Just in case you needed another reason to monitor social media, the Economist had a quick article last week about two airlines’ response to PR bombshells that detonated on Facebook.
The airlines’ staff members were joking about cockroaches on board and smelly passengers–not exactly good PR. The companies discovered the comments only after customer complaints and press reports started coming in.
Monitoring social media–like blogs, social networks and bookmarking sites–gives you a good idea of your company’s online reputation. And it will help you find employees badmouthing the company before your customers do.
Monitoring is only part of the solution, though. You need to have policies against disparaging the company, and you need to remind your staff that what they say online stretches across the planet.
On a side note, I’m starting to think that monitoring social media can have amazing benefits. Alan Scott, CMO, Dow Jones, told me in a recent interview that Dow Jones identifies trends and customer preferences by crunching data from its social sites and others across the Web. That’s a heck of a way to judge your market.
It hadn’t occurred to me that most brands and companies large to small are embracing social media or at least thinking about it. It hadn’t occurred to me until I spoke with Rob Merritt, Senior VP and Director of CKPR, one of the largest independent public relations firms in the U.S.
He said during an interview for a Fame article:
“From a PR standpoint I don’t think we execute a PR program right now that doesn’t have an online component and some kind of social media aspect to it.”
In this case the article was about a campaign his company did for AirTran involving a YouTube contest, stunts, and traditional PR to grab the attention of the college-age demographic.
I know it’s only anecdotal evidence that social media is taking a strong hold. But I can say that based on several interviews I’ve conducted with PR staff at companies and agencies social media is almost always part of the marketing or PR strategies.
And if you want to reach younger generations with your company’s message, it’s almost imperative.
Monitoring Web chatter about your brand can be a challenge. We’ve written at least one article on monitoring social media to protect your reputation. The task can be expensive or time consuming–but it doesn’t have to be.
You can take a quick, free look at what the Web thinks about your brand with HowSociable?. The site is incredibly useful and easy to use. It doesn’t require any registration, usernames or passwords. You can even look at what people are saying about your competition.
Simply type in a phrase and see the number of times it’s mentioned on 22 social media portals. All the biggest players are there–Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Technorati, YouTube.
Not only do you get the number of times your brand is mentioned, you also get the links to where your brand is mentioned. That’s so cool! Find out what people across the Web are saying about your company from one spot.
There was an interesting article in a recent print edition of The Wall Street Journal about how there may be tough times ahead for the more than 300 advertising networks on the Web. The online edition of TWSJ is not a freebie, so I will summarize. Read more…
I’ve run across a quick tactic for those of you battling to get users to engage with your Web 2.0 marketing strategies.
I recently wrote stories about companies that offer social networking services through smart phones. Two of the companies–Kiwibox and Buzzd–have rewards programs to encourage engagement. Read more…
Relationships are important when you’re an affiliate manager. The more you know about affiliates on a personal level, the more you’ll know about how they sell your product.
Trisha Lyn Fawver, Director of Affiliate Marketing, New Edge Media, connects with her affiliates on social media sites. It adds to the number of channels that affiliates can reach her and facilitates the flow of ideas, she says.
Read more…
Right now, classic demographics such as ‘Men aged 18-24’ just won’t cut it anymore. I’ve asked MarketingSherpa’s research team to conduct a formal study examining the changing demographics of our fair nation in the face of this seemingly endless series of economic crises. You can expect new demographic reports to appear in future Sherpa newsletters.
Read more…
When I spoke to Christopher Barger, manager of GM’s FastLane blog, the other day about best practices in managing corporate blogs for a MarketingSherpa article, something that struck me was just how hard it is for these managers to find employees within their companies who are willing to blog on a regular business.
It’s not something we at MarketingSherpa have to worry about too much because most of us are writers. But I’d imagine it’s something many blog managers struggle with.
Read more…
Measuring influencer reach and blog impressions is probably one of the most challenging aspects of entering a Web 2.0 strategy today. So, you created a social media campaign with outreach to influential bloggers. How do you measure the influence it had? Read more…
PR misses the mark when it comes to pitching bloggers. It’s a complaint I’ve heard over and over again in almost every blog-centric interview for MarketingSherpa’s Fame newsletter.
Complaints range from how much bloggers hate receiving cut-and-paste press releases to how often the press releases are off topic. I think this confirms the conclusion: PR isn’t about pitching press releases any more. It’s about building relationships.
Read more…
