Community Power in Social Media Crisis

It is with both sadness and joy that I write this blog. Sadness because a favored client has had to shut down suddenly under difficult circumstances leaving many people in confusion and uncertainty and joy because I have seen the community created around this client come together with amazing strength and grace to support each other.

As one of the first social media experts I have found myself in the mix of many social media crisis situations. By nature of the term "crisis" they are not pleasant. But they can, if managed well, be an opportunity to show the true strength and power of social network communities and result in positive outcomes.

I watched these events unfold over the last days and was frustrated by the traditional media and their lack of help. Officials and commentators provided rehearsed statements, finger pointing and platitudes without opportunity for question provided little help. It was online that solutions were found and people found the support they needed.

This current "crisis" is about Planet Yoga, a yoga studio that had been operating in Hong Kong for over 7 years. Over that time they had developed a long list of members past and present. When we started working with Planet Yoga they had virtually no online presence. We built up a strong Facebook community of over 7000 fans that allowed their ardent yoga members a place to communicate and share outside of the studio. During the creation of the community we had no idea of the full value of this community.


Shock:

On May 13th at midnight Planet Yoga closed their doors abruptly and without prior public notice inline with rules of liquidation. Legally Planet Yoga needed to stop all communication and use the liquidation company for all further communication. However, a channel still existed that could be left open for their members to access information; Facebook.


Realization:

Facebook quickly became the focal point for the Planet Yoga members to share emotions and information. Another Facebook page was opened but it did not gain the momentum that the original page had.


Anger:

Hundreds of members offered support and consolation and expressed frustration and anger in many messages. But what was most compelling was the strong sense of community and the quick transformation of the page to a place to share and test information.

Members quickly assembled information and made it available. They set up emails and hot lines and organised off line meetings. The information found out by one was quickly shared to all making the process of finding solutions much more efficient. I watched this transformation happen quickly. In less than a day members had worked through issues and created great momentum in finding truths and support.

Solution:

Traditional media will have a place in our lives for a long time to come. I personally hope it remains, as it provides a "stake in the ground" from which to measure other efforts. But it is clear that social media is where people increasingly turn to find the truth.


Much success,

Doug

Consumers lead and business follows

With the exponential growth of social sites and the empowerment of individuals to create their own “15 minutes of fame” in the digital realm it is no wonder that businesses are starting to recognize the potential. Almost a year and a half ago I started writing blogs about this trend and at the time I was continuously puzzled by the lack of enthusiasm by business for this unprecedented opportunity. I thought that this was miraculous. You had your customers in a single place (social site), telling each other what they liked and willing to listen to what others had to say. It seemed like a marketing dream. Well business is finally catching on, if a bit late.

In our office we always knew that when business decided to jump on the band wagon it would be a huge and dramatic shift. Well it is happening and it surpassed even our expectations. Recent industry studies provide some startling, if not exciting, statistics:

• Chief Marketing Officers in Asia and North America rate Social Networks, video and video sharing as their top priorities
• 88% of marketers are currently using Social Media in some capacity
• Over 90% of business owners are using Social Media

This begs the question; why are business owners more likely than marketers to be using social networks and media?

I think the answer to that lies in the nature of social networks and the democratic quality they afford. In social networks the consumer is king and each has a more or less equal voice. Where once tools of marketing were limited to those with skills or money this is no longer true. Anyone can use Facebook (over 200 million members) or YouTube and a camcorder. With these resources available, even small business can create masterful marketing campaigns with modest budgets and ability to reach clients with little concern for normally typical restrictions such as geographic location. Of course managing an effective campaign is always best handled by professionals so kids don’t try this at home, ha ha.

In summary what is known is that business is now catching up with consumers in social networks and media. Because of the ease of use, consumer control and democratic functioning of social networks and media, small to medium business are achieving good success in utilising these resources and this is clearly seen in the industry statistics.

Was Jesus the first Social Network Marketer?

I watched a documentary the other night on the life of Jesus. Not being a particularly religious person, most of the relevance to it being Easter weekend slipped past me. But, being the founder of a social media agency many of the aspects of his methods used to spread his teachings resonated deeply. 

According to this documentary Jesus was a common man that tailored his teachings so they had relevance to his audience. He made sure that he incorporated common language and examples that people could relate too. He also was well rehearsed making sure that his messages were consistent over time but changing some key words and examples to fit the particular audience. Additionally, he packaged his teachings so they were easily understood and repeatable. Lastly, he was mobile. According to this documentary, Jesus did something quite uncommon for the time; he traveled.  He traveled from town to town repeating his message consistently. This is word of mouth marketing. If you tell one person and they tell two people and they tell two more then eventually you can reach critical mass with your message and it will self propagate.  

What are some of the key elements of a good social network campaign:

1. Relevance -- keep the message relevant to your audience
2. Consistency -- keep the message consistent so as not to dilute it or create confusion
3. Sharing -- make sure that your message is packaged so that it is easy for people to share
4. Seeding -- put the message out in as many relevant places as possible to ensure it will be seen or heard

As mentioned in the beginning of this post, I am not suggesting I know anything about Jesus beyond this documentary, but I could not miss the parallels to social networking. Word of mouth is a powerful tool and when done well it can be quite extraordinary in its abilities. Jesus may have been one of the first to understand this.

What your online media seller doesn't want you to know

Prosperity Research has launched many campaigns for customer utilising the editorial spaces on social networks. We have proven that we can reach a vast demographic, capture the front page of search engines and do it in an honest and meaningful way without the use of ppc or display ads. Read on to learn what your media seller does not want you to know.

Social Networks are the fastest growing space on the Internet and arguably the fastest growing space for information and entertainment. With this has come an avalanche of advertisers and marketers (online media sellers) to take advantage of its popularity. Unfortunately they came with the same old bag of tricks. What they don't want you to know is that the old bag of tricks is . . . well, old. To tap into Social Networks it is critical to understand the dynamics of why they are the corner stone of the the greatest communications revolution since movable type. It is simply, people talking to people on a one to one level. It is this dialogue between individuals, not business to customer that is the difference.

Knowing that it is the conversations BETWEEN people in social spaces is what drives both the generation of content and the explosive growth rate of these spaces. This dynamic defines how it is possible to get vastly better results without relying on ppc or Display advertising.

What to do? Become part of the conversation!

• Create interesting and engaging content that is relevant to your customers
• Establish conversations with your customers
• Be interested in their opinions and respond to them
• Establish a presence for the long term to build relationships, trust and loyalty
  Keep your content current and evolving. Like in real life relationships it is about continuously growing

Using these techniques will not guarantee results, but it will provide you an effective and more cost efficient means of reaching your customers. It will also allow you to establish loyalty with your customers that can not be attained with ppc and banner ads.

It is time to become part of the conversation before you get left out.

Data Driven: Stocks down, video up, online ad spend up, social sites up

As the financial crisis worsens more and more businesses are turning to online advertising for better ROI. They are especially finding the use of video and social networks to be the most beneficial. Print media is taking a hit and TVC is losing ground. The budget tightening requires more precise targeting, higher conversion and visible metrics that traditional marketing channels do not provide.

Online Video Ads Are a Good Bet in a Recession - ClickZ via kwout

Internet Ad Revenue Up 15.2% in First Half of 2008 via kwout

Consumers Await on Social Networks - eMarketer via kwout