Bad news for the Beliebers: Justin Bieber is no longer the king of Klout. The once-reigning master of social media influence now boasts a Klout score of only 93.
Climbing the ranks in his absence are major news publications, including the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, TIME Magazine, the Guardian, the Independent, the Los Angeles Times, and the focus of this blog post, the New York Times, each with a respective Klout score of 99.
With 15.6 million Twitter followers and arguably the strongest reputation in print journalism, it is not surprising that the New York Times scores so highly in social influence points. The nature of Twitter also lends itself to the Times' success in the social media sphere. "Breaking news is Twitter's bread and butter" (Stadd, 2014). In this social media age, more and more people are getting their news directly from Twitter as opposed to traditional television news or print newspapers. The New York Times' commitment to accuracy, even on social media, makes it a standout social media influencer.
It is important that the newspaper's content is accurate, as its high level of audience engagement gives its content a longer shelf life. Research by Klout showed that "among influencers with a Klout score above 75, their content 'lasts' on Twitter (through retweets) up to 70 times longer than that of people with a score between 30 and 70" (Schaefer, 2012, p. 132). This data confirms that "those with the most impactful presence on the social web create content that continues to move virally through their networks and beyond" (Schaefer, 2012, p. 132).
What gives the New York Times such a powerful and influential social media identity? Its content.Mark W. Schaefer refers to content as "the seventh weapon of influence," and "the currency of the social web" (Schaefer, 2012). As a longtime print publication, of course the organization produces content, but it is how well the Times has translated its content onto the social web that has made the organization thrive as a social media mogul. Through its Twitter feed alone, the New York Times has shared over 171,000 tweets and over 4,900 photos and videos. When the content is worth sharing, people will share it, so by maintaining an emphasis on timely, accurate, and reputable reporting, the New York Times has been able to capitalize socially on its content.
From a business perspective, the New York Times' social influence and engagement rate must be helping to fuel its digital subscriptions. The company only allows you to read 10 online articles for free per month before having to pay for a digital subscription to access more content. By teasing its audience with interesting headlines on social media, the Times can turn avid readers into profitable subscribers.
Personally, I do not carry nearly as much Klout as the New York Times. I found that my own Klout score is 35.27. This score was actually higher than I had expected, as I do not find myself tweeting as regularly as I could be considering how often I consume content on social media. There is still plenty of room for improvement with my Klout score, though, and I will work to use Twitter as a vehicle for improving my own social influence.
References: Schaefer, M. (2012). Return on influence. New York: McGraw-Hill. Stadd, A. (2014, January 7). Lessons from the New York Times' social media desk. Adweek. Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/new-york-times-social-media-desk/495267
Thanks to social media, the web is an easily accessible public forum, an idea around which organizations must adapt their communication policies to protect their brands without prohibiting employees' rights to free speech. To help map out what employers can and cannot prohibit employees from posting online, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) outlined 9 edicts to help companies develop legal and ethical corporate social media policies. These edicts include the prohibition of employee "rants," restriction of employee use of company logos and marks, and guidelines on confidentiality clauses (Halpern, 2012).
Despite these guidelines, the lines between what is acceptable social media behavior and what companies can legally prohibit often get blurred, many times due to a lack of common sense on the part of the employee.
One example of this comes from 2013, when Applebee's waitress Chelsea Welch was fired from her St. Louis-area restaurant for a photo of a receipt she shared publicly on Reddit. Welch had snapped a photo of a co-worker's receipt on which the customer, a pastor as noted by the customer's signature, had left no tip along with the comment "I give God 10%, why do you get 18?" The photo Welch posted was meant as "a lighthearted joke," but the photo went viral as she neglected to omit the customer's easily legible signature from the receipt before posting the photo to Reddit (Morran, 2013).
The receipt photo did not include Applebee's' brand name, logo, or otherwise identifying information, but with the blatant inclusion of Pastor Alois Bell's signature, word got back to the pastor that her receipt had "gone viral," and she furiously contacted the Applebee's restaurant "demanding that everyone be fired, from the servers to the managers" (Morran, 2013). While measures this drastic were not taken by the Applebee's franchise, Welch was terminated from her job.
Applebee's President Mike Archer told CBS news that "there was no choice but to fire the waitress for violating the customer's privacy rights and the company's social media policy" (Associated Press, 2013), however Welch saw the situation differently.
"'When I posted this, I didn't represent Applebee's in a bad light,'" she said. "'In fact, I didn't represent them at all. I did my best to protect the identity of all parties involved. I didn't break any specific guidelines in the company handbook -- I checked'" (Morran, 2013).
Applebees responded publicly to the controversy on Facebook with a status stating "We wish this situation hadn't happened." What appeared to be an acceptable use of damage control turned sour later that night when an Applebee's representative began replying to critical comments from the brand's account with long-winded excuses about the situation. In short, the company did not handle the situation well.
It's impossible to say, as someone outside of the company, whether or not Welch truly violated Applebee's' social media policy, so it is difficult to say whether or not I agree with her termination. There is no question, however, that the situation could have been avoided entirely if Welch had cropped the customer's signature out of the otherwise non-identifying photo.
The NLRD edict most pertinent to this incident is number 9, which says "employers remain entitled to enforce important workplace policies, even in the context of social media," a statute under which "employers can politely suggest that employees use good judgment on social media" (Sharp, 2015).
If I were implementing a social media policy for my organization, I would emphasize confidentiality clauses and entitlement to reinforce important workplace policies. Sharing too much information on a company's trade secrets as an 'off-the-clock' representative of the brand can give competition an unfair advantage. To the latter point, employees should not be able to override standard protective workplace policies just because they are using social media on their personal time. The "right to prohibit sexual harassment, workplace violence and threats of violence, sabotage, and/or abusive and malicious activity" is crucial to a healthy and productive work environment (Halpern, 2012).
When an employee is representing his or her organization directly on social media, I would be careful not to implement overly broad or generic "courtesy clauses," as while they typically attempt to protect the company from legal liability, they often dictate too severely how employees can interact with customers over social media. Social media managers should still appear human even when representing their company from a company handle. I would also be careful to prohibit employee rants. Not only does it reflect poorly upon a company when an employee rants about the brand from their personal social media account, but the damage is magnified when said employee accidentally posts their rant to a company social media account to which they have access (see video below). I think that personal and professional social media policy go hand-in-hand.
References:
Associated Press. (2013, February 1). Applebee's waitress fired for posting customer receipt online. CBS News. Retrieved February 25, 2015 from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/applebees-waitress-fired-for-posting-customer-comment-online/
Halpern, S. (2012, December 3). When is Your Company's Social Media Policy an Unfair Labor Practice? Recent NLRB Decisions Offer Long-Awaited Guidance for Employers | The National Law Review. Retrieved February 25, 2015 from http://www.natlawreview.com/article/when-your-company-s-social-media-policy-unfair-labor-practice-recent-nlrb-decisions- Sharp, M. (2015, February 24). The National Labor Relations Act and workplace social media policies. Social Media Strategies & Tactics. Retrieved from http://sharpscomi.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-national-labor-relations-act-and.html Stollar, R.L. (2013, February 2). Applebee's overnight social media meltdown: A photo essay. Overturning Tables. Retrieved from https://rlstollar.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/applebees-overnight-social-media-meltdown-a-photo-essay/
This week, group 5 members explored the use of buyer
personas in social media marketing by looking at brands that have mastered the
art of marketing to a specific buyer persona via various social media.
Dove
stood at the top of the list as a brand that effectively uses an emotional
connection to engage with “real” women on social media. Through the brand’s
real beauty campaign across various channels, it evokes an emotional, relatable
response that sets the brand in the buyer’s eyes as more than simply beauty
products, but as a source of true beauty empowerment. “‘The buyer persona
profile gives you a chance to truly empathize with target buyers, to step out
of your role as someone who wants to promote a product and see, through your
buyers’ eyes, the circumstances that drive their decision process’” (Scott,
2013, p. 167).
TacoBell is another buyer persona success story highlighted this week for the
brand’s ability to relate to its young, millennial target audience. Active on
appropriate networks like Instagram and Snapchat, Taco Bell sparks passion and
engagement for its products by speaking the language of its target audience.
Campaigning for the addition of a taco emoji, Taco Bell’s Change.orgpetition has gained over 28,000 signatures. This sort of audience
engagement goes deeper than the company’s bottom line; it builds a real,
relatable relationship with the brand and its social media savvy fans.
ESPN
has championed communication with the young, male sports lover buyer persona.
The large company connects with specific consumers on a more niche basis
through the use of tailored outlets to meet the needs of different areas of its
primary buyer persona. For example, ESPN program SportsNation connects with a
younger audience through the use of sports memes, interactive polls, and other
shareable media. The polling that SportsNation uses to engage with its audience
is more than a viewership draw. The network can use this information as free,
engaging market research to continually develop its buyer persona and keep
fresh records of the buyer persona’s needs. Scott (2013) says, “the best way to
learn about buyers and develop buyer persona profiles is to interview people”
(p. 166), and this type of multipurpose audience interview sets the network at
the top of the ranks in buyer persona communication.
The final company profiled for its successful use of buyer
personas on social media, just in time for Valentine’s Day, is Hallmark.
Hallmark pulls at the heartstrings through sentimental video campaigns like #PutYourHeartToPaper to
connect with its most engaged social media buyer persona, mothers and
grandmothers. Of course women aren’t the only Hallmark customers, but as those
most likely to engage with such a brand on social media, targeting the social
media buyer persona is an important part of the integrated marketing
communications mix.
While each of these companies target different audiences via
social media, they all have one thing in common: utilizing market research to
develop specific buyer personas to strengthen targeted marketing efforts. While defining buyer personas may seem like an optional way to optimize standard marketing efforts, it is in fact a crucial first step in any marketing plan.
Source:
Scott, D. M. (2013). The new rules of
marketing & PR: How to use social media, online video, mobile applications,
blogs, news releases, & viral marketing to reach buyers directly (4th
ed.). Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley.
This week, we read insights from David Meerman Scott (2013)
and Dave Kerpen (2011) about the importance of choosing the right target
audience for your social media marketing.
Scott (2013) uses the analogy of social media as a cocktail party.
How do you act in a cocktail party situation, he asks? “Do you go into a large
gathering filled with a few acquaintances and tons of people you do not know
and shout, ‘BUY MY PRODUCT!’?” (p. 55). To anyone who is socially competent,
the immediate answer is of course not.
But this begs the question, how should
a business act in the online cocktail party known as social media?
The answer to that question depends on whom exactly you as a
business wish to be talking to. This can be determined by developing buyer personas.
As defined by Scott (2013), “a buyer persona…is essentially
a representative type of buyer that you have identified as having a specific
interest in your organization or product or having a market problem that your
product or service solves. Building buyer personas is the first step and
probably the single most important thing that you will do in creating your marketing
and PR plan” (p. 164).
For each buyer persona profile you generate, you want to
know as much information as possible. “What are their goals and aspirations?
What are their problems? What media do they rely on for answers to problems?
How can we reach them? We want to know, in detail, the things that are
important for each buyer persona. What words and phrases do the buyers use?
What sorts of images and multimedia appeal to each? Are short and snappy
sentences better than long, verbose ones?” (Scott, 2013, p. 166). The list goes
on and on.
Developing buyer personas results in stronger and more cost
effective marketing. Not only does it create a stronger message by tailoring
your content to your audience’s needs, it minimizes advertising waste and helps
you discover any objections to buying that your target audience might have (Gaudet,
2014).
To take a deeper look into the effectiveness of social media
marketing with buyer personas, please respond to the following on your own
blog:
1. Choose a company that you feel effectively uses
social media to communicate with a specific buyer persona. This could be a
company that you feel appeals to you as a buyer, or another company that you
feel does a good job of defining a specific buyer persona and connecting with
this buyer via social media.
-What characteristics does this buyer persona have?
-What makes the company successful at targeting this buyer?
- What channels and language does the company use to target this specific buyer persona?
2. Imagine you are the social media coordinator for an organization (this can be one you currently work for, are interested in, or even an imaginary organization). Develop one specific buyer persona for this organization and describe some of the tactics you could use for reaching this buyer persona on social media.
- What characteristics does this buyer persona have?
- What social media channels should you use to effectively reach this buyer and what language should you use?
- How would you measure the success of your communication attempt/social media strategy?
Please cite your sources and incorporate images, hyperlinks, and/or videos, etc. in your response as deemed fit.
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Sources:
Scott, D. M. (2013). The new rules of marketing & PR: How to use social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases, & viral marketing to reach buyers directly (4th ed.). Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley. Gaudet, E. J. (2014). How to develop your buyer persona and reel in better customers. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2014/10/28/how-to-develop-your-buyer-persona-and-reel-in-better-customers/
It’s a concept as old as the human
relationship, and in the age of social media, it translates to marketing ethics
as well. “Put on your consumer hat, explained Likeable Media’s Dave Kerpen
(2011), “and do unto others, as a marketer, as you would want done unto you as
a consumer” (p. 110).
Following the Rule: Zappos
Zappos is the epitome of corporate honesty and
transparency. From the company’s very core spread all the way out across its social
media presence is an authentic sense of honesty and transparency. Zappos’
honesty policy starts at the very top with CEO Tony Hsieh. The company has an
entire blog dedicated to public messages from the COO and CEO. In a blog post titled HowTwitter Can Make You a Better (and Happier) Person, Hsieh cites four ways
in which Twitter has helped him grow personally, the first of which being
“Transparency & Values.” Cited in the same post is a reiteration of Zappos’
10 core values which are also visible throughout its website, social media
platforms, emails, and even its packaging.
Though he is far from what one would consider
to be an avid tweeter, Hsieh has his own personal, verified Twitter account, through which he
communicates with followers honestly and openly, even when delivering tough
news. In the left photo below, Hsieh tweeted a link to an informative blog post
about Zappos restructuring a large production location, redistributing workers
to its sister company, Amazon. Rather than receiving snarky remarks about
corporate culture and the nature of business, many people tweeted their thanks
to Hsieh for being so open, commending him on his transparency.
Zappos’ authentic transparency travels all the
way down the totem pole, too. The company has seven different Twitter handles
for handing things from customer service issues to insights and app
development. The company is quick to attend to any semblance of a customer
service complaint on social media, but it rarely has to as the majority of
comments left on its pages are praising the company’s service. (It’s worth
noting that none of these praises are left un-thanked.)
Unfortunately for the modern consumer, not
every company is a Zappos.
Breaking the Rule: Walmart
Notoriously disparaged for its questionable employment
practices, the biggest corporation in the world has not made things any easier
on itself through its social media presence. With upward of 60,000 social media mentions a day, it’s reasonable not to expect Walmart to respond to every
single @ thrown its way. However the company did not start off on the right
social media foot with its Wal-Marting Across America fake blogging blunder back in 2006. A blog surfaced in
September 2006 featuring the journey of a couple who traveled in an RV to
various Walmarts across America, interviewing employees who to readers seemed
unusually satisfied with their employment conditions. Enough public skepticism and
some digging revealed that the traveling couple was actually a public relations
stunt; they were paid by Walmart for
their blogging. In and of itself, this does not seem like a terrible offense,
but the fact that it was never disclosed that the blog authors were being paid
for their reviews puts into doubt the authenticity of all of the interviews
featured on their blog. Walmart was in direct violation of The Word of Mouth
Marketing Association’s “Honesty ROI.”
(Kerpen, 2011, p. 110)
All of the social media expertise in the world
couldn’t save Walmart’s perpetually crumbling reputation, but the corporation
has become more aware of its social media responsibilities in the past few
years. “Thanks to an orchestrated campaign behind the scenes, the company is
starting to gain some traction by engaging with shoppers on social media,
getting out the good word and most importantly, harnessing the power of the masses
that actually like Walmart” (Heller,
2014, para. 2).
Walmart should build out this social media
network of supporters moving forward to try to regain some positive brand
sentiment. Transparency may not be able to win back those with an already
negative impression of the brand, but it can help to retain loyal customers.
“In an age of corporate secrets, a little honesty
and transparency goes a long way toward building trust with your prospects and
long-term commitment from your customers” (Kerpen, 2011, p. 116).
---- Sources: Heller, K. (2014). Is America ready to like Walmart? Forbes. Retrieved http://www.forbes.com/sites/lauraheller/2014/03/21/is-america-ready-to-like-walmart/
Kerpen, D. (2011). Likeable social media: how to delight your customers, create an irresistable brand, and be generally amazing on Facebook (and other social networks). McGraw-Hill.
