It is often misunderstood that managing social media is easy for brands. I mean, we all do Facebook. So what can be the big deal about managing a brand presence on Social Media.

Well, for one, going from a comfortable, many times edited broadcast mode communication, to a real time, interactive space, where responses go out on the fly, is a huge bridge to cross. That is where the challenge begins. And then, it can get bigger!

Let’s look at this example, where perhaps, on behalf of the brand, someone with lack of understanding, lack of language skills, or both, decided to respond to comments on a Facebook post:

The disaster that can happen is for all to see.

Maybe English was not the primary language for the person replying. And she did not get the word ‘shameful’. What if it was a one-time unfortunate accident. But by the fact that this screen shot has gone around the world, many times over, the damage to the brand has been done. And badly.

Let’s look at another example. This was in fact, a well-intentioned effort, from a global leader and a household name, McDonald’s.

They’re been very active on social media, have done interesting activations, and have engaged their fans.

So it was not surprising that they initiated a hashtag #McDStories, where they hoped and expected that customers may share fun stories linked with McDonald’s.

But the campaign backfired and how.

Check out the detailed story which shows how the #McDStories hashtag became instead a bashtag. While there may have been consumers who had genuine, interesting McDonald’s stories to share, there were others who used the opportunity to bring out the horror stories of their McDonald’s experiences, from unhealthy food, to poor working conditions, and everything else in between.

Clearly a well intentioned effort that went horribly wrong.

There have been other cases where brands have had trouble, while engaging with consumers on social media. A case closer to home in India was about Cafe Coffee Day, when a fairly active social media brand had a trending hashtag in the form of #ccdsucks.

All of these cases show that:

1. Social media is clearly a double-edged sword for brands.

2. There is extreme participation of consumers around brands. Good and bad experiences can get quickly amplified. Whether the brands like it or not.

3. Brands need to have a sense of preparation, for things that could go wrong. While a #CCDSucks or a #McDStories cannot be necessarily foreseen, a fundamental awareness that things can go wrong, and a broad strategic approach for such situations, is something that brands need to have in place. Typically, before an incident occurs.

4. Often the understanding to manage such crisis is not internal, within organizations. This is due to a lack of experience in real time interactive spaces, and the eagerness to be “in control” always. The latter eagerness can often get brands to take impulsive steps that may not be the wisest ones after all! The Vodafone case when the brand tried to sue a consumer who was complaining about their services on social media, is an example of this.

Simple pointers for brands at this point are:

1. Your consumers are present and talking on social media. Whether the brand is present there or not. So just because there are challenges, to not be present on social media, is not even an option for brands.

2. Brands need to prepare themselves well. They cannot trivialize social media and relegate it to a lower level, in the corporate hierarchy. Senior management must participate in decisions related to social media.

3. Being prepared for eventualities helps in not being totally surprised.

4. Adequate budgets need to be apportioned. Just because Facebook or Twitter are free to use does not mean that brand budgets for social media should be peanuts!

5. And brands should really engage with agencies or consultants who “get” the medium. There are cheap ad film makers, but brands still go for the best in the business. Because stakes are high. The same kind of thought must prevail while making choices in selection of a social media agency!

With all that, social media’s an exciting space. One just needs to work harder, on a 24×7 basis!

I have received more than my share of “critical feedback” suggesting that my blog posts are often a little too long. The feedback has come first, from my teenage daughters (I am glad for their candidness!). Unfortunately, there is a risk that this post may also not be “short”.

But then, for this, I have to blame Mrs. Hansotia. Who Mrs. Hansotia? Oh, she was my English teacher from class VI to X. And like most English schools, ours too suffered from the now-exasperating British legacy of being extremely verbose.

Till today’s teenagers do not go and completely take over all English language teaching in schools, we may still suffer this excess for some more time. The rest of us have too much of a hangover from our school times, and end up being flowery length by default!

Then there is the radio legacy.

Back when live TV had not come, we had to depend on the adjectives of our poetic commentators (think Suresh Saraiya, for example) to visualize how the ground was, and how exquisitely Vishwanath had cut the ball to the cover fence for four (before getting out the next ball), and things of that nature.

Live television came, and we did not need to be “told” many of these things, as we could see them. And yet, our commentators, brought up in radio days, continued to tell us what we could plainly see!

So you get the point? I am talking about the long, long text that we write and speak. Instead of cutting to the chase. And instead of sometimes, cutting out the crap!

My grouse is not just about the longer blog post or the verbal diarrhea of our commentators, but in general, about the legacy to write too many words, and which even shows up on Facebook at times. Thankfully, Twitter does not give you that option at all.

At a recent event where I was a speaker, the topic of my talk was ‘How to be relevant to your audience in 140 characters’.

Before the event, once the organizers announced the topic, there was a whole lot of interest seen in Twitter, etc. I have not seen so much buzz around a speech topic. While part of this may be attributed to the organizers promoting the talk and the event, that the topic fascinated and intrigued a lot of people, was undeniable. In fact, there was a lot of questions post the talk and many of the folks also came and chatted individually, later.

So where are the real challenges in our habits, and especially in context of social media updates for brands?

You want to make a product update.

You have written brochures of web content for the product before this.

You are greedy. You want to get all of your details out, in that one update itself!

You want to use the opportunity of having to make a Facebook post about the product, to cover more or less everything about the product!

So your post could well read like:

“This exciting new <product> from <brand>, model number <abc> comes with it’s own remote control and a child proof lock as well. Made of stainless steel, you could see your own reflection on the <product>, and it is lightweight as well. So you can enjoy your day, with this <product> even as you bask in the sunshine.”

Or words of this kind.

This is clearly brochure-ware, and not good for a Facebook post.

If I had to constrain the writer to write the same post for Twitter, she’d find a way, wouldn’t she?

She’d probably write this as “Our new <product> <model> has a child proof lock, so your kid will not get accidentally hurt. Check it out at bit.ly/abc.”

Why could this not have been done on Facebook as well? Just because Facebook gave her more characters to post, she let her flowery language loose?

Here’s another example from recent times.

I had this really weird experience at a recent pitch where 6-7 people from the client’s end were sitting and my colleague was presenting. And at a point where he was explaining a point in depth, the client (almost) rudely interrupted him and said, “Yes, we get it. It’s a good idea. Now let’s move on!”

Whoa! That took us by surprise, although the client meant well.

We are all busy. Our attention spans are low. So get to the point. And get there fast. ANY word that does not add real value ought not to be present. If I can say it in one word, I don’t want to use two.

In a twitter conversation, often a single word tweet can have impact, e.g. “Epic!” or “OMG”. And if you want to give the liberty of an additional word, then there could be “Life sucks!”, or “Go Federer..”, etc. The story is told. In those 1-2 words!

So guys, as the title to the post suggests, “Cut the crap. And cut to the chase!”

Here’s an ad, that drives home the point..

I was at the Click Asia Summit earlier this year, and shared thoughts on Social Media Planning, and challenges thereof.

A video recording of the same is shared here below:

Would love to read your views on these thoughts. Do share!

Almost a year ago, I had blogged about the challenges that Advertising Agencies face, while approaching Social Media. And one of the points that I shared at that time was the “campaign” oriented approach that agencies had, whereas Social Media demanded more of an ongoing management approach, rather than a burst of a campaign.

While a lot has changed in a year, including the level of understanding that Advertising Agencies have, about Social Media, the one thing that has perhaps only gone worse, is the increasing campaign-style approach, while making Social Media a part of the marketing mix, for brands.

I interacted with one such agency recently. It was heartening to hear that they had close to 20-25 Social Media activations for brands. Considering the type of brands, and assuming that these are all active at the time, I presumed that they had a large team managing Social Media, at their end. Or that they were outsourcing the execution to someone else.

First of all, they proudly mentioned that they did not outsource anything. Which was fine. But then they conveyed that their Social Media team was all of 6 persons. Which came as a surprise to me.

I did some digging around after the meeting, and I found that almost all of the brands that they had mentioned had had some good bursts when they went online for Social Media, but they were nearly inactive at this time. Except for the 4-5 which were currently active.

It so appeared that the brands did not care (or they did not realize what damage they were doing to their brands by creating a community and ignoring it later) and neither did the agency.

Many a significant FMCG brand in recent times, have gone on to television and in print, with their specific campaign oriented Facebook pages. Given that this visibility to Social Media is heartening, but if the page is left to die, when the campaign goes off air, it will be sad. And we have seen more cases of such abandonment for me to fear the same fate here as well!

And as against these approaches, consider the approaches of brands like Fastrack, Ching’s Secret, Just Dial or Pantaloons, for example, and you will see that these brands have kept their Social Media activations central to the brand, and not to a campaign, and they have nurtured their communities, with good, ongoing engagements, not just when an offline campaign was running. And these are the more long lasting approaches, after all.

So what made that agency I was referring to earlier, to take a campaign approach? The reasons as I can see can be one or more of the following:

1. The agency does not understand better. With a legacy of a campaign oriented approach, they continue to recommend the same thing, even in Social Media.
2. The agency understands the difference for sure, but going the ‘ongoing social media management’ way would demand them to grow their team size, by leaps and bounds, for every new client that goes on to Social Media (like our company, Social Wavelength has done, in fact). And adding heads into the agency is not so easy for them. Sometimes they need to justify every new head to add to the rolls, all the way to Singapore or New York or Chicago or Paris. It is an elaborate process, and someone in the system needs to stick his head out, and take responsibility to bring in revenues to justify the addition. All these are easier said than done. It is easier then, to recommend campaigns to clients, and get done. And manage with the team size that the agency carries.
3. The agency could of course, outsource to specialist social media outfits (like Social Wavelength or many others in the space now) and manage long term social media activities. However here again, there is a demand for effort and energy from the agency’s end. The few agencies that have created some excellent ongoing working relationships with us have put in serious efforts from their end. Like having a few people dedicated to work with us and with the client, and ensure that the agency adds value in the chain. When they take a certain responsibility of delivery on behalf of the brand, they have to be involved. In real-time, when the outsourced social media outfit puts out updates on behalf of the client brand, the agency is still carrying the responsibility of there being no goof-ups. This does not happen without effort from the agency’s end. Few agencies have the attitude or the commitment to social media, to invest that kind of time and effort on this. And so they do not outsource, they manage in-house, and with their small teams then, they end up doing only “short term social media campaigns” then!
4. Many times, the constraint is from client’s end. They are not willing to take long calls on Social Media, and want to experiment at a campaign level. And agencies agree to these suggestions (as they do, to a lot of client demands – after all, the client is signing the cheques!). And which is why we see the short bursts of campaign oriented social media. Unfortunately for the client too, this will not serve as good examples. When you think you are experimenting in social media, with such bursts, you are not really experimenting in social media, but rather you are using social media as one more media platform, to run your traditional marketing campaign. And these are NOT the same thing! What you learn – good or bad – about Social Media, from such an experiment, is not the right research for an ultimately, long term ongoing Social Media presence.
5. The final reason is that of budgets. An ongoing Social Media presence demands commitments to resources say, for the next one year. A campaign may on the other hand, ask only for commitments for 1-2 months. The latter is an easier decision for the brand to take, and for an agency to sell. But it is happening at the cost of not utilizing Social Media, for what it really stands for. And it can often cause more harm to the brand, when social media platforms are abandoned. I have seen many in recent days, where fan updates on a Facebook page include marketing messages of Viagra like pharma offers, competitor offers, or other home business promotions. And no one from the brand or the agency has felt it necessary to go and clean up the page!!

Recently we have also got an assignment from an agency, for a brand that wants to do a campaign oriented social media presence. We advised against. We shared the pitfalls of the approach. The client was not convinced. We are doing the Social Media activity, only for the campaign, much against what we stand for. However, we disowned our responsibility on the ultimate benefit for the brand. And we reckoned that while executing this “campaign”, we will make the case for an ongoing presence. So let’s see how that part pans out.

But for us, this is a rare one. But it is also indicative of the way many brands and agencies continue to take the quick fix approach. It is important to understand that this Is not how a good Social Media presence should be established. We continue to put our efforts to educate clients and agencies that we work with.

What are your views on this? Do you face similar challenges with brands / agencies? Do you even agree to the campaign vs ongoing management approach for Social Media? I a keen to read your views on the subject!

Time was when years back, good friends Venky (Venky Iyer, owner of Goli Vada Pav) and Sanjay Mehta (Jt CEO of Social Wavelength, a Social Media Agency) used to sit on the “katta” along with friends, chai and vada pav, and make casual chatter! From golis about Chetan Chauhan’s inability to face bouncers, or Rekha’s dances in Muqaddar ka Sikander, to the gyaan about what career might be best to pursue, such “profound” discussions were the norm!

Cut to 2010. Not much had changed for Venky and Sanjay. Still the same kind of golis and some similar gyaan about all kinds of subjects under the sun. Except it was not the footpath ‘katta’ where these discussions were happening. In fact, Facebook had become the new ‘katta’. And the golis and the goli gyaan are a part of the “Vada Pav + Cutting Chai + Aamchi Mumbai = Awesomeness” Facebook page, a hugely successful Social Media activation run by Social Wavelength, for Goli Vada Pav.

When Venky and Sanjay got talking originally, to create a Social Media presence for Goli Vada Pav, many different strategies were considered. Finally, the Social Wavelength team in consultation with Venky, came up with the idea to go a surrogate way. Instead of pushing Goli Vada Pav as the brand, at the top of the Facebook page (as is the norm for most corporate Facebook pages), an alternate strategy was planned out.

The Facebook page that got created was called “Vada Pav + Cutting Chai + Aamchi Mumbai = Awesomeness”. This resonated absolutely perfectly with the Facebook fans. After seeding the page and sharing it with a handful of people, the fan growth was rapid and totally viral. The name itself had the element of magic:

• Vada Pav – the staple food of the masses and especially the youth, a product of Mumbai, extremely popular all over,
• Cutting Chai – that half-full glass of tea that is an ‘anytime’ drink for people in Mumbai, and makes for a perfect blend with Vada Pav,
• Aamchi Mumbai – how the citizens refer to their beloved city, Mumbai,
• Awesomeness – not just good, not just great, but simply awesome. That is what the combination of Vada Pav, Cutting Chai and Mumbai, meant to Mumbaikars!

The fan growth of this page was immediate, very viral. The Mumbaikars who discovered the page, simply clicked the fan button and joined the community. Many from outside Mumbai also came to the party, as this was the food combination that they looked to grab, on their visits to Mumbai. The spirit of Mumbai was evident in the combination and even people from outside Mumbai, and outside India, in fact, connected to the idea!

This Facebook page of Goli Vada Pav, created by Social Wavelength, worked for different reasons, for different people. And they said so in the comments that they left on the page.

Many remembered and missed the Vada Pava they had left behind in Mumbai. Others remembered that perfect diet that worked for them every day – at work, at college, anywhere! And there were the few, who were curious to figure out, what this page was all about.

And the discovery happened as the days rolled out. Beyond the intrigue of the name of the Facebook page, there was a lot of fun, on the page.

Interesting trivia, fun around Bollywood and music, little known vada pav facts, and occasional ‘serious’ stuff like career advise kept getting posted, to fascinate the largely young set of fans that the page had acquired by then. These were interestingly named as Daily Goli, Garam Goli, Goli Gyaan, and similar ones. The play on the word ‘Goli’ was deliberate, considering the brand behind the page, Goli Vada Pav. We leveraged this place to the maximum to know more about our fans by starting a friendly conversations, which would provoke them to response. For Eg: A simple question like ‘What is the best place to have dinner on a rainy day? 1. Dhabba 2. Fine Dine Restaurant, Bhajji/vada pav with cutting chai at a thela?

The content was mixed up with photos and music, to satiate the demands of such fun elements, for the youth following. Sharing few yesteryears photos along with simple trivia, helped us to engage our fans who felt nostalgic about their past and to youth alike, as they are more curious to know about the past.

Fans were instantly able to connect with our Goli Gyaan.

Our Facebook fans were eager to share their views and comments when we interacted with them on a friendly level and asked them what they feel about any particular issue For Eg:

We were able to generate tremendous response from our client when we asked them to recognize the childhood picture of famous Bollywood star. For Eg,

The Facebook page was supplemented with a blog, written in his own inimitable style, by Venky himself. The can-do, go-getter attitude of the brilliant entrepreneur, Venky, was exemplified in his blog. And Social Wavelength proved to be the perfect foil for Goli Vada Pav, to make this strategy happen, and successfully too.

Goli Vada Pav as a business, and as a Social Media entity, continues to grow very well. Large number of stores all across the country, and a growing base of fans on Facebook, are parameters of fast paced growth, of Goli Vada Pav.

Social Wavelength also continues to thrive and grow as a Social Media Agency. A large team of 50+ dedicated Social Media professionals, an excellent roster of clients, and an increasing experience base in the ever evolving Social Media space, provides the perfect leadership position for Social Wavelength, in the field of Social Media.

For more information contact,

Social Wavelength

Sanjay Mehta, Jt CEO

smehta@socialwavelength.com

Facebook users today were greeted with a message that a letter from founder Mark Zuckerberg was waiting for them. As this is not your every day occurrence, most of us ended up checking it out.

And while we found out that the galloping giant had moved beyond the 350 million user base number, it was also bringing about some significant changes in the coming days, to the way it has been functioning. While details about the exact implementation will be known over the next few weeks, there is enough information to generate many early reactions, to these changes.

I have a slightly different view to the opinions in that story in Business Standard.

1. On the subject of the regional networks which will not remain anymore, I have not seen any serious value to this so-called regional network, including the one of India. Networks, groups, communities are worth if they truly unify, generate exchanges and interactions, and are active. The specific Facebook Fan pages or groups that actually engage its members are the kind that are actively managed, have reasons for engagement, and have a common passion. Not the kind where you just ‘belong for the sake of belonging’. Regional networks were largely of the latter type.

2. The privacy factor, on the other hand is very crucial. As a father of two daughters who are active on Facebook, and as a consultant  and speaker on Social Media, this is one fact that I have highlighted many a times.

Let me explain with an example.

You go to a vacation at a beach resort, and have a rollicking time. Fun photos of the trip, including several in your two piece bikini find their way to your Facebook page. You are comfortable sharing these with your friends. After all, you have been selective about choosing your friends on Facebook. And as always, you get a lot of comments from your friends, on your photos.

Now few of your friends have large friend groups of their own, on Facebook. As they comment on your photo, a status update goes out to their friends, that <your_friend> has commented on <your> photo album. And in that status update, the ‘photo album’ is a link, that your friend’s friend can click on, and view!

Oops..that is not something that you expected / wanted / anticipated. And yet, you did not even realize that this could happen, because there were no apparent warnings (current version of Facebook also has selective privacy settings for many of its features, but often the default sharing is ‘everyone’ and most users do not realize the need to change it!).

And while that friend’s friend cannot comment on your photos, he can definitely view them, and should he have mal-intentions, he can do worse.

Not your best case scenario and something that is very real and happening, right now. I must admit for example, to not have any major celebrities as friends, but some of my friends have such friends. And once in a while when I see my friend commenting on their celebrity friends’ pics, I have been curious to check the pics out. I am sure the celebrity did not mean to share those with me, or many others like me!

So considering these risks, it is indeed a move in the right direction, to enable and basically prompt users to choose the level of sharing, for any piece of content that they update on Facebook. In a growing and large space, where abuse is so easy, even if it means a little change that we have to deal with, I think the privacy changes being proposed are a step in the right direction.

3. But does that mean that I will need to go and look over my hundreds of friends, one at a time, and set privacy settings for each of them? Surely that would be very tedious?

No, I don’t think that will be necessary at all.

Consider again:

a. At this time, the higher level of privacy was not present. It is being introduced. So whatever content you uploaded on to Facebook, you were comfortable to share that with whoever (largely, your friends) had access to it via your Facebook page. Just because you now have a choice to be selective, you do not HAVE to go and change privacy settings for your existing content. It was visible to your existing friends, and if you don’t do anything special, it will continue to be visible to them.

b. What is a choice for you is the NEW content that you will start uploading hereafter. At that point, while uploading, you may have a choice to decide if you want to share with friends, of friends of friends, or everyone. Again, as I read the open letter, it does not state anywhere that you will get to make selective permission settings within your friends. As long as someone is a friend, he is equal to all other friends. So you do not go and set levels of permissions to your various friends.

After all, Facebook wants to continue to remain a common user’s utility, and does not want to become a techie application. Multiple level of permission settings on users, is a techie activity, which I am sure, Facebook will not indulge in.

So what kind of consequences do I see as a result of these changes?

1. As an individual user, your privacy settings are certainly better protected. I would then recommend users to set their settings correctly, e.g. have private photo and video albums to be only shared with your friends and no one else. But if you post a link to your blog, which you actually want more people to reach, then that content can be allowed to be accessed by ‘everyone’. And of course, if it is just someone else’s content (like a neat video that you see), fell free to share it with ‘everyone’ again, as you have no need to protect that further!

2. But what if you are a brand? The one thing that brands found favorable about Facebook was its viral nature. Where good content could potentially fly on account of features like ‘share’ and ‘like’. Will Facebook become less viral now with these changes? Will your content not move that fast?

I would think not. Unless users make mistakes in their personal settings.

As a brand, the content that you produce, you will anyway want maximum people to see it. So you will not put any significant privacy protection levels on the same. You will set your content to be accessible to ‘everyone’ (as against only fans, or friends of fans or something like that). With that setting as your content moves out from your fans to others, there are no stops really. The viral aspect remains.

Unless.

Unless some users have made their settings such that “all that they share is only accessible to friends” and no one else. Ideally they want to protect their personal privacy, and would protect personal content, photos and all. But a mistake in user settings could well make ALL content that they share, only reachable to friends. In SUCH cases, the content that passes through such friends may perhaps stop flying as much, as it will not go to the level 2, beyond their friends.

This should not happen, but if it happens to a small degree, to that extent, the viral flight of good content may be diminished to an extent.

Other than these factors, I do not see major consequences of these new features of Facebook.

What are your thoughts? Have I missed something? Do you agree? Love to hear your thoughts on this.

I have many good friends in the traditional advertising world. A few clients as well. And many prospects. And I have a lot of respect for their work. They are among the most creative folks I know in life.

So I want to assure that this post is not meant to be critical of them.

There is a perspective based on observation and experience, about how traditional advertising agencies are finding some aspects of Social Media to be challenging, and which is shared here.

As an opinion. And looking for other opinions, in fact!

Over the few months that we have been in business as a Social Media agency, we have pitched directly to clients as well as via advertising agencies. In doing so, we have had good experience interacting and working with both types of prospects.

Having seen this at close quarters, I observe few fundamental challenges, for advertising agencies to adapt to Social Media that easily:

1. There is a ‘campaign’ focus: Agencies have traditionally been involved in campaigns. Those that may demand a lot of hard work, high creativity, long hours, but which are finally one-off shots (whatever be the length of that one-off shot).

Social Media is not quite like that. Social Media is an ongoing process, something that needs to happen all day long, day-in-and-day-out. This is unfamiliar territory, in principal, for the agencies.

2. Intuitive and smart writing is required, need not be masterpieces: Agencies have the best creative talents, no doubt. Especially copywriters, who create that magic, with the use of few words that get on to billboards or on print ads or the script on the TV ad. They may work on several iterations before they get those 4 words right, but those 4 words then, are very right and work wonders in an advertisement.

Such excellent copywriting would work very well on social media. Except that it is unaffordable. And perhaps not required. Each tweet does not have to be the masterpiece copy that comes on ads. Each Facebook update does not have to be discussed and debated in a creative brainstorming session.

Social Media is about being ‘just right enough’ on the creative front, being more intuitive and natural, and being almost casual in your content. Whether it is on Facebook or on Twitter or other formats.

The extremely creative copywriter of the agency can do this, but her presence for each tweet or each FB update, will not be affordable then. And anything less might not do, or may not be available in the agency team!

3. There is huge effort in getting it right, and then getting it ‘out’. As mentioned earlier, agencies work hard to get the ad right, and for which long hours and very hard work is the norm. But it all culminates at the point, when the campaign is pushed out, after all the final approvals. And that’s it. After that the team can relax, as it is then, for the campaign to deliver. Or not.

In social media however, there is no one ‘out’. Social Media is about conversations. About dialogs. Once you put your message out, you will get responses. And you have to respond back. And it goes on. And each time, you need to put your best foot forward. And the ‘campaign’ does not really ‘end’ at all! This again is something to get used to, for agencies.

We have seen many a social media initiative of agencies falling into the ‘campaign’ slot. Most times, it also continues to be a ‘broadcast’ as against a conversation.

While we do not agree to it being called a ‘social media strategy’ then, we have ourselves worked with agencies on such initiatives. Considering at our end, that we are participating not in a true social media effort, but rather, in an advertising campaign, where a blog or a Facebook page or Twitter is serving as a media, and we are delivering the content for that advertisement.

This is really the type of Social Media involvement that we are seeing a lot of, from advertising agencies.

We hope that agencies get convinced about the “real” social media. The type which involves long term and ongoing engagement with your customers. The type that creates relationships and not just one-off branding or sale opportunities. Where the brand truly mingles with its customers, and becomes their very approachable friend.

Once agencies are convinced about this opportunity, and then they can convince their clients too, perhaps we can see a shift in the approach.

However it does appear to be a steep mountain to climb, from where we are at this time. There are a lot of old learnings to be given up, and new ones to be learned. And in that, amongst other things, the agency revenue models may also get challenged. And which is the biggest status quo that no one wants to disturb.

As long as the current situation prevails, agencies may keep doing advertising and using social media platforms as advertising media. While others, including agencies like ours, will strive to convince clients about an alternate approach. One which is the true social media.

Yes, I might have ruffled a few feathers here. And so I am open to be corrected.

Do you think agencies are changing faster than I give them credit for? Or is their current approach the right one anyway? Your opinions are welcome, in the comments below.

Because customer conversations do not happen on your laptop’s C drive, they happen in the Social

space!

Say what? Yeah, ok, I kind of jumped the gun.

So let’s start at the beginning.

As we meet clients and talk to them about Social Media initiatives and strategies, many times, we realize that what we are advising is something that a client can so easily do himself. Well, not all parts of it, but many of the simpler ones.

So then, why does the company need us? Why can’t they do it themselves?

Some of the reasons in response to these questions:

1. Unless it is a day job, it does not get done well: There are times when there is a “mood” to jump into Social Media. Usually starts somewhere at the top levels of management. And the plunge is taken. Facebook page is started or a Twitter account initiated, or some blogging takes off. May even go on for a few months. And then, one of many things could happen:
   • a. The ‘champion’ of the project leaves the job, or
   • b. A joint venture initiative comes up, which occupies the mindshare, or
   • c. The CFO asks some awkward questions on resource utilization, etc.

   And the effort dies down. Slowly but surely, it fizzles out to a zero. Nobody even tries to clean up the mess. The ‘fans’ on the Facebook pages are left high and dry. Nobody responds back to the tweets. The blog looks like an abandoned ghost town.

   Impact on the brand? I am sure you can imagine!!

   If alternately, an agency was involved, such holes would not remain, usually.

2. You know all the stuff, but you do not how to present it: The business belongs to the client. She knows her business better than anyone else, and we, as Social Media consultants cannot even come close. However, with the client’s knowledge of her business, and her ability to put content together about the business, there may be a shortfall in the area of presentation.A very long blog post may be written, that no one reads through. Posts may sound too technical and boring. There may be a struggle to communicate in short for, say, 140 characters, for Twitter. And of course, fundamental language skills may not be that good.

   Here again, the Social Media Agency will fix all of these issues, and create content of suitable size, suitable style, and present it well.

3. There are only 24 hours in the day: Many times, we find that on the scale of good intentions, clients score 110%. That they want to go after Social Media and want to crack the puzzle, and they want to blog, and they want to tweet, and they want to do everything that comes in between. And they want to do it themselves too.With that kind of earnestness, the task begins and is taken up. The ‘honeymoon’ period goes like a breeze. They are frequent blog posts, there are regular updates on Facebook, on Twitter, etc. And then…. then, a big tender / RFP comes up, and getting that business could mean wonders for the client. OR, perhaps there are some regulatory / compliance issues that come up and grab the time of the client. And the first casualty of time is the Social Media plan. Because it is not delivering short term results!

   A Social Media agency would ensure against gaps of this kind!

4. The best things that you do are also often, your best-kept secrets: Most companies have, over time, worked on some amazing projects, some outstanding work for their clients. In doing so, they satisfied their clients no end, perhaps even earned some bonuses for themselves. They have probably even made a case study document out of this, with an intention of showing it to some other client, if a similar case comes up.There are also times when companies have come up with this brilliant presentation about themselves, and which they shared to their bankers or potential investors or while pitching for some new accounts.

   Such case studies, such presentations are then, hanging around somewhere in the C drives of computers. And sitting there, they do not have a chance to impress anyone else.

   A Social Media Agency will typically prompt the client to come out with such “secrets” and which are then showcased strategically, via Social Media, and then, have a chance to reach a wider audience!

In conclusion, I repeat that as a Social Media Consultant, or a Social Media Agency, there is almost nothing that I can do, which my client cannot do. There is scarcely any ‘technical’ skill that I bring forth, that a client would not have.

The only reason then, for a client to engage us, is because, “we will get Social Media done”, and left to themselves, clients may or may not do it consistently / regularly!

Yes, I generalize to an extent, to make the point. What do you think, though? In your experience, do you think this generalization is valid?

Executive Summary: Is Social Media Monitoring just an academic exercise, or can it lead to concrete benefits to the Brand? We conducted a Monitoring exercise to find out. The chosen domain was iPod and iPhone speakers and docks. To know more about what we found, read on. (Hint: It was the latter)

The method used for conducting this Social Media Monitoring exercise was essentially similar to the previous exercises carried out by us (Online Travel Sector in India and Hybrid Cars – Whats the Social Media Buzz). The study differed however, in that we completely focused on deriving points of action from it. We specifically chose this particular market  (iPhone and iPod docks) to conduct the exercise, because it was very close to another market/domain (iPods and iPhones themselves) which have a very high level of noise. We would have to ensure, therefore, that the search was very well defined, so that the number of irrelevant results retrieved would be kept in check. The entire exercise involved:

1. Identifying the appropriate search terms to enter into the Social Media Monitoring tool, so as to reduce the number of irrelevant results retrieved. (We restricted the searches to retrieve four days worth of data, June 12th to June 15th)
2. Running the searches, and allowing the Software to perform a first level classification of the results.
3. Our Social Media Executives cleaning up the results, to remove all the irrelevant ones.
4. Higher level, intelligent classification, categorization by our Executives.
5. Analyzing these results to extract points of action, and identifying influencers.

Our learning:

If I was a company about to launch an iPod Dock/Speaker system, what would be the features I would ensure that my product had? Apart from the obvious feature, viz. Good Audio output, our monitoring exercise revealed two features which were highly appreciated:

1. Compatibility with different generations of iPhones/iPods: What may seem to be an obvious enough feature, was not present in some models (eg. Bose SoundDock Portable). Conversely, whenever a mention was made of a dock which had this feature, it was highly praised (eg. GenevaSound Medium).
2. Ability to charge your device while music is being played: This feature, as well, wherever present was highly praised (eg. Harmon Kardon Go + Play). Yet, not all systems seem to have this feature.

On Social Media, Issues resurface, constant vigilance is required. The Bose SoundDock Portable, mentioned above, had a problem. Days after the 3G iPhone was released on 11th July 2008, people started talking about issues with the SoundDock Portable. While charging the iPhone 3G, the dock made a popping/clucking sound, every 5 minutes. This was reported on a particular thread on the Apple Support forums. We saw users helping each other, recounting  their interactions with Bose’s support  (which incidentally, did not reply in the thread). The problem was solvable, requiring the users to send the dock to Bose, who would modify it and send it back. As it happens, three new posts was posted on the the same thread, on 15th June 2009 (which is why the tool picked it up).  These people had the same issue, one year later, and still had to help each other solve it.

Action Required:

We identified results, which merited response as ‘Action Required’ results. They were further classified into ‘Action Required: First Level Response’ and ‘Action Required: Escalate to Customer Service’. Within these four days, we found three results on which we determined action would be required, in terms of escalating those three results to Customer Service. They were all related to the Bose SoundDock and problems associated with the same. The first Action Required result was about Bose SoundDock not being able to charge a users iPod Touch. The second and third results were from the apple support forums, with users talking about the popping/clucking sounds being made by the SoundDock Portable.

Influencer Identification:

From among the various sources where iPod docks were spoken about, Social Media Monitoring also helps us identify the influencers, viz. sources with the widest reach. While the largest number of reviews of various iPod docking systems were on the blog Smart Reviews Online, the popularity rating for this particular blog was 2 (out of a maximum possible rating of 10). On the other hand, the blog Geek.com, which did not always talk about iPod docks, had a popularity rating of 10 (highest rating possible). The only talk about iPod docks on geek.com in this time frame was about the passPORT home dock enables the Soundock to charge iPods while playing them. Another big influencer, with a popularity rating of 10 (source with highest reach or popularity) was, unsurprisingly Apple’s support forums, which had a single thread active, with only three posts during this time frame. It became clear, that frequency of posting (which may lead to a particular blog/channel being seen as influential) may not really be the most popular source.

The above study is an illustration of how monitoring Social Media can very clearly be used to derive well defined and specific action steps. It also helps in identifying which are the most influential sources of information about your product or brand.

The categorization done by our analysts, opens up opportunities for some interesting insights. First let us look at what is the ratio of relevant to irrelevant results from the one’s extracted by the tool:

How do users percieve your brand? What are the thoughts, words they associate with your company? We can analyze the themes being touched upon on Social Media, when people are talking about your brand. In this example, we did this themes analysis on the entire set of relevant results, viz. across brands.

In the tag cloud shown above, larger the size of the word/tag, more closely it is associated with the brand (in this case across brands). The above cloud, for example reveals that the word ‘System’ is very closely associated with speakers/docks, something which should be considered while thinking of a branding strategy for your next product. The word ‘dock’ is individually bigger than ‘speaker’, however, the word ‘speakers’ also figures prominently in the tag cloud.

Now that we know the themes being touched, we want to see which domains have the maximum volume of conversations about iPod Docks and Speakers (a reminder, we are doing this study for the four day period from 12th June to 15th June. It can easily be conducted for longer durations, and on an ongoing basis). The most popular domains, which spoke about iPod speakers, were as per the following image:

If we look at the above graph carefully, we see that there are two posts on Craigslist. Which means there is probably a resales market for iPod docks. We classified these posts concerning resale, and now we can see, which brand has the most resale related posts  for the given duration:

These resale related posts were not restricted to Craigslist alone. Done on an ongoing basis, this can help identify the size of the resale market for a particular brand, or even a particular product.

In previous Social Media Monitoring exercises, we have seen some basic data analysis, including Ratio of Tone within brand, Tone analysis related to product etc. As we can see in this post, much more complex and insightful analysis is possible.

Your questions/comments are invited. What other insights would you like to be able to draw from Social Media?

If you wish to download the White Paper for this study (PDF), you can visit the Resources Page on our website.