Corporate comms and public affairs should be part of the same parcel

I came across an article on Euractiv which I’d missed earlier this summer entitled Business warned against ‘uncoordinated’ PA strategies which makes interesting reading. In short, it states that aggressive communications can put companies at risk and that Public Affairs and Corporate Communications strategies should be more closely aligned.

I could not agree with the latter more (or the former for that matter, but I’ll save that topic for a rainy day.) I’d probably even take it a step further. I think all communications activities, including marketing, should be under the same roof and closely integrated. Maybe I’m oversimplifying, but how can a legislator take a lobbyist seriously if he’s saying one thing while an EU media campaign is saying another and the ad in a trade magazine aimed at customers something else?

The web also makes integration more crucial than it’s been before. How? In particular, the nature of search (how +90% of information is accessed online) is such that it’s harder to compartmentalise according to target audiences online than it is offline. Look up a key term on Google and you’ll find the same thing wherever you’re a customer or policy-maker, pauper or CEO.

So what’ll the landscape look like in a few years? Even more so than is the case in forward-thinking organisations today, communications, be it PR, marketing, PA, advertising and so on, will be in the same building, have one boss and one strategy; and what’s more, they’ll be more closely connected to the “business” operations arm of the organisation than is the case today.

Communities require plenty of work, I’m afraid

In the four pillars I’ve been raving about recently, I speak of an almost “organic” growth towards a community if you have the right building blocks in place and do the right things. Meaning that if you listen and bring together information, start using social media effectively, enabling stakeholder dialogue, this can eventually develop into a community of people who act as mobilisers on your behalf.

Abstract example of how the model should ideally work:

• My organisation does wonderful things but nobody knows.
• I start finding out what people are talking about in my sector or on my issue and who might be interested in the things I do. I bring them together.
• I start engaging with them online, humbly, and they like me and get excited about what I do because they feel I have something to offer.
• More people are brought in; they talk and engage.
• Eventually, I have a community of people excited about what I do who help me spread my message, attract members or maybe even advocate my take on an issue.

However, this is the point at which I want to announce my warning: it’s really not that easy; your community will not be totally self-sustaining. Maybe it won’t need you, but fact of the matter is that you need someone to “feed” the community. Even community benchmarks from across the field from say Ben and Jerry’s Facebook group to Barack Obama’s online platform worked because people engaged and spread the word, but they both needed people from the campaigns themselves to listen, respond, feed information, and generally animate. Again, it needn’t be you; it just needs to be someone who takes charge. On Firefighternation (one of my personal favourites) it’s active firefighters who are not necesarrily the founders who have taken the lead in animating their community.

Replicating the marketing journey in issues communication

In marketing, companies have made the journey from being brand-focused, to now being ever more consumer-centric (didn’t make this up; I heard it as recently as this morning in a podcast with Saacthi CEO Kevin Roberts.) In practice, companies are increasingly looking to create outstanding products and services that are easy to use or that match the most intricate customer needs. By doing so, they can instill in their customers a sense of loyalty which a branding approach alone could not achieve. Consumers are more cynical now; creating a fantastic brand which conjures up abstract images (I too can be the Marlboro Man if I smoke Marlboro reds) won’t work on its own anymore.

Don’t get me wrong. Branding still matters. But people expect the world, and no amount of smart branding can prevent a non-customer-centric company from appearing distant or to fail to meet the “what’s in for me/does it really do everything I could possibly want” tests.

Can we transfer this thinking to the world of issues, where companies and other organisations don’t try to sell directly but are looking to influence the general public and other stakeholders in order to showcase their activities in a positive light?

Certainly. Organisations need to be customer-centric on two fronts now: in terms of the tangible goods and services they produce, as described above, but also by matching customers’ demands for organisations to do good things and for their goods and services to be more sustainable. They reward companies that are doing their bit for their communities or the wider environment; to the expense of companies that aren’t although they might make fancier shoes (or whatever.) What’s more, this trend is accelerating, and customers are also citizens whose whims legislators are responding to at a fast growing rate.

So what should you do to remain customer/citizen-centric on both fronts? For a start, do the right thing, full stop (or start heading in the right direction.) No amount of smart PR (or branding..) will make you seem nice when you”re really not. Modern-day customers are too smart and cynical. Next, communicate on the customer’s turf rather than where you can make a big splash. Go where customers and citizens themselves are, listen to their concerns and respond to them. Meaning that you may need to spend more time looking at iPhone apps, Facebook, Twitter et al than getting into your paper of choice or getting on a billboard at the airport.

Countering fragmentation in Brussels by integrating and aggregating

There’s too much fragmentation going on in Brussels. First there’s internal fragmentation of communications within organisations. Marketing are doing this, product guys doing that, issue specialists saying X, PR saying Y. Surely companies need to be better integrated. In particular, marketing and PA especially need to be telling the same story far more. Why? Because selling to consumers and legislators is a lot more similar than it was a few years ago. Marketing back then would have said: we’re cheaper and/or we’re better. PA would have said: we’re providing jobs and innovation. Now? They’re still saying that, but they’re both also saying “our company is a model citizen because of X, Y, and Z” and in this respect, there needs to be a lot more collaboration.

Beyond that, there’s what I’d call external fragmentation on issues, which is totally different, but is still about fragmentation, so I’ll put it in the same post. Call me lazy. What do I mean? That when looking at an issue for a client or prospect, everyone is always struck by the mess: multiple players at national level and pan-European level, public and private entities, associations and pressure groups, old media and bloggers. Even within the Commission say, DGs can have totally different priorities on an issue. People are talking about pharma this week: it’s now largely under DG Enterprise, but DG Sanco want it because surely Pharma is about health, they say. Whatever the outcome, fact of the matter is that their approach would be quite different.

In communications terms, what this fragmentation of players results is in turn a fragmentation of content and story which frankly makes an issue appear far more complex than you as an organisation want it to be. It’s hard to thrive within complexity because your story is one of a thousand; legislators might not have the time, the nous nor the willingness to really understand it well.

So what should you do about it? You create your own story that is tangible and relatively easy to digest of course. In addition, and more importantly, you should be the one player that makes sense of the fragmented landscape, and you can do it online. How? You become your issue’s portal by aggregating and hyperlinking content from all stakeholders in one online HQ available on your site – whether they’re private, public, competitors, pressure groups, media or bloggers.

What’s the point?

• You’re doing people a favour by making things easier. They’ll appreciate it.
• Making things easier will also enable people to understand your take on an issue more clearly, as well as understand it within the context of other stakeholders.
• The base assumption is that your argument is valid and that most of the content you bring in backs up your story. Assuming that’s the case, the outside content you bring in will give you the 3rd party credibility you crave.
• Becoming the focal point for web content will enable you to own the discussion online, naturally making you a key stakeholder rather than just one of many. Search comes into it too. By becoming an online hub, others will link to you and you’ll get better a search ranking on your key issues.
• You’ll showcase both sides of the argument (again, assuming your side is strong) and thus prove that you’re a fair and open player.
• You’ll have taken step one of the the four-step approach to online engagement. I’ll be building on this in the coming weeks, so watch this space.

Another case for your own social network

I wrote a post a few months ago stating, in short, that a dedicated social network may be worthwhile if your candidate, cause, company, profession, sector etc. is fairly unique and has a very dedicated band of followers looking to engage and/or be mobilised: “If you’re interested in something that can really get lots of people fired up (politics, saving wildlife, football) or, say, represent a very active political group or faction, then your own social network could work, if executed and promoted well.” I cited Barack Obama supporters and US firefighters as good examples of groups that wanted and made use of their own networks.

This all still rings true, but a few posts on Beth’s Blog have given me food for thought (see here and here.) To the list of people who would most likely make use of a good social network of their own, I’d add people who are dealing with a personal or family issue of a sensitive nature, say a medical condition or tragedy of sorts. They are likely to be very eager to communicate and engage with others who are facing similar experiences, as I can imagine that it must provide people with some semblance of comfort to interact with others out there who know exactly what they are going through. And to do so on a dedicated platform is more appropriate than, say, a Facebook Group, as it allows users to have the sense of privacy they’d likely demand when dealing with issues of a sensitive nature.

Under no circumstances am I suggesting that marketers should try tap into this market, although pharmaceutical companies could perhaps have a say – as long as they don’t blatantly plug their products. It’s probably an area best left to government agencies and especially non-profits (again, I’d refer to Beth’s blog as a good source for further material on this.)

Social media and customer service: take 2 – crisis communications, educating, engaging

Just re-read my last post, and wanted to expand on it slightly, because I think I make it appear as if the main value in “listening” online is to enable you to respond and engage with users who don’t like your company, product or sector and in this way help shape the online debate in the long-term.

First, it’s not always just the long-term that matters. Something goes terribly wrong, you’ve got a PR calamity on your hands, you’re in crisis communications mode and your online response needs to be very much short-term because the web is where bad news spreads the fastest. What do you do? These are, in short, the steps to take:

1. You establish your position and what you’re going to say (this is valid for offline as well as online communications.) If you’ve done something where you’re patently in the wrong, admit to it, apologise, and take very tangible action to make amends. If the bad press is actually unrepresentative and you simply want to correct it, try to be nice about it i.e. don’t say that whoever is spreading the news is a so and so, but just correct the mistake.
2. You set-up an online hub on your website where you publish your apology, rebuttal, immediate response or whatever. All updates should be made here first and all your other communication should point here.
3. You get the best online monitoring set-up (using a specialised agency) and set up a dedicated team that will deal with follow-up.
4. When you come across the story in reputable blogs or other sites, fora etc., you respond (being humble and staying on message..) and direct users to your hub. Result? If done well, you’ll slow down the spread of negative press while your response becomes part of the story, rather than just what went wrong.

Second, it’s not just about engaging with naysayers. You want to produce content that educates people beyond the negative press you’re getting, meaning that you don’t just communicate in response to criticism. You also need to proactively produce content that can contribute to the debate. And you want to engage with people who actually support your position too: tell them you appreciate their material and provide them with other content, and over time, build up relationships with them. This is probably the most important element of a long-term approach, as you’re helping to nurture a community of ambassadors who support your position.

UPDATE: just came across this post about online crisis communications (in French.)

Social media and customer service: would it work with issues?

I’ve been reading about how social media is transforming customer service for a while now (came across this article on Econsultancy about this very topic today) and am wondering to what extent the same approach is viable when it comes to regulatory issues and the like in Brussels.

Here’s the gist of how social media has been impacting customer service:

1. Disgruntled customer complains about a company’s product on Twitter (or whatever.)
2. Company has a social media monitoring set-up and picks it up.
3. Company responds to customer in blog comment, directly, on Twitter etc. in calm and measured way, apologising and offering a solution of some sort.
4. Customer is happy, says so, others who have followed conversation are impressed.

Is this a lot of work on just one customer? It might not have been in the past because people’s word of mouth networks were limited, but now, individuals can potentially reach millions of other online users, so listening and responding to single customers can have a massive positive knock-on effect. A company that is seen to be engaging and looking out for its customers becomes highly valued and the story can spread online. Plus if bad reviews are simply left to fester they too can spread untouched and even reach the top of search rankings so that people who search for a company or its products online might come across a blog entry slating it amongst the first few items. Bottom line is it’s good for the company.

What if the same approach were adopted by companies and other organisations who communicate on issues in Brussels or elsewhere? Online conversations are increasingly shaping public opinion and it’s the job of good communicators to tap into them and try to help to shape and shift the debate. What if, say, company X produces “nasty chemical Y” which people are writing about on Twitter or their blogs, expressing concern, and company X were to respond saying something along the lines of: “We accept and understand your concern. We’re trying to do our bit. The University of Z has issued a report which relates to your concern. Might be of interest? Here’s the link.”

It’s tricky, but I think it could be work as part of a long-term strategy aimed at tapping into the right conversations, nipping concerns at the bud, and slowly shifting the debate online.

However, I’d make sure the following guidelines were adopted and scrupulouslty adhered to:

• Humility at all times!
• Don’t use corporate gobbledygook but communicate like you would with a normal person.
• Always keep in mind that what you say might spread, so make sure it’s appropriate to multiple audiences.
• If you’re providing material, try to use third-party content whenever possible: far more credible than your pretty brochure.
• Don’t interact with nutjobs. For some individuals and in particular single-issue pressure groups, their issue goes beyond concern for people and the environment etc. It’s an obsession and they’ll never ever be convinced by your arguments. If you try to communicate with them directly they might use it against you in some way. Do interact with people who are concerned but don’t have all the facts.
• Be proactive as well as reactive: make it part of broader social media approach i.e. don’t just, say, respond on Twitter to people who are concerned about your issue, but also communicate independently. Otherwise it’ll just look like damage limitation rather than serious engagement.

Measuring blog success: not necessarily in the comments

Companies that blog for marketing purposes fret about ROI: so we blog, how do we link to sales? Same with companies or other organisations who engage as part of their online advocacy efforts: OK it’s another medium, and we see how it’s different, but are we getting to legislators and other people who matter?

Sure, as a marketer you can connect your blog directly to sales channels (although I’d usually steer clear of this) while if you’re a campaigner, having a Google Analytics setup will allow tracking of domains such as the European Commission or Parliament, meaning you know exactly how much traffic you get from either. You won’t know if you’re reaching the most relevant people (you might just be preaching to the converted) but it’s a start nonetheless.

However, the measurements aren’t scientific by any stretch, so both groups often look at quantity and quality of comments as a measure of success, the logic being (rightly) that if people are reading but then also engaging in a constructive manner, the material you’re showcasing is having an effect.

However, to organisations who are producing top-tier content and getting loads of traffic but no comments, don’t worry about it too much: it’s presumably down to your target audience. Although we’re always hearing that unexpected demographics are going web-crazy, the fact remains that certain people might read blogs but will never comment, simply because they are still a little unsure of the medium. And if you work in truly traditional industries (say textiles, heavy machinery and chemicals) chances are that the people interested in your material are not the most avid web users, at least on average.

If I compare blogs I’ve worked on for clients, I can assure you that excellent blogs that are getting obscene amounts of traffic can get as little as one to five comments per month, despite plenty of efforts on our side to encourage commenting e.g. via questions or provocative remarks in posts. At the same time, blogs where the content is less interesting and the traffic less impressive are kick-starting week-long conversations via comments. Trust me, it’s not a reflection of the blog itself, but of your readership.

So what’s the best measure of success? I think it’s the “time spent on site” metric. Blogging is an element of content marketing i.e. the concept of guiding consumer action or shifting consumer perceptions via top-tier content which they buy into. Surely the ability to keep people on your site for a long time is the best testimony to this?

Want a fancy online press centre?

Whether you’re a pressure group strapped for funds or a multinational, you’ll want an excellent online press centre where journalists can easily find your latest news and other relevant material they might use for a story. But it should not just contain a long list of press releases: with everything the web has to offer in terms of showcasing content, it’d be a wasted opportunity. Ideally, your press centre would also do some of the following:

• Allow journalists to subscribe to news updates at the click of a button
• Contain material in multimedia formats i.e. especially video (which journalists increasingly appreciate and make use of)
• Allow for commenting so journalists can get an idea of public reaction to your news
• Enable journalists to find content very easily via keywords or tags rather than searching through a whole list in chronological order
• And not to be forgotten, be SEO friendly so your content helps boost your site’s search engine ranking

Looking at that list, it sounds an awful lot like the features of a blog. And herein lies the answer to the “how do I build an excellent press room that makes the best use of all the tools available to me” conundrum. Just set up your press page like a blog: present all your newsworthy content, whether a press release or the 2-minute video interview with the CEO you filmed on your iPhone, as blog posts. Have categories and tags so users can easily find material. All your newsworthy material will be presented in one place rather than scattered around your newroom, which I suspect journalists will appreciate (although do be careful to not deem too much material as newsworthy); and you won’t feel restricted by the press release standards e.g. you can publish a very short post or a post just containing a video.

Result? More varied content + far better accessibility = happy jounalists.

Why don’t organisations encourage their employees to communicate?

I’m a little baffled by companies and other organisations that invest heavily in finding, hiring and keeping really talented people, but then won’t let them communicate to the outside world as representatives of their organisation. It’s a real loss, as happy and clever employees are potentially an organisation’s best ambassadors, especially at a time when: a)  people trust communication from “someone like me” a lot more than anything else, in particular the communications which these same organisations invest heavily in (brochures, website content, TV ads, press releases et al); and b) online tools are widely available for people to create content themselves easily, quickly and for free.

What’s the excuse? Usually something about complex approval processes, concerns over the type of content that might be produced, and a fear of backlash. In truth I think what it’s really about is resistance to change and getting your head around the fact that communication can be effective even if it’s not pristine and checked by 22 departments.

Things are changing though: companies like Sun Microsystems and IBM are showcasing their employees’ blogs with pride, and more are hopping on the bandwagon every day.

Twitter is an AMAZING learning tool

I’ve blogged about Twitter a few times, but have only really started using it a lot over the last few days (@steffenmoller). Although I’ve banged on about the value of Twitter as a learning tool – i.e. you hook up to the right people who share your interests and they provide you with insights and links that you wouldn’t have found yourself – I’m amazed by the extent to which this is the case.

I use Netvibes a lot, which allows me to view the latest posts and updates from a variety of blogs and news sites (100+). I update it regularly by adding new blogs and love it, but I have to say I’ve read far more interesting material over the last couple of days via links and hints from people I’m following. And I’m only following 28 people so far: what will it be like once I’ve found hundreds if not thousands of people that I want to follow? I think today is the day I really understand what all the fuss is about and think Twitter has raised the bar for how professionals of the future will be expected to interact and the knowledge they’ll be expected to possess.

Lobbying at its most intriguing

A friend told me a story this week which gives some real insight into how sly lobbyists can be. A few years ago in California, Toyota and the US big 3 (GM, Ford and Chrysler) lobbied hard against stricter regulation governing emissions. This seemed odd at first. Toyota have spent years and billions in developing cars that produce fewer emissions – surely they’d want stricter emissions regulations as this would enable them to exercise their competitive edge?

Not quite. As ever, Toyota are a forward-thinking company (see my previous post):

1. They understood that they have a competitive edge over the big 3 globally because they produce cars that are more environmentally friendly.
2. They understood that the prospect of losing out on a huge market like California might finally move the big 3 to start investing more in hybrid technology and other less petrol-guzzling alternatives.
3. Conclusion? They prefer having to compete with the big 3’s SUVs in California than have them invest in R&D which might in a few years make them viable competitors in the global hybrid car sector.

That’s clever. What I’d be curious to know is:  Toyota and the big 3 presumably sat down and co-ordinated their efforts at some point. Did the big 3 know they were being duped? And could the Toyota execs and lobbyists keep the smirks off their faces?

Yes, Twitter is worthwhile

As the Twitter craze finally hits Europe, I’ve come across a few posts such as this one questioning its value. My first response would be that Twitter can perform a really simple function that any web user would appreciate: finding content that interests them. If you invest a bit of time in finding the right people to follow i.e. people who are clever and are interested in the same things as you, they can point you to content you simply wouldn’t have found yourself. That’s enough justification in my book already. However, as Laurent rightly points out, Twitter is not mainstream enough to actually make this viable for anyone who isn’t into social media, marketing, technology or a few other niches: ‘If you want to target doctors, if you need information because you’re a fireman, if you just want to find interesting links if you’re “just” a normal citizen, you don’t find them on Twitter.’

Valid points for personal use of Twitter. As for the professional use of Twitter, I still think there is “hidden” value in using Twitter, even though it isn’t going to allow you to find reams of useful content or reach huge numbers of people immediately:

• Being proactive rather than reactive i.e. understanding how it works while it’s still relatively unknown, rather than hopping on the bandwagon in two years time. It doesn’t have to be a drain on resources: set up an account now, play around, figure out how to build relationships, not annoy people, and who the smart people worth following are (even if they’re few and far between for now). A few minutes a day on your PC or your iPhone and you’ll be a bonafide Twitter expert in no time.
• Impress people. Yeah, so it’s shallow, but frankly showing your boss, client, stakeholder etc. that you’re an early adopter of new technologies that can, in time, help you reach and engage with relevant people is valuable, even though you might not prove its worth immediately (but do spend 99% of your time on things that have a slightly higher proven ROI though.)
• Quality over quantity. So your target audiences may not all be on Twitter, but maybe some of the brightest people in your sector are. Why not build relationships with them now rather than than when they have 3,000 followers?
• Added value on key activities. The nature of the format (short, quick, updates from anywhere) can make it ideal for certain types of interaction, such as live-updating from an event or a Q & A  on breaking news.

And a last point: it’s not all in the numbers! You can add a feed from Twitter to a blog or a site, where people will be able to read your updates. You may only have 10 followers, but if the webpage your tweets appear on have 10,000 visits a day with people spending half an hour on that page, you can be pretty sure they’re seeing them.

How a blog is better than a newsletter

I spoke to someone recently who was busy writing the latest issue of their company’s newsletter.

Me: Why don’t you blog instead?
Them: We work in a really traditional industry, nobody would read a blog.
Me: Why would they read a newsletter but not a blog? If it’s because you think they’d only read something they can find in their inbox, that’s OK, you can subscribe to posts by email.
Them: Maybe, but my boss wouldn’t want us to blog, we work in a traditional industry.

First, I understand the implication. It’s that blogging is somehow not cerebral enough for a traditional or “serious” industry. That’s plain wrong: it’s a medium just like a newspaper is, but no one would say newspapers aren’t serious because of the drivel that tabloids publish. It’s the quality of what you publish that matters.

Beyond that, I think there are a few reasons why a blog may actually be plain better than a newsletter.

• For a “traditional” industry like my friend’s, if blogging really is that unusual, then being the first to do so is a fantastic opportunity. Blogging is so common now; but imagine the chance to be viewed as ground-breaking and innovative simply by publishing one? An opportunity not to be missed I’d say.
• I think the blog format is a lot more appealing. It’s less daunting for readers who don’t have much time, enabling them to focus on one article at a time rather than have a whole load thrust at them at once. Plus I’d argue that the momentum you build up with a stream of posts is worth more than a one-off monthly bang when your recipients receive your newsletter.
• With a blog, all your content is in one place. Sure you can have a newsletter archive, but it’s a lot harder to browse through material by clicking on Edition 74: January 2006, looking through it, closing it, then opening Edition 75 and so on, than it is to scroll down ablog in search for titles that catch your attention.
• On accessibility, again, a blog makes it a lot easier for people to access specific content, using categories and tags (you could have a complex search function for newsletters, but it’d cost a fortune and probably not work; tags and categories are standard and always work).
• Interactivity. It’s a lot easier for people to leave comments on a blog than it is to give feedback on a newsletter, even though newsletters can have feedback functions. Plus in a blog, with comments published underneath posts and your responses in the same place, you’re in practice having an online conversation. So what? 1) You have the opportunity to explain yourself to doubters/naysayers and to showcase your expertise further; and 2) you become the company/person that’s hosting an informed conversation on the issue, and that’s valuable.
• There’s an online community for everything, even the most traditional of industries. Engaging with it may not be your priority from the off – your focus may rightly be on making sure you publish good content. However, having a good blog will make it easier to fit into that community if you choose to do so, and will give you more leverage when engaging with the other experts in your field (or even prospects) that are part of it. If you think your industry/sector isn’t representedonline, check on Technorati or Google Blog Search. You’ll be surprised.
• Marketing a blog is easier than marketing your newsletter, but I’ll save that for another post.

Just to be clear, I think newsletters are an excellent medium for showcasing your expertise, keeping people informed, and even attracting new business. I’d ordinarily make them part of the communications toolkit, but if I had to choose, it’d be blogging every time.

A PR nightmare

One of your planes about to sink into the sea, name clearly visible on the side, with passengers in life-vests being rescued from a wing. Worst possible nightmare PR scenario?!

Photos like the one on the left are doing the rounds on the web and in newspapers around the world. The Guardian has a whole 18 of them.

I checked the US Airways site quickly to see how they were communicating around this. The story is on the homepage, they’ve got a number for support, and a statement from the CEO. So a few boxes have been ticked. I do think they should have hidden their flight booking form though, just to highlight that their focus now is on getting to the bottom of this rather than selling tickets.

Bringing social media content together in one place: the Intel benchmark

I recently wrote about how Friendfeed could be a useful tool for organisations who publish material on a number of social media sites but want to bring it all together in one place. In a similar vein, but this time with content published by 3rd parties, I came across this post by Jim at Insight, in which he showcases a site – Consumer Electronics Insider – which his team has built for Intel. It’s a simple, nice-looking, custom-made aggregator which picks up relevant material from blogs, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr and presents it on the one site.

There are admittedly some limitations to Intel’s site:

• There should be more basic information: what exactly is Consumer Electronics Insider; how is the various content collected – is all material picked up via keywords and RSS or are the content producers hand-picked?
• The material is split by platform but not content topic, so it works OK for browsing but not if you’re looking for anything specific.
• They are not fostering a community by enabling comments and conversation on their actual site, just showcasing material in loads of other places. Although I’m sure this is deliberate on their part, I think it’s a lost opportunity, as aggregators can be a good way to build a community.

Nonetheless, I like Consumer Electronics Insider. The web is a big and daunting place, and aggregators can facilitate access. So for organisations who appreciate that endorsements or even just mentions by 3rd parties in social media provide valuable word of mouth marketing for free, making it easier for people to find relevant content online is a smart tactic.

Why I like Nespresso (not just the coffee)

I made a coffee using an old Philips Senseo machine this morning.  The coffee was OK, but I know Senseo will be obsolete in a few years, as the machine looked dated and the experience of making the coffee was not especially memorable (should it be, some might say?) Others have tried to produce coffeemakers with the aim of becoming the standard-bearer (Lavazza, Saeco) but I’m guessing they’ll fail too. Nestlé, with their Nespresso brand, have however been spectacularly successful. What have they done right?

• Quality. No question, the coffee tastes awesome. It could perhaps be a little stronger, but it’s better than or as good as anything else on the market.
• Variety. Not only is it good, it caters to all tastes. It’s dead easy to make an espresso, but just as easy to make a bigger coffee, and hey presto, get yourself an accessory and you can bang up a cappuccino in a minute.
• An affordable luxury. It looks better and more expensive than other machines, but the pricing approach is clever (for the machines, not the capsules the coffee comes in). They’re priced just about high enough to be deemed a luxury good, but not quite high enough to be too expensive for most middle-class buyers (and there are ways to get money off when buying one).
• Most of all, the story: the branding effort has been really clever. Not necessarily the ads featuring George Clooney, but the rest of it (although the self-deprecating, yet effortlessly cool and urban Clooney is a good choice). What is the story? Basically, that drinking Nespresso is about as unique an experience you can have drinking coffee, and that you’re part of an elite group if you drink Nespresso. Why? Most of all, the gorgeous little capsules. Having scores of dinky looking, brightly coloured capsules with classy Italian names is clever, because it makes a coffee so much more than just a coffee. Each coffee is an experience in itself, you get to know the colours and names, establish your favourites, and can share your stories with other Nespresso drinkers. What’s more, most people join the Nespresso Club after buying a machine, which makes it really easy to buy capsules and allows members to get freebies at the Nespresso shops dotted about most major cities. What this all does is make Nespresso drinkers feel a bit special.

Moral of the story? Very basic and repeated by scores of marketers every day: if you’re the purveyor of a good or service in a competitive market, make your product as good as it can be, and be sure to build a story around it so as to differentiate it from your competitors.

Selling social media

I just came across a good post from a few months back by Chris Brogan on selling social media internally. It’s marketing-focused but very relevant to all comms crowds – and I assume some people will find it interesting as I see from my site stats that my posts on selling digital to clients in PA are quite popular.

Two points stand out for me as particularly relevant as selling points to a PA crowd that is uncomfortable with social media:

1. Internally, social media tools can be used to help with status information, training, project collaboration.
2. Building an online social media component to most marketing and PR efforts ensures a better reach for the media created.
   

The point about using social media tools as an internal tool can, as Chris states, be helpful for a variety of processes. Even more importantly, it’s a lot less daunting and thus an easier sell when you say: “let’s try out this really basic tool internally (a blog perhaps?) and if we’re all comfortable with it after a few months, we can try it out on a relevant client project.” The second point is a great sell as well because it allows you to focus on regular media relations, which traditionalists of course value and feel comfortable with. So what you’re doing is not selling social media as something new and different, but as a set of tools that can add value to your traditional media relations by improving reach and quality e.g. a good 30 second YouTube interview with the person quoted in your press release .

The cost of bad service

Some companies invest vast sums in Customer Service. For good reasons too: maintaining customer satisfaction high will -  a) keep people coming back; and b) turn them into your best marketers via positive word-of-mouth (assuming the product/service meets expectations of course).

Nonetheless, the service provided by scores of companies remains really poor. Clearly they’re so short-sighted as to think that the benefit gained from saving on good service will not have far-reaching implications.

I thought about this a few weeks ago when I was in Italy. After having booked my flight on Easyjet, I arranged to rent a car from their partner, Europcar, which I’d pick up in Milan. There was a change of plan: I got a lift instead and so did not need the car (mum was worried about me driving in the fog!) So I called Europcar to cancel my reservation, except they couldn’t, and told me to call Easyjet. They didn’t have the number though, and there’s none to be found on the Easyjet site either, just a contact form. Oh, and small-print stating that I should call Europcar direct if I need to cancel or alter my booking. So in short, there appeared to be no easy way to cancel my reservation. And next time I need to rent a car I’ll probably use Hertz.

Like me, tens of other people probably encounter the same problem every day, but Europcar and/or Easjyet probably think that streamlining their cancellation process is not a worthwhile investment. I understand to some extent: they’re doing well i.e. they have plenty of customers already, and they offer highly competitive prices partly because they keep costs down in other areas, so don’t think it’s worth it. And it’s not as if it’s that measurable. If you could calculate exactly how much it cost them, they might take notice, but working out how many customers switch to Hertz because of what I experienced plus how many others are put off by people like me telling them that the Easyjet-Europcar set-up can not be trusted is impossible.

Another instance I thought of happened on Filicudi (one of the Aeolian islands off Sicily – see previous entry) in 2007. I rented a boat for a day but when I was out at sea, I suddenly got stuck. The engine seemed to work, but the propeller would not turn and the boat was immobile. Luckily, there was a yacht nearby which I managed to attract. The yacht owner then proceeded to feed me, let me use his phone to call the boat-hire company (yes, mobile phone reception at sea – go figure), and take the engine apart and tell me that the propeller should have been changed years ago as the friction had worn it out so much that it could not connect with the bit of the engine that made it turn. Two hours later, the boat-hire people showed up. No apologies – they said it was my fault as I had sailed over a plastic bag (total BS). They changed the propeller and left in a huff. Later on, when back at their shop, they not only tried to charge me the full price of €90 but wanted me to pay €150 for the propeller. I obviously kicked up a fuss but still ended up paying €50 for hiring the boat.

Result? When I next rented a boat I went to their competitor; I went back to Filicudi this year and rented a boat off the same competitor. That’s €180 they lost already. Plus I told at least ten other people that I got ripped off. It’s a small island, so I’m guessing that these ten people will at some point tell ten other people that the company can not be trusted, and so on. I presume that this alone will result in at least five conversations per summer where someone asks: “I want to hire a boat. Where should I go?” and the reply will be “go to Company B as I’ve heard that Company A rips people off.” That’s €450 at least. Sure, these figures are arbitrary, but I’m pretty sure the company missed out on my €180 plus at least these €450 per year because of my experience. And if instead of being so short-sighted as to try to make a fast buck off me, they’d showed up within ten minutes, had apologised profusely, and offered me a boat for free for a day at some point, I’d have gone back at least twice and the conversation regarding companies A and B would have been reversed: “try Company A – I hear they’re really great!”

This was meant to be a short post but has turned into a rant. Moral of the story? Customer service is worthwhile, but some companies don’t bother with it because they’re too short-sighted. However, if it were easier to measure the precise value of it – the power of word-of-mouth (whether positive or negative) is nearly impossible to calculate -  companies would probably invest in it a lot more.

Mattel’s Playground: a benchmark in respecting communities

A little out of date perhaps, but a post about Barack Obama that I was reading earlier contained a reference to Mattel’s Playground community which I thought was interesting. The Playground, which was set up in 2007 but has since been shut, aimed to attract mothers of young children who could provide input on existing toys or recommend ideas that would help Mattel develop new products. That in itself is interesting. Dell did something similar with Ideastorm a few years back: by asking customers to recommend ideas, provide feedback and share information, they revitalised a dying brand which has since outdone HP et al to become the number one manufacturer of personal computers in the world.

Mattel’s Playground is interesting in another way too. Mattel had to recall a number of products in 2007, which ordinarily should have had disastrous effects. However, their profits actually grew, so they were not adversely affected by the recalls at all. Why? Because they respected the main rules of social media: listen, be humble, be patient, build relationships, and act in a way your community would approve of. As products were being recalled, Mattel communicated with the Playground community on a daily basis, asking for advice on how they should act and for feedback on every action they took. Result? Their reactions to the recalls reflected that which customers expected, and by listening to their community, they showed that they were genuinely sorry for their mistakes and wanted to make amends. A good lesson for all companies.