Archive for the ‘trends’ Category

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Three Forces Driving Social Customer Support

11.04.13

We’ve discussed, many times, the importance of the ongoing trend towards the integration of various communications forms in social media – the fact that you can’t just put “social” in a bubble and expect it to perform without support from other media. Awareness of this is slowly growing as social media activities mature within organizations

In the same vein, this maturity will soon manifest in increased integration between business functions. Chief among them will be a growing realization that customer support is a key communications function online.

Marketing and public relations departments have taken the spotlight for many people (setting aside the Dells, Comcasts and Zapposes (fine, whatever, you try pluralizing Zappos) of the world).

Over the next couple of years, as we continue to see companies invest more and more into social media activities, we’re going to see three forces driving the adoption of social customer support – case studies; customer demand and crises.

Force #1: Watching other companies succeed at social support

The Dells and Comcasts have set the bar high, but we’re seeing a proliferation of companies supporting customers effectively through social media.

Rogers (a client of mine in my last job) engaged over 20,000 times with customers through a variety of social channels last year, and is able to measure the results of this engagement.  Freshbooks has built an army of advocates through its personable and responsive support team.

There are many other examples, and companies will increasingly look to replicate that success.

Force #2: Consumers demanding social support

While public relations drove an initial wave of social media adoption, and while ad agencies are getting into the game too, their activities will continue to inadvertently shine a spotlight on the need for online support.

Why?

Because they’re using two-way channels. And when you’re using two-way channels, people talk back… not just about what you want to talk about, but about what they want to talk about.

Nestle found this out the hard way, as did Etsy late last year (BTW, Etsy, removing posts “for negativity” is not a good issues management strategy).

So, the more companies engage in two-way channels (even if they want them to be one-way), the more people will demand responsiveness and interaction from those companies.

Force #3: Increased frequency of online issues

The Etsy case is just one example of an issue that blew up online and escalated into traditional media. I continue to see more and more, which leads to the third force driving social support – the desire to avoid becoming a crisis communications case study.

By listening and responding to issues online, companies can nip those issues in the bud. It’s important to remember, though, that if you want your online support to help you avoid issues then (a) you can’t pick and choose which issues you respond to (although there are a variety of ways to avoid having to respond to each and every person 1:1 – more on this tomorrow) and (b) if you don’t fix issues that people identify then listening isn’t enough.

So, there you have it – three forces that are driving the adoption of social customer support. Do you agree? Do you see other forces also at play? Let me know what you think in the comments.

Posted in: customer service, social media, trends

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20 Social Media Trends for Business in 2011

11.01.27

20 Social Media Business Trends in 2011
View more presentations from Dave Fleet.

One of the great things about working in the digital space right now is observing the many changes constantly occurring. This week, I had an opportunity to pull together some of the key social media trends I’m seeing for a presentation at an event in Waterloo.

Some of these trends are existing and ongoing; others are new. Some are practical; others are theoretical. Some are almost guaranteed; others may amount to momentary blips. Some ideas come from my head; others were curated by my colleagues Steve Rubel and David Armano.

Hopefully one or two of them will spark ideas for you.

I grouped the trends into five themes:

  1. Silo-busting
    • Trend #1: Integration
    • Trend #2: Social customer support
    • Trend #3: Social impact drives reputation
  2. Maturation of social media
    • Trend #4: Death of the campaign
    • Trend #5: Consolidation
    • Trend #6: ”Influence” matures
    • Trend #7: Democratization of voice
    • Trend #8: Return of websites
  3. Rise of the ‘less shiny object’
    • Trend #9: Digitally driven crises
    • Trend #10: Digital curation
    • Trend #11: Strategic search
    • Trend #12: Community management
    • Trend #13: Developer engagement
    • Trend #14: Measurement matures
    • Trend #15: Rise of the content strategist
  4. Communication accelerates
    • Trend #16: Listening becomes mandatory
    • Trend #17: Marketing in streams
    • Trend #18: Social media overload
  5. Ubiquitous mobile
    • Trend #19: Ubiquitous social
    • Trend #20: Location, location, Facebook

Bet you could add to this list. What do you think I’ve missed?

Posted in: social media, trends

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Video: Dave Fleet On Communications Trends And Joining Edelman

10.10.12

Many of you know that about six weeks ago I joined Edelman‘s Digital team. Soon after, I sat down with my new boss, Sylvain Perron – to chat about my career path so far, my thoughts on some key communications trends and the reason I made the move to Edelman.

What do you think – are the communications trends I’m seeing on-the-mark?

(Note: This video is also posted on the Edelman Digital site)

Posted in: career, communications, trends

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The Huge Potential Of Location-Based Apps

09.11.10

Screenshot from Google Maps application on BlackberryThe growth of smart phones – from a consumer perspective, the iPhone in particular but also Blackberries – has really driven mobile apps into the limelight at a faster rate than almost any technology out there recently.

Over the last couple of years, and especially the last few months, we’ve seen mobile applications vault more and more into the mainstream. We’re at the point now where many people don’t think twice about downloading the latest Facebook, Google Maps or gaming application to use on their mobile device – any more than they would about downloading something to their desktop.

Mobile apps even appearing for business functions now (beyond regular email) – email campaign service Constant Contact launched an iPhone app yesterday to let people check in on their email campaigns, for example.

(Caveat: Of course, many people aren’t there yet. I know plenty of people whose phones don’t even have bluetooth, let alone data plans)

So, if mobile apps are becoming a current “big thing,” what’s next?

My take: local.

Keeping it local

While as sites like Yelp have leveraged user reviews at a local level, the best mobile apps over the next couple of years will pair GPS, cell tower or manually-set location information with contextual content.

Consider FourSquare. I started playing around with FourSquare fairly recently. Essentially, it’s a social network that lets you tell your contacts where you are right now. There are a bunch of other game-playing features wrapped around it, but it’s basically a location-based social network.

Think for a minute about the potential simple extensions to a network like this:

  • Know when your friends are in the same neighbourhood as you
  • Receive special offers from businesses in the area (check in at a subway station and get a $10-off coupon for a nearby restaurant, for example)
  • Ensure ads are targeted to only come from businesses in the neighbourhoods you frequent, or even the kinds of places you visit

Take that kind of thinking and consider the optional extensions to your favourite apps. I might like to know which nearby restaurants my Facebook friends have eaten at. I might want to be notified about breaking news from near my location, whereas I might have to proactively check a news app to get other news.

Of course, this doesn’t apply to every application. I won’t go as far as Kate Imbach and suggest that you care what your neighbours are eating, but there are plenty of extremely interesting applications even for recipe-based sites (perhaps showing you which stores in your area stock the ingredients you need).

Stop and think for a moment – could your company or your clients be working location-based applications into their marketing mix?

What do you think?

(Additional: I’m on the look-out for good books on mobile marketing, especially those considering topics like this. If you know of any, let me know in the comments!)

Posted in: marketing, trends

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Five Communications Implications As Twitter Enters The Trough Of Disillusionment

09.08.13

gartner_hype_cycle09Earlier this week, Gartner released its latest Hype Cycle report showing the state of various technology trends.

Some of the trends on the rise at various stages of the cycle include augmented reality, Internet TV, Web 2.0 and corporate blogging.

One noticeable point, however: microblogging is about to cross into the trough of disillusionment. Of course, the dominant player in this field is Twitter.

Twitter is social media’s golden child right now. Recently, Twitter has sat at what Gartner calls the “peak of inflated expectations”:

“…a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations”

It’s hard to argue that Twitter hasn’t been over-hyped recently. We’re about to see that change. The next phase is characterised as:

“Technologies enter the “trough of disillusionment” because they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and the technology.”

What does thais mean from a communicator’s perspective? Here are five potential effects of Twitter’s transition into the trough of disillusionment:

  • Less breathless media coverage: corporate Twitter use won’t be enough to generate media coverage
  • Less snake oil: the field will thin as the opportunistic snake-oil salesmen move on to the next shiny tool
  • Maturing use by companies: smart communicators already know that Twitter isn’t a social media strategy unto itself. Twitter will become less of a focus of campaigns and more of an integrated tactic. In more cases we’ll see companies decide that this isn’t the right tactic for them
  • Maturing expectations of users: we’ve seen the growth of somewhat unrealistic expectations in terms of response levels and times by organizations. This should lessen, making issues management more… manageable
  • Increased focus on measurement: as Twitter moves into the trough, it will become all the more important to measure effectively and for communicators to tie Twitter use to business results and metrics

Make sense to you? What do you think?

Posted in: trends, Twitter

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Forget The Statusphere. How About The Egosystem?

09.05.06

Earlier this year Brian Solis commented on the trend of people moving from participation on blogs to engagement through micromedia tools like Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook and so on. The next day he posted a piece on TechCrunch:

With the popularity and pervasiveness of microblogging (a.k.a. micromedia) and activity streams and timelines, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed and the like are competing for your attention and building a community around the statusphere – the state of publishing, reading, responding to, and sharing micro-sized updates.

He’s right. More and more people, especially in social media circles, seem to be shifting their conversations away from long-form blog content and towards tools like Twitter. They still read blogs, but more and more conversations happen in the cloud, not on destination sites. That’s why tools like BackType Connect are so helpful.

Until recently these tools have been populated largely by early-adopting, progressive types who are open to new ways of doing things. However, that’s evolving. Unlike some, I welcome the mainstream adoption. However, in the last six months we’ve seen a shift towards people applying the same old tactics (the ones that have led many people to loathe public relations and marketers) to these new tools.

As micromedia platforms grow in popularity, their ease of use and the ease with which they can be “gamed” has led to people playing the “follower” game, racking-up huge numbers of followers over a very short period of time. Sometimes it’s done through fame and personality (Oprah and Kutcher, anyone?); other times, often by black-hat marketers, through a more insidious tactic of rapid follower-gaining.

shout megaphoneOne common thread with many of these new people, whether celebrities or otherwise, is their use of these two-way tools as a one-way broadcast mechanism. These tools, whether they’re blogs, Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn or any other popular application, are just numbers games to these people, letting them shout ever louder and leading some smart people to wonder whether social media is losing the “social” part.

Forget the “statusphere.” We’re entering an egosystem where the masses judge value by the size of someone’s following and the volume of their voice, not the value of what they say. It’s a path back towards the mass media model – the one-way broadcast model that drove people to these new tools in the first place. It’s a dangerous path, and one that’s difficult to avoid as those with the loudest voices are the ones calling to entrench it.

Is this a ubiquitous trend? No. Some people develop followings through the value of their content. They’re at the peak of the pyramid, though, and as with any such peak they are but a few.

Fortunately, you have the power to control your own experiences in social media. So, if the egosystem turns you off as much as it does for me, you can avoid it. How?

  • Stop equating follower numbers, friends, etc with authority. Smart people, like Seth Godin, long ago started to shift away from looking at how many listen to you. Start thinking about who listens.
  • Consider two-way interaction as a major criteria when deciding who to listen to.
  • Offer advice to newbies who you see going astray. Some may adjust their approach. For those who don’t listen:
    • Unfriend those from whom you derive no value. Life’s too short to waste your time with them.
  • Set an example. Use Twitter the way you would like others to.

 

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have you noticed this trend? Does it concern you?

Posted in: social media, trends

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New Research Provides A Social Media Reality Check

09.04.07

CNW Group and Leger Marketing today announced the results of new research into social media use in Canada (disclosure: CNW Group is a client).

The research provides a useful insight into social media trends along with some of the challenges that social media faces, but also sheds an interesting light on the differing perspectives between practitioners and regular social media users.

The top-level results are available online now. The full results will be released in a webinar on April 29 (register through the site).

Some key findings:

  • 49 per cent of social media users use social media at least once per day
  • 31 per cent of users agree that social media is more credible than advertising
  • 61 per cent are researching products to purchase
  • 36 per cent depend on social media to help them with purchase decisions
  • 40 per cent are “talking” to or learning from specific organizations
  • About one-quarter of users feel better about an organization that is engaged in social media
  • 89 per cent of users say they use social media the same or more than they did last year.

Once you dig down into these top-level facts, though, it gets more interesting.

User/Practitioner Gap

Social media is highly influenced by practitioners. For example, 19 per cent of social media users say their opinions are influenced by social media outlets, while 53 per cent of practitioners said the same – a significant difference. Similar, though smaller, differences show through in responses to other questions.

The implication of this is that practitioners often think that other people find social media to be more credible than they do in reality. 

There’s a gap between social media practitioners’ perceptions and those of users. However, given the time that social media has been around, the proportion that are influenced by social media is a good start.

Measurement is uncommon

Practitioners are generally only using broad objectives – there is a lot of room for improvement.

As well, few practitioners using social media tools are measuring what they do, and even fewer are going beyond looking at traffic. Interestingly, few managers are asking for this at this point. You can differentiate yourself by proactively digging deeper.

Room for improvement

While practitioners have a higher awareness of social media and its uses, they still think they, and organizations could use it better.

  • Few practitioners have a dedicated budget for social media
  • Few are monitoring social media (which astonishes me – I see it as a foundational piece for social media engagement)
  • Few practitioners are using social media for community building – most use it for marketing (although the lines blur in my eyes

Interesting stuff.

Which points stand out for you?

Posted in: social media, trends

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Blogging vs. Twitter – Commitment and Effort – Another Perspective

09.02.04

I recently received an excellent comment on my recent post Blogging vs. Twitter: A Different Kind of Commitment from Doc Kane (@dockane on Twitter), principal of Chicago-based Roscommon – a marketing, communications and PR professional writing services agency. Thoughtful and insightful, I thought it really drove the discussion forward.

His view: the difference between blogging and Twitter isn’t commitment, it’s effort.

With Doc’s permission, I’m re-publishing his comment here, as a post, for your input. What do you think?

I think there are a few simple reasons why we’re seeing businesses jump into Twitter much more readily than they have blogging, and in my opinion, those reasons are mainly related to the effort required to create a blog; a lack of management’s awareness about how to create and maintain one; and the simplicity and effectiveness of Twitter as a communications tool.  Unlike many other forms of new technology, one does not need to be a tech whiz to get up and running on Twitter – and this is a huge advantage over blogging.

Blogs are a lot of work.  To really pull it off consistently one has to have a strategy, enough content to write consistently AND the desire to even do it. But before even starting with a blog, blogging itself needs to first be recognized as valuable by upper management (which I think is still not even close to being a reality), controllable by middle management (in terms of helping/guiding the company blogger) and executable by staff willing/able to do it. And this, I think is where everything stalls. . .before it ever even gets started. . .

In my opinion, the perceived TIME it takes to create a blog isn’t a factor…it’s the EFFORT.

A blog requires major planning and concept development on the part of the writer. So the immediate perception of blogging then, isn’t. . “Ugh, this is going to be time-consuming” (ALL work is time-consuming). . .it’s “Ugh, this is going to take a lot of EFFORT”.  And effort here, is the key. This is particularly true of course, when the assignment to create a blog falls on an employee who could really care less about what they’re writing about.  Trying to be passionate about a company or product that’s not your own, or that you’re not completely in love with, is not easy for any salaried writer/marketer/comms person.  Where you see the difference is with blogs written by consultants and business owners.  The reason is because they have a passion for, and a vested interest in, getting the word out.  They have to blog even if it takes a lot of effort! The salaried writer hardly shares that same spirit or necessity.

So essentially, it becomes a big pain in the butt for everyone involved, making it easier to just shelve the idea until it becomes “necessary”. . .or something comes along that’s simpler:  like Twitter.

When people ask me to explain to them what Twitter is, I tell them it’s like “public texting.”  They get it right away. Okay, so now imagine you’re a manager, and you tell your colleague you want them to hang out on Twitter for a while and text people.  Do you think they’ll be more open to that than all the work that comes with creating a blog post?  You bet. One can sit down and rattle off Tweets to different people machine-gun style, one after another, without much thought. . .or at least until they really get strapped for characters, or are trying paste a link, etc. Not so with a blog:  think, write, edit, give to boss, re-edit, post in CMS, catch typo, re-edit, etc.

Then factor in the time to train, and the software and IT costs, and you’re looking a behemoth of a project just to have an employee create what many still think is a series of ego pieces.  Blogging’s early function as public diaries for quirky personalities still haunts the platform to this day. CEOs don’t dig public diaries.  Especially when they’re public companies.

So, in my opinion. . .it’s the hassle-factor and a lack of knowledge, not the time-factor that keeps the blogging at bay.  Video/Podcasting?  Good luck.  Ask someone to upload a video to any video sharing service and they’ll look at you like you’re nuts!

Isn’t that something IT does?????

Posted in: blogging, trends, Twitter

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Blogging vs. Twitter: A Different Kind of Commitment

09.02.02

Talking with Michael O’Connor Clarke the other day, we both commented on a trend we’ve both observed recently:

Corporations seem to be much more willing to sign-up for Twitter than they are to set up blogs.

We’re seeing companies big and small signing up for Twitter; from Ford, General Motors, Southwest Airlines and Dell to smaller companies like Natura Mattresses and Freshbooks (check out this list of organizations on Twitter).

This isn’t always intuitive. While some companies see the inherent value and potential in communicating directly with their customers, many others are are afraid of it. It’s unpredictable, it’s often not on the topics that you want to talk about and, well, it’s something new for many organizations. So, something must be making the difference.

Of course, we have to remember that social media as a genre of tools is much more advanced, high-profile and, to an extent, accepted than it was a few years ago when blogging first broke. However, that hasn’t helped podcasting become mainstream news the way that Twitter has over the last few months.

Is something else making the difference?

Commitment

Is Twitter less of a time commitment than blogging?

As with so many things, it depends.

If you, or your organization, uses Twitter extensively, it may not be less of a time commitment than blogging. However, it certainly is a different type of commitment.

Writing a blog post takes a solid block of time – you need to set aside anywhere from 20 minutes to a couple of hours for the process, depending on the kind of post you’re writing. Many of my posts here take upwards of 90 minutes to pull together. That can turn blogging into a big black hole for your time.

Twitter is a different kind of commitment. Each post takes just little time. That can give Twitter the appearance of requiring much less of a commitment than writing a “traditional” blog.

In reality that’s not necessarily the case. Many people post multiple times per day. What’s more, as a company representative on Twitter, you need to put a little more thought into what you write. That can make it just as time consuming over the course of a day as blogging. 

Still, is the perception that Twitter takes less of a time commitment leading to companies engaging more readily through it?

What’s your take?

Posted in: blogging, trends, Twitter

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Survey Sheds Light On Canadians’ Views Towards Social Media

08.12.10

A new survey released today shows that Canadian business leaders plan to invest more in social media in 2009, while increasing numbers of Canadians see social media tools as important for learning about products, services, organizations and brands.

Increased social media spend planned by marketers

The second annual Social Media Barometer survey, conducted by Pollara and com.motion, shows that 82 per cent of the Canadian business and marketing leaders who responded plan to spend as much or more on social media in 2009 compared to this year. That’s up from 51 per cent in the 2007 survey. Also, more than three quarters indicated that senior management supports greater investment in social media.

Interestingly, the only other communications discipline that showed a net increase in planned spending in 2009 was public relations, while banner, newspaper, radio, TV and magazine advertising show over a quarter of respondents plan to decrease spending in those disciplines.

Trends in marketers' planned media spend for 2009

This may be due, in some small part, to the other significant trend revealed by the survey…

Social media seen as more credible

The survey also gives some interesting insights into Canadian respondents’ use of social media.

While Facebook unsurprisingly rears its head as the top social network for Canadians (with 87 per cent of social media users having tried it), the survey showed that 13 per cent of social media users have tried Twitter.

One result that is surprising, though, is that the same proportion of respondents (65 per cent) rated social media tools as important for learning about products, services, organizations and brands as rated them important for developing relationships. Interestingly, in 2007 more people viewed social media as important for products than for relationships (59 per cent compared to 52 per cent).

Methodology concerns

With all that said, I need to offer a caveat around the methodology used for the survey.

This survey – on social media – was conducted online, which is akin to asking Democrats how they voted. It’s hardly surprising that people who responded to an online survey indicated they think online tools are important.

I would love to see this addressed in future surveys – as things stand the credibility and applicability of the results is reduced by the methodology. While the trends revealed here are useful, and the survey offers a useful insight into the views of online consumers, as it stands the results aren’t really translatable to Canadian consumers as a whole.

What do you think about the trends highlighted by the survey?

(Disclosure: com.motion and its parent company Veritas Communciations are competitors of my employer Thornley Fallis. Thanks to Keith McArthur for the information on the survey)

Posted in: social media, trends

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