Social Media: 3 Disaster Planning Tips

The Challenge:  Domino's Pizza. GoDaddy. Chrysler. Mattel. The Gap. Nestle. And the list goes on. Some of the biggest brands have suddenly found themselves entangled in social media crises that no one could have predicted ... but that we all must now plan for.

Social Media Crises on the Rise
These crises were sparked by thoughtless, tactless, and/or malicious social media postings. Whether the postings were true or false, whether they originated from within or outside the company, they eventually became big mainstream news in both traditional and interactive media.

The risk of instant, devastating damage to any brand, large or small, is now higher than ever ... and the trend is only accelerating.

In this environment, the question arises: Should your enterprise simply wait for a disaster to happen?

The obvious, imperative, and increasingly impossible-to-ignore answer is "No."

4 Takeaways for Marketers:

Here are four best practices you can implement right now, before the storm hits, that will reduce the chances of your enterprise being "blindsided" by a social media disaster:

Best Practice #1: Identify the Communication Channels That Matter Most. 
You must know ahead of time where and how your current customers, prospects, and advocates now communicate about you and your brand. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are likely environments, but certainly not the only ones to consider. Decide who within your organization will be responsible for handling messaging in each of those channels during a crisis. Do this now.

Best Practice #2: Monitor Social Media References to Your Brand. 
Two essential tools for keeping tabs on what people are saying about your company, its brands, and its promotions are Google Alerts and Twitter's search tool. Other tools will be found in specific on-line environments. If you're not now monitoring for daily, or even hourly, intelligence on what is happening in interactive media and how it affects your enterprise, start.

Best Practice #3: Create a Virtual Customer Council.
When a crisis hits, you will have minutes or hours -- not days or weeks -- to hone your message and respond. When you do, be sure to take advantage of existing online relationships with your best customers. Identify your "top ten" (or twenty, or however many) online advocates who are satisfied customers. When the storm descends, take their counsel and get their feedback before you make any major decisions about how to respond to the crisis. Ask for their help in addressing false or malicious communications about your brand.

Best Practice #4: Of course, once the storm does hit, you must BE ACCOUNTABLE for problems that actually exist, and fix them.

Pinterest: 3 Takeaways About Personalizing the Customer Experience

THE CHALLENGE: Customer-driven personalization is a powerful competitive differentiator, and marketers should take note of how Pinterest provides this.

True personalization is complex to achieve and requires a deep database of individual’s opt-in preferences. However, the results are powerful.

Personalization is an Expectation:
Online shoppers view personalization as a requirement for their preferred shopping venues, rather than as simply a perk. Per our Voice of Customer research:

» Many BtoB decision makers use Amazon as their point of reference regarding expectations for BtoB personalization.

» Both BtoB and BtoC marketers have to at least match the Amazon level of personalization!

Pinterest Approach to Personalization:
Pinterest has a fascinating approach to personalization: Pinterest doesn’t take on the hard work of personalizing the experience, it enables the consumer to personalize their experience.

Per a recent article in TechCrunch by Nir Eyal, “Pinterest is becoming the web’s personalized mail-order catalog. Each user is presented with a one-of-a-kind visual interface based on their tastes. They are presented with any product, from any retailer, anywhere in the world. The items they see are curated through people and topics they’ve identified as interesting and what is shown to them improves the more they interact with it. Every time they pin, re-pin, like, or comment on an object, the relevancy of the products displayed on their magic catalog improves.”

Pinterest lets the consumer do the work by allowing them to decide whose tastes they would like to follow. It is curated by the consumer so the consumer likes what they see. And if they like the products, they will buy them.

Per a recent article from Fortune, “In March the site registered 17.8 million users, according to Comscore, a 52% jump in just one month…Brands--from large companies like Gap and West Elm--are tripping over themselves to establish a presence on it, and some are starting to reap the rewards of being "pinned," a referral that prompts followers to click on product pictures to learn more. In February, Pinterest drove more traffic to websites than Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube combined.”

We will keep an eye on this company and track how they evolve to the next level of personalization.

3 Key Takeaways for Marketers:

1. Determine the type of personalization experience you want to/are able to, offer: Deep preference-driven personalization, like the Microsoft example above, or, like Pinterest, avoid some of the hard work of personalization and enable the consumer to personalize their experience.

2. Make your value proposition so appealing that consumers will come to your site, (repeatedly) and engage with others in the community by posting and consuming appealing content.

3. If you are offering a service based on personalized engagement, don’t restrict how people can engage with you. I could not sign up for Pinterest without connecting via Facebook or Twitter. They would not let me sign up via email. It is inconsistent with a positive customer experience to block enrollment via email.

Also, need to respond to questions in a timely manner. I, along with a colleague, sent questions to their support email address requesting to join via email. One week later, we still await a response.

New Value Exchange: Preference Info to Drive Personalization

THE CHALLENGE: Consumer frustration with Opt-Out marketing policies is growing; marketers need to convince them to share information regarding their preferences in exchange for a valuable, personalized relationship.

Unfortunately, Opt-Out Is the New Norm

There are now over 200 million numbers listed on the National Do Not Call Registry. Moreover, a number of states have introduced “Do-Not-Mail” bills and the topic of “Do Not Track” legislation is red hot. Overseas, governments are taking even more drastic actions. For example, the Italian government banned all unsolicited mail, phone, email, fax and mobile communications.

As consumers find more ways to avoid unsolicited marketing communications, panicked businesses are responding by creating opt-out relationships wherever they can. This is the wrong approach.

Customer Frustration is Growing

Today’s empowered consumers are questioning why the burden should be on them to Opt-Out. In fact, prominent Opt-In campaigns have resulted in enthusiastic customer response. Consider the case of comedian Louis C.K.

In recent years, Louis C.K. has risen to prominence as a stand-up comic, an actor, and, with his show Louie, a writer, director and editor. And with his self-produced and distributed “Live at the Beacon Theater” video, he’s setting an important example for online marketers. Rather than forcing his consumers to Opt-Out, he asked them to Opt-In—in a prominent, tongue-in-cheek way:

“I’m going to be offering other things through this site. Would you like to hear about them?

- Yes, I’d like to receive further emails about Louis C.K. things.
- No, leave me alone forever, you fat idiot.”

The latter was selected by default. The customer response was unequivocal: “‘Opt in’ as the default is such a minor thing, but it makes people feel good.”

Create a Reciprocity of Value

Rather than making “Opt-Out” the default, marketers should compete to engage consumers with compelling value propositions that motivate them to Opt-In.

The most compelling value you can offer is relevance. Consumers are eager for meaningful personalization. The challenge for marketers is to make them aware that, in order to receive or access increasingly relevant information, consumers must share increasing amounts of information regarding their preferences.

Microsoft used Voice of the Customer (VoC) research to create a highly personalized experience in their Business Resource Center, which asked over 14 detailed business questions in order to deliver targeted and relevant information. As a result, they have achieved opt-in rates as high as 95 percent.

3 Takeaways for Marketers

> Create a Reciprocity of Value
Consumers opt-in to share increasingly detailed personal preference information in exchange for marketer’s promises to deliver relevant information and offers.

> Opt-In Is Not About Passively Agreeing to Receive Email
It’s about actively opting-in to a relationship and self-profiling your preferences and aversions.

> Consumers Are Eager to Tell You How They Want to be Treated
The key is to ask.