Now that AOL is spinning off from Time Warner, it has of course decided to rebrand itself. The company just released these new sneak peeks at its new look, and I’m not sure I like what they’re going for. Obviously that tired blue triangle had to go, but calling the company “Aol.” (yep, period and all) instead of “AOL” gives the impression that it should be pronounced as a phonetic word that sounds similar to “owl,” rather than being an acronym.
Minus the whole massive layoffs thing, I like the direction AOL has been going in as a company (less about e-mail for your grandma, more about editorial publishing), but I think they need to go back to the drawing board on this one. The new branding will be fully revealed on December 10. I’m kind of scared.
“Social media is about forming relationships and having conversations with customers, not constant promotion.” That’s the motto of Chris Bruzzo, Starbucks’s vice president of brand, content and online, which should hold true in any marketing program these days.
Speaking of Starbucks, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote a fantastic article about how the coffee chain’s social media initiatives have made it the poster child (along with Microsoft) for companies engaging consumers in real relationship-building online. A great read if you have a second.
Yesterday, PR Week and MS&L announced the results of their first annual Social Media Survey. The overarching finding wasn’t too surprising…
“Despite the perceived prevalence of the use of social media in the marketing world, there are many companies that are still cautiously entering the space.”
I think most of us in the communications industry are aware that much of corporate America still thinks “the Twitter” and “the Facebook” are for teenyboppers and (if at all) are very cautiously considering the ever-diminishing MySpace (I don’t even remember my login details for MySpace!) for their debut in the social mediasphere. It’s sad because many of them could have improved their brand identities a long time ago, had they been ahead of the curve. Exhibit A: Wisconsin Tourism Federation (WTF?)
Here (in a nutshell) are some of the survey’s interesting findings:
37% of the 271 marketers surveyed reported that their company does not include any social media tools
49% of companies do not have a specific approach regarding the use of social media on behalf of the company
10% discourage employees to use social media to communicate on behalf of the company
22% allow only marketing and communications employees to use social media on behalf of the organization
20% of companies encourage all employees to use social media channels to share messages on behalf of the company or its brands
Of the companies that do leverage social media…
47% manage and monitor customer feedback
40% reach key influencers
39% use it to understand the consumer and competitive landscape
32% use social media to create brand communities and fan pages
A recent study unsurprisingly found that only 1 percent of top executives over the age of 50 at U.S. companies provide daily contributions to a work-related blog, and only 4 percent say they blog a few times a week. In comparison, 35 percent of 40-something executives and 56 percent of those under the age of 40 post on a work-related blog daily.
In addition, only 3 percent of the 50+ execs are on Twitter, while 34 percent of 40-somethings and 56 percent of the under-40 crowd like to microblog. Come on, folks — if 77-year-old Bill Marriott can maintain a corporate blog, you can too!
“ [Brand representatives on Twitter] are not acting like spokespeople, but real people. You have to be careful about what you say while, at the same time, be much more personal than the average corporate P.R. guy. You need people who understand the mores and etiquette. Not everyone knows how to do that.
Josh Bernoff in The New York Times
The video above features the President of Domino’s USA responding to a PR crisis that erupted this week after two Domino’s employees posted an online video of them tampering with food in, um…pretty gross ways.
While the original video is fodder enough for controversy, what’s really fascinating (and frightening) is how social media sites like YouTube can quite literally deface a company as large as Domino’s in a matter of hours. That localized stunts can be broadcast internationally with the quick click of a button means that crisis communications is a whole new beast in the digital age—the Domino’s video has been viewed over one million times, and discussions have been very lively on forums like Twitter.
Domino’s is getting high praise, however, for its response to crisis: a YouTube response and the formation of a twitter handle, @dpzinfo, to address customer concerns. By communicating with customers through the very same medium that so easily soiled its reputation, Domino’s has proven its moxy and social media dexterity. Unfortunately, this incident will forever be a cautionary tale for other companies.
One would think that Facebook would be a fabulous place to be employed, complete with water slides, ping-pong tournaments, and lickable candy wallpaper. Not so, according to results from Facebook’s internal employee satisfaction survey, also known as the “awesomeness survey” (yes, that’s what they actually call it). First off, in my humble opinion, anything called the “awesomeness survey” could never be that awesome at all. I might even go so far as to call it “lame,” which is the opposite of awesome, but Facebook seemed to have had high hopes in the naming process. More evidence that something isn’t kosher over there is the low retention rate of star C-suite hires recently. If they only bought a Ms. Pac-Man machine, things would surely turn around.
Budget airline Ryanair and its madcap CEO, Michael O’Leary, have usually been a great source of amusement for me. Whether it’s because of their raunchy advertising campaigns or O’Leary’s sketchy behavior, news about Ryanair always brings the LOLZ. Including this latest incident — after an Irish blogger posted on his blog that he found a bug on the Ryanair Web site that changed the displayed price of a ticket to €0.00, a company representative left the following anonymous comment on the blog:
jason! you’re an idiot and a liar!! fact is! you’ve opened one session then another and requested a page meant for a different session, you are so stupid you dont even know how you did it! you dont get a free flight, there is no dynamic data to render which is prob why you got 0.00. what self respecting developer uses a crappy CMS such as word press anyway AND puts they’re mobile ph number online, i suppose even a prank call is better than nothing on a lonely sat evening!!
Even though the comment was anonymous, it could of course be tracked back to Ryanair through the user’s IP address. Instead of apologizing for the employee’s rudeness and lack of PR ethics, the company released the following official statement:
Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion. 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.
Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel.
Oh, Ryanair. Feel free to leave any insulting, grammatically-incorrect comments below…this “lunatic blogger” can take it.
Last year, Struass ranked social networking as the No. 1 trend for 2008. This year, social networking remains a top trend, according to Strauss, but drops down to No. 3. Mr. AllBiz also lists the Web 2.0 category as a whole in his top five for 2009, and proclaims that the social media set has reached its tipping point.
A new Forrester Research study found that only 16 percent of people trust what corporate blogs have to say. The highest amount of trust for companies comes through word-of-mouth e-mails from friends and people you know. This is no surprise, since studies show that the benefit of WOM has has been perceived as high in past years.
1. Search LinkedIn for the top people in your industry area or region; that is, the people with the most connections. Find the connections that you have in common, even if they’re via “2nd level” or “3rd level” connections, and ask these connections to introduce you to the big players.
2. Always be on the lookout for new connections. Whenever you meet or talk to a new business or media contact, search for the name on LinkedIn and send out an invitation right away.
3. Don’t send out the generic invitation template provided by LinkedIn. Customize the invitation with some information about yourself and explain what you can do for the invitee.
4. Follow up the accepted invitation with a personal e-mail that offers more information about what you do, and how you can help out the other person. This is how you build strong LinkedIn relationships—not by simply making the connection and then fading away.
5. Don’t start asking favors right after you’ve made a connection. “I’ve had people ask me for a recommendation right after we connected,” Hester says. (LinkedIn members can post recommendations about their connections’ services.) “I don’t know them well enough to do that. It’s like going to a cocktail party—you don’t walk right up to someone and say, ‘Hey, buy my products.’ The old-fashioned rules of business still apply.”
6. Boost your LinkedIn cred by answering questions that members of your network post to the community. The numbers of questions you’ve asked and answered appears on your profile, and other LinkedIn users can rate the quality of your responses. (Tip: Journalists often post questions for story sources.)
Reutersreports that tech and healthcare companies such as Dell and Johnson & Johnson are turning to social media vs. advertising. Brands are realizing that print and broadcast ads aren’t necessarily the best way to reach the younger consumer, especially with the current economy causing budget cuts.
