social media popularity Archives - Page 4 of 4 by Mark Murnahan

Is US Airways Listening to Social Media? Are You Listening?

I just read a blog article about a poor customer experience with US Airways. It got me to thinking about the ways we listen, and I think it could be described as two different types of ears.

Consumer Listening: Skeptical Ears

The first type of ears are those of a skeptical consumer. We have skeptical consumer listening skills which are pretty basic and instinctive. These are the ears we use to hear scandal and negativity. Most people have this set of ears cranked way up to hear anything they need to know as a consumer.

Consumer watchdogs are everywhere, and social media brings them out in a big way. In fact, it allows each and every one of us to be a consumer watchdog and to tell our story. Anybody with a bad experience can make a pretty loud sound using social media.

Consumer Listening: Marketing Ears

With a different set of ears we hear the marketing message of a company. We turn the sensitivity of those ears way down. These are the ears we use to hear all of the good things that a company does, and the reasons we should buy from them.

As a test of your ears, just consider it this way: Do you hear me better when I say that I want to provide you with my valuable SEO and social media marketing services (and I do), or when I warn you about ways you may be screwing up your SEO or social media marketing? You see! Your instinct is to hear what could hurt you, more than hearing things that can help you. This is why it takes so much more effort to spread a good marketing message than to spread a negative message about a company.

We have all heard that it takes many “rights” to correct a “wrong”, but what if you could turn the “wrong” into a “right” of sorts?

Turning Up the Marketing Ears

There are a lot of ways to turn up people’s marketing ears and help them to hear you. Ironically, it can sometimes come from whispering into their other set of ears … their skeptical ears. If you are running a business and somebody is talking about your brand, you should be listening to the negative and even using it to your advantage. I see it all the time that companies are either not paying attention, or they hear negativity about their brand but do not address it. They just hide their head in the sand like an ostrich and wait for things to blow over. What they often overlook is all the potential for benefit they may be missing. They see it only as damage, and often try to ignore it in hopes that it will go away. The truth is that it is not going away, and ignoring it only serves to cause a sense of passive aggression. It often makes people want to scream even louder about their distrust or discontentment.

US Airways Best and Worst Scenario

What if US Airways hears this message of discontent about their brand and ignores it? It means that they will further lose faith from this consumer, and also that of others he encounters … both online and offline. On the other hand, what if US Airways used it as an opportunity to regain his faith? What if they were able to improve his opinion of US Airways and even come to make him a fan of their company? Can you imagine the value of turning it completely around and showing a disgruntled consumer that you really do want to make them a happy customer?

I suspect that the disgruntled US Airways customer, Jeff Gibbard will soon have answers to whether US Airways is listening. In the meantime some skeptical consumer ears are perked, and just waiting for US Airways to whisper.

Are you listening with both sets of ears? Come and let me whisper in your skeptical ear. 😉

Update: 14 June at 7:30 p.m. USA Central Time

I would like to add that America West Airlines, which is the same company as US Airways (they merged in 2005) has been here and did nothing! They gave no reply, and made no attempt to apologize to Jeff Gibbard or even give an excuse.

Here is a screen capture from my visitor log which clearly shows that this article is visible, even to the noisy airline industry.

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Shove Your Followers, I Want Disciples!

That probably sounds shocking, right? Let me explain what I mean by this title.

I know that it may sound a little “churchly”, but it certainly is not. I do not mean that I am looking for people to kiss snakes, sacrifice animals, or participate in some strange cult rituals. A disciple is defined by Princeton University as “someone who believes and helps to spread the doctrine of another”, and who wouldn’t want that? After all, don’t we all want to associate with others who think like we think and are willing to spread a message? There is really only one way to gather disciples, and that is to provide something useful and interesting. I am up to it, and I will do my best.

Maybe you have seen this and maybe you have not, but there is a lot of hubbub about “followers” out there on the Internet. If you look on the left side of my blog, you can see that I am a member of about a squillion social networks, video sites, and bookmarking sites. Many of them show off how many followers each user has.

Why are they following? I sometimes wonder why the heck people “follow” me. I have some pretty good ideas for a lot of them, but many are just “followers” and not really following or paying attention. What does that get anybody? Add it to a $5 bill and it will probably buy you a cup of coffee.

Well, I say “Shove the followers, I want disciples!” That’s right! I want disciples, but what makes this acceptable is that I am willing to work really hard for them by sharing good ideas and giving them something they can use. This is what sorts the wheat from the chaff … wheat being those willing to provide something of value and chaff being those who beg for more attention without something to offer in return.

We certainly should not be limited to those who agree, because that is how people get stupid. If you do not listen to others’ ideas, you stop learning. However, when it comes to “followers”, I will trade them 1000 to one for disciples who care what I have to say and see value in what I offer.

Work Hard for Your Disciples!

If you want disciples, you have to work for them, and pay attention to them. Just like friends … in fact, exactly like friends! When I say “work”, I don’t mean digging ditches. I just mean making an effort.

Friends make the best disciples of all. Sure, I want disciples, but the best of all are the people I can have a friendly relationship with. Just yesterday I responded to a comment on my blog and thought I would take it a step further. I did not have his telephone number, so I looked at the domain he used in the comment and went to my trusty WHOIS lookup to get it. When I called, he was surprised and delighted to visit. We talked for quite a while and I found out that this guy reads a lot of my stuff. He really flattered me with his opinion of my blog content. He said he liked that I do not sugar coat things and I tell my experience instead of just what people want to hear.

Something he said to me is that he seems to see me everywhere, commenting on blogs and interacting with others. Yep, that is what I do. I love to get to know people and I love to listen and share.

Why did I call him? I called because I really respect the comments he has made here on my blog, other blogs, and articles on his own blog. After visiting for a while, I discovered even clearer than ever how creative and brilliant Jeff Gibbard is.

Will I talk to Jeff again? Yes, and probably very soon. Is he a disciple? You bet he is, and I am to him as well. What does it require? It does not take a lot of hard work, and I did not even have to get my hands dirty in order to enhance our relationship with a simple call. I cannot call everybody and chat, but I do it often. Is it work? No, it is not work and it is not done with consideration of my return on investment or how I will benefit. It just happens that way when you take the extra steps of earning your disciples. You make friends in the process.

I consider the thousands who “follow” me on Twitter and the ridiculous numbers of followers on all of the dozens of social media groups I belong to as just great. Maybe they will hear me and maybe they will not. The ones who matter the very most are right here, commenting on my blog and sharing ideas with others. They may even pick up the phone and ring me, or I may ring them.

Social Media Objectives: Popularity or Profits?

What do you seek from social media? Do you know? Are you wasting time?

In a recent conversation with a friend, I asked him why he spends so many hours per day using Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and other social networks. I asked him if he had achieved any considerable objectives, and whether they were personal or business objectives.

I was really asking him these things to help him consider his objectives, and to gather his opinions. After all, gaining others’ perspectives is a huge benefit of social media. My friend works for a living and counts on new business to keep a paycheck coming in. So there is presumably a business hope for gain. He admits that he has hopes that it will help him meet some future business goals, but it has thus far been unfruitful. He also is a very friendly and social person, so there is clearly a gain there. He meets a lot of cool people. I wanted to know how his gains measure up with his expectations and his goals, or if he even considered any goals, or what action he was taking to address them specifically. Without actually having a set goal, all of the greatest social life of an arena rock star will not get you there. You must know what it is that you are after in order to achieve it.

I approached this subject with my friend in part because I really wanted his honest answers of how he believed it would benefit him to be what I call a “popular information gatherer”. There are many people who do this, but seldom do they actually have an answer for their reason, and even more seldom do they actually find any benefit for all the time and energy they spend. Plus, there are a lot of services that do this, so the “service” they render of shoveling content back and forth across their networks is not a whole lot different than that friend you have who emails you jokes sixty times per day.

I believe that is it very important that if you spend a lot of time with anything, you should have a good idea why you are doing it. The reason can be anything you like, but there should be a conscious purpose for the time you spend. Otherwise, you should perhaps spend more time with your children, cleaning house, or a hobby. Time is your most precious resource, and once you use it, you cannot have it back. Spend your time well, and know why you are doing it.

For some, social networking is a hobby, and it certainly has some interesting appeal for many people. There can be many different benefits to a good social network. Social networking is great for meeting friends. Friends can help you to find customers. After all, if you are my friend, I will do my best to send people your way when they need the product or service that helps you to earn a living. Don’t you do this for your friends if given the opportunity? There are a lot of great benefits, but it seems common that I ask people what they are after and they either truly do not know or they are going about it completely wastefully.

A more serious question was in how much time my friend spends trying to be popular. Being popular is not so bad, but it can also be a bit of an addiction. For example, I know a lot of people will use Twitter to send rapid-fire messages about the funny video they just found or the amazing news article that just broke. They will monitor Digg.com, Alexa Hot URLs, Google Trends, and dozens of RSS feeds to find the coolest and latest trend and hope to be the first person to make the story popular. So this begs the question of what they are really after. A common answer is that it will help them become more recognized in rating services that rank users with various standards. If they are the “top user” in their city, state, region, or country, that is awesome! It will help more people find them and watch what they have say.

Here comes the wasteful and arrogant part. When these people do this, they often completely neglect the fact that if they are popular with knitting grandmothers, but the people they really want to reach are a completely different group, they may be wasting a whole lot of time.

The other side of this is that networking is nearly always good. Meeting the knitting grandmother is great. She may become your good friend. There is also an outside chance that she will introduce you to her daughter who is in the same field as you or is single and really right up your alley. There are many possibilities that are opened up with networking and knowing a lot of people. The possibilities are hard to count.

There must be a balance! If the popularity contest is what you are after, there is a huge likelihood that other areas of your social media hopes or expectations will suffer greatly. If all you want is to be popular without any reason, you are probably lying to yourself and others. Being popular in itself is not a meaningful goal. Being popular in order to spread a purposeful message or to meet an objective such as earning a living can make a lot more sense. Popular by itself is really pretty shallow and meaningless, don’t you think?

So, when you set out to become popular by spending hour after hour Tweeting, Digging, Facebooking, and FriendFeeding every last “useful” piece of content, why not take a look at your message and find a place for quality in the equation. If all you are doing is passing along the story you just found, perhaps consider why. What is your objective? Is it to make somebody laugh? That is fine, but how many hours are you spending, and what might you be missing during all those hours?

If you are really clever and resourceful, perhaps you may try creating some content for a change. Then, if you are really … I mean really good at it, there is a chance that the unique message you have to share can take on a quality tone over and above quantity. Best of all, it can set a tone of your own, and not just like that of the dog who drags a dead rabbit to the porch to impress their master.

The Social Media Marketing Dilemma

There is a lot of buzz about social media marketing these days. We have all heard it, and no industry is immune. All of the facts and figures point to the inevitability that your business will be affected by this turn in the marketing tide. This all got me to thinking about the dilemma that social media poses to each and every business entity.

The dilemma is in weighing the cost of participating versus the risk associated with not embracing social media marketing. So how can you mitigate your risk? Spend a moment with me to understand why you should not overlook social media for another minute.

Social Media Marketing: Now or Later?

The part that may be the hardest for many companies is that this shift in the marketing tide has occurred during an already frightening time for business people. Companies who used to advertise in newspapers have found that they are largely ineffective. This has further added to the already obvious demise of print media. Similarly, television is losing the marketing battle at an astonishing rate. Your local affiliate stations used to receive a piece of the national advertisers spending, and that was cut by the major networks. This is all happening because the Internet has fully eclipsed all other media in both total adspend and consumer reach.

I can give you a long list of the things which have added to the social media boom, but I do not think I will need to explain this. You know it is here, and you are quite possibly feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all. It is a huge transition. It is kind of a big shuffle where everybody is just trying to find their way and hope when it all settles that they will have made the right choices and that they adapted to the new rules of marketing soon enough to be effective. This really is a dilemma of when to make a quantifiable effort: will it be now, or will it be later? When should you adopt the new rules of engagement? Are you too late? It is too soon? The questions are so plentiful and pressing that I have watched it paralyze many would-be good business decision makers.

Social Media Dilemma: Risk vs. Risk

Perhaps you are just warming up to the idea that this “new” media is where things are going. The fear of jumping in is really pretty normal. After all, it is hard to believe in something after you have watched all the things you always knew about business and economy suddenly change. Most of us were always told that our home would always be a great investment. That seems to be a bit shaky now, although it will certainly return. We thought companies like General Motors, AIG, and others were unshakeable and that the whole world economy could not all just collapse. Things have changed, and amidst all of that change around you, the thought of spending what seems like a fortune in order to effectively participate in a marketing method with a whole new set of measurement metrics probably feels a bit uncomfortable at best.

So what will make all of this feel better and help it all make sense? The answer is this: If your competition does it sooner and better than you, the cost of lost opportunity will be greater than any other potential risk.

Social media marketing is truly not as new as you may see it on the surface. In many ways, it is the way it used to be done in every company, for as long as business has been done. The tools have changed a lot, but the communication basics are that if you develop a warm market, your business will always perform far better. Your sales process will be much smoother. Your brand image will be enhanced by the added customer satisfaction. The list of benefits to the added communication of social media marketing over advertising as usual should not be so hard to understand. All the same, as a social media and Internet marketing professional since the mid-1990s, I still often feel like I am trying to explain the color blue to a person devoid of sight.

A Picture of Social Media Marketing

I want to provide you with a mental picture of social media marketing. Work with me, please. Let’s say that you are about to walk out the door to drive to your local Wal Mart for a couple items. You are going to pick up a garden hose, some razor blades, a new alarm clock, and a few other items. As you head for the door with your car keys in hand, the doorbell rings. You get to the door and there is a salesperson standing there to greet you. They are with a company you have heard of, but you have never met this person. He says that he has all of those things you planned to pick up at Wal Mart. He has the garden hose, the razor blades, and even the alarm clock, and he happens to have them right there. He even has the brands you would buy. How does this feel to you? Are you a bit uneasy about it? Many people have answered this question for me, and it seems that the vast majority would still get in the car, drive to Wal Mart, sort through the aisles, wait in line, and return home. The trust factor compels them, and the guy at the door just did not have the trust yet, regardless how hard he tried.

I have a new picture for you. The person standing at the door is somebody you have had some brief communication with, and you realize you have some mutual friends. It warms up with a bit of friendly conversation, and what do you know. You belong to the same social group. It all starts to look different now, does it not?

The differences in these scenarios are very similar psychologically to an advertisement compared to a social media approach. In addition, with a social media approach, it is altogether likely that the phone rang before you even grabbed your car keys and a friend was on the other end to let you know they were sending the hose, razor, and alarm clock guy over. It has a completely different feel, and it is the reason that advertising has always been an uphill battle compared to proper relationship marketing.

Social Media Fears: The Biggest Dilemma of All

Now that I have walked you through an analogy of digital social media compared to yesterday media, let us look at the worst social media dilemma of all. This time, you are in the selling position, and you are the guy at the door. Answer yourself this question: do you want to be that guy at the door trying to peddle your goods, or would you rather be the hose, razor, and alarm clock guy who took the care to build relationships and will be walking up to the door already announced.

If you fear what happens if you embrace social media marketing today and that it may not work for you, the greater question should be in which hose, razor, and alarm clock salesperson you want to be. If you leave it up to your competition, your cost will be much greater indeed, because the deepest cost is that of missed opportunities.