Hey goundswell..I’d like to talk with you

The chapter talks about different techniques for communicating with the groundswell, measuring the results of participation in social networks, when brands should use social media, blogging tips, how marketing changes once a firm thinks of a conversation instead of shouting.

I think the last point I mentioned is probably the most important point from this chapter: firms typically shout at their consumers through print ads, radio/TV ads, PR etc. instead of listening to what their consumers are saying, and joining the conversation. This, I believe, is important.

The process for pulling consumers through the marketing funnel (if you are unfamiliar it moves from eyeballs entering at the large end of the funnel where they gain awareness of a product or service, and then move through consideration, preference, action, loyalty and come out the narrowed end of the funnel as a buyer) is archaic to a degree. Firms can’t shout at their consumers the whole way in order to influence consumers. The middle of the funnel is where the consumers are most influenced by the groundswell, so it is in that area, with those people, where a company would want to ensure an appropriate social media presence.

The chapter gives great examples of firms, both small and large, that engaged in conversations with their audiences. For example, global accounting firm, Ernst & Young, was in need of hiring 3500 new college grads every year. They decided to meet them where they live: Facebook. At that time, 85% of all college students had a profile. Ernst & Young realized that the individuals they were looking for engaged in student-to-student communication, and that’s what set Facebook apart for them. Then, they engage in dialogue with the students and answers questions or comments. Back to the funnel, Ernst & Young makes the students aware of their firm through advertising on campus and Facebook. To draw them in further, Facebook also serves the purpose of conversing with the students to help them further along the funnel, instead of shouting at them.

One other point from the chapter I will speak on is the blogging. It is important to be aware that before starting a blog, a firm or individual must want to engage in a dialogue with their audience and customers in order to be successful. Some more suggestions given for beginning the dialogue are:

Start by listening* think of this as listening to a conversation you want to join first, to get a feel for what’s being talked about, and then jumping in.

Determine a goal for the blog

Estimate the ROI

Develop a plan

Rehearse

Develop a marketing plan

Remember that blogging is more than writing

BE HONEST

Retrieved from: http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/

Here is a screenshot of a blog (orchestrated by the NBA, actualized through an individual like those they target) discussing all matters NBA related.

References

Li, C. & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Harvard Business School Publishing: Boston, Massachusetts.

How the fairy godmother transforms Cinderella

First, in flipping to the chapter for this week I passed the words “Ashton Kutcher” and “Justin Bieber’ in another chapter, so it was really difficult to read and blog on this chapter knowing those words are waiting in a nearby chapter.

Fairy Godmother= groundswell

Cinderella= your company

This chapter gives examples and talks a lot about how listening to the groundswell changes organizations. One that most people, or females know very well is Dove’s Campaign For Real Beauty. Initially, this campaign had a radical idea but was still conveyed via conventional mediums (print ad, TV, and outdoor ads). The campaign focused on delivering a positive message to females about their images by going against industry norms depicting young, perfect models instead of portraying the everyday woman (Li & Bernoff, 2011, p. 218). Great! It was a success. Fast-forward about a year, and a few individuals at Dove wanted to do it again, but this time..with the Web as the primary medium. The idea behind this campaign was to target individuals who wanted to hear from Dove. The campaign was essentially a series of web videos targeted to bring awareness to a new product line called Dove’s Calming Night. Again, a huge success with 3 million visits to the Dove Night website, the company (Unilever) proved that digital media could in fact be the center of an ad campaign (Li & Bernoff, 2011, p. 219).

What did Unilever teach us?

1) Take small steps, that have big impact- innovating the message in the Campaign For Real Beauty, and changing distribution with the “Evolution” video (web videos).

2) Have a vision and a plan- Duh! For real, this might seem common sense, but sometimes get overlooked, especially in the newness of the groundswell.

3) Build leaders into the plan- The two individuals who initiated and accepted their customers groundswell thinking were able to take Unilever to the top.

The chapter also give’s Dell’s PR nightmare as an example of how the groundswell sends out different messages. In this example, a very disgruntled-IMO rightfully so-journalism professor, blogger and Dell customer takes to a blog to let EVERYONE know how much Dell sucks. It was important in this case for Dell to listen and then act. Dell listened to the groundswell, and then initiated a social strategy, in which listening and then acting was number one. They began to blog, and blog about infamous incidents involving their product. Attempting to reach those who may have not only had problems with Dell’s product, but also individuals who did not have issues but were still interested in hearing from Dell. it was a difficult transparent approach for Dell (Li & Bernoff, 2011, p. 228).

What did Dell teach us?

1) Sometimes it takes a crisis for us to listen to the groundswell and get started.

2) Dell was able to manage one thing at a time (similar to the take small steps that make a big impact) and Dell started with listening

3) Support from the top  was crucial- I didn’t mention it, but Dell did have this.

4) Authenticity was imperative-just how we like people to be real, we like companies to be real also.

I can deduce a few things from this. Companies need to start small, they can’t possibly tackle all of the groundswell at once. A company also needs to be sure to educate their executives because their support and understanding of the groundswell will make a difference. They will also need to have the right people running their strategy, make sure their agency or agencies are friends with technology (sync), and plan for the long term.

 Here’s the very interesting blog post about Dell.

(BuzzMachine.com, 2005)

References

Li, C. & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Harvard Business School Publishing: Boston, Massachusetts.

Listening to the groundswell

If you haven’t already noticed, this week’s chapter discussed listening to the groundswell. I want to almost compare listening to the groundswell like listening to your mom. No one thinks you listen to her-not even her- but in order not to make that dumb decision you might have, you need to have listened carefully to her to apply the advice. If that makes a little bit of sense.

The chapter basically says that customers think companies don’t listen to them, but in fact companies pay a lot of money to listen to them (Li & Bernoff, 2011, p. 79). It goes on to say that listening to the groundswell can reveal new insights. For example if you had a published book, there is likely someone blogging about your book 🙂

We also learn there are two different ways to listen: setting up your own private community, and brand monitoring. The latter is where a company hires another company to monitor the Internet on the hiring companies behalf. They also make a very- I think-important point in saying that listening on its own is worthless, but rather the plan to act is what gives listening worth. This is totally true. Think about it. If everyone who bought an Apple iPhone was tweeting, blogging, facebooking, instagraming, hashtagging (those are all newly founded words by yours truly) that they were upset their lock/unlock button on the top of the phone was not working and Apple heard that but had no plan to act, why listen? Good thing for smart ol’ Apple, they heard this and reacted to serve their consumers and rectify the problem.

It goes on to talk about how listening can spawn new ideas, and earn respect for both individuals and the firm. These are all really great things that are resulting from listening to the groundswell. For a firm, listening to the groundswell can mean so many things. It lets a company find out what their brand stands for, see how buzz is shifting, save research money and increase responsiveness, find sources of influence in the given market, manage PR crises, and like mentioned before, generate new product and marketing ideas. Don’t forget- listening is great, but without a plan, it’s nothing more than the Kardashians: useless (for real, I watch KUWTK so no hard feelings). For example, if I was a senior executive producer at E! (the tv channel that airs shows like Keeping Up with the Kardashians, TMZ, Total Divas, etc.) I would look at one brand (one show) and look at the Social Technographics Profile of my customers after I’ve listened to the groundswell. I am also going to make sure that who ever is listening to the groundswell for me has experience. Then, myself along with other senior colleagues will interpret the information, and integrate it with other sources (Li & Bernoff, 2011, p. 96).

(Hearst Magazines UK, 2015)

Thanks, Kim!

References

Li, C. & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Harvard Business School Publishing: Boston, Massachusetts.

This week!

I read chapter 3 from Groundswell (the book we are required to read in this class) entitled the social technographics profile. Again the  quick run down of this chapter is that there are different ways to participate in the groundswell.

SIDE NOTE: according to the book Groundswell, groundswell is defined as:

A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations (Li & Bernoff, 2011, p. 9).

The Social Technographic ladder shows that there are seven levels of participation in groundswell. At the lowest most inactive level there are in-actives. After them are spectators, followed by joiners, then collectors, critics, conversationalists, and finally creators being the most active.The creators frequently take part in activities like publishing a blog (guess what that makes me??) and do other things like maintain a Web page, or even upload videos to sites like YouTube. Conversationalists are one step down and they do things like post updates on Twitter, but have to do it more frequently. Critics post ratings or reviews, or comment on another’s blog, Collectors use RSS feeds, while joiners maintain a profile on a social networking site. Spectators read blogs, listen to podcasts and watch videos. In-actives do none of the above.

Then these aspects can be applied to any market segment to determine where they stand on the Social Technographics Profile. In Groundswell, it looks at Alpha Moms and their tendency to be joiners versus creators versus all of the other dimensions mentioned above (Li & Bernoff, 2011, p. 48). It can also be used to not only compare market segments, but also different countries.Finally, the chapter ends with explaining why people participate in groundswell. They were able to derive a few reasons being:

Keeping up friendships, making new friends, succumbing to social pressure from existing friends, paying it forward, the altruistic impulse (they think investing time in social sites is worth it), the prurient impulse, the creative impulse, and the validation impulse.

I am going to look at a target market for the NBA. I will look at males in the United States aged 18-24, which is likely a large part of the NBA’s target market. Looking at the image from Forrester, it is apparent that males in the United States of this age range are largely spectators. This means that they consume what others post (Li & Bernoff, 2011, p. 45). They are likely to view online videos, blogs, podcasts, and reviews.

What does this mean for the NBA in their endeavours in reaching this market using social tools?

It means they’re going to want to use things like they currently do. A YouTube channel will be highly beneficial because males this age will watch the videos of replays, latest news, etc. Again, a website (which already exists) where males this age can look to watch videos, or read stories, updates and stats. From what I can see on my own Instagram feed, many NBA teams have their own individuals Instagram accounts (same goes for Twitter), which are an extension of the NBA. These are all good, and even better because the number for joiners is the next highest in this segment, meaning that which ever platforms require users to join, the NBA will be in luck because the people they’re looking at are highly likely to join as well.

The NBA could also look to highly popular individual blogs to see what those in this market are thinking; aka get insight.

References

Li, C. & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Harvard Business School Publishing: Boston, Massachusetts.

Forrester Research, Inc. (2014). What’s the social technographics profile of your customers? Retrieved from

http://empowered.forrester.com/tool_consumer.html