What is Crowdsourcing?

More and more I'm hearing people in the marketing world throw around the term "crowdsourcing." But what is it? Here is a great video featuring Jeff Howe (the man credited with coining the term "crowdsourcing") that can make it easier to grasp.



Wondering how you could put crowdsourcing to work for you? Ask us! bigideas@kearley.com

Building Trust through Social Media: Crisis Management via Tweet

Image via CrunchBase

I ran across this article on Bloomberg Businessweek.com about how Comcast communicates with disgruntled customers over Twitter. There is a lot of literature on the web about crisis management over social media, and Comcast follows the general rules that most of it swears by. But the really great thing about this article was that it followed around Frank, "Comcast's Twitter Man," as he interacted with customers. Essentially, we got to see him in action. Here is how Frank goes about his day:

1. Searches Comcast on Twitter many times daily
2. Reads all related Tweets that turn up
3. Responds directly to the customers tweeting about Comcast

Seems really simple, right? And though Comcast is a large company, similar strategies for handling crises directly and publicly over social media can work for smaller companies and credit unions as well. Some tips that I picked up from the way Frank communicated with customers:

• Respond quickly.
• Ask questions to be sure you understand the problem, and that your customer feels that you are listening.
• Be friendly, and help as best you can. If further communication is needed, DM the customer and ask for their phone number or email address.
• No matter what the complaint is, even if it doesn't seem legitimate, respond with the same level of care.
• Use punctuation carefully. Don't be afraid of smiley faces and exclamation points, but use them only when appropriate.

Do you have any experiences with handling crises over Twitter, or social media in general?

Social Media - A look at the numbers

By now you've probably heard it said that social media is here to stay, and it will forever change the way you market your business. But just how much reach does a social media campaign have? We came across this post last week on MASHABLE that does a great job of breaking it down.

• 52 percent of Facebook users use the site daily
• 92 percent of social network users are on Facebook
• There are 10,000 YouTube brand partners
• There are 500,000 merchants on Foursquare alone (not including other location based social networking utilities)

And you should also take into account how effective social media can be, for such little cost. Remember that Old Spice "Man your man could smell like" campaign? In one month:

• The number of Facebook fans increased 60 percent
• YouTube subscribers doubled to 150,000
  
• Twitter followers increased by 2700%
  

To see the infographic and the complete article on MASHABLE by Todd Wasserman, click here.

Social Media 101

Every day it seems people are asking about social media, from Facebook to Twitter to blog platforms and more. Some industries seem to be late adopters of this new media and are skeptical of whether it works – and whether the resources needed to pull it off are worth the pay-out.

At Kearley, our stance is YES it works. It's affordable, and easy, but you have to put the time and effort into it to get the pay-out you desire. But why does it work? Take a look at this video that I posted on the blog last summer.



Social media works because it closes that new gap between organizations and their target consumers. So what is your organization doing in the social media arena?

A glimpse into the future of retail merchandising

Nothing leaves an impression on your customers quite like face-to-face interaction, but keeping your branding consistent through your storefront is also very important. Now, with advances in technology, the ways you can interact with your customers when they visit your store or branch are expanding as well.

Have a look at what this bank in Madrid has done to give their customers a unique experience via interactive retail designs.


Could applications seen in interactive Museum exhibits have wider applications in retail environment?


What do you think? Could your local bank or retail store move to incorporate some of these applications?

Cyborg Anthropology

Amber Case: We are all cyborgs now | Video on TED.com
Huh?

That was my first reaction. But as I listened to Amber Case talk about her fascination with human connectivity--I started to make some connections of my own.

At any one time we have access to any of the number of people in our cell phone--we can stand on one side of the world, whisper something, and it can be heard on the other, she says. This ability doesn't just make the world a 'smaller' place, but it also makes us more human.

"We are co-creating each other all the time," says Case.

Does this apply to businesses as well? Absolutely it does. With the advancement of social media, businesses are being co-created by their clientele. In fact businesses start to take on their own 'second self.' An online presence becomes an interface that consumers interact with. Brands become more human, developing personalities.

And as a result, cohesive branding is now more important than ever. A business, when interacting with customers, needs to have a consistent personality that grows with its client base--not ahead of it. Social media allows businesses to create functioning relationships with consumers, but in order to prosper they need to build trust.

How does an entity, like a business, build a trust-based relationship with consumers?
This will be the focus of my next few entries. For now enjoy this video, and let me know what you think!

Is email marketing dying?

Tying into my theme of social media, is the string of media channels that have to adapt as social media develops.

Does your business make use of e-newsletters, or mass email promotions? More than likely would be my best guess. It feels like nearly every time I visit a website, store or restaurant, I'm asked to sign up to join their 'super-savers' or 'VIP' club--and somewhere on their form they ask for my email address.

I used to think seriously before giving my email address, but it limited so much of what I could do online or prohibited me from having access to great discounts, so I usually caved. But I, and many of my friends, have out-smarted these email marketers. I give them the address to a dummy email account that I created. It is a real email address, but I only check it every few months (if at all) to clean it out. I maybe read 5 out of every 100 emails that I receive on that account. I loathe sorting through them; it's all junk and while the coupons might have been valuable, they weren't as valuable as the time it would have taken to sort through them and print them off.

So I have to ask--if say 1 in every 4 consumers gave a dummy email address like I do, how effective is email marketing really? Is it a waste of money?

A blog I ran across by a man named Scott Kraus predicted the death of email marketing--well not exactly. Rather, he predicted the death of email marketing as we know it.

I tend to agree. As social media becomes more social, and more interactive, one-way mass email communications from a brand to its consumer become less relevant. In fact, as fast as people are subscribing to email lists, they are unsubscribing--citing reasons like being emailed too frequently, receiving too many un-relevant emails, or receiving too many repetitive or boring emails.

The answer it seems is not to send more emails, but to send targeted, relevant emails to a more specific niche of comsumers.

Check out the blog here for more information.