How to Become Likeable With Social Media

Having customers actively engaged with company’s social media platform is the most desirable purpose of companies joining in social media arena. How to leave your customers a deep impression and make them fall in love with your brand? Dave Kerpen wrote a book titled “Likeable Social Media” to teach brands how to use social media to achieve likeability, transparency and responsiveness in a digital marketplace. Here are some practices  from Dave that you might find interesting:

·      Listen first and never stop listening. Your customers want to be heard and social media provides a channel that really allows you to listen on a large scale. Some free ways to listen on social media include:

1.     Google Alerts

2.     Technorati search blog

3.     Twitter search

4.     Facebook search

5.     YouTube search

6.     Tweet Beep

Remember to not just search for your brand name, but also for your competitors’ names and words and phrases that your customers use.

·      Be authentic. Social media provides an opportunity to actually “be human” in dealing with customers. Some ways to be authentic include:

1.     Be able to go with the flow, responsive and engaged.

2.     Develop an authentic voice. Think about how you can convert your mission statement or About Us page into a conversation piece.

3.     Just be real

·      Provide value-for real!

The more valuable content you can share with your fans and followers, the greater the trust and reputation you’ll build with them. Some ways to provide free value include:

1.     Start a blog to share resources, advice and tips that you prospects will find useful.

2.     Write white papers to solve customers’ problems

3.     Create “how-to” videos.

·      Share stories. Social media allow you to share stories with your customers, prospects and the world. Ask yourself the following questions:

1.     How did your company get started?

2.     How did you survive the toughest times?

3.     What kind of funny or interesting things have happened involving your customers or staff over the years?

4.     Which employees’ lives have changed as a result of working for you?

5.     Which charitable organizations has your company or its staff supported?

·      Admit when you screw up, and then leverage your mistakes

Being able to say “I’m sorry” when you make a mistake goes a long way toward making up for your error. Here are some ways to say that you’re sorry:

1.     Have the highest-ranking person at the organization say it through a brief online video

2.     Use the appropriate social media channel to respond quickly when a bad situation arises.

3.     Don’t stop at “I’m sorry”. Apologize individually to each person’s complaint and continue to follow up.

·      Consistently deliver excitement, surprise and delight. The way to stand out is to create as many “Wow!” moments as possible. Here are some ideas:

1.     Provide unexpected value—try listening to conversations that are not necessarily about your company and then respond to questions not directly aimed at you

2.     Create situations to bring people closer to your brand.

3.     Sometimes a personal, unique response from a real person at a big company can really “wow” people.

4.     Use surprise conversations.

Resources: Social Media Examiner

Successful Facebook Marketing Case Studies

Companies are seeking business opportunities through social media. Facebook marketing has become a popular way for companies to reach out to target publics.

Here are some successful tactics that has been implemented in Facebook marketing:

•         Elevate the conversation to topics larger than your specific brand or niche.
•         Find creative ways to engage your audience with photos and contests.
•         If appropriate, develop an app to encourage fans to share your content
•         Use hot spots on your welcome page to integrate your other online sites.
•         Use videos to instruct and inspire, taking advantage of comments
•         Integrate your blog manually and automatically with your Facebook page.
•         Create variety in your posts
•         Form strategic partnerships that benefit your fans.
•        Take advantage of the photo strip for messaging
•         Draw attention to your tabs
•         Integrate your store with Facebook.
•        Tell fans the rules of engagement on your page.
•         Make clear the benefits of liking your page.
•         Don’t be afraid to be bold and creative when asking for a Like
•         Find innovative ways to keep fans on your page through games, TV, apps, videos, photos, etc.
•         Use events tab to allow fans to find you face-to-face
•         Utilize Facebook Places.
•         Integrate social proof into your store-and give discounts to your fans.
•         Have fun with your videos.
•         Allow your fans to help define your business by letting them design and vote on your products.
•         Use pictures to enhance the online shopping experience.
•         Build and deepen your community through cross-promoting related pages and meetups.
•         Integrate social buttons on your welcome tab.
•         Male your guidelines fun and friendly.
•         Keep your posts personal, playful and creative.

For detailed tactics, visit http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/9-facebook-marketing-success-stories-you-should-model/#more-11638.

Prepare Internally For Social Media Crisis

Prepare Internally For Social Media Crisis

“A social media crisis is 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.” (Owyang, 2011)

In Jeremiah Owyang’s report “Social Business Readiness: How Advanced Companies Prepare Internally”, he discussed the main causes of social media crises and examined the preventive ways companies should prepare themselves for social media crises.

According to Owyang, social media crises are on rise due to the lack of essential internal requirements such as a professional staff, triage system, and employee social media policy of companies. Studies show that more than 76 percent of social media crises could have been diminished or averted had companies invested internally. But even advanced companies still suffer from a fragmented technology and lack standard measurement frameworks.

So, how do companies avoid a social media crisis? Altimeter Group developed a “Social Business Hierachy of Needs” to help prep businesses achieve social business readiness.  Briefly speaking, there are five stages of this preventive system for social media crisis.

• Foundation: Define business objectives. And develop four sets of policies: social media, disclosure/ethics, and community and privacy.
•  Safety: Set up a team to monitor social media channels.
•  Formation: Take inventory of all social media assents and reform the team accordingly. Form a social media “Center of Excellence” that serves the entire company.
•  Enablement: Enable business units to deploy and run social media programs on their own.
•  Enlightenment: In an ideal state, businesses are able to make decisions based on real-time intelligence and use social data to inform product development and partner relations.

From my point of view, enablement is what most companies lack for their teams. Social media is still brand new to the masses. Facebook, Twitter, and other social media outlets users are able to utilize social media for entertainment, information outreach, and social networking. But for tapping social media in a business angle, most people are in the loss. Even for a PR major like me, I am still learning on my way. Therefore, companies could invest in social media education internally by, for example, building up a social media library where people share books, materials, or even tutorial videos of social media.

Social media is rising, so is its related crisis. So watch out, use social media strategically and safely.

Social Media: An Opportunity in Crisis

Companies are quick to jump in social media trend for its convenience, low cost, and wide range of outreach. Yet, social media can do far more than that. It’s a view into a side of social media that we don’t usually see—the power of course-correction and reputation defense.

Toyota leveraged social media to rebuild its brand when it faced a PR nightmare of a high-profile recall due to faulty accelerator pedals in January 2010. Unlike what Audi had its gas accelerator recall in 1980s, Toyota had to do all under the 24/7 scrutiny of social media. The raged public rose Toyota to the top of the trend on Google, Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets, but, of course, for all negative sentiments.

But Kimberley Gardiner, Toyota’s national digital marketing and social media manager, saw the story from the other side. When he found that a lot of customers reached out to them via social media, Gardiner realized an opportunity of rebuilding brand recognition through the rising trend. They launched an online campaign—“Auto-Biography” to encourage customers to share their experiences of Toyota on its Facebook page, from the “wonderful”, to the “crazy”, to the “not-so-happy”. The campaign wound up in the submission of over 13000 stories and among which thousands were about the safety experience of Toyota. It was a customer-content oriented campaign where the negative stories and posts were not censored. This campaign served collectively an asset to counter the public perception of Toyota as unsafe.

Another successful social media approach did by the team is that they let Jim Lentz, president of Toyota’s North American sales operation reach out to the masses in the form of a Digg Dialogg. They put on a dedicated video of Lentz answering all the questions voted on by fans. Within a week, the Dialogg reached a fairly huge audience to do a two-way communication with the company.

All those social media efforts paid off as Toyota’s image bounced back though not to where they were before the crisis. Therefore, social media offers an opportunity to companies in crisis of defending reputation and rebuilding brand.

Resource: Article “How Toyota Used Social Media To “Digg” Itself Out of a PR Nightmare”: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/how-toyota-helped-digg-itself-out-trouble-101993

How to Attract the Media

Media are never easy to get. Imagine how many press releases will a reporter and editor receive everyday?  Good media relations therefore can fine-tune your public relations efforts. 

In spite of the golden rules covered in chapter 6 of PR 2.0, here are some interesting thoughts I want to share with you guys:

1. Benefits. One of the first questions the media person may ask is "What's newsworthy about your story?". When it comes to finding a newsworthy angle, you really need to focus on benefits, for example, the benefit of a car can be the technology--the safest car in the world. By switching a product focus to benefits focus you have already made your story more trustworthy and of more interest of the media person.

2. Special event. Connecting your organization to a special event or an interview of newsworthy person is another way to hook up the media. Aligning your organization with charity events always benefits your more. Because the public is open to hear about charities from which media persons can easily get their audience appeal. Helping organizing charity events is one of the most appealing ways to  promote your organization. And from what I gained from my internship, arranging the media an interview of key persons of your company always gives you media attention. 

3. Personal contact. We also place an expectation on media that they will flock to us just because a press release was sent out. The reality is that your well-written release will get lost in the email shuffle of some reporter's laptop. So personal contact is highly recommended when pitch a story. First, make a phone call to the editorial department to notify them before you send your press releases. Brief your story over the phone till they hook on the idea you are proposing. Then make a follow-up call a week later after your press release outreach. This call helps you notify the media updated information of your story and most importantly remind them of your story. And keep contact information of media person and save it to your media list to prep for your next story.

Gaining media attention entails good story, how you promote it and the way you deal with media people.  It's a life-long project for every PR practitioner.

Resource: PR 2.0, On Deadline: The Media Relations

Social Media: A New Way of Finding the Truth of China Train Crash

 

A deadly bullet train crash happened on July 23 by the eastern city of Wenzhou received little national media coverage in China. Dissatisfied with the limited information concerning casualty and cause of the tragedy provided by Chinese government and major state-run media outlets, netizens made a successful and comprehensive social media coverage of the accident. 

News of the crash broke on Sina Weibo, the Chinese version of twitter. A high-speed rail train stopped on the track due to a power outrage was rear-ended by a second train, causing six cars of the first train derail and four of the second fell down from an overpass. Users of Sina Weibo and other social media platforms quickly spread the news and publicized reports and pictures of trapped passengers before the Railway Ministry host the first press conference. 

When the Chinese government decided to bury one of the six derailed on site, raged netizens switched their coverage on crash to an informal investigation on the efficiency of Railway Ministry as well as of the trains themselves. The government attempted cover-up brought down its credibility to the public. Weibo users even teamed up to find out the true casualty, with a result of questioning what the government claimed "missing" are all victims. Due to the public pressure, the government crew excavated the buried car and transported it to a depot for re-examination and executed a more serious handling of the tragedy concerning severe corruption, breach of duty and design flaws of railway signal equipment.

This accident is a solid proof of the positive power of social media, where everyone is a potential reporter, journalist, commenter, and the most qualified examiner of government. Social media can not only generates fame, profits, and connections but also help find out truth, bring with changes, wake up conscience, and reflect on values that are missing day by day.

Time Profile: Lauren Luke, Internet Makeup Guru

                                    

Lauren Luke is an up-and-coming makeup mogul. She's been featured in two BBC documentaries, a column author of The Guardian, and has a line of cosmetics, By Lauren Luke, available at bylaurenluck.com and worldwide Sephora stores. She called herself "over-the moon dead proud" of her achievements.

How did this 29-year-old teenager mom jump out the gritty corner of northern England to become one of the most popular makeup gurus on Earth? The answer is the power of social media. Lauren started buying and selling makeup online in 2007. She did her social media marketing by posting pictures wearing the makeup she was selling. Later on, she developed a channel of tutorial makeup on YouTube to advise her customers. That's where Luke got her fame and career takeoff.

Insecure and was bullied at school, Lauren surprised us by taking full advantage of social media to succeed her career and life. Luke's story is a daily proof of the power and potential of social media. Worthy of mention is another rising Internet make-up artist--Michelle Phan. The Vietnamese-American reached over 1 million YouTube subscribers and is the only video spokeswoman of French makeup line Lancôme. Dislike Luke, Phan did not mean to profit from the video she made. As an art and design student, YouTube was more like a platform of displaying her works. Besides makeup tutorials, Phan also shares her cool tips of makeup, e.g. her homemade makeup remover--Olive oil. 

If it was not for the convenience, low-cost and wide range of outreach of social media, Luke may still struggle with her single-mother life and Phan may spend 5 years or more to rise her stardom through the traditional media channels. Now here comes an age of self-promoting, everyone can be a successful self-seller once grabs the know-how of social media and keeps in track of its new trend.

About Me

People are said to seek different identities throughout his or her life. Here are the identities I've already found for mine:

1. A learner: My name is Jing Mao. After 4-year study in translation and 2-year in German, I travelled from China all the way here to learn the expertise of PR. My interest of PR was ignited by a fashion event where I saw how PR people worked in efficiency and grace. Relatively speaking, PR is still a new industry with a need of more recognition. While social media is still finding its identity. So it's interesting  to see how the rising trend assists PR and how PR impacts the identity of social media. I believe writing this social media blog will teach me something new. 

2. A dancer: Dance is another important chapter of my life. I did ballet since six years old and had the spark with Jazz dance four years ago. Dance gives me energy and fun. Whenever I get sad or want my inner peace back, an-hour dancing will immediately cheer me up. This summer, belly dance gave me some fresh touch. Social media is also gaining its role in dance field. YouTube hosts different types of dances tutorial videos released by dance insiders, talents and people who do it for fun. I am recently learning how to shuffle through social media.

3. A fashion addict. The main reason that makes me still want to be a girl next life is that girls are born to be with fashion. Different styles give me different moods and thoughts about life.  I always push myself out of my style comfort zone, and try something new. Since I came to Miami, I found a really different style and some good fashion. Social media is the hottest trend of fashion now. Fashion insiders are embracing social media by weighing in on fashion topics with journalists, retail gurus, and other fashion incubators on Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets. Social media is now one of most my important channels of gaining the latest fashion tips.

4. A movie-goer. I would like to spend time in a quite way besides dancing. Movies and dramas are therefore my way of killing time. I love movies which reflect the angles of real life and render different perspectives of thinking. I think that's why some old movies like "The scent of woman", "Brave heart", and"The beautiful mind"are never old to me.

That's pretty much who I am now. Let's enjoy the last year of school life.