First Direct Embraces Web 2.0

Speaking about digital advertising and Web 2.0, First Direct seems to have embraced this concept to the full. In fact the brand, has decided to launch a campaign that will include both positive and negative consumer comments about its service and brand.

The press, outdoor and digital campaign will use a selection of comments about First Direct made on blogs and forums from all parts of the net. It is setting up a new microsite, Firstdirect.com/live, that will serve as an aggregator of all mentions of the brand (both positive and negative) that would allow the users to form their own opinion about the brand.

It's all about being open with one's own customers and try to make advertising more credible and more impartial. According to Natalie Cowen (Marketing Communication Manager of First Direct) ‘It's a very open and transparent way of demonstrating why we're the number-one bank for customer satisfaction...It's a campaign not many brands, let alone banks, would be able to launch.'

The bank has been report that it will be reducing its use of conventional advertising and turn more toward online advertising and speak direct to its users via Web 2.0 application such as blogs, forums and social networking sites.

Asda to Launch Social Networking Site

ASDA has decided to give more power to it's shoppers and go embrace Web 2.0. Ithas announced that it intends to launch a social networking site, which will allow shoppers to connect with the Brand.

The site, that will be called Your Asda, will allow shopper and potential shoppers to tell Asda what they don't like, what they like and what they would like to see and will also be able to comment on products they want in their local stores. Although one might think they they are a bit late in following this trend it is a very good sign that even retail giants who's main focus is price are willing to take in customer comments. It is always better to have customer speaking of their dissatisfaction to you (the Brand) rather than say the same things on other formus.

Your Asda will comprise a blog, step by step guides to products, a live Twitter feed and a photo gallery. Asda will also launch a site for staff called The Green Room in which employees can vent their opinions about the retailer. Do you think other grocers will follow this trend?

Twitter documents hacked...strategy revealed

Twitter has been affected from a security breech...a hacker managed to access a number of files that had been saved by one of its employees google files online and disclosed these files to the media. The files contained a number of confidential documents outlining the strategy of the company and the bank account figures.

The strategy documents outline Twitter ambition to roll out roll out a five-pronged commercial strategy aimed at helping it generate $140 million in revenue by 2010 and $1.5 billion in sales by 2013.

According to stolen documents published by Techcrunch, Twitter's long-awaited money-making strategy will focus on verified accounts, search ads, sponsored tweets, AdSense widgets and payments. The use of Verified accounts, will see the creation of paid accounts that can be used by corporate and celebrity users (like facebook does with users/advertisers wishing to create Fan Pages, as opposed to setting up a profile). Search ads would see heavy users of Twitter's search API required to run ads on the service. According to the leaked documents, Twitter will invest in engineering to make the offering ‘flawless' and ‘timely'.

The thirds phase of the strategy will focus on generating revenue via sponsored Tweets that could see advertisers charged for targeting consumers with direct messages offering coupons and discount vouchers.Twitter's strategy will also include AdSense widgets.

All these initiatives will enable Tweeter to turn from a free for all microblogging website to a money making machine. The importance of Twitter has also been highlighted recently with the turmoil in Iran. Tweeter in fact was the tool the US government was using to keep up to date with what was happening in a country that they have little access to. Hundreds of people were using Tweeter to organise themselves and report what was happening. All these have made the world even more global...will adverting on the other hand reduce the amount of people registering for Twitter's services?

Is it worth to keep a blog?

Who said that blogs and mini blogs are just a waste of time? This could have been the case some time ago however this is not surely the case today...the question today is - How many Twitter followers does it take to get a job?

Best Buy has the answer to this question...The answer is 250. This is the amount that Best Buy require from candidates wishing to apply for a marketing role with them. The ideal candidate should also have a ‘two plus years of mobile or social media marketing experience' and ‘one plus year of active blogging experience', as well as a Bachelor's degree and at least 250 Twitter. So now actually blogging really pays.

While a lot of companies are specifying the need for people to have social media experience, Best Buy is believe to have been the first one to actually ask for a specific minimum number of Twitter followers. Best Buy explains this requirement as Twitter is part of the corporate culture at Best Buy, in fact chief executive Brian Dunn recently encouraged customer and investors unable to attend the company's annual shareholder meeting to follow the proceedings via Twitter.

Dunn in fact has an active twitter account and has currently over 1650 Twitter followers, so he is surely more than qualified for the role. So I'll better start increasing my followers as I'm quite behind when it comes to number of followers :)

Examples of how Failing to use Social Networking may lead to PR Blunders

I was reading a number of articles and came across this really interesting article written by Mr. Graham Charlton on the 8th of June 2009 and that shows how companies can misuse Social Networking.

A number of brands have fallen foul of social media over the last few years, either due to lack of understanding of how information spreads online, or by attempting to manipulate the system and getting caught out.

The listed ten examples show the reaction of companies who have suffered PR nightmares online, in most cases the bad publicity has come via social media sites...

Ryanair

After a blogger criticised a flaw in the airline's online booking process, staff from the airline left several childish and insulting comments in response to the post. To make matters worse, after the episode was publicised around the web, the company issued a statement saying that 'it is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy in corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won’t be happening again.'

Domino's

The video showing Domino's employees doing all sort of disgusting stuff to the food they were preparing went viral on YouTube (mentioned in an earlier post on this blog), and was a PR nightmare for the company. The company did what it could by posting a video response on YouTube, though some found the delivery by President Patrick Doyle less than perfect (the video did not have the same viral effect as the initial one posted on YouTube).

Belkin

A Belkin employee was caught red handed offering to pay other Amazon Mechanical Turk users to write positive reviews of one of its products on the site. These reviews were especially unconvincing given the fact that the router in question had several bad reviews already, making the positives stick out like a sore thumb. The paid reviews have since been removed.

Whole Foods

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey left a bunch of anonymous postings about rival company Wild Oats before being rumbled, causing a great deal of embarrassment for him and his company. The same CEO apologised to shareholders afterwards, but the damage was done.

Wal-Mart

The company was outed in 2006 after a blog chronicling a duo's travels across America while camping in Wal-Mart car parks turned out to have been the work of PR firm Edelman.

Amazon

After removing books with adult content, including Brokeback Mountain and Lady Chatterly's Lover, from its bestseller lists, Amazon was subjected to a torrent of bad publicity on Twitter and elsewhere. The company blamed a glitch but didn't directly respond on Twitter.

Kodak

Kodak recently decided to charge an annual fee for storing photos in its online Gallery, and though it claimed to have emailed everyone concerned, some were clearly surprised when their photos started to vanish. Obviously the company received lots of bad publicity for the company on Twitter.

Target

US retailer Target got itself some bad publicity in the New York Times last year after dismissing a complaint from a blogger about one of its ads with the phrase: 'we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets'.

Just months before, the company was outed for encouraging Facebook users, who were receiving various freebies, to praise the company on the site. Was this a nontraditional media outlet?

Neal's Yard


The retailer of organic products pulled out of an online debate as part of The Guardian's 'You ask, they answer' feature. It seems the company didn't like the question concerning the withdrawal of one of its products last year; a homeopathic remedy for malaria.

As pointed out here, this refusal to engage is not the way to deal with criticism online, and represents a PR failure for the firm. In this way to leave users to draw up their own conclusions.

ExxonMobil

An example of why companies should own their social media profiles, and monitor sites like Twitter comes from ExxonMobil. Someone calling herself Janet set up an account on the site in the company's name and managed to fool plenty of people before the account was taken down.

All these examples are just a snippet of all examples that one might find about Companies failing to use social media effectively to correct or respond to blunders. In this way they let users draw up their own conclusions and possibly offer a the possibility to competitors to have their say too!

Facebook to introduce Payment Gateway

I was searching for news about Facebook as we as I had read that it had sold about 1.5% to a Russian Company (Digital Sky Technologies) for $200m so as to raise more finances. I came across an article that is very interesting. Facebook has begun tapping a new revenue stream as it seeks to introduce an internal payment system. This will enable it to reduce it's reliance on advertising and to start earning commissions on payments. This has been long awaited and it will enable Facebook users to be able to buy credits that can then be used to buy virtual goods from third party applications running on Facebook.

This revenue structure mimics that of Second Life where developers can start developing virtual items that can then be bought by users to customise their Facebook experience. Second Life was a success as hardcore users where buying property and furnishings to create a virtual life. An example of the potential of Facebook is Zynga, the largest applications developer on Facebook, with 42m users using their games. It is believed that they make nearing $100m in annual sales. Together, developers working on Facebook’s platform are expected to make more than $500m this year perhaps even more than Facebook itself.

Facebook hopes that by offering a site-wide currency it will encourage more commerce on the website. By serving as the payment provider, it will capture a percentage of every transaction. The payment portal will serve the same purpose as PayPal is for Ebay Inc. The percentage profit is small but over time, this will be very significant.

Social Networking sites and now even the mini blog site, Twitter, are suffering from a real problem...they have a huge following but they cannot find a proper revenue generation method. This will give them more possibility as a specialised payment gateway exists to help them monetise on their services.

Could this be the end of an all free service? Social Networking sites need to be really careful with this as they depend on a large userbase and if these sites become too focused on revenue generation they may alienate their user. The right balance needs to be struck.

Cashing in on Problems

The recent Swine flu, like its predecessors the Pandemic flu and the SARS has caused quite a havoc amongst the worlds population. It has been a headline news for quite some days and a lot of people are interested in ways to prevent it and, if the undesirable had to happen, how to cure it. You might say this is natural as everybody needs to be informed as to what might happen and what actions need to be taken to prevent such potentially catastrophic diseases.

This natural instinct of people has push them online and billions of searches have been initiated with the words flu, swine flu and Mexican flu...so what did innovative marketers do? Just what is natural to them...analyse that the customer trends are and serve your customer needs. Companies such as google saw a huge potential in this and for example google has launched Google Trends. Google Trends uses time series analysis and tries to find a link between the search behaviour of people and the actual spread of the disease. In this way, they were able to launch the Google Flu Trends in association with the US Centre for Diseases Control.

Google is not the only company that has taken advantage of this. Online pharmacies are all flocking up to try to sell all kinds of stuff that "they say" would prevent the spread of the flu. The sell all sorts of stuff from face masks, gloves to the notoriously known Tamiflu (which is supposed to be banned from online sales). Amazon has also recognised the pontnetial and in fact started supplying anti-flu kits to it's customers (image below)...if the big companies do now there the go ahead for all companies to follow.

The use of Web2.0 is also helping companies in this regards. Website owners are linking up with sites and getting mashup content, such as up-to-date news of the spread of the flue, so that their site increase in popularity and they obtain a better natural search result on search engines...PPC campaign and Google Adsense is another option that companies have...so what are you waiting...the sky is your limit today. The most important thing is that you keep your eyes open and as in any other business try to obtain a first mover advantage...

Prince Charles Moves to Social Networking

Lately I have been reading more about the potential that social networking offers and the opportunity it provides both companies and brands alike to commuicate their message and interact with their target market. I recently came across an article which continues to highlight the importance that this Social Networking medium plays in today's world.

The news read that Prince Charles had decided to start using Social Networking online and became on of the first (if not the first) Royal to use a social network. This is an absolute breakthrough and a significant milestone for Social Networking as it has managed to attract even the traditionally conservative monarchy. Does this mean that Social Networking is something that has been accepted and a need now a days for those wanting to voice their opinion to a wider community? The answer in my opinion is Yes!

Prince Charles chose to use Myspace to campaign for a worthy cause and raise awareness of his Prince of Wales Rainforest Project. In his page (http://www.myspace.com/rainforestsos) he urges the social network's community to electronically sign a petition to fight climate change and unite together to fight the destruction of rain forests and save biodiversity and the world's lungs. The campaign is being endorsed by the Prince himself and many other influential people such as Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, the Dalai Lama and other members of the Royal Family.

My only concern about this move is why was Myspace used...should the campaign have been launched on Facebook which is by far the market leader in Social Networking and use You Tube to Link all the Webcasts that are posted on the Facebook group? Maybe this will be the next phase :) at least we have seen the start...hopefully it will encourage other people to do the same and start voicing their opinions online. This is especially necessary when it involvesgood cause campaigns such as theone mentioned above!

Advertising - Much needed by companies but sometimes frustrating for Customers

I was reading the Financial Times and came across one of a series of articles that reports on the dire state of the print media advertising market in the US as it has been heavily hit by the economic crises. The article (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/daa86abe-2e77-11de-b7d3-00144feabdc0.html)reports the further drop in New York's Times aadvertising revenue (it fell 27% leading to a first quarter loss of $74.5m). This drop is not as accentuated in the digital media industry as it is in the print media.

Facebook is one of the companies which is seeking to increase or at least limit the damage of the economic crisis. With the deployment of the last makeover of its social networking site it is aiming to make advertising more targeted so that companies can benefit from better return of investment. However this apparently is leaving its toll on Facebook and other social networking sites who have followed the same trend. A study done by Interactive Advertising Bureau shows that such a strategy is turning off users of these sites (31% of social networking users are fed up with constant requests by brands). This could be a blow to these sites as they are trying to take the opportunity to consolidate their revenue base with the potential to expand further (especially with future economic recovery).



However the same survey highlights the fact that users would be happy to join groups if offered exclusive content or something relevant. This could be the an Ace for another company - Twitter - and could also explain it huge growth. Users can choose to follow mini blogs which they have an interest in and hence pick up the information the want. However Twitter still has to find a business model that will allow it to produce some form of revenue stream that could ensure its long-term survival. Hence the battle still remains for such companies as they need to satisfy their users while at the same time ensure their long term survival.

Dominos Pizza discover the Power of Social Networking

I was reading an article on the Daily Mail about the Domino's employees who shot videos of one of them doing all sort of disgusting stuff with pizza ingredients (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1169881/Dominos-Pizza-workers-filmed-revolting-video-abusing-takeaway-food-charged-police.html). Just after reading the article I decided I should do a standard Google search and was amazed to see that most of the top ten results related to articles reporting the story. The actual homepage of Domino's now stood surrounded by such articles.

Following this I decided to search for the video myself and noted that all videos that were reporting the incident had high viewership rates, with the official video reporting more than a million views. One of the employees involved has also been reported to have claimed the rights from the video, forcing YouTube to put down the link. The tremendous success of this video (unfortunately for Domino's) has caught Domino's by surprise forcing them to take immediate action to try to control the damage inflicted to the brand. Apart from the normal procedure of firing those involved the company sought to replicate as fast as possible...and what better way then using the same channel that helped to create all this hype.

Domino's posted it's own YouTube video (see below) featuring it's US president Patrick Doyle clearly irritated by the action of the two employees (or ex-employees) and the effect that their action could have left on the trust of Domino's customers and the possible repercussions on the brand and it's franchisor. However till today the video although registering over 500,000 views is still behind the 1 million mark that the original video hit. The company has now embarked on the journey of Social Networking and has also created a Twitter account to keep in touch with the general public...



However why should successful companies use a reactive approach (only react after a PR blunder) to adopt new forms of marketing which have already been used successfully by other brands? Could a proactive approach have made it easier of Domino's (in this case) to react more swiftly to this unexpected event and limit the impact of the brand? As Churchill Winston said, All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes...hopefully Domino's Pizza will now learn to be more proactive and other companies would be better off learning from the mistakes of others.