Crisis – aah… How do you react to an unwanted dangerous situation, do you stay calm and composed or you push your panic button and behave arbitrarily? Reactions may vary from person to person depending on their basic natures.

But in case of Social Media Crisis you can’t afford to follow your basic instinct, instead you have to abide by certain rules of Social Media land. Let’s talk how we can deal with social media crises.

Social Media Crisis

Jeremiah Owyang has defined Social Media Crisis as-“a crisis issue that arises in or is amplified by social media, and results in negative
mainstream media coverage, a change in business process or financial loss.”

Reasons for crisis may be many like-untrained team, lack of clear social media policy, customer’s ugly experience etc. “A report by the Altimer Group has found that 76% of 50 social media crises between July and August this year could have been diminished or avoided had the brand been prepared and had proper training, staff, and processes to respond”

Social media is a channel for web based social communication, unlike any conference or meeting anything that happens on this platform catches  everyone’s eye; therefore brands need to be overcautious in handling social media.

Preparation for handling a social media crisis:

1) Having a consolidated Social Media policy: A well planned and analyzed social media policy should be framed and enforced on
social media team. Organized guidelines are better than on spot random decisions. A social media policy cannot be rigid as law, as what works for one, might fail for other. Therefore Social Media policy should be framed on basis of experiences of SM- team with loyalists and should be open for change as per requisites.

2) Dedicated and trained team: Key to Social Media Success is right presence at right time in right place. Real heroes of Social Media success are your team- mates, so please ensure that you have a dedicated and trained personnel for Social media, rather than
freshers; after all your social image is at stake, be careful!!

3) Ongoing education and refresher sessions: Social media world is evolving each day; you can’t master it just by getting one training session. It needs continuous practice and regular refresher sessions. A great example of such system is followed by Intel they have dedicated a special budget for digital marketing and follow a Digital IQ training program for educating their employees on Social Media.

4) Consistency in Action: A golden rule for “Social Media Presence” is consistency in action. Despite being bugged by Crisis, you can’t afford to remain silent; you are liable to answer your users. A similar serious mistake done by Johnson & Johnson and Toyota who instead of paying heed to their customers voice, they just recalled their products and results- a “tarnished image of brand and lost faith of loyalists”. Instead of abruptly recalling products they could  have conversed with their loyalists and answered their concerns and then made product recall. So please beware your silence can make you guilty!

Social media has given us democracy to share and grasp but it comes with responsibility of listening too. So please listen carefully whether it is praise or an abusive statement.

Criticism and appraisal are two sides of coin, they stay together. It’s not necessary things will go well always, so need is to pull up our socks and tighten our jackets and get prepared with our Crises management policy.

“Better be safe, rather than sorry”!!

Before writing this blog I have watched around seven videos of Kolaveri Di- original version, Punjabi version, Exam version, Kids version, chipmunk version, Gujarati version, Malyalam version……list continues. What is magic behind this song with strange Tanglish( Tamil-English) lyrics? How this song anthem of nation overnight?

In words of famous lyricist Javed Akhtar- “Kolaveri is an ordinary tone with substandard singing of insensible lyrics” but yet it has been most searched video on Youtube in India and You tube has honored the song with a ‘Gold Award’ for receiving large number of hits in a short time period.

This song had to be released officially on 16 November, 2011 by Sony Music, it was released solely as a recording version of song had already reached internet much before(around 31 October). But this fluke became a blessing in disguise for its Music composers as this song became an overnight hit and is most viewed song on You tube, with around 3.79 million views in less than a week and remained trending topic on twitter for three days. [UPDATE: Now this song has more than 50 million views on Youtube!]

See the impact of Social Media, despite linguistic constraints it became chartbuster song in Bollywood too. No other song from Kollywood has received so much adulation from whole nation. Social media experts have rated Kolaveri as one of best examples of Viral Marketing.

Viral marketing in simple words would be “word of mouth marketing”-something that compels person to transmit it to other, the compelling factor can be- interesting, provocative, motivating, luring with gifts etc. In case of this peppy song it was strangeness of language-Tanglish (Tamil and English) that rose curiosity among people even when I clicked on to view this song url (which was widely circulated on internet), I googled word ‘ Kolaveri Di’ to figure out what was this song about. No TV or print media promotions or promotional tours could have won so much popularity to song what viral marketing has done.

But since tendency of this phenomenon is viral, its outbreak can turn you upside down also i.e. it can turn negative too. I would share an old example of Starbuck- Starbuck’s started a campaign free iced coffee for friends and family efforts. The coffee chain sought to entice friends and family of employees to come into the store for free iced coffee, but when word got out about the offer and the response was bigger than expected, corporate headquarters had to nix the promotion.

However all turned well in case of Kolaveri, and it has become a youth anthem. In order to analyze its success it is being studied as case study by students of top business schools of country including IIMs. From my side Thumbs up for Kolaveri, and all the best to movie 3!

Thanks to our Constitution for giving us fundamental right- FREEDOM OF SPEECH & EXPRESSION, and enjoying this liberty most of us have tried our hands in blogging. But most of us have not been able to even hang near Veterans like Shobhaa De & Amitabh Bachan. Lets peep into what makes them worshiped GODS in blogging.

Onset or Opening: “Well begun is half done”.  A ‘catchy title’ and and ‘impressive opening’ can work wonders for a blog. The first thing
encountered by reader is ‘beginning’ so get ready to work for catching attention of users.

Content inception: ‘Content is king’, it is essential fuel for running social media wagon. Not only blog requires a captivating content but also from which source it is coming is important. Content becomes more relevant when it is user generated. There are various ways for creating user-generated content- interviews, contests, polls, comment- feedback loop, etc.

Prominent and captivating headers: Most of us would sulk reading lengthy paragraphs, articles, so why you want to torture your reader with long scripts, try to break down your post into postulates. Add suitable headers for each sect.

Relevance: “Don’t run around the bush” instead stay glued to topic. Keep yourself in reader shoes and create value to your post by being precise and concise. Remember reader time is precious; create content that is useful for reader. Add gravity to your post by sharing practical tips and experiences.

Call to action: “urging your reader to take action”- stays the ultimate goal. The real challenge lies in getting your reader to take action without being domineering in nature.

Writing style: Now last but not least writing style, which is most crucial for success of post. ‘XX might be an expert in his forte but is sloppy in expression’ then his knowledge becomes waste, as he can’t be beneficial for others. Remember, be clear and concise, and don’t sound preachy instead try to become conversational. So take care and try not to become “Clever Silly”.

I have shared these tips based on our experiences, but remember, “Rome was not built in a day” so don’t expect miracles overnight. It will take time and practice to execute all these tips. So keep your lamp glowing and might be after few days you will be sharing tips for “writing a good blog”.  So guys are you ready??

Dear Netizens,

Trust all of you are doing good and enjoying life, this letter might be my last point of contact with you, who knows Mr Kapil Sibal (our respected Minister of Communication & Information technology) may come up with a law of banning blogging who feels Screening of content should be done before posting on social media channels.

Censorship of Social Media in india? what the hell ?
This is a tremendous blow to World’s biggest democracy, it is like making mockery of our fundamental rights (Freedom of speech and expression). Social Media is a platform which has given power and voice to the common man and made him king, government has realised this power and is scared of it. Everyone remembers “ANNA- Anticorruption Campaign ” which got viral on Social media channels and consequently thousands thronged on streets to support the cause.

Social media which has become voice of people can’t be curbed or stopped abruptly. And another big question is how can you screen content on social media channels? I don’t think we have any fool proof technology which can screen all the web content and if at all such a  technology comes up, who is going to decide what is correct or what is wrong? Thanks to all of you netizens and anti Sibal rage on internet which has forced government to step back on this absurd censorship idea.

I really pity Chinese people, who have been denied freedom of using internet and social media, in a era where social media marketing is most potent tool for brands, all thanks to Great Firewall of China project. Sad news is that these brands can’t operate freely in countries like China where social media is censored and equal loss is beared by the Chinese people who are restricted to the hell. But they do use social media and can you believe they have made their own versions of social Media channels like- FACEBOOK- RENREN, TWITTER-WEIBO, YOUTUBE- YOKU and so on… I sincerely hope no such project begins in India.

I do agree on the fact that Social Media is a great power and if uncontrolled this bliss can turn into a bane but banning it all together is not a solution, i guess its high time we all netizens should become responsible in its usage

Byeee guys!

If I ask some one “How influential are you”, the most common reply would be “not very” and if asked, “who do you think are influential”, replies would be names of celebs, great political leaders, scientists

But contrary to this fact, if you see some hotshot in social media, he/she need not necessarily be a greater philosopher, researcher or award winner, instead he/she might be a school going teenager who is an social media enthusiast. What is it that can make a school going teenager a social media influencer?
Answer: Influence Score.

“Influence Score” is your social media report card. To put in simple words “Influence Score” is measure of your social media
activity. There are various influence scores like Twittergrader, Twinfluence, Klout, PeerIndex and so on. But I will narrow down my discussion to “KLOUT”
and “PEERINDEX”. Lets see how these tools measure your influence or popularity on social media.

Process for scoring remains same in both the ratings; you have to give access to your twitter and facebook accounts.

1) Tracking of Influence:
Klout determines your score using your participation in multiple channels- Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Youtube, Foursquare, Instagram,
Tumblr, Blogger, Last.fm and Flickr whereas Peerindex peeps not only at your Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin accounts but also considers Quora and
three different blogs.

2) Search Tool
Peerindex gives you an opportunity to search by topic, by region, by blogs whereas on Klout you can search only influencer and that too by his twitter
handle. For example, if you type ‘Bollywood Movies’ on PeerIndex; the results will be as shown below.

3) Ranking Approach
Ranking in each grader is based on certain postulates which are mentioned below:

KLOUT
• True Reach – people who are influenced by you and pay heed to what you say
• Network Influence- influence of your network
• Amplification Probability- to see the extent to which your content spreads through likes, comments and retweets.

PEER INDEX
• Authority- Quality of the links you share and content you recommend
• Activity- your activity on topic
• Audience: Number of people you reach

4) Profile Display
In this arena Klout rules as it creates an elaborate social influence graph for each profile with proper elaborate representation of each postulate like true reach,
network influence of influencer on which ranking is based, while PeerIndex creates a comparison graph with friends and no such graphs that depict basis of
score are represented.

5) Content dispersion
Type of content floated by influencer can be checked in ‘topics’ section of Klout whereas Peer Index has a framework of content, which has been divided in
eight categories (under name of “Topic Fingerprint”). The catagories are: Arts/Media/Entertainment, Technology/Internet, Science/Environment, Health/
Medical, Leisure/Lifestyle, Sports, News/Politics/Society and Finance/Business/Economics, thus a single representation gives a complete picture of a person
varied interests.

6) Influencer’s top sources of information
This is an advantage of “PeerIndex” that it peeps at your shared links and lists the top five websites from where influencer is sharing information.

7) Profile badge
Klout classifies people with different labels like “Networker”, “Thought Leader” etc depending on their social media activity whereas Peerindex ranks based on
your score like if influencer has rank above 90 he/she will be ranked top 10% and so on.

Influencer’s forte
Klout gives you list of topics a person is influential about; whereas PeerIndex not only lists topics of influence but also gives you a list of top rankers in that
category.

These graders have different approaches for measurement of influence; you might be a high scorer in Klout but not good in Peer Index. Don’t fret but try to
understand the insights provided by them, ultimately they aim for one goal only i.e.- making your social media presence more effective.
Each rating has its own advantage; it would be unfair to say which one is better. Based on my requisites I have chosen mine, now it’s your turn to figure out
yours!

Twitter has been quite aggressive in the past few months to prove that it is worth the valuation it has got in the recent times. Its valuation has soared to $8 billion recently which has made it many a critic’s target as it is still to come with any profitable business. According to an article published in Ad Age, by June 2011, it has partnered with more than 600 companies for their advertising campaigns.

The  article also shares a summary of advertising campaigns of four different brands: Unilever’s Magnum ice cream, CMT Music Awards, Zuji  Australia and RadioShack. All these brands have definitely got the results but if you see closely, the results are in terms of just Twitter metrics. These brands have got lot of followers, retweets and mentions of hashtags but when it comes to the earning call, there are no results in terms of direct impact on increase in sales.

According to me, Twitter advertising in its present form is not compatible with the business goals of companies. Twitter advertising will ultimately be of worth to marketers or businesses only if they can incorporate some elements which lead to increase in sales and which can be tracked through some dedicated dashboard.

What do you think Twitter needs to incorporate to enhance its advertising solution?

In India, 83% of companies agree that marketing strategies cannot be successful without the use of social media. Many companies have Facebook pages for their brands as it has the largest reach. At last count Facebook had 670 million worldwide and over 25 million in India. These figures along with inspiring success stories of firms that have used Facebook effectively to engage customers has resulted in a frenzy among businesses to get onto the site and gain access to the large customer base.

No doubt as a media with high reach at a reasonable cost Facebook is every marketer’s dream. However, there is more to Facebook marketing than meets the eye. Most businesses jump in without knowing and understanding what it involves.

#1. No objective 

Image Credit - homeownershipu.com

Setting up a Facebook page is as simple as filling out a few online forms. However, like with any other marketing tool, whether it is advertising, sales or promotion, the objective of the exercise needs to be clearly defined. Rather than blindly being there because the competition is, businesses need to work out the objective for their presence such as improving customer relationships, creating awareness about a new product or increasing sales.

#2. Broadcasting vs. conversing

The advantage of Facebook is that it allows two way conversations. Broadcasting or posting a message on the Facebook page might get a business heard or noticed, but only a few companies have mastered the art of conversation by tailoring content to incite response. Besides this creativity is the key so that users don’t get bored with predictable content. Ching’s Secret, one of the most successful Indian brands on Facebook engage their customers by updating their status daily with video recipes, cooking tips and techniques – the reason why they have 7,68,968 fans.

#3. Violating guidelines

How often have we seen a business with a personal profile instead of a page, or winners of contests and promotions being announced on wall posts? Both these flout Facebook rules. Recently, Facebook disabled pages of Pizza Hut India, Cadbury Bournville and FCUK India for using their walls to run promotions to get more customers to ‘like’ their page. Unless businesses take the time to get acquainted with Facebook’s guidelines, it could seriously affect their credibility.

#4. Not investing resources

Having a Facebook page does not automatically guarantee results. Customers may post enquiries or comments expecting a response. Unless there is a mechanism in place to ensure that the page is monitored and controlled continuously so that response is quick, the business may stand the risk of losing a precious customer or worse still have an irate customer posting negative feedback that flashes across to the large fan base. Cocoberry frozen yoghurt, which has a fan base of over 1.6 lakhs, has a dedicated in-house team to respond to over 15,000 posts that they receive every month.

#5. Not understanding Facebook features and tools

Since Facebook marketing is relatively new, not all businesses understand the various features available and how each of these works. A classic example is when a business does not make use of the Info page. Another common mistake is uploading an image such as a logo that is not optimally displayed in the thumbnail, thereby missing out on an opportunity to reinforce brand identity. Besides this, very rarely do businesses use Facebook Insights to analyse the type of content that gets the most response.

#6. Lack of creativity

Just as with any mass media campaign, good creative and visuals are well remembered and get better response. Facebook as a media allows for a more informal and fun interaction with the customers, different from a company website. Getting a share of voice on this social media will take more than a DIY approach of filling a form to create a page. An attractive visual layout and creative content will go a long way in making a good impression and engaging customers.

#7. Lack of regulation

While informality is one of the bonus points of using Facebook, so the business can carry on a direct conversation with their customers, it can result in meaningless discussions that take away from the objective or message. Regulating posts will help in ensuring that the efforts stay on track. Cocoberry, for instance, monitors its posts to ensure that any negative feedback is immediately taken off the wall. The person who made the comment is contacted offline to resolve the issue.

#8. Not enough promotion

Promoting the Facebook page can help increase customer interactions and awareness about the company. Linking the company page to the corporate website or using the Facebook only option on the website for responses can increase the number of visitors to the company website as well as keep customers engaged on a more informal platform.

#9. Losing focus in the numbers game

In the rush towards acquiring more ‘likes’ than the competition, companies often lose focus of the objective of Facebook Marketing and the measurement of its success. ‘Likes’ only mean that customers have connected to the page. It becomes a mere statistic if it isn’t backed up by a plan to gain customer engagement.

#10. Not looking at the complete picture

While they are aware of the importance of social media in marketing, many companies look at a Facebook page as a separate tool from other components of the marketing mix. However, the best success stories have come from companies that have linked campaigns across other media and Facebook. Vodafone has effectively leveraged its Zoozoos television campaign to gain over 21 lakh ‘likes’ on their page. Fans not only get to watch videos of the TV commercials but get to do fun things such as playing online games featuring the Zoozoos.

Without doubt Facebook Marketing is still in a nascent stage in India, but companies that have invested resources in understanding the medium and creatively using it to increase their brand’s visibility, have shown how successful it can be. Unless other businesses with pages online follow suit, the opportunity will pass them by before they know it.

Social media is a great way to be aware about what’s happening in the world around us. It is also a fantastic way to learn new things from our peers and online friends. It is no surprise then that social media can play a crucial role in the education in schools, colleges or universities. There are many advocates but more detractors to the role of social media in education. But i am of the positive view regarding the role of social media in education.

Image - swilmarth (via Flickr)

I had done a post earlier where i discussed 2 ways social media is contributing to the imparting of education. I would like to carry forward that discussion in this post. I was looking for some Indian examples where social media is being used actively for education but couldn’t find it on Google. Probably an offline search is needed to find out. You are welcome to share any examples, Indian or Non-Indian in the comment box below.

Although i did find out one facebook page the purpose of which is to encourage fans to use their knowledge and skills to create and design products. The focus of page is on using electronics for bringing  joy and freedom to persons with disability and their families. On the way they also learn electronics. This is a noble cause indeed. If you to this page you can see members helping each other on various aspects of electronics.

Similarly i came across a very interesting collaborative online wiki maintained by the Singapore Management University (SMU) which mainly exists for the purpose of education of students. This is a very ambitious project which is updated regularly and shares the information on digital media in various countries around the world.

The best part of social media as an educational medium is that it encourages openness, sharing, collaboration & updating of information in the real time. The children in the modern are growing with gadgets and modern technology all around them.

Companies like Educomp are encouraging audio-visual techniques along with educational softwares to 26,000 schools and 15 millionlearners and educators across the world! In that scenario it would be great to introduce social media for the learning purpose too.

I was reading about a school in New Jersey (USA) whose principal has nearly 12,300 Twitter followers and he is openly advocating the usage of social media for educational purpose in his school. To him social media is an enabler. We have to enable young students to use this medium in a productive way otherwise just by banning them, they may turn wayward and waste a lot of their time off school in unproductive activities.

What are your views on social media as an educational tool? Please share your thoughts or any examples you know of in the comment box below.

Facebook has been the hot bed of social media networking and has served several purposes for the marketers. One of these is building communities loyal to their brands. Some do it right & some don’t approach it rightly. Community building on Facebook involves some specific measures as discussed below:

Photo Credit "jjelenbaas"

#1. Define the Objectives

Trying to build an online community without any real objectives is like building a house without laying any foundation. So, define your objectives – Why do you want to create the community in the first place? Your objective can be to offer more value to your customers, build & increase the brand awareness and ultimately increase the sales of your products.

#2. Define your Target Group

Most certainly as a company, you must have defined your target group. If you haven’t, do it. Now your job is to approach those targets on online mediums. Some of them maybe on Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn or any other place of their choice. You have to reach out and encourage them to participate. For the targets on Facebook, you can use Facebook Adverts to reach out.

#3. Open or Closed?

Communities can be of 2 kinds: Open or Closed. Open communities on Facebook can be in the form of open group or Facebook page (which is open by default) and Closed communities are in the form of closed group. Depending upon your objectives, you can choose any of these. For instance we have a closed group of  Digital Vidya’s alumni network which is meant for our social media workshop participants.

#4. Simplicity

Simplicity works best when you are starting out. Don’t clutter your page with too much iFrame or FBML tabs unless it is really necessary. For instance, it is fine to have a single iFrame tab as a welcome page (from where you can run the contest too). Also the content which you plan to update your page with shouldn’t make it look cluttered.

#5. Define the Guidelines

It is important to clearly mention the important guideline to maintain the effectiveness of the community and avoid any trouble makers. In the ‘About’ section of your facebook page, you can state that anyone found posting abusive content will be banned from the page. There are no such tabs or sections in the groups but they can remind the members time to time regarding the ethics of the group on the group wall.

#6. Allow the Posts by Fans

Some page admins block the wall post access to their fans which according to me is not a right approach. Instead encourage your fans to share their side of story & post their opinion on the wall of the page. Same holds true for the groups.

#7. Participate till the End

Whether you start the discussion or any of your fans or members have started it, you should make it a religious duty on your part to respond to the conversation of your fans & drive them further till they end on their own. Ching’s Secret is perhaps one brand in India who do this very well and now have a massive community nearing 8,00,000 fans!

#8. Numbers Game

Lastly, facebook community building is not about numbers. Numbers are very important for sure but not at the cost of engagement & communication. If you are engaging and driving the communication, everything else will fall in place including numbers.

Following is the slide of my colleague Pradeep Chopra on the right strategies for building community on Facebook:

Engagement has been the key element of human existence since time immemorial. Without engagement it is simply not possible to conceive of various institutions, families & fabric and culture around the world. It is due to engagement and the need of sharing which has led to so much advancement in technology and human capabilities. Social media marketing is no different. The very word ‘Social’ involves engagement. Actually engagement is what makes social media unique to the traditional media.

Traditional Approach

Earlier brands used to craft a message or commercial to be displayed on TV, Newspapers and Radio and it was static as your customers were not able to interact with the brand, although they kept on repeating their messages again and again so that their customers and prospects have a strong brand recall. In fact traditional media is still relevant and i strongly believe in the marketing mix where traditional and new media both play an important role hand-in-hand.

New Approach

The point is traditional media has certain limitations, like customers can’t interact with other customers directly and not even with the brand. Social media has been a great boon as far as democratizing the conversations is concerned. From ‘one-to-many’, now the mode of communication is ‘one-to-many’ + ‘many-to-many’. Brands’ role is now to participate and engage rather than just broadcast and sit back to see the increase in sales.

Present Scenario

These days customers have so much power that they can go to any social network or customer forum or even start their own websites or blogs to share their grieving.  Especially on twitter news spread like wildfire. One just have to look at the post by Shrinidhi Hande on his bad experience with Mahindra Holidays. He wrote a detailed post on the discrepancies in Mahindra’s service and warned readers to avoid availing any service from them. This post was written in february 2007, and even now after 4 years you can see the comments rolling in. This is the power of the medium. One just has to search for ‘x brand sucks’ and there you can see a detailed list of crimes committed by a brand.

The moral of the story is you may delete negative comments on your online properties but you don’t have any power over 3rd party social media properties. So, it is better to engage and handle negative criticism as soon as possible.

The Real Value

The real value of social media is engagement as it brings you customer insights, creates relationships with your customers and ultimately increase in sales. So, rather than running after number of fans or followers on facebook and twitter, go for building valuable relationships. Help your customers, participate in their conversation. That will create a real value for you.

Related Articles:

http://www.digitalvidya.com/blog/news/the-game-of-social-media-a-minute-to-learn-but-a-lifetime-to-master/
http://www.digitalvidya.com/blog/social-media-insights/the-state-of-facebook-community-building-among-indian-brands/