faces and Networked Places – A Nielsen Report on Social Networkings New Global Footprint PDF report.

If you would like to discuss your Social Media strategy with experienced professionals, then just drop us a line. We’ve helped many a brand from global multnationals to local start-ups implement effective social media campaigns with long term success. Neoco clients had access to this report some time ago so there’s another incentive to get in touch.

You can also find a lot more info like this at WOMUK