What About Me? An Employee's Lament...

Have you ever gone to a work party not because you wanted to, but because your boss “strongly suggested” it, as a show of support for the company?  Your enthusiasm comes off as fake and it doesn’t give you any reason to participate on your own in the future.  Perhaps if you had decided on your own to attend the work event, the support for your company would be genuine and it would be an incentive to attend future events.

The inefficacy of a top-down model when trying to manage a groundswell movement within a company is an issue Li & Bernoff tackle in Chapter 11 of Groundswell.  Most of what we have read and talked about so far has been how a company can use the groundswell to actively engage with their customer and use it as a marketing tool.  But what the authors seek to do in this chapter is to impress upon their readers the importance of using the groundswell to also energize employees.

Many companies around the world are starting to adopt the idea of creating an internal social network for their employees to help with communication.  “Some of these applications came from management and others began as skunk-works projects, but what they have in common is this: they tap the power of the groundswell of ideas among the people who know best how your business runs, your employees” (Groundswell, pg. 216).  However, for these internal social networking opportunities to take root and flourish, they must evolve organically.  “You can’t force them [employees] to adopt groundswell thinking, any more than you can convince reluctant managers to deploy social technologies with your customers” (Groundswell, pg. 230-231).

To illustrate the concept of an internal social networking site at work in a large company, consider Nokia, a worldwide mobile phone producer.  According to simply-communicate.com Nokia has three main uses of social media to connect with all employees in a less “top-down model”: BlogHub, VideoHub and Infopedia.  On the site Conversations by Nokia they offer a timeline of their internal social media efforts.

In a 2011 interview for Conversations by Nokia, Tiina Jaatinen, Senior Communications Specialist, Social Media, spoke about the importance of all Nokia’s employees having a place to have a voice and quickly share with everyone else.  This is why BlogHub became of vital importance to the company.  With over 1400 active blogs and 100,000+ comments, Nokia is assured its employees, who each have an internal blog, they have a constantly evolving stream of work and ideas (Conversations by Nokia).  This is what Li & Bernoff where presenting with the case study looking at Blue Shirt Nation, the internal site for Best Buy employees.

The authors end their book urging their audience to remember social media is ever-changing and constantly evolving.  But if companies do not focus on forming relationships with their customers, they will never be able to reap the benefits social media can provide, both inside and out.



A Noble Idea: Barnes & Noble in Social Media, Part 1

Since childhood my toy store of choice has always been Barnes & Noble.  The New York Times has called B&N “by far, the largest bookstore chain in the United States,” (article) and they are looking to expand their reach overseas in the near future.  As you have probably guessed from my previous blog posts, books and reading are a great passion of mine.  Though B&N originated in 1873, it did not open as a full-fledged bookstore under the name Barnes & Noble until 1917 in New York City (Wikipedia).  Since then, the store has grown in size and offerings.  A traditional B&N will include sections for DVDs, CDs, stationary/journals, novelty gifts, magazines and a café (Starbucks) in addition to books.  However, it is B&N’s newest item which generates the most buzz and the most profit:  the Nook, a tablet which offers “incredible reading and entertainment,” boasts the website.  Customers can choose from the NookHD+, HD, Tablet, Color, Simple Touch w/ Glowlight, Simple Touch, and 1^st Edition.

 

 

For the past three weeks I have used Social Mention, GoogleTrends, Twittalyzer, Facebook, Twitter and UnabashedlyBookish (BN Community blog) to follow the online exploits of the bookstore giant and its famous Nook.  Though the Nook has a separate Facebook and Twitter page, for the purpose of this blog, I will be focusing on Barnes & Noble’s company accounts.  The purpose of my research is to see how being such a large chain affects the company’s ability to focus on creating relationships with and connecting to their customers.

Web presence

Barnes & Noble has done a fairly decent job representing themselves online, creating as previously mentioned, a Facebook page for both the company and one just for the Nook. They have followed the same model on Twitter, trying to connect to their customers in 140 characters or less.

  

 

Since branding is such an important part of marketing, especially in large companies such as this, I expected the pages to have a common theme.  Instead each is treated as a separate entity, with their Twitter account containing no graphics at all.

 

In addition to their traditional social media sites, B&N uses their website to drive sales, inform customers of new items and announce special promotions.  As they are currently gearing up for the release of the Nook HD and HD+ on November 1^st, a graphic of the items has been on the homepage for at least the last month.  Also part of the website, UnabashedlyBookish promises new content each day, giving customers the opportunity to engage in literary conversation with B&N staff and other customers.  Spanning the six different B&N blogs, the company maintains, there have been over 23,650 posts as of October 21^st.

 

Data Doesn’t Lie

If we look at the company using the online tool Social Mention over the course of three weeks, we see steady increases in areas such as strength, going from 6%, jumping up to 23% and finally 32%.  The reach also saw a major gain, starting off at only 18% and then skyrocketing to 51% before a final buoy set it at 62%.  However, sentiment and passion did not enjoy the same good fortune, each declining.  Passion in B&N fell from 55% on October 9^th down to 35% on October 15^th.  One week later on the 21^st, passion had only rebounded by 1%, leaving it at 36%.  With regards to sentiment, B&N saw a high on October 15^th with a 6 to 1 positive sentiment and then a drop to only a 3 to 1 ratio by the next week.

To see more linear representations of the company’s sales over time, I used Google Trends to look at the company over a 30-day and 90-day time span.  (This interest was confined to United States consumers.)  Though both graphs show a relatively high level of interest, the numbers seemed to have reached their peak in mid-September and have been on a decline since then, with only brief peaks.  A few contributing factors may have been the upcoming announcement of the new Nook products on September 24^th and pre-order sales for J.K. Rowling’s book “ACasual Vacancy,” released September 27^th.

Looking at the Facebook page data for the company, there has been a small increase from week to week in the amount of likes they have received, growing from 1,468,873 likes on October 9^th to 1,472,595 on October 18^th.  The largest and more surprising increase came in the number of people talking about B&N, jumping 6,726 people in just one week.  While not looking at the Nook Facebook page specifically, it is important to note that while gaining 1650 likes, the page has dropped 5,373 people talking about the Nook.

 

But what do all these numbers translate to?  Barnes & Noble hopes it will translate to more customers engaging with them on the site so they cannot only energize current customers, but cultivate new areas of growth for the company.  A number of posts ask their followers to tell them what they are reading, or leave a question for an upcoming author interview.  One post on October 5^th asking B&N followers what they plan to read that weekend received almost 1300 comments with 547 likes.  A more recent post asked customers to tell what DC comic book character they were being for Halloween, generating a number of comments and almost 300 likes.

Unfortunately B&N has not connected to its followers on Twitter as closely as it has on Facebook.  With 61,746 followers, the company spends most of its time on Twitter answering customers.  A trend seems to be that while positive tweets are generally responded to quickly, angry tweets about poor customer service or missing merchandise have to sometimes wait 2-3 days.

 

Looking at date from Twitalyzer for the company for the most recent week of October 15^th-21^st, B&N is categorized as a casual user.  To make more effective use of connecting quickly with customers, the company I believe would benefit greatly from linking their Facebook and Twitter accounts so the same posts go to both feeds.  This will also give a sense of continuity to both pages and could improve their analytics from Twitter.

 

In the coming weeks I plan to look more closely at how or if their response to customers improves in both of their main social media sites.  Since their new product is set to launch on November 1^st, it will be interesting to see if the company decides to do any type of social media blitz surrounding the release and how they respond to consumer issues directly following the release.  Being such a large company can present a challenge when it comes to meeting customer’s needs.  If Barnes & Noble can create and sustain a stronger online customer service response model, it will prove they are ready to handle the groundswell and begin using it more to their advantage.



Elementary

     Even if you’ve never seen the new T.V. phenomenon Sherlock, chances are you have at least heard of it.  Sherlock is the newest show in a long line of British television exports to gain recent fame in the U.S.  However, since the show was not written for, or with an American audience in mind, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) knew if they were going to energize customers about a show which is already massively popular across the pond, they would need to engage with potential viewers by establishing an online presence.  To do this, they used a variety of online formats, including blogs, audio/visual files and forums.

Benedict Cumberbatch as "Sherlock"

     The Groundswell (authored by Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff) discusses using emerging technology in new and innovative ways to form a relationship through your outreach.  The BBC’s objective: to energize viewers about a beloved Victorian English classic character brought into modern day.

           

     Groundswell says energizing current customers will not only help to ensure they remain loyal, but will translate to “word-of-mouth” marketing.  Word of mouth has been called the most honest form of marketing because of its believability (pg. 130-131).  To reach out to an entirely new generation of television viewers, the BBC took to the Internet.   But they went further than maintaining a traditional Facebook or Twitter page; they created an entire blog site that one of the main characters in the show uses, as if he were a real person.

     Dr. John Watson’s Blog chronicles the many adventures he and the main character, Sherlock Holmes, have together, complete with blog entries and comments from other characters in the show.  Not only was the character of John Watson’s blog given real life, but other major characters such as Sherlock Holmes and Molly Hooper.   Yet the BBC knew it was not enough to create websites for fictional characters for viewers to scroll through, they had to create a place for fans to converse and ask questions about these people.

     For this they went back to one of the most basic forms of social media- the forum.  Forums allow users to log in online as a member and then “post any question or comment or they can respond to questions and comments posted by others.” (Groundswell, pg. 26)  Though many companies use forum boards to help solve problems, the BBC Sherlock Fan Forum has become an online community for those who are new to the show, or who have been avid fans since the first episode.  Below are examples of some of the conversations between members.

http://sherlock.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=1114

http://sherlock.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=102

http://sherlock.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=1148

 

All of their social media efforts seem to have paid off; the Guardian.uk reports “The first episode in the 2^nd season drew 3.2m viewers, more than double the average of PBS's primetime rating.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2012/may/18/sherlock-reichenbach-fall-live-chat) Only time will tell if these new tactics will effect long-time viewer loyalty.  But what do you think; would these new uses of available social media entice and energize you to become a Sherlock fan?

 



In the hands of the consumer

“Easier said than done.” We’ve all heard it a million times.  And whether we are talking about mustering up the courage to ask your crush to the prom, or helping your company make the leap to listening to and acting on your customer’s wishes and requests, the phrase still rings true.



Taken from WOMMA website: http://womma.org/main/

Chapters 7-10 of Groundswell center on engaging with customers online and how to use this digital communication to let them have a say in your product.

One of the most important ideas to come out of this particular section is the word-of-mouth energizing tactic.  Li & Bernoff quote the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA)  when defining the term as, “the most honest form of marketing, building upon people’s natural desire to share their experiences with family, friends and colleagues” (pg. 131).  Perhaps this is why when North American online consumers were asked what review source they trust the most before making a purchase, 83% trust the opinion of a friend or acquaintance who has used the product/service (Figure 7-1, pg. 132).

Anyone familiar with Amazon.com knows they devote a portion of each product display to the customer review section where they solicit those who have purchased the product to let others know what they thought.  They do this through comments and a star rating system of 1-5; one star being poor, and five stars being the best.

Taken from Amazon.com

Take, for example, Amazon’s new Kindle Fire HD- the most telling analysis is the 888+ individuals who state exactly how they feel about the product.  Amazon, as it does with all its products has posted all reviews, positive and negative, because they realize as Li & Bernoff also point out, the negative reviews are helpful in lending credibility/believability to all the positive reviews.  This also allows Amazon to hear much quicker where the issues with their product lie (pg. 138, 140). 

A quick scroll through the customer reviews section (where readers can also vote on if the review was useful or not) will illustrate exactly what Li & Bernoff meant when they discussed the value of energizing consumers.  In a continuing effort to help the groundswell community support itself through tactics such as forums, wikis and Q&A blogs, (as discussed in Chapter 8), Amazon has created a Kindle Help Forum page which currently has over 1000 discussions posted.

By the time we reach Chapters 9 & 10 of Groundswell, the question of product innovation is addressed.  While the idea of product development may cause sweat to form on the brow of many company executives, Li & Bernoff offer a simple groundswell solution: Make customers part of your process.

Kindle Forum taken from Amazon.com

“Your customers are chomping at the bit to tell you what to do.  …Whether you’re ready or not, they are now part of your process” (Groundswell, pg.182). Giving customers a voice in your company leads to faster innovation and limitless creativity.

So what do you think; is this tactic easier said than done?

Geek Chic

I bet if someone asked you to describe what caused you to make your first foray into social media, your answer would have something to do with the entertainment value it provides.  Facebook provides you with a vast amount of games, Twitter allows you to follow celebrities every waking move and YouTube is a constantly evolving sea of video content ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous.  Now before you balk at this and condemn the notion as “not I,” look at the idea from this angle- there are some people whose livelihoods depend on your entertainment consumption; people, for example, like Chris Hardwick.

Chris Hardwick, ladies and gentleman, is the creator of The Nerdist Podcast, “a weekly interview show ‘about what it really means to be a nerd’” (Wikipedia, The Nerdist Podcast) according to Chris Hardwick and his comedian friends Jonah Ray and Matt Mira who frequently accompany him.


Now we know from what Li & Bernoff have told us way back in Chapter 2 of Groundswell that podcasts are far from the most popular way to consume social media.  Though blogging and reading blogs may be one of the most popular groundswell activities, blogging’s cousin called podcasting, sits at the other end of the user-generated content spectrum.  Podcasts reach around 11% of the online population in America, compared with bloggings 25% (pg. 19-20).  So if they haven’t caught on yet, why is The Nerdist so popular?  Let’s take a look at this podcasts humble begins in social media and how it has grown into what its website calls “a many headed beast.”

In its first incarnation, The Nerdist Podcast interviews recorded were used to generate conversations among a community and encourage listeners to comment, whether good or bad.  But being a tech-geek and frequent contributor to G4tv, Chris Hardwick, the podcast’s creator, knew the importance of multiple social media platforms when trying to recruit followers to his posts.

This was how a simple podcast created by friends erupted into a full-blown website covering all mediums of nerdist culture.  In addition to the typical Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts, The Nerdist also has an RSS feed, a YouTube Channel and a constantly updated calendar announcing when Chris Hardwick and his contributors will be performing at local theatres.

 

Followers of The Nerdist even caught the attention of cable network BBC America who produced a few of Hardwick’s podcasts as 1-hour television specials.  This is a preview of one of those specials:

 

What makes The Nerdist unique though is not all the social media outlets working in tandem; it’s the online community that was created.  It illustrates the Groundswell theory of community building, with content of the website and podcasts determined by what listener want.  A man with a desire to talk about all things nerdy used the groundswell to his advantage and was able to reach an entire community.  So how about you; are you ready to join the Nerdist Revolution?