Social Media News of the Day: October 28, 2010

Lost in the Crowd

I am a big concert person. I just love live music. Nowadays people spend money to go see their favorite band live and don’t even watch the show. Instead these fans pull out their smart phones, turn on the camera and watch the whole show through the tiny screen on their iPhone or Droid!

This drives my best friend crazy and for good reason. Not only is someone not watching the show but also now they are blocking the view of everyone who is standing behind them. This is when I decide to move up front and lose the group I came with.

Fast Society is a start-up with the solution. They have made an application that allows you to have group texting sessions when you are in a crowded venue together. No more “stay where you are and let me go find Pete” or  “Ok, meet me in at the bathroom in 30 minutes and I will call Dawn and find her too.” Pretty genius idea!

When a Blog Goes Wrong

Maura Kelly, a blogger for Marie Claire magazine, is in hot water today after she posted a blog about the new show “Mike and Molly”.  The basic gist was Kelly felt uncomfortable and “grossed out” when watching two overweight people kiss or really do anything.

I was shocked at the content of the blog and even more stunned that Marie Claire allowed the blog to be posted on their website. I am obviously not the only one who felt this way, because according to Yahoo! Shine, the magazine received 28,000 emails and many calls to have Kelly fired.

Yes blogs should have personality and whit but not when your personality is spewing hate. Shame on you Marie Claire!

My Ode to the Wall Street Journal

In honor of the Wall Street Journal being one of only two newspapers across the country to see a rise in circulation per the latest numbers that came out today, here is my “ode to the Wall Street Journal” as my weekly TwitterMoms.com blog post.

It’s one of my favorite traditional media outlets and a part of my daily life that I couldn’t imagine going without! Find out 5 reasons why I love “the Journal”.

Social Media News of the Day: October 27, 2010

New Logo, New Layout, Last Chance?

MySpace has changed their layout, their logo and hopefully their destiny. For more than a year now social media journalists have been writing about the demise of this social network but it’s not dead yet!

The new focus is strictly on entertainment and this is (in my opinion) the best move they could have made. MySpace has done one thing better than Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare combined: targeted musicians.

Musicians have not deleted their MySpace accounts, because no other social network has proved to be a genuine competitor in this area. All of the changes made to the site are encouraging users to be more active with the entertainment acts they enjoy and they’ve also given users more ways to discover new artists.

Don’t worry if you can’t see the new layout yet. All users will have access by November!

RIP Step Ahead Web Strategies

Facebook might finally make some changes that really could help people out, especially companies. They are in the works of testing an administration page for those people who run a company’s profile.

The best part of this administrative change would be the ability to change a company’s name on their Facebook page! I have never really understood the reasons behind not letting a company change their name, but I really hope that this is an option soon.

First thing is to change our company’s name from Step Ahead Web Strategies, its original incarnation, to Step Ahead Inc!

Translating Social Media Jargon

Social media is a relatively new addition to the marketing world, so it’s no surprise that some marketing managers have a hard time explaining the benefits to their superiors or other departments. It may seem like second nature to those of us who use social media daily, but some folks actually don’t know what a retweet is, or even what Twitter is, for that matter. I heard someone refer to it as the tweeter application yesterday, and it took all my strength to not jump up and scream!

To try and make your life easier, here’s a cheat sheet you can slip your boss:

What is a retweet?
When someone retweets you on Twitter, it’s most likely a compliment. In the real world, it’s analogous to having someone pass your magazine advertisement along to all their friends (we stole this great analogy from one of our brilliant clients ), or having someone forward an email advertisement to their mailing list. Any way you put it, it’s getting your name out there to lots of people!

What is a mention?
On Twitter, when someone mentions you, they are calling you out directly in a public way. This allows you to have direct contact with your customers or potential customers, and publicly show that you are responsive. Don’t let these opportunities pass you by! Reply to them quickly, and show just how customer service-oriented your company is!

What are Twitter followers?
When someone follows your Twitter account, they “sign up” to get all your tweets. You could say followers are similar to email subscribers, but you’re able to interact more frequently with them.

What are Twitter lists?
Twitter lists allow you to organize followers and group together Twitter accounts that are similar. In the past, if you wanted to find out what restaurants your friends liked, you’d have to ask them all, but now, if they have them, you can just check out their restaurant Twitter lists.

What does it mean when someone “Likes” my page on Facebook?
Having friends on Facebook is very powerful. When someone “Likes” your Facebook business page, that news item is shared with all their friends in the news feed. It’s as if they went around and told all friends that they like your business. It’s one of the best types of word of mouth advertising out there!

What are comments on Facebook?
Comments on Facebook are another great way to publicly interact with your customers or potential customers directly. Make sure to respond quickly to show that customer service is a high priority in your company. Lots of comments on a page also lead to a better post quality rating, which tells Facebook how popular your page has become. This will help with future Facebook page recommendations and placement in news feeds.

What are “Likes” on Facebook page posts?
“Likes” on Facebook page posts are different from liking a Facebook page. These interactions show that a friend, who has already “Liked” the page, is happy or excited about the post. This will show up in their friend’s news feeds, as well. This would be like a customer who’s having a chat with you saying, “Wow, I agree! You are so right!” with their circle of friends within earshot. Remember how hard positive word of mouth advertising used to be? Well, if done right, it’s much easier with social media! It makes word of mouth much more efficient and quicker to spread.

What is a checkin on Foursquare?
Foursquare is a geo-location tool that allows people to check into different locations. When someone checks into your business, it’s one of the highest forms of endorsement you can get! They are not only telling their friends that they like your business, but they are showing them, by actually being at your business, and presumably purchasing your products or services. If a friend tells you a restaurant is great, you may think about trying it, but if someone calls you from the restaurant to tell you how great it is, you’re probably a bit more interested. They walked the walk, so you know it must be good.

The whole point of this post is to let you know how important social media is to businesses. Sometimes it’s hard to see the benefits for all the social media jargon. So now you can explain a retweet and a check in to your boss or your client in layman’s terms!

Do you have any other social media jargon translations? I’d love to hear them!

Social Media News of the Day: October 26, 2010

Deals Deals Deals

Groupon and eBay are the newest of partnerships and it seems like a great fit.  Groupons will now show up when you are searching for those items you wish you could bid on. What’s even better is that eBay members will earn 5% of purchased Groupons in eBay bucks.

This will obviously be a tremendous amount of exposure for Groupon and a great way to get eBay users interested with an incentive.

Who else should Groupon partner with?

What’s Going on with Digg?

It seems like ever since Digg tried out a revamped new site things have just not been going well for the social news site. This week they’ve announced that they are significantly reducing their number of employees from 67 to 42 and even management could be uprooted.

Do you think the Digg CEO is right in taking the company back to  “start-up” mode?

Brilliant Gift of the Week

In honor of the holidays and all the great “techy” gifts out there, I’ve decided to showcase one gift a week until Christmas that I know any social media nerd would love!

Apple is providing free iPad engravings and I think this is the perfect way to personalize a gift that is already on many people’s lists! I’m hoping Santa will leave me an engraved iPad under my tree that says, “You Might be Naughty but This iPad is All The Nice You Need!”

AllBusiness.com: Cleaning Up a Social Media Crisis

What do you do when someone says something negative about your company and it begins to spread quickly? Well, here’s one tip: Don’t follow the model of Dominos, United or Motrin, but I would recommend taking a nod from Southwest’s handling of the Kevin Smith “too fat to fly” fiasco.

At any rate, AllBusiness.com recently wrote an article on the topic and interviewed me for the piece. Give it a read!

Social Media News of the Day: October 25, 2010

The Perfect Badge

I grew up during the rise of Nickelodeon and their infinite number of game shows. My favorite was Family Double Dare and I applied to be on the show too many times to count. I wanted to be on the show for one reason only: the grand prize trip to Space Camp in Florida!

I never went on Family Double Dare and never got to Space Camp but almost 10 years later I still have a passion for NASA and anything space related. Astronaut Doug Wheelock took my love of space and social media to a whole new level by checking in on Foursqaure at the International Space Station to earn the NASA Explorer badge.

I will be working hard to find a way to earn this badge!!

Social Media Spoof

The news doesn’t make me laugh very often anymore. All the stories are about the failing economy, the next election or what horrible crimes are going on in the neighborhood next to mine. But a Fox-affiliated station in Texas is making me “lol” with their parody of social media and the news.

You have to see it to really appreciate it “awesomeness!”

Cleaning Up a Social Media Crisis

Entrepreneur Michael Diamant faced a potentially disastrous situation during a recent office move when the transition to new phone and e-mail systems caused some technical difficulties and a lag in customer service response times. Frustrated customers posted a flurry of complaints on Facebook. But Diamant, the 43-year-old co-founder and chief executive of Skip Hop Inc., a baby-products company in New York City, acted quickly and took charge of the situation before it spun out of control.

“The first thing we did was temporarily have the marketing team help out with customer service,” he says. “Customers were personally contacted, and issues were promptly resolved. In the end, customers actually returned to Facebook to share their new positive experiences.”

Businesses have always had to manage customer complaints, but thanks to Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, YouTube, and the like, the negativity now spreads like wildfire. According to research from Beyond Philosophy, 40 percent of customers who complain also gripe on social media.

Mishandling a social media crisis has the potential to destroy a company’s hard-earned reputation. Consider Domino’s Pizza and the gross-out prank video of two employees violating various health codes while making sandwiches. The video went viral before Domino’s decided to respond, leaving customers questioning what really goes on in company kitchens.

“Consumers know their power, and they are going to reach out to social media when they have a complaint,” says Lori Jo Vest, co-author of Who’s Your Gladys? How to Turn Even the Most Difficult Customer into Your Biggest Fan. “Companies who look at this new reality as an opportunity and use it to proactively solve customer problems can end up transforming complaints into positive situations that result in stronger customer relationships.”

Customer frustrations will be shared and amplified. That’s a fact. But whether it’s one complaint or enough to create a major crisis, these tips will help you regain control, protect your integrity, and spin negative into positive:

• Respond within 24 hours: “When you give the situation immediate attention, showing the customer that you are paying attention, you are likely to turn things around pretty quickly,” says Diamant, whose company engages with its 10,000 combined Facebook and Twitter fans every day. “People just want to know that you are listening.” Post a courteous response; but keep it vague and deal with the issue offline via phone or e-mail. This shows that you’re listening but also removes the problem from the public arena and its millions of spectators.
• Analyze the problem: “Is the complaint truly constructive, and is this truly a distraught customer you are dealing with?” asks Shama Kabani, author of The Zen of Social Media Marketing, who warns of cyber bullies. If so, it’s time to win them over with top-notch customer service. “People realize that businesses make mistakes because they are run by human beings,” says Kabani. “They will judge you based on how you deal with a situation versus the situation itself.

• Set the right tone: “Stodgy, boring corporate speak will not play well” when problems go viral on social media, says Lyn Mettler, founder of Step Ahead Inc., a Charleston, South Carolina, agency that develops and manages social media campaigns for businesses. “Be funny, be entertaining, and be willing to say you were wrong if you were. Remember the medium and respond accordingly.”
• Be visible: If the problem reaches a level where you can’t answer everyone individually, Mettler says personally responding to the original person who made the complaint is sufficient. Just make sure your genuine response is easy for customers and the media to find. Mettler advises you “share it once in a variety of ways: via a blog post, a video on YouTube, on your Facebook page, and on your Twitter account.”
• Don’t censor negative comments: Removing less-than-stellar opinions about your company only erodes customers’ trust. Instead, try to welcome legitimate criticisms. “A negative comment, when truly constructive, can be a great opportunity for the business to walk its talk,” says Kabani.

The opportunity is so great, in fact, you can create lifelong customers from it. “We’ve found that 90 percent of the negative reviews can be addressed and resolved and transform the negative relationship into a positive one, where the customer becomes a lasting and loyal advocate,” says Neal Creighton, CEO and co-founder of RatePoint, a company that helps small businesses manage their online reputations.

These tips work best if your business has already established a strong presence in social media. So encourage customers to share their happy experiences online, and make sure to offer a customer service platform on every social site that’s popular right now. If you’re just on Facebook, it’s time to get on Twitter, too. And make it a priority to monitor social chatter about your company. Kabani suggests setting up daily alerts throughSocial Mention. As Creighton says, “The more proactive [businesses] can get, the more successful they will be at building trust with their current and prospective customers.”

The Monster Mash was a Blast!

Last night Step Ahead Inc gathered with other social media lovers to eat, drink and be scary at Taco Boy in downtown Charleston, S.C. It was a great time and a good group of people came out to eat candy, show off their costumes and have the chance to win some prizes. A special thanks to Amy Lawrence for winning the social media guru prize of a free “spirit” for tweeting about the event the most!

Hope everyone had a “spooktastic” time and we hope to see everyone at the next meet-up!

Social Media News of the Day: October 21, 2010

Things That Make Me Go….Ooohh!

Target now gives customers the option to print their Facebook pictures in stores. Most Targets already have photo kiosks but they are getting revamped to include a social media twist.  I’m very excited to try this out! Will you print your Facebook pics at Target?

Giving You What the Customer Wants

Here at Step Ahead Inc. we all love our job and loving our job makes it easy to work weird hours and weekends. It’s important for us to be on at night and weekends because that’s when the majority of working people are able to use and interact with social media. For many companies this is where they fall down with social media and customers are speaking up about it.

In the “2010 Customer Experience Impact Report” more than half of the respondents expect a response to a comment posted on a social networking site, and a little more than half of those expect the response within 24 hours. The report goes on to say that only 22% of those who expect the quick reply ended up getting one.

Is your business using social media? If so are you able to give your customers what they want in a timely fashion?

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