Marketing

There’s Nothing Savvy About Marketing or Newsjacking Disasters

This week, the eastern coast of the U.S. has been battered by Hurricane Sandy, one of the biggest storms to make land in the U.S.

The states of Connecticut, Delaware, District of Colombia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia and West Virginia have all bore the brunt of this “superstorm”.

So far, 16 people in the U.S. are confirmed dead. One woman died in Toronto, Canada after flying debris hit her. 50 people lost their lives in Haiti and the Caribbean as Sandy’s deadly path took shape.

And this is just the early hours of the disaster. Sadly, like any storm of this magnitude, the death toll and damage is likely to be worse yet, not to mention animals and livestock caught up in the devastation.

With all this in mind, you’d think we’d be more concerned about the welfare of those in harm’s way than taking advantage of some cool marketing opportunities, right?

Then again, this is the marketing industry we’re talking about – and I say that as part of that very industry, which is why this appalls me even more.

The Opportunity of Disaster

Yesterday, the inbound marketing business HubSpot published 5 examples of companies that have “newsjacked” (the practice of taking news stories and using them to your advantage) the disaster that is Hurricane Sandy.

HubSpot themselves took some heat in the comments, forcing them to edit the post – although it’s still not worded in a terribly sympathetic way.

Examples included a Hurricane Hair board on Pinterest, to a make-up company advising you how to look great by candlelight and ensure your nails are tip top. Because chipped nails while sifting through the debris of your destroyed home wouldn’t be the done thing, right?

While none of the examples are as tacky as the Kenneth Cole Cairo tweet – and one does offer generators and air mattresses for those affected by the storm – they don’t paint a great picture of the companies either.

The comments on the HubSpot post are pretty split – some defend the companies and their “marketing savvy”, while others call out the practice as well as HubSpot for the article.

As I mentioned earlier, HubSpot felt inclined to edit the post, so it’s possible the article was more “offensive” and some of the commenters didn’t see the earlier version (at a guess).

Can Newsjacking Work?

There’s no doubt that a hot topic is a way to get yourself – personally or professionally – into the “spotlight”. Heck, marketers and bloggers do it all the time on Twitter during various tweetchats, #blogchat often experiencing some of the worst hijacking from people desperate to share their blog posts.

Yet none of these are taking advantage of disasters to sell their product or service. It’s like hacking into the 911 emergency lines to call your girlfriend to save on your phone bill.

Can newsjacking work? For sure – if it’s done right. David Meerman Scott, who wrote the book Newsjacking, offers ways to interlope into other news stories and infiltrate your brand or message, and there are great examples in there.

However, it’s also very telling that David himself commented on the HubSpot piece, with less than a favourable view:

Newsjacking something related to death and destruction is very dangerous. I’m reading this morning that 20 people have died and there is billions of dollars in damage. That’s not fun nor funny.
If your company has a legitimate tie to the disaster and you are genuinely seen as being helpful then okay. For example, a home improvement superstore could blog “just received a shipment of 250 generators in the Boston store.”
But a frivolous attempt at newsjacking to draft off the news of the storm to sell a product unrelated to the storm is bad form and may trigger a negative backlash. A restaurant that says “Storm special – 35% off all appetizers” is not a good idea.

When the guy that wrote the book on newsjacking doesn’t see the benefits of these examples, then you know they’ve missed the boat and, perhaps, HubSpot has too with their article.

Although they also had their own frivolous moment with their specific Facebook post – because, yes, company messages going out are far more important than the company making sure their employees are safe.

So who knows..?

Additional reading: Doug Haslam, “Newsjacking” – A Good Idea with Dangerous Pitfalls

Blogging as Part of Your Marketing Strategy

Last week, the good folks over at Social Media Breakfast Waterloo were kind enough to invite me over to speak to their members.

The topic was crowd-sourced, and the chosen talk was on how blogging could be used as part of your marketing strategy. Since the audience was made up of every business size, from solo entrepreneurs to SMB owners and C-suite executives, it was a great topic to be talking about.

You can view my presentation below, but i just wanted to highlight the four key points that you can take away for your own blog and marketing combination.

1. Research

One of the most important things you can do before you start a business blog is research whether your customers and audience actually want one. It’s all well and good saying, “Well, our competition has a blog – we should too!”. But that’s just setting yourself up for failure.

Look at your customer base; are they the kind that read blogs? Are they mobile-led (which would suggest a blog-friendly audience)? Are they computer-literate?

A slaughterhouse in Moldova is probably not going to need a blog; a hospitality industry business probably should have one. Ask your customers if they’d be interested in a blog – a questionnaire, an email, when they’re in your store, etc.

Having a ready audience will immediately increase your chances of having a decent corporate blog.

2. Strategy

Just as important as the research angle is the strategy one. If you launch a business blog and you don’t have defined goals with it, you’re just wasting valuable time and resources in maintaining it.

Will it be for lead generation? Will it be to promote your business’ thought leadership? Is it to handle service questions, or give the latest news on product or company updates? Is it to get to know your customers better and what makes them tick?

Have a solid strategy in place on what you want to achieve, and how you wish to achieve it. Then set timelines in place to measure how you’re doing, and adapt accordingly.

You wouldn’t go into business without a clear goal and plan – why would you do anything different with another angle of your business?

3. Consistency

If there’s one thing that blog readers hate, it’s inconsistency. This can be across multiple areas – publishing posts, comment systems (yes, I’m guilty of this one!), voice, editorial, writers and more.

And there’s a simple reason for this – there are currently between 180 and 200 million blogs out there, and reader interest is becoming shorter and shorter as publications vie for eyeballs. So if you’re confusing your reader with ever-changing positions on your blog, they’ll more often than not decide it’s not worth hanging around.

If you want to keep your readers and grow your blog, be consistent.

If you’re going to post once a week, make it the same day and the same time of day. If you’re going to post 2-3 times a week, keep it the same days.
If you’re going to be primarily a text blog, remain that way. If you’re going to be a video-led blog, be that blog. You can mix things up now and again, but keep the prime focus the one you set up yourself up as.
Keep the tone consistent. if you’re going to be a serious blog, remain in a serious tone. If you’re looking to show the fun side of your business, highlight that with pictures and a lighter tone.

If you keep to the goals you set out with, and the way you set out reaching them, it’ll cause less confusion and encourage readers to stay with you.

4. Measurement

One of my biggest bugbears is when I speak with business owners and ask them about analytics and measurement, and how they’re tracking their success based on their goals, and they reply with a blank stare and an, “Uh….” soundbite.

If you’re not tracking your activity, how do you expect to know if you’re succeeding; where you’re succeeding; where you need to adapt and more?

The best of it is, you can track all this stuff for free (with the exception of cost of man hours to do so).

Use Google Analytics or Woopra to track your web visits, as well as where the traffic is coming from, what your visitors are doing while on site, where they’re going afterwards, and much more. See which content works, which doesn’t, and amend your approach accordingly.
Track social media success with tools like Jugnoo (I’m biased, but we do track pretty well!), Most Shared Posts, or social campaigns in your analytics solution(s). By knowing what content resonates, and where, you can be far more strategic on your approach to both your blog and that platform.
If you’re selling products from your business blog, use something like WooCommerce and Improvely. This can identify the source of the purchase, the referral, the costs involved and much more.

You don’t have to run a bells and whistles measurement solution – but for the love of all things common sense, please do have at least some way to track what you’re doing!

As I mentioned, these are the four key areas for any business blog to really concentrate on and get right. There are more, which the presentation looks at. But as a starting point, they should be the ones you answer if you want your business blog to succeed.

The rest is up to you.

Two Awesome Examples of Promotional Campaigns Done Right

Sometimes, you just have to take your hat off to excellent examples of promotional campaigns done right.

With many folks saying advertising is dead, it’s nice to see examples like the two below and say, “Uh, really?”. Especially since both show a mix of cool and (where Audi and BMW are concerned) outright cheek.

The Audi and BMW Billboard Chess Match

This is probably one of my favourite examples of corporate fisticuffs I’ve seen. Below on the left is a billboard ad from German auto manufacturer Audi, and the response from fellow German competitor BMW (click to expand):

Audi’s ad shows their new A4 saloon, with the challenge to BMW of, “Your move”. It’s classic advertising at its best, with a gentle poke at a direct competitor. A competitor that was clearly up for the challenge.

Up steps BMW with their response, a picture of their sporty M3 and the words, “Checkmate.” Brilliantly simple, and one that would end any “mine is bigger than yours” game.

Except Audi have their own sports car heritage, as was quickly evident in the response below (click to expand):

In a wonderfully cheeky piece of advertising sass, Audi put up a new billboard with their R8 supercar and the statement, “Your pawn is no match for our king.” Game over, right? not quite.

BMW has a long history in race cars, especially when it comes to Formula 1 racing. And they were more than happy to show this when they brought out a blimp with their F1 race car emblazoned on it along with the words, “Game over.”

Epic. Simply epic.

Note: Audi reached out to advise that the blimp was photoshopped into a screengrab of the billboards. Bugger. Still epic response though. 😉

The Monsters University

Scheduled for release next summer, Monsters University is the sequel to the massive hit, Monsters Inc. A prequel to the original movie, it looks at the two characters from the original movie and how they met at the titular Monsters University.

Now, normally, movies are pretty good at coming out with cool promotional campaigns, with studios trying to outdo each other on the viral effect. But Pixar and Walt Disney have really come up with something pretty cool for this one.

Instead of the normal movie site, Pixar has gone all out and created a fully functional University website (hat tip to Matt Andaloro for the heads-up on this).

Not only can you explore the School of Scaring, where the Monsters learn their trade, but you can check out the MU sports and athletics teams; get alumni news; check out MU events; and much, much more.

It looks and feels exactly like a University website would, adding to the realism and authenticity of actually spending time with fellow students. Which is exactly what the new movie will be about – result.

The Moral of the Story

As I mentioned at the start, many folks have decreed advertising to be dead, as social media and new media platforms look to share messages differently.

Yet, as these two examples above show, advertising is alive and well, and more creative than many of their social media equivalents.

To the naysayers of advertising and “traditional marketing”, perhaps it’s less the medium that’s dead as much as it’s just crappy advertisers and marketers that are killing creativity.

Then again, that’s true of all mediums, including social media. Here’s to creativity, especially when it’s integrated and not silo’d.

The Art of Great Service and When We Stopped Listening

Years ago, I led a customer service team for a well-known telecommunications company in the UK.

Despite its size, one thing that was always drummed into us was that no matter what the problem, have empathy with the customer and acknowledge that any verbal attacks are aimed at the company, not us.

It did the trick.

We knew that our company wasn?t perfect ? which one is? We also knew that some of our company?s practices wouldn?t go over well with our customers, and that would lead to unhappy customers calling in to complain.

Though they sometimes got vociferous in their argument, we would always listen, offer empathy and look for a way that we could both work together to resolve the issue.

Again, it worked.

At the end of the call, the customer would apologize and say they were really sorry that they came over as argumentative ? they were just frustrated and felt as if they had no-one to talk to about it. All they wanted was for someone to listen and show that their problems were being heard.

Even if nothing could be done about them, just knowing someone cared made a huge difference.

So when did we stop listening?

I come across businesses every day that seem to have forgotten what customer service is. Public transport that?s always late with no apology or explanation; banks raising charges on credit cards with little warning and no alternatives; restaurants changing menus without any kind of customer survey (and often losing the best food in the process).

Even social media isn?t immune to this malaise ? look at the thousands of unhappy Facebook users when the company changes its front-end without asking users what they thought first? Even worse, when users complain, Facebook pretty much sticks its head in the sand and says,??Take it or leave it.?

What amazes me more about this apathy toward customers is that businesses can?t afford to have this attitude. All around us, businesses are folding, communities are suffering and families struggling to keep their heads above water.

New business will be almost impossible to come across with any great success, which is why it?s more important than ever to look after your existing customers.

Business is tough enough as it is. We all want to attract new clients and build our brand, but we can?t afford to do so at the expense of our existing customers. Along with employees, they?re the soul of any company and the ones that can offer you the best kind of new client attraction ? word-of-mouth advertising.

Something for businesses to keep in mind the next time they review their customer service policy.

image: gumption

Social Influence and the Shift of the Carnegie Principle

When Dale Carnegie wrote the book on influence more than 75 years ago, he probably didn’t realize the impact he was about to make on society. Just ask the 15 million people that have bought the book since 1936.

But, more than just sharing some evergreen ideas on how people and ideas can really connect with each other, Carnegie also pioneered how we – as individuals – are perceived by others.

Swap that to social influence today, and brands are now looking to highlight those they perceive as influential, to market their services and products for them.

Whereas Carnegie looked to show you ways on how you could make friends quickly, get you out of a rut, and make you more effective all round, today’s influence is finding uptake with brands looking to (often) bypass the legwork that Carnegie advocated, and utilizing shortcuts instead.

These shortcuts mean quicker access to the many; identification of who can spread a message; and more cost-effective approaches to outreach programs and brand advocate partnerships.

This has led to the popularity of companies like Klout, Kred and PeerIndex, as well as niche offshoots like Reppify, Connect.me and Tawkify, to name but three. Each have their benefits, and proponents of these platforms highlight the importance of their place in today’s social media-led marketplace.

However, critics of the services point to today’s influence measurement being nothing more than activity based – the more you are online, the more you’ll be measured as influential, whether you encourage people to act on your activity or not (the dictionary standard of influence).

Perhaps the middle ground offers an insight into where Carnegie’s vision and that of social scoring metrics need to be.

Context

One of the most-discussed areas of influence in the current iteration of social scoring is that of context. As mentioned earlier, proponents of social scoring platforms point to activity being a valid metric – if you’re online a lot, you understand the nuances of the space and how it can be influenced.

Critics point to automated social feeds with little to zero engagement that – while enjoying a high influence score – would be rendered useless when it came to being an influencer to partner with in a social media campaign.

This is where the context argument plays its hand. By definition, context is:

… the interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs.

By that definition, it’s the very thing that influence looks to do. By connecting the right people with the right brand, and sharing the right message to the right audience, the results should be favourable every time.

If the context of the message is right, and the relationship between the person and the product the message is promoting fits, then there is an immediate “belief” in the message being more than just a sales promotion.

Find the context, and the pieces of the influence bubble begin to come together.

Relevance and Readiness

If context is important, relevance is equally so (if not more so). You may trust the person/influencer sharing a brand’s message with you; you may even be the perfect audience (based on demographics and research) for that message and that product at that given time.

Until you hit the relevance angle.

Are you really in the market for this new product right now?
Are you financially available to be the customer?
Has your situation or taste changed since you last bought a product from this brand?
Are there external issues at play here?

The relevance to how ripe you are as customer is something that no influencer can bypass, no matter how much you trust them, or trust the message.

It’s why the social influence market is only just beginning to grow and mature. Activity may be an early barometer of someone’s potential to a brand and its audience – but there are far more pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to add.

Context, relevance and readiness are three – but even they’re just the start.

To truly mature the social influence – and, by association, the influencer – market, we need to remember how many aspects there were to Dale Carnegie’s seminal book and how they all had to be aligned to work their magic.

Then we can really start to move the social influence needle.