Final Presentation: Social Media Crisis Management- A Case Study of Chipotle

Link To Presentation

Vegan Ben & Jerry's Social Media Monitoring Part 2

In my last post we took a look at Ben & Jerry's new line of vegan products. We saw some early success and uncovered some potential issues that the product could encounter. The main concern came from their target market about the truth and honesty of their claims. As B&J's noted, most people looking to buy the vegan line (their target market) are dedicated and conscious people. They've made the choice to follow a strict diet for political, health, or environmental reasons. A vegan diet requires a lot of passion so it makes sense that the products they consume fall under a heavy line of question.



Addressing Issues: 

We saw B&J's linking people with concerns to pages about their products in my last post. For this post I think we should look a little more closely at the framework of proof that Ben and Jerry's has assembled to set their vegan customers at ease.

The vegan line's homepage immediately sets the tone by linking readers to pages about their certification (and certification provider), almond milk, bakery, fair-trade and non-GMO, and reasons for going non-dairy.

I found that each of these pages was helpful yet mildly vague. They leave out some details that customers are still showing concern about. (2:13 / 4:25 of video we see a great example)

The next concern we encountered was that many customers were wondering where and when they could find these new flavors. To address this, bellow each flavor they've added links to a locating page where you can enter your own zip code to find the nearest location.

Comparison:
To get a feel for how other lines and products from B&J's are doing we can take a look at some other flavors. In the past week they announced the arrival of three new "flavor core" products. I've decided to look at one brand new flavor, an older flavor from that same line, and a vegan flavor.                          

From this comparison on Google Trends we see that the Vegan Chunky Monkey has peaked the highest interest and maintained it's buzz better than the standby Karamel Sutra and brand new Cookies and Cream Cheesecake Core.

       Vegan Chunky Monkey             Karamel Sutra Core        Cookies and Cream Cheesecake Core

By looking closer with Social mention we see that strength, passion and reach are fairly low for all three flavors- however the vegan flavor elicits a much higher positive sentiment than the others. Perhaps this is the upside of having such a passionate target audience (the hashtag #vegan has just over 23 million posts on IG).

Goals:
It seems to me like Ben & Jerry's is very self aware- they know who they're reaching out to and they know how to back up their claims and they're taking action to do so. To continue catering to their new focal audience I think they should make it a goal to adjust their tone slightly. Their posts for this line need to be a bit more serious and factual than their average post.

They need to simplify their links by making it clear which links will take you to more B&J's explanations and which pages will take you directly to referenced company's and organizations pages.

They also need to play into the popularity of  #vegan and continue to create buzz with posts, contests and updates.

Adobe- Tapping the Company Groundswell

In this week's reading I found the case study of Best Buy to be really interesting- It surprised me that connectivity between employees online could have such a strong impact on company culture and job satisfaction. It also seemed interesting to consider employees as part of the groundswell. Thus far we've looked at groundswell as an outside audience so this switch on perspective made me curious.

To following up on this idea I decided to take a look at other corporate companies that have great employee engagement online. I ended up finding a list of companies that produce really engaging blogs that encourage interaction between employees and are useful and accessible for customers. High on the list were companies like BBC, Southwest Airlines, Adobe, and no surprise, Dell. Sticking with the theme of technology/tech products (not to mention the innate creativity that I assumed would be a given for these bloggers) I decided to look at Adobe's blogosphere.

Adobe created a within-company blog page that homes posts from executives as well as employees and "official Adobe blogs". The blog page is a deep source of information. It's sorted into a number of categories: Creative Cloud, Digital Marketing, Document Services, Publishing, Corporate, Global, and Others. The underlying categories and options for exploration are pretty extensive, listing A-Z the published blog options. But even more, they feature a page called "conversations" which is further broken down into sections like "creative", "education", "perspectives" and "corporate responsibility".

 Through this extensive blogging network we can see that Adobe has embraced the idea of  "letting go of control and trusting that your creativity will engage the groundswell (p. 216)" as well as "connecting far flung associates (p. 235)". It is clear that adobe has done this from a simple search and scroll down the first page. The posts are not only from different personnel but they're focused on different topics and are even written in different languages. Adobe is showing us that they trust their personnel- that they think people will be interested in their ideas, projects, and suggestions and value their creative input.

The posts allow employees to share their passions, areas of expertise and ultimately learn from and educate each other as well as us viewers. They also have the freedom to discuss things outside of Adobe or Adobe products to really stir up conversation and interest. And to aid in widespread involvement- they link us to all of their other social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) where the comment section usually occurs.

Adobe's programs can create fascinating and beautiful work, but as many users know the programs can be tricky to learn. I believe these blogs and creative spaces encourage visitors to create work and try new programs while engaging and energizing employees and tapping into their expertise and passion- check them out! Do you think they're working?

Social Media Monitoring of Vegan Ben & Jerry's- Part 1

For my Social Media Monitoring project I've been taking a look at Vermont based company Ben & Jerry's. I've been focusing on their new line of vegan products. The company has been up and running since 1978 always keeping with a theme of being creative as well as environmentally and health conscious. So this February it made a lot of sense when they announced their first non-dairy, vegan flavors.

Platforms
Ben & Jerry's is interactive with their customers mainly on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. On these platforms they post photos, release news and respond to customers.

B&J's Facebook page has  8,089,916 followers. Posts are pretty frequent, ranging from multiple a day to at least one every day or so. The content is mainly focused on the ice cream but they also post a fair amount about current events and politics. There is also an area for visitor comments and company response.

Twitter is home to lots of customer interaction and content. Their Twitter has just 301,000 followers but they post very frequently (up to five times a day) and the content is more diluted with current events and politics than the Facebook content.

B&J's also utilizes Instagram to share photos to their 614,000 followers. Instagram is mainly used to share pictures of their treats and promote the product.

Throughout all of their platforms they are quick to acknowledge feedback, concerns and complaints showing that they care and are interested in their customers input.




Looking at Trends
Google Trends
I chose to look at Vegan Ben & Jerry's over the past 90 day's (comparing it to the company's trends over the same time period) and then to look closer at Vegan Ben & Jerry's over just the past 30 days.

The product release caused a spike followed by a slow decline which is mirrored at a larger scale by the whole company. There was a quick drop off after the 14th of Feb, which I believe was due to a lull in social media posting over the following days. Interest peaked and dropped off again on the 27th. The company remains much more buzzed about than the vegan line alone- but we can see that spikes in attention to the product line do impact the brand.

Meltwater IceRocket
Meltwater, a similar tool tells us about mentions over time within the blogosphere and on Twitter. The patterns on Meltwater seem to follow along with the patterns from Google Trends so no huge surprises here.



Social Mention

Social Mention allows us to look at the various aspects of the posts that we've been tracking. Here I've compared the whole month, week, and day to get a comprehensive picture of what is happening.

 

We can see from these metrics that most posts are neutral, meaning they are not strongly negative or positive. Reach, strength and passion are all relatively low. But as this is a new product, perhaps they haven't had time to build a great reputation for this line of treats yet. 

Feedback
It seems that frequent posting is the first step to popularity- but it's not enough on its own. As they are marketing toward very health conscious consumers they need to be careful and thorough about the content in the messages they're sending. They can't just focus on how delicious the flavors are like they would with a normal new release- they need to keep promoting the honorable origins of the ingredients as well flavor. They need to pay close attention to customer comments and stay on top of making changes to the products as needed. Every new release is bound to have some kinks that need to be worked out!

FB Reactions- A New Way to Communicate Without Actually Talking

Facebook recently released "reactions", an extension of the stand-by "like". The reaction options include: Love, Haha, Yay, Wow, Sad, and Anger. They are each represented by emoticons. However these "reactions" are not the same as the emoji that we see on our iphones every day. They've been redesigned and actually react through a GIF-like animation. Researchers found that the animations made them much more expressive and clear for users. The chosen expressions were carefully selected to most simply and effectively help people convey common emotions.

An article in Wired called Reactions "quick, easy and gesture based" explaining that this form of communication was a necessary development  because typing out comments on mobile devices is seen as too inconvenient. Facebook has been receiving a significant amount of criticism for enabling the trend away from written or verbal communication but I think we can see this as Facebook simply keeping up with the times.

Like any other business or company with a product to sell- they value their customer's (user's) input and seek to make their experience better. Facebook users communicate with emoticons constantly on other devices and aps for their ability to mock body language and facial responses (an extremely important aspect of communication completely lost in writing). It makes sense to incorporate them into this platform; allowing us to react accurately to content with very little effort.

From a marketing perspective it's pretty brilliant. We know that the majority of people on social media prefer to take a spectator role- viewing and occasionally "liking" but rarely posting or commenting. This means that the majority of user's true opinions are not being tapped. If they don't "like" it and they're too nervous or indifferent to type a written response, they simply scroll by. But Reactions will allow those who previously held back to provide feedback on products, companies, brands, etc. They'll be able to give their input without feeling vulnerable.

This could mean large new amounts of data for companies to utilize, giving them a more comprehensive view of what the public thinks. Conversely, reaction's are limited to just 6 common emotions and they do not offer any follow up as to why a user feels the way they do. Data compiled from "reactions" would have to be done carefully- noting that some emoticons can have multiple purposes or be used sarcastically.

Despite the drawbacks of emoticon communication, I see reactions as an open door to input that otherwise wouldn't exist at all. I am curious if we think that the reactions will be a reliable source of information? Will people who previously did not create content take advantage of reactions, or will they continue to hold back regardless of the convenience factor? What precautions will have to be taken by business owners who plan to utilize this feedback? And do the benefits of "reactions" outweigh the complaints that we are ruining written and verbal communication

Utilizing Groundswell Response - A humbling but beneficial practice

Social media allows customers to constantly talk to each other- sharing reviews, experiences and suggestions. All of these customer to customer interactions are important but only if we, as business owners, listen and act. The groundswell is a teaming pool of knowledge for businesses to tap. The creators within the groundswell share valid input that if utilized, could help turn around an unsuccessful product or brand or revitalized products or brands that need improvement.

 "The key is, you need to do more than just ask for feed-back. you need to show that feedback online, good and bad, where people can see that you are ready to act on it, that you are committed to improving things" (p. 194) 

Turning a blind eye to criticism online is not helpful to a company. It looks bad in terms of customer care and in the long run is not helpful or productive to improving business. These are the points of Groundswell I'd like to focus on this week. 

Harnessing customer input in the development process by letting the customers tell you what they want and addapting to appease that desire (p.182) can be extremely successful. As demonstrated with the example of Loblaw (p.191) we see this in a real life scenario. VP of Loblaw, Jim Osborne tapped into the groundswell, listening to customer complaints and suggestions and acting to remedy the issues. He turned unsuccessful food products into successes by changing recipes, addressing packaging issues and continuously monitoring feedback. Loblaw is prime example of how to use customer generated social media content for the purpose of brand improvement.

Something to keep in mind in the endeavor of utilizing customer reviews from the groundswell is that there are risks. We need to know our objectives, know that communities can get out of hand and have a plan for how to deal with this outcome (p. 144). There are countless brands that have opened themselves up to the groundswell and been overrun by negative feedback. Some negative feedback is so harsh that it goes viral for its comedic ridiculousness- such is the case for Haribo Sugar Free Gummy Bears and their unfortunate product reviews which went viral in January of 2014. And more recently Samsung's 85 inch 4k HDTV reviews.

These products caused such intense illness and upset that their reviews read more like elaborate comedy sketches than a real life product reviews. After reading Groundswell we would assume that such negative viral feedback would elicit speedy public response and action to remedy these immense product flaws; yet despite my searching I've been unable to find any sort of reply from either company.

Can we assume that the problems are too deeply rooted in product development to change? Perhaps the brands feel that they are established enough to withstand the onslaught of negative feedback on a single product? How could either of these companies have addressed their customers and utilize their feedback in a productive way?

Instagram Promo Competitions- Nice n' Manipulative

Earlier this year I received a subscription to Ipsy - I liked it a lot. Every time a bag arrived in the mail it felt like Christmas morning. The shiny pink bubble wrap- the excitement and surprise of what would be inside. This month I got an extra unexpected surprise with my bag- participation in social media marketing for Ipsy.

Upon receiving my subscription I sat down at my kitchen table and dumped the contents of the package out. I turned them over, reading, inspecting, testing. And then I reached into the bag to find one last thing- a flyer urging me to share my "Glambag" on Instagram in order to potentially win a full year subscription. In my excitement with all of the products and wrapping laid out before me I thought, why not? I snapped a photo, added the competition hashtags and posted the photo.

Competitions are easy to participate in. The risks of competing are low and the effort required is minimal- snap a photo, add some tags and hashtags- and you're done. The potential pay off I would assume in most cases is something worth that amount of public action. In some cases (like this one) the prize may be a physical product but in other cases the prize could potentially be just acknowledgment and notoriety.

The hashtags in competitions group you, they get you noticed. They bring you into a conversation making you feel relevant or involved. But at the same time every ounce of effort put into this post is a bolster to the reputation of the host company. It's not about you- not at all. It's a scheme to utilize your interest and optimism to target your friends. Are we okay with this? If we look at it that way- are we willing to act as personalized ads that target the people you actually know and care about?

I thought about this when making my post just for a second. I felt a momentary twinge of shame- embarrassment at the ease with which their marketing team was using me. I assume that I'm not alone in this feeling. Why would we utilize the public platform which we have built up to represent ourselves on in order to promote a product or service that barely matters to us? Why would we openly help a company target our friends? Is it that we actually do care about the company and believe in their product or business or have we grown to overlook posts like this and their implications?

Groundswell Demands Real Content- Red Lobster, Take Note.

"...After seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you've made it clear. You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company." 

Groundswell p.6

From the beginning, Groundswell shows us how important the truth is to social media users.  The example of Kevin Rose, creator of  Digg,  powerfully demonstrates the corporate-fighting, honesty-seeking nature of the groundswell. It also shows us the benefits of addressing social media issues honestly rather than working behind the scenes to cover up scandal. By posting in a truthful, unfiltered way, Rose created a dialog. This dialog generated support and sparked new conversation- where as persisting with a cover up would have led to further prodding and criticism from the groundswell.

There is a ferocity with which social media users threaten institutional power and attempt to expose the reality of corporations. As Rose showed us, corporate powers can gain trust and change opinions of social media users through candidness which creates a bond within the groundswell.

However, despite all proof that the groundswell values the truth, I see a disconnect between this value and the practice of constantly contriving, editing, and filtering content obsessively. On page 61, Groundswell briefly mentions the validation impulse which I believe is partially responsible for these pressures felt by content producers (note the case of ex-Instagram model Essena O'Neil.)

But more so than the desire for validation, I believe that it is the idea of "no going back" (p. 74) that frightens corporations as well as individuals into overworking content. No going back can apply to a single post or to an entire strategy. But essentially what it means is that once you post, you can't make your audience un-see something. Each post has the potential to change the way you are perceived by your audience and that is an incredible pressure to take on.

This desire to not misstep is what leads creators to overthink or overdo. People and companies feel the need to present wittier, more beautiful, more unique content in order to capture the groundswell. Because of this they forget the underlying importance of honesty, truthfulness and simple connections.

We see this phenomenon at work in the pubclic's response to a Red Lobster's tweet which recognized a shout out in Beyonce's newest release.
Their response was late, tried too hard and lacked creativity. Red Lobster's social media team likely fell prey to the pressures of "no going back" and the desire for validation in trying to please Beyonce's fans with a clever response. The groundswell was left wishing Red Lobster had just stuck to basics by thanking the artist.

Here's hoping that they stick to the basics of the groundswell (truth, connection, etc.) in repairing their social media image.

When GoPro Met Periscope

The tale of an up-and-coming app power couple. 

Who doesn't love watching incredible footage of unique, daring, and exciting events? Few. Who doesn't love watching bored people sit at home in front of their webcams? Many. This is why Periscope should be thanking their lucky stars for their new partnership with GoPro.

Last week Forbes author Larry Magrid posted a piece that highlighted the news of this union as a blessing for GoPro. He noted the potential to reach a new market "beyond its traditional sports-action users" as well as the benefit of giving every average user the opportunity to create truly interesting video with its two-camera live broadcast. While these benefits for GoPro are real, the true winner in this partnership is Periscope.

Periscope (Periscope TV) first came into sight a few months back after being acquired by Twitter and reaching 10 million accounts in just four months. Offering live streaming videos and constant viewer commentary and questioning, the app promised a new and dynamic social experience. Periscope had the potential to integrate our favorite elements from Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook into one mega app. It was intended to be personal and compelling, allowing users to see from another's perspective.

Unfortunately Periscope users have turned the camera around so rather than seeing through someone else's eyes we're seeing exactly what we've always seen. The app is currently reminiscent of Chatroulette, the 2009 site which allowed users to chat or video chat with other users around the globe at random. The similarities are due vastly to the content of the video streams as well as the randomness of subjects. The majority of common users stream footage of recreational drug use, singing  and themselves sitting at home alone - hardly providing the intriguing, thought provoking footage advertised by Periscope.

Periscope will become vastly more interesting and true to its pitch through this partnership. Users will have the technological ability to stream multiple angles at once making their footage more professional and simultaneously more immersive. Existing GoPro users who already fall under the "sports-action" title will contribute content that aligns with Periscope's vision. This partnership will give periscope the technology and user base to re-focus become the app it was intended to be. 

However, despite the implications of the GoPro technology it is possible that Periscope users will continue the pattern of turning the camera around. Could there be a deeper issue that cannot be solved by introducing new technology and a more adventurous audience? Maybe Periscope users are more interested in showcasing themselves rather than just their perspective. How can Periscope capitalize on GoPro technology and users to combat what seems to be an attention-seeking epidemic?   

Let's hear your thoughts!