Managing Customer Service & Employee Privacy
After the LIMRA Social Media Conference in Cambridge, MA a few weeks ago, one of the attendees who downloaded the presentation deck used for the Customer Service Meets Social Media panel posted this question: “One of the points made in this panel is that front-line employees are often recorded (audio and video) and the results can be posted on social media sites immediately. How do I stop people from doing that? I could be held liable if one of my employees is photographed or videotaped without their permission.” In following up with the person who drafted the question, we found that Read More
Friday News Round-Up: Links Have a Short Half-life, Crowdsourcing at the White House & More Useful News
Here’s this week’s round-up of news stories that we think offer insights or lessons that can help multi-channel distributed marketing organizations. The “half-life” of links depends on where they are posted. Bit.ly, the link-shortening service, reported this week on the results of a study by Hilary Mason that shows how a link’s half-life is, depending on where it’s posted. Borrowing a concept from nuclear physics, Mason and her team looked at the patterns for 1,000 popular Bit.ly links across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube links. Half-life, in this case, is “the amount of time at which [a] link will receive half of the Read More
Repetition, Transparency, Multi-channel Communications Help Rebuild Trust
One of the daily challenges for marketing is building trust among consumers. It’s never been easy, but it’s gotten harder over the last two years. Luckily, multi-channel marketers have a clear path to reaching out to the public through web, social media, PR, and trusted local agents or managers. Building trust in difficult economic times is all about repetition, transparency, and multi-channel communications. Consider the three tables included in this blog post, all from Edelman’s 11th Annual Trust Barometer study, released earlier this year. Then there’s this table — where consumers look first for information. It may be a little misleading because Google Read More
What Employers Want When Hiring Social Media Talent
Peter Shankman, founder of HARO (Help a Reporter Out), a service that links bloggers, journalists, and content producers (video, audio, digital, print) with expert sources, has said, “Don’t hire a social media expert. It’s like a deli hiring someone who’s an expert in taking the bread out of the freezer. Unless they can also make a great sandwich, being an expert on taking the bread out is a pretty useless skill.” He’s right (as usual). When it comes to hiring a social media marketing manager, the operative words are marketing and manager. Here’s the sad truth that all too many hip Read More
Friday Roundup: Twits Ruin Social
Twits Can Ruin a Social Media Strategy– A campaign advisor to Senator Scott Brown and presidential candidate Mitt Romney stirred up a media firestorm for his bosses when he created a twitter account using the name @crazykhazei to make fun of Alan Khazei, who is running against Brown for the Massachusetts Senate seat that Brown now holds. The campaign aide, Eric Fehrnstrom might have stayed under the radar with his tweets – which Senator Brown says he didn’t know about – except that he made a mistake: he sent a tweet from the wrong Twitter account. The lesson for marketers: One of Read More
What to Do When Customer Service Meets Social Media: 5 Basic Lessons
In June 1984, the first online customer support forum for computer users sponsored by a computer maker opened its virtual doors on CompuServe on a Tuesday morning. Around noon on Thursday, the volume of inquiries was running about five times what the company planners had projected, and by the end of the day on Friday, it was over 8 times the anticipated volume. Although the volume has been going up steadily ever since, less than 20% of customer service inquiries were submitted digitally before 1998, and as recently as 2005, just 45% of technical support inquiries were submitted via email or landing page. Read More
Friday News Round-up: Tweet Success, Made-to-Order Marketing
Tweet Success = Right Tweet, Right Time – Social Media Today posted an excellent blog post this week on the best post times for various kinds of social media. The blog said that posting to Twitter at noon, 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. midweek and on weekends was optimal. For Facebook, Saturday morning is the optimal time for any post, although those posted around noon also get more traffic. As for blogs, Monday morning is the best time. The lesson for marketers: Social media (like email) has become a kind of adult homework. The optimal times match the times when Read More
Five Social Media Myths that Can Cripple Marketing
When it comes to social media, even the experts learn something new every day. Most CMO’s admit that developing the expertise they need to effectively use social media is a key priority. Unfortunately, there are a lot of myths out there that can derail almost any social media marketing plan. Here are five that come up often in talks with corporate marketing. Make sure you don’t fall for any of them! Myth #1: Social Media is free. Robert Heinlein’s famous motto TANSTAFL applies here, as everywhere else in life. (“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”) Yes, many of Read More
Friday News Round-Up: Banning PhotoShop Abuse, Panic Buying and More Visibility for Paid Tweets
Here’s this week’s round-up of news stories marketers shouldn’t miss because they offer key information or lessons that multi-channel distributed marketing organizations should take to heart. World News Affects Consumer Behavior Quickly: Two stories from the world of insurance point up how rapidly things can change for marketers. One story looks at changes in the way Americans buy life insurance – and the other points out that the looming default on the U.S. debt has customers of financial planners concerned about the default’s impact on their own investments. The lesson for marketers: Keeping a close eye on your own industry is Read More
News Round-Up: The $4 Million Tweet, and Led Zeppelin’s Compliance Lesson
Here’s this week’s round-up of news stories marketers shouldn’t miss because they offer key information or lessons that multi-channel distributed marketing organizations should take to heart. Knowing How Regulators Define Actions is Half the Battle: Chad Bockius of Socialware was featured in an article this week that looks at how regulators define certain marketing activities. This blog has written about the importance of understanding regulatory definitions before, but as usual Chad’s explanations are clear, precise, and important. (For more of his insights on marketing and compliance in a regulated environment, check out the presentation from a recent webinar that featured Distribion, Socialware, and Read More
