Tag: website

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7 Lessons From The Nikon Social Media Faux Pas

In the world of social media you have to be careful as to who posts on your walls, what they say, how it can be interpreted and what the consequences can be.

Nikon, the famed photographic equipment manufacturer learned the lesson the hard way.

Back in September of 2011, a the following post appeared on Nikon’s Facebook page:

“A photographer is only as good as the equipment he uses, and a good lens is essential to taking good pictures! Do any of our Facebook fans use any of the NIKKOR lenses? Which is your favorite and what types of situations do you use it for?”

Now, anybody involved to some degree in photography knows that a statement like this will infuriate most of the photographers who read it.

I understand what the Nikon employee may have been trying to say, but the way he or she said it came out totally wrong.  It is true that a good camera and good lenses will make a big difference on the quality of the photograph, but at the end of the day, the talent of the photographer remains the key.

Withing hours, the post received a couple of thousands of comments, something most brands would rejoice at, unless, like in this case, the comments were overwhelmingly  negative and the brand had just invested a lot of money on the launch of a new camera.

What can we learn from Nikon?

1-Monitor the conversations about your brand

2-Who you allow to post on your wall is important, make certain they understand and relate to your community

3-Before posting, think about your post a few times.  Is that the message you want to send out?  In doubt, ask a few colleagues, insure it’s congruent with your communication and marketing message

4-Remember that it does not take long for a post with a lot of comments on a business page to attract the attention of search engines, influential websites and blogs and be indexed.  Do a search for the Nikon Facebook page and you will see several pages of websites and blogs with negative reactions to the post, not something you want your community to see.  Bad news travels faster than good and stick longer.

5-When you put your foot in your mouth, don’t wait to see 2000 negative comments to react (it took Nikon over 12hrs to apologize), apologize, do it quickly, sincerely and repeatedly.  If you take into account that a Facebook user has an average of 150 friends, at least 300,000 Facebook users saw the post, that’s not counting the re postings and shares.The kind of exposure no brand wants.

6-Reach out to the blogs and websites that covered the story

7-Building a reputation takes time, damaging it only a few seconds and repairing it a long time.

What are your thoughts?

 

 

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Flawsome: why brands that behave more humanly, including showing their flaws will be awesome

FLAWSOME definition:

Consumers don’t expect brands to be flawless. In fact, consumers will embrace brands that are FLAWSOME*: brands that are still brilliant despite having flaws; even being flawed (and being open about it) can be awesome. Brands that show some empathy, generosity, humility, flexibility, maturity, humor, and (dare we say it) some character and humanity.

Two key drivers are fueling the FLAWSOME trend:

  • HUMAN BRANDS: Everything from disgust at business to the influence of online culture (with its honesty and immediacy), is driving consumers away from bland, boring brands in favor of brands with some personality.
  • TRANSPARENCY TRIUMPH: Consumers are benefiting from almost total and utter transparency (and thus are finding out about flaws anyway), as a result of the torrent of readily available reviews, leaks and ratings.

HUMAN BRANDS

FLAWSOME sits as part of a bigger trend towards HUMAN BRANDS, something that we’ve touched upon in many previous Trend Briefings: RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS, BRAND BUTLERS, GENERATION G, and so on.

So, while HUMAN BRANDS might not be a ‘new’ theme, four currents are now converging to make consumers more focused on brand attitude and behavior than ever before:

“human nature dictates that people have a hard time genuinely connecting with, being close to, or really trusting other humans who (pretend to) have no weaknesses, flaws, or mistakes”

  1. Consumers’ disillusionment at corporate behavior has (finally) spilled over into outright disgust. As a result, any brand that can show business in a new light will be (deservedly) welcomed with open arms.
    • Nearly 85% of consumers worldwide expect companies to become actively involved in promoting individual and collective wellbeing; an increase of 15% from 2010 (Source: Havas Media, November 2011).
    • Yet only 28% of people think that companies are working hard to solve the big social and environmental challenges (Source: Havas Media, November 2011).
  2. Consumers are more and more aware that personality and profit can be compatible (think Zappos, Patagonia, Tom’s, Ben & Jerry’s, Michel et Augustin, Zalando and more). With every business that succeeds while remaining reasonable, helpful, fun or even somewhat ‘human’, consumers will become increasingly disenchanted when dealing with traditional, boring, impersonal brands.
    • Most people would not care if 70% of brands ceased to exist (Source: Havas Media, November 2011).
  3. Online culture is the culture, and inflexible, bland ‘corporate’ façades jar with consumers who live online where communication is immediate, open and raw (also see MATURIALISM). What’s more, people openly broadcast and share their lives online – flaws and all – and thus brands are increasingly expected to do the same.
  4. Last but not least: human nature dictates that people have a hard time genuinely connecting with, being close to, or really trusting other humans who (pretend to) have no weaknesses, flaws, or mistakes – don’t assume brands are any different.

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Marketers Value Social Media for Both Branding and Customer Acquisition

As marketers include social media as part of their overall strategy, 97% agree that it provides benefits and value to their business.

In a survey of more than 700 marketers worldwide, 88% of respondents told Wildfire Interactive, a social media marketing software company, that social media helps grow brand awareness. Social media also benefited marketers by allowing them to engage in dialogue (85%) and increase sales and partnerships (58%). An additional 41% of marketers said it helped reduce costs.

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Social Media ROI Metrics Still Chaotic

Brand marketers continue to struggle with determining return on investment for social media campaigns. Eighty-eight percent admit to gaining positive ROI on campaigns, but a study released Wednesday from Wildfire, a social media platform company, shows that the metrics remain all over the map.

While inconsistencies make it difficult to create and follow industry standards, Wildfire CEO Victoria Ransom said 75% of survey participants said they still plan to increase their social media budgets this year.

Gaining positive ROI is great, but what do marketers measure?

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4 Common LinkedIn Profile Mistakes

With the new year comes the time to clean up our desks, desktops, files…  and start the year on the right foot.

In the digital era and the social media era, we need to add a few tasks to start the year on the right foot.  It’s time to take another look at our social media profiles, clean them up, bring them up to date, optimize them and get them ready to work harder for us.

Let’s start with LinkedIn.  With an exponential user growth, I see the same mistakes over and over again, let’s start with some basic mistakes I see over and over again:

4 common LinkedIn profile mistakes

1-Professional headline:

Your professional headline is your brand, it appears next or under your name everywhere your name appears, in searches, groups… With your name, it’s the first thing users read when they come across your name, make it count.  Your professional headline will determine if someone will merely glance at your name or want to click on it and read your profile.  It’s who you are, what you want to be.

By default, LinkedIn will put in your last job title, is that who you are, what you want to be?  Will that entice potential business partners or employers to take a closer look at your profile?

Take as much time as you need, craft a headline people will remember and entice them to want to know more about you, tell them how you can help them

2-Profile picture:

Social media is a very public space.  Chances are, if you are on LinkedIn, you want to be seen and found, you want to network.

Would you go to a networking event with a mask on your face?  Probably not, then why are you doing it on LinkedIn?

Posting a professional photograph has a number of advantages.

  • Potential contacts do not like incomplete profiles, incomplete profiles send a message that you have something to hide
  • A photo helps potential contact remember you
  • A photo helps identify you are who you say you are
  • A photo builds trust

3-Public profile

Your “Public profile” is actually a misnomer, it’s your public URL.  Think of LinkedIn as a personal website.  Each website comes with a URL (Unique resource Locator), a unique address that  identify them and allows users to find them on the web.

Your “Public profile” as LinkedIn calls it is your personal URL, the address to your personal profile, a link you can add to your resume, marketing material, business card.

Just as any website address, your URL should be short and memorable.

Why short?  The shorter and the easier to remember, the less contacts and potential contacts will make mistakes (typos) when they search for you and the more likely they are to find your profile.  A short URL is easy to remember, it’s easy to add to your marketing material

By default, a LinkedIn public profile link looks like this:  http://www.linkedin.com/pub/first-lastname/24/9a5/766  Try to remember that one, spell it to a potential contact and have that contact type it without mistake.

LinkedIn allows you to chose a custom (also called vanity) URL, the URL looks like this:  http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/yourname*.

Which one would you rather spell, print or type?

4-Websites

By default, LinkedIn adds “My website”, “My Blog” “Other” as the links to your websites or internet properties.  LinkedIn also offers ways to customize the links.  Use that opportunity to rename them, use your website name, your blog name.  LinkedIn profiles are extremely well optimized for search engines, if you search your name, chances are, your LinkedIn profile will come at the top of the search.

As a bonus, renaming the links with the name of your website or blog will give them a lift in searches (SEO effect)

 

 

 

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Social Media and Disclosures, Learning from the Hyundai Case

Hyundai avoided a collision with the Federal Trade Commission on the treacherous social media marketing course. The FTC suggested yesterday that its decision not to recommend enforcement action against Hyundai for a blogger outreach effort designed to build buzz around the brand’s Super Bowl XLV ads could be a lesson for marketers.

Three rules of thumb for social media marketers:

  1. Mandate a disclosure policy that complies with the law
  2. Make sure people who work for you or with you know what the rules are
  3. Monitor what they’re doing on your behalf

See full article

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Deluxe Corporation Project REV

Very interesting presentation by Deluxe Corporation’s SEM and Social Media Manager, Nathan Eide.

Nathan shares how they launched a social media campaign to create brand awareness and gain customer feedback and insights on its products.

Nathan shows how you can raise awareness to your brand, gather intelligence on your product and services, do product development using social media

 

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Influencing the Influencers

Microsoft’s Director of Community and Online Support, Nestor Portillo, shared how they leveraged both internal and external social media sites to better manage their vast customer network and create a customer-centric approach to their business.

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