Category Archives: Brand Management
Managing the Digital Suggestion Box: Five tips for pleasing your most vocal customers
by Rebecca Kirkham on May 9, 2012 | no comments
in Brand Management, Social Media
“If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
Growing up in the South, my mother instilled this bit of wisdom in me at a young age. And I try to take her advice to heart – even if I don’t always follow it to the letter. For example, when the neighborhood restaurant we regularly order take-out from recently messed up my order for the fourth time in as many weeks, I chose to email the manager directly rather than blast the business on Facebook.
However, as business owners and brand managers everywhere can attest, I am not your average customer. Social media and sites like Trip Advisor, Yelp and Insider Pages have created a new breed of consumer – one that not only has plenty to say, but more forums than ever in which to say it. Negative tweets and posts have long ago replaced comment cards at retail establishments and, in hospitals, they’ve become the new nurse call button. While negative posts can take a toll on a brand’s reputation, research suggests they also affect the bottom line. According to a recent survey, more than 80 percent of consumers say they are heavily influenced by online reviews and search results. It’s a fundamental power shift that has caused many businesses to think twice about embracing social media.
Though engaging directly – and publicly – with consumers is scary for many brands, it’s increasingly necessary. Businesses simply can’t afford to bury their heads in the sand by ignoring negative comments. However, responding to an unhappy customer or a negative review requires a special kind of cool – not to mention a solid strategy. Here are five tips to help brands – large and small – make the most of these interactions.
- Silence speaks volumes. The first thing clients facing a negative post often ask is “Should I respond?” The answer is almost always yes. People want to feel heard and they want to know what you’ve done to fix the problem. In fact, research suggests that 88 percent of consumers are less likely to do business with a company that fails to address customer questions or complaints. Providing a timely response shows customers that you are not only listening, but that you also care. On the flip side, positive posts can be opportunities to show customers you appreciate their feedback too.
- Cooler Heads Prevail. It sounds simple but never respond to a negative post while angry. It’s easy to take criticism personally but take a deep breath – or a long walk – before responding.
- Sorry works. When answering a complaint or bad review, follow many of the same rules you would use to respond to a negative media story. Don’t make excuses or place blame. Apologize and accept responsibility as appropriate and briefly explain what you have done to fix the issue. Keep it simple and move the conversation offline to discuss details.
- Be human. I’ve blogged about the importance of humanity in PR before, but it’s especially important when engaging online. People want to deal with other people. This isn’t the time for corporate speak. Identify yourself as a representative of the company, keep the focus on the customer and make sure your tone is warm and conversational.
- Listen. Really Listen. Perhaps the biggest mistake a business can make in dealing with a negative commenter is moving on too quickly. It’s human nature to want to resolve the issue and put it in the past, however doing so without taking the time to understand what went wrong (or right) is a huge missed opportunity. Businesses have a unique window to mine valuable insight from their most vocal customers … so take advantage of it!
While you’ll never make everybody happy all of the time, common sense and good digital manners can earn you the respect – and business – of your most vocal customers. Wouldn’t Mom be proud?
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5 Steps for Effective Online Reputation Management
by Sarah Mansouri on October 20, 2011 | 5 comments
in Brand Management, Corporate Communications
Online reputation management is a critical task for any company. The web is a world-wide conversation site whether your business has a strong internet presence or not. The internet has made it possible for consumers and competitors to converse openly about opinions and experiences with companies, whether positive or negative. With the prominence of review sites out there such as Yelp and CitySearch and Ripoff Report, in addition to social media sites, it is important to always be aware of any talk about your company. Here are five essential steps to help ensure sure that your company reputation is the best it can be!
- Be prepared for and aware of risks. All companies should consider how to avoid and respond to any internet dialogue that has the potential to damage the company brand. Developing a crisis plan and being prepared in advance is critical for fast and effective online reputation management.
- Track and monitor your brand. Have you ever Googled yourself out of curiosity? If you have not done so with your company, it’s time. Frequent monitoring of your brand is essential, as new content is placed on the internet daily. One easy way to do this is to create Google Alerts which will send you email updates of the latest internet mentions of your company based on the search terms you provide. Regularly searching for keywords that relate to your company, your competitors and your industry is another easy way to monitor your brand and business space
- Register domains and IDs. Protect your brand for the future by registering your company name on new sites in case they become popular later. If you search for your name on Twitter or Facebook, it is likely you will find many other people out there with the same name: same goes for your company. By spending a few minutes and a few extra dollars to register domains and IDs, your company won’t be hit by roadblocks in the future
- Create proactive content. Acting proactively is an important part of any reputation strategy as you plan positive messages, articles, press releases, etc. to insure you have a constant flow of content for your audience. Sharing your company’s stories and ideas across various types of media outlets will help get your name out there and let consumers know that you are real people with real and valuable ideas
- Remove negative content. In the case that negative content gets out about your brand, there are several ways to get rid of or bury the bad news. If you are in control of content that you don’t want others to see such as on Facebook, Twitter or a blog, simply delete the negative content or change your privacy settings. If negative content is on a site that you do not control, review the sites Terms or Content Policies and politely ask the owner of the site to remove the content if it is in violation. And by creating new, positive content on high-ranking sites, your search results will show the positive over the negative.
Do you or your company follow any of these guidelines to protect your online reputation? What’s worked (or hasn’t worked) for you? Let us know in the comments section.
AT&T and blink-182 Use Social Media to Reward Fans for Copyright Infringement
by Sam Sudano on September 6, 2011 | no comments
in Brand Management, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media
There is no doubt about it: the unlawful exchange of music has changed the face of the industry. Long gone are the days of free peer-to-peer sharing, but illegal downloading still continues today. Copyright infringement happens all the time too, especially on YouTube.
Each day, users post homemade videos using someone else’s music in the background, only to have their videos later taken down. Type “blink-182” in YouTube’s search engine and you’ll find countless fan videos containing the band’s music. Copyright violation? You bet. YouTube discovers these copyright violations one of a few ways: when a user reports the copyright infringing video, a search engine picks one up during a regular content scan, or an inaudible watermark, placed inside music belonging to a recording label, uncover a song’s illicit use.
The site removes many of the videos, but each day new ones appear faster than YouTube can find violations.
For AT&T and blink-182, this lapse in content removal provided an opportunity for a two-way social media promotion. Instead of battling fans who use their music without permission, the west coast punk rock band decided to reward them.
AT&T partnered with the band, hoping to appeal to their youthful audience, and used special software to comb Google’s video site for clips of fans using blink-182’s music without permission. The nationwide network provider then compiled the clips together in the video for Up All Night, blink-182’s first single in eight years (which, of course, you are encouraged to “like” using AT&T’s new HTC Status smartphone.)
While the YouTube video mix of skateboarding, rockin’ jam sessions and laughing teens is likely to appeal to the band’s fan base, will AT&T’s broader audience feel the same about the provider portraying copyright infringement in a good light? And how do blink-182’s peers feel about the band promoting what most recording artists consider to be piracy or poaching? Let me know what you think.
Social Media Served with a Porterhouse Steak
by Rosemary Plorin on August 25, 2011 | no comments
in Brand Management, Corporate Communications, Facebook, Social Media
You may have recently heard about the grand slam homerun scored by the social media and customer service teams at Morton’s Steakhouse. You can read about “the greatest customer service story ever told” in two short tweets from Peter Shankman, or you can read the fuller coverage his tale has received by mainstream news sites from Forbes to Time to Britain’s Daily Mail.
Here’s the short version.
Shankman, a social media guru and consultant, is a big meat eater and fan of Morton’s Steakhouses. He was boarding a plane last week at the end of a long day when he shot off a quick tweet about his desire to find a Porterhouse steak waiting for him when he landed in Newark.
You can guess where this is going.
Upon landing at EWR, Shankman was greeted by a tuxedo-clad Morton’s representative bearing gifts: a 24-ounce steak, shrimp appetizer and side of potatoes. As you might predict, out went another tweet – to Shankman’s 100,000+ Twitter followers – and the media stories followed.
Shankman swears on his professional career that the event was not staged, but that has not stopped the almost endless speculation, criticism, praise and overall dialogue among both traditional and social media flacks.
Let’s leave that discussion for another day, and instead think about how other companies – including small businesses with Twitter fans and Facebook friends in numbers with fewer zeros – can take a page out of the Morton’s play book. Even without a famous clientele or a million dollar tweet, using social media smartly can be a part of any company’s customer service program. Here are just a few quick and easy efforts to consider:
- Send Facebook fans a birthday greeting from your company. Facebook will notify you each week about upcoming birthdays among your friends (if those individuals list their birthday in their profiles). It takes only a moment to send a birthday greeting, and shows that you’re interested in your customer as person – not just a business prospect.
- Recommend a preferred vendor or trusted partner on LinkedIn, or orchestrate a LinkedIn introduction. Referrals are often mutually beneficial – and they almost always help build stronger relationships.
- Read your customers’ blogs and, when appropriate, make a positive comment.
- Follow your customers on Twitter and retweet their good news or positive news coverage. Send them a direct tweet of congratulations when you read or hear about a company success or notable event.
We all know it takes more effort to land a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. Customer service efforts through social media do not require significant time or resources, and can really help differentiate your company from the competition and strengthen relationships.
So how does social media factor into your customer service program?
Five Ideas to Generate Conversation on Your Hospital Facebook Page
by Rosemary Plorin on August 3, 2011 | no comments
in Brand Management, Facebook, Social Media
Ed Bennett has long been the official record keeper of hospitals’ use of social media in the U.S. For more than five years, he has diligently researched hospitals’ presence in various social media platforms, then documented and segmented usage statistics in an unbelievably useful and generous manner on his blog, Found in Cache.
But even with more than one thousand hospitals now attempting to engage patients on Facebook, consumers often still face a surprising dearth of authentic or “engaging” content from their local medical center. Many hospitals are using Facebook as little more than a bulletin board for the once a month press release or health fair promotion.
If your hospital is hungry for engagement but short on ideas, consider these five ideas to generate interest and buzz on your Facebook wall:
- Working within the confines of HIPAA (of course), post warm and compelling information about what’s happening in your hospital. “ABC General welcomed 468 newborns into the world last month, including 23 multiples and 230 premies. Thank you to the many Moms and families who trust us with the care of your little ones!”
- If your hospital compares favorably to competing facilities in your market, point your Facebook community toward the CMS HospitalCompare site. With the appropriate link, you can direct followers to the scores that best demonstrate your hospital’s strengths.
- Use Facebook for informal (and unscientific) market research. Ask your fans what they think is the most pressing health issue in the local community, or link with a local health organization such as the Susan G. Komen Foundation or American Heart Association and post a stat about local rates of common illnesses. Relate the information to your services lines.
- Hold a photo contest. Encourage fans to post photos of themselves displaying or even being your logo; ask friends to show how they stay fit or lower their cholesterol (being careful not to elicit Protected Health Information under HIPAA); have kids submit drawings of how easy it is to receive a flu shot or mist.
- Brag on your staff. Ask managers and department heads for information about employees who have gone above and beyond and post a kudo (with the employee’s consent). If your hospital receives a letter of praise that shines a positive spotlight on a particular staff member, post it to your wall with a photo of the employee or employees involved in the patient’s care.
Obviously, before making even your first post, provide a link on your profile page to your hospital’s Facebook comment policy (which can be easily posted in a note), and make sure your hospital’s social media policy for employees is both well propagated and enforced.
Here are a few of our favorite hospital fan pages on Facebook. Leave a comment and let us know about your favorite!
Trinity Medical Center, Birmingham, AL
Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt
Hardware Store Bill Hears a Tweet
by Scott McIntosh on July 7, 2011 | no comments
in Brand Management, Corporate Communications, Facebook, LinkedIn, Social Media, Twitter
A friend of mine and I were discussing social media the other day over lunch at a local pub. My friend’s name is Bill and he isn’t a fan of any of the new media services. Bill runs a nearby hardware store that is trying to offer better customer service to beat the big name wholesalers. He asked me to join him to discuss some of his marketing options and, of course, I brought up social media.
Bill said, “Scott, I just don’t see the point of it and I don’t have the time or resources unless I can see what the return on investment will be.”
I responded with, “Bill, it’s not the return on investment you should be worried about but the return on ignorance. Your customers are online, they are talking, and if you want to provide the best customer service possible, you should be listening to what they are saying.”
Bill took a sip of his beer and sat back slowly in his chair with his arms crossed. He pondered what I said for a moment before shaking his head and saying, “Nope, I just don’t see the value.”
Just then, a married couple came in talking loudly and took a seat at the table next to us. They were a bit upset as they discussed what seemed to be a bad experience they had just had while searching a hardware store for the right part for a house project. Bill perked up and started listening intently. He smiled at me as he assumed they had gotten lost in one of the big name stores. Then the wife mentioned Bill’s store.
Bill looked stunned. He quickly turned around in his chair and introduced himself as the store’s owner. Bill asked about what happened and listened intently as they discussed their experience. Bill told the couple that if they revisited the store, he would personally help them locate the part and offer them a large discount. Their attitude changed and they immediately looked relieved. They thanked Bill and said they would be happy to return that afternoon.
Bill turned around to me and said, “Wow, lucky we were here or I would have never caught that.”
I said, “Caught what?”
Bill replied, “Caught that couple talking… Those are important customers, if I hadn’t heard what they were saying I wouldn’t have been able to fix their problem.”
I just sat back and smiled.
Bill looked at me puzzled for a moment until his expression changed like the light bulb turned on in his head. He replied, “Ok, so tell me about this Twitter thing.”
(This is a fictional story but hopefully a fun way to show some basic benefits of social media monitoring. If you’d like to learn how to monitor social media for your business, we’ll have an article going out this month in our email newsletter which you can receive by clicking here.)
Is Data Breach Management the Latest Crisis Communications Trend?
by Dana Coleman on May 12, 2011 | no comments
in Brand Management, Crisis Communications, Public Relations
The specifics of an effective crisis communications response vary for different types of organizations, but the importance of developing a crisis communications plan before a crisis occurs is universal.
The recent highly-publicized Sony data breach, which may impact as many as 100 million customers, is just the latest reminder of how critical Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance is for any organization that handles customer payment card information. It also underscores the importance of preparing to respond to a data breach incident before one occurs.
PCI compliance is required of all organizations (merchants) that accept, transmit, or store cardholder data, and PCI DDS sets out 12 specific requirements to which merchants must adhere. Merchants fall under one of four categories of PCI compliance depending on the number of transactions they process each year and whether those transactions are performed from a physical location or over the Internet.
While PCI compliance itself is not required by law, it is required by the five major credit card companies that make up the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council – American Express, Discover, JCB, MasterCard and Visa. Any merchant that does not comply with PCI DDS may be subject to fines, card replacement costs and costly forensic audits, not to mention lawsuits and lasting reputational damage, should a breach event occur.
According to a recent report by Symantec Corp. and the Ponemon Institute, there is no sign of data breach costs leveling off, and data breaches grew more costly in 2010 for the fifth year in a row. The average organizational cost of a data breach increased to $7.2 million last year and cost companies an average of $214 per compromised record, markedly higher when compared to $204 in 2009. The study is based on the experiences of 51 U.S. companies in 15 industry sectors.
The time to develop a crisis communications plan is before a critical event occurs. Are you prepared to protect your organization’s reputation should the unthinkable happen?
Three Must Know Tips for Maximizing TweetDeck to Manage Your Twitter
by Scott McIntosh on May 6, 2011 | 1 comment
in Brand Management, Networking, Twitter
I’m sure you’ve heard of Twitter, but have you heard of TweetDeck? If you’re in the marketing and communications space, you probably have a Twitter account, if not many Twitter accounts. Managing multiple accounts can get overwhelming, as you are constantly having to log-in to each different account and remember multiple logins and passwords for each. There are a few services out there that make this process much easier, with the two most popular being TweetDeck and HootSuite. Both have their pros and cons but I tend to stick with TweetDeck. It has all the functionality I need and I’ve just become accustomed to using it.
TweetDeck is a free desktop application that you can download from the TweetDeck website. Once installed, you can then link in all of the Twitters accounts you are managing along with other accounts such as your LinkedIn or Facebook accounts. From there, you can pretty much handle all of the functionality of being logged in to all of those services, right from your TweetDeck desktop interface. And that is where the fun starts!
Here are three useful functionalities of TweetDeck that can make your Twitter account management that much easier:
Tip #1: Monitor your business space, not just your brand.
You may have set up a search for your brand name or Twitter handle, but have you set up a custom search for your keywords? TweetDeck allows you to continually monitor the conversation on Twitter by establishing a custom search column for any words you desire. You may already be using Google Alerts for this type of service but you may also want to consider a service like TweetDeck. For example, say I sell insurance and want to be alerted when someone says the following on Twitter: “need car insurance.”
I can set up a custom alert for this keyword set and TweetDeck will let me know whenever this statement is tweeted. I’m then able to quickly respond to that person on Twitter to ask if my firm can be of service.
Set up your search by first clicking the add column plus sign. Then ensure search is selected as seen in the image and enter the search term in the field.
Tip #2: Customize the TweetDeck pop-up alerts to notify you.
TweetDeck has a desktop pop-up window much like email and chat services do. If you are using Outlook, then you’ve likely seen one of these pop-up windows appear in the lower right corner of your monitor when you receive a new email. The TweetDeck default setting will alert you with a pop-up and sound whenever any of your columns are updated. TweetDeck allows you to customize this pop-up to alert you only in certain instances. In order to keep the pop-ups to a minimum, I set my TweetDeck to notify me only when I may want to respond. For instance, I have alerts set-up to notify me when anyone mentions my company name or my keywords that I want to respond to.
Set up your alerts by clicking on the settings button (the little wrench). Then select Notifications in the left side bar and click the Advanced Options for columns button. This will allow you to customize all of your pop-up notifications to alert you only when you think it is necessary.
Tip #3: Use the timer to schedule your tweets during optimal times.
One of the coolest options of TweetDeck is the ability to schedule your tweets. Let’s say you want to tweet something at a specific time. Just click on the little clock symbol next to the send button and schedule when you want your updates to go out. You can also select multiple networks on which to send out the update.
For instance, say I get inspired one night and stay up late writing a blog post. When I finish the post, I don’t want to tweet it right away because most of my readers are asleep. I know that most of my potential readers usually visit blogs from work at around 8am to 9am every weekday, which is also the time I notice they share the most on Twitter and Facebook. So I can set up my TweetDeck to tweet my new blog post at 7:55am and hit the optimal time to gain the most readers’ attention. This allows me to sleep in a little bit after staying up so late writing.
The Future of TweetDeck
Recently, a few stories have been running that TweetDeck was being purchased by Twitter for a sum around $45 million. So I guess this answers the question of how TweetDeck makes money! In reality, TweetDeck didn’t seem to have a source of revenue for the creators, but maybe that was the most important part. By not charging, being simple to use, and remaining advertisement free, TweetDeck was adopted quickly by a large user base, making it one of the most popular platforms for interfacing with Twitter accounts (along with other social media accounts). I’ve always enjoyed using TweetDeck to manage my online accounts and am excited to hear of the proposed purchase by Twitter. Hopefully this will ensure that TweetDeck continues to work extremely well with Twitter in the coming years.
Got any TweetDeck tips you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments…
The “Sorry” Word Works
by Rosemary Plorin on January 27, 2011 | no comments
in Brand Management, Crisis Communications, Healthcare
For almost 25 years, Lovell Communications has provided marketing and brand reputation counsel to some of the greatest hospitals, health systems and academic medical centers in the country. We might help rollout and build new hospital services … or announce billion dollar mergers or exciting medical advancements … or help launch an important community health initiative. We’re fortunate to work with extraordinarily talented executives and skillful physicians.
Unfortunately, many a conscientious provider has experienced a significant negative outcome or adverse patient event. Indeed, sometimes good – even great – hospitals and clinicians make mistakes, miss a diagnosis, or fail to appropriately understand a patient’s condition.
Though we like to think that physicians are super heroes and nurses are beyond common error, healthcare teams are comprised of hardworking, highly trained professionals that are, like all of us, susceptible to human frailty and the occasional oversight or lapse.
Like most humans who have caused or contributed to an error, clinical teams and their legal support systems usually move quickly into defensive mode when a serious adverse event is discovered. Just as a patient and their family are looking for increased information and escalated attention, physicians and administrators too often begin to decrease interaction and withhold non-essential information. The intimacy of the patient/provider relationship degrades, communication becomes strained and distrust blossoms. Plaintiffs’ attorneys follow shortly thereafter.
Since formalizing its organization in 2005, the Sorry Works! Coalition has helped hospitals and healthcare providers take a different approach. In a nutshell, the Sorry Works! philosophy advocates for “disclosure, apology (when appropriate), and upfront compensation (when necessary) after adverse medical events.” The Coalition’s website provides information, white papers, videos and presentations to help providers, administrators, risk managers and healthcare attorneys understand their recommended approach to disclosure.
To quote the Coalition’s credo, “The medical malpractice crisis is a customer service crisis that medical, insurance, and legal professionals can fix anytime they wish.”
While I am uncertain that diagnosis is 100% accurate, our firm’s experience has shown it is worth consideration. We’ve managed issues in hospitals that embrace disclosure, and we have managed (more) issues in hospitals that are lawyer-driven in their approach. Though we do not track outcomes and we have no quantitative evidence, we can say anecdotally that a Sorry Works! type approach can achieve more positive, less costly outcomes for providers (both in terms of settlement amounts and legal fees). And because this kind of approach often reduces the life cycle of a lawsuit, the collateral damage (to patients, families, work teams and brand reputations alike) is often greatly decreased.
In today’s world, a negative outcome – or even a minor medical error – can become widely spread blog fodder in a matter of hours. A “sucks” site or an “I hate ____” Facebook page up can pop up shortly after an incident takes place in the ER or OR or NICU. But fostering a culture that allows clinicians to show empathy to a family at the moment of disclosure, or say “I’m sorry” to a patient facing an unexpected setback in their care, can help stop the negative backlash before it begins.
Sip On This, Coffee Lovers: Starbucks Unveils New Logo
by Robin Embry on January 13, 2011 | no comments
in Brand Management, Branding, Marketing
It was just a few months ago that Gap made an attempt to change its logo. The reaction was unfavorable, to say the least. So, why has the world’s leading coffee maker decided to change its iconic mark? There are several reasons. First, Starbucks plans to triple its Asian locations, and studies show that rounded logos are more accepted in interdependent and collectivist cultures. Second, they are quickly approaching their 40th anniversary and those milestones often come with change. Lastly, in order to stay profitable the company must diversify and add more product lines beyond just coffee…did I hear Girl Scout cookies? Can you imagine the delight of sipping a cup of joe while munching on a Thin Mint?
Consumers like me may be excited about the new products, but what about a new logo? In 1992 Starbucks adopted the mark we all know, and now we can recognize the green circle a mile away. Starbucks is even going beyond a modified design and will drop its name from the logo. It worked for Nike, but can it work for a coffee shop chain?
The CEO does a compelling job of explaining the company’s rationale using corporate video storytelling (one of the social media predictions for 2011) to help us coffee drinkers/addicts/loyal followers understand the reasons for the change.
Is this the right decision for Starbucks? Will this affect their brand? Let me know what you think?
