Marketing

Do We All Need Twitter Editors? [update]

~ K. Quesenberry ~ Leave a comment

This article first appeared on my blog 6 years ago, but I think it is still relevant with updates and insights for today’s environment.

In 2010 many companies were still not not open to the idea of social media websites like Facebook and Twitter because they couldn’t censor customer comments. But another important consideration is employee social talk with both the positive and negatives. Look at football players for example. Over the years there have been numerous examples of players hurting their team, university, the sport or their own personal brands through rash Twitter comments.

In the NFL the Philadelphia Eagles had a Tweetgate, where they had to apologize for Todd Herremans’ anti-homosexual tweet. And Raven’s Ray Rice tweeted about getting out of a ticket because he bribed the officer with an autograph for his son. In college football an Oklahoma player was suspended following inappropriate Twitter comments he made following a shooting incident at the University of Texas. A Utah player sparked a controversy with a comment he made about Boise State before the upcoming Maaco Bowl in Las Vegas. These NFL and college teams may have a Twitter communication plan, but these are players acting and reacting on their own. What is needed beyond marketing or PR involvement in social media is employee social media policies and training.

An example of a company with a Twitter plan that encourages employees to Tweet is Zappos.com. In fact, there are just under 500 Zappos employees tweeting for the company. Sound like a management nightmare? They don’t seem to be tweeting off the cuff as much as football players. For example, two years ago the company had massive layoffs. Hundreds of employees reacted strongly on the company’s Twitter feed, but instead of a PR nightmare, it was something the company embraced. Instead of censoring laid off employees, Zappos remained as transparent as usual. In the end, employees appreciated it, management benefited and customers saw Zappos.com as a company from which they want to buy.

What’s the secret? Zappos invests heavily in employee training. They don’t just set them up with Twitter accounts and let them go. Zappos management equips employees with plenty of tools and guidelines to effectively tweet and represent the company online. The company also puts a lot of energy into hiring smart people.

Do you trust your company or organization’s employees with social media or could they benefit from some social media training?

Failed Test? Try An Ethnographic Study

~ K. Quesenberry ~ Leave a comment

Most marketers run various tests to before making decisions on new products, packaging, media mix, media levels, creative messaging, etc. Testing is good, but we must also remember that you can’t test everything. How many great product ideas have been stripped of originality by testing or have come out years too late to take advantage of the marketplace? New product development can take three years at large corporations. We must also be cautious about the types of research we use and its limitations.

Ingrid Fetell from Landor says that too often marketers treat focus groups as a quick-and-dirty solution to every knowledge they need. But focus groups have their limitations. After all 80% of new products fail within six months, but almost all pass through focus groups on their way to market. The Seinfeld pilot failed in the eyes of focus groups that said it needed a stronger supporting cast. Focus groups have also rejected the Sony Walkman, Baileys Irish Cream, and the ATM, which was considered “too impersonal.” But some scholars like Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman see ethnographic techniques as having a more accurate ability to gauge consumer opinion given the unconscious nature of the decision-making.

What’s a real life example? Cambridge SoundWorks’ used ethnographic research to determine why sales of its new speakers were slow despite enthusiasm from male prospects. The retailer sent researchers out with video cameras to follow prospective customers for two weeks and they discovered the “spousal acceptance factor.” Men were being talked out of their purchase by girlfriends and wives who thought the speakers were ugly – an insight men didn’t offer up in a traditional focus group. They offered a new range of sneakers with a new look and they became the best-selling product line in the company’s history.

Are you using focus groups because they are quicker and cheaper than quantitative studies? Maybe its time you try an ethnographic study.