He was born in January 2009 and seven months later he was an international sensation with a fan following to die for: 700,00 followers on Facebook, 22,000 followers on Twitter, a separate gallery dedicated to his family on Flickr, and some months later a hugely successful autobiography. The only problem is, he’s a CGI anthropomorphic Russian Meerkat. Meet the famous Aleksandr Orlov from comparethemarket.com (or comparethemeerkat.com).
As his popularity grows, so does the twist in his family’s tragedies which viewers never tire to watch over and over again and share the through YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter and a host of social media sites. Aleksandr is every PR agency’s dream! Every company’s dream mascot. (and I do hope, using a twist on the spelling would help my blog too!)
Why does a campaign turn viral, when others don’t? What was special in this campaign? It was an advertisement for (yet another) comparison site with a plain Jane name! Yet, the meerkat caught the imagination of its viewers catapulting the website to the top!
One of the coolest things about the Web is that when an idea takes off, it can propel a brand or a company to seemingly instant fame and fortune. For Free. Whatever you call it – viral, buzz, word-of-mouth... – having other people tell you the story drives action. One person sends to another, then that person sends it to yet another and so on. The challenge for marketers is to harness the amazing power of word-of-mouse.
Let’s look at some of the products/campaigns that have been successful. Is there something we can learn from them?
Classic Case 1: Hotmail.com
The classic example of viral marketing is Hotmail.com, one of the first free Web-based e-mail services. The strategy is simple:
1. Give away free e-mail addresses and services,
2. Attach a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out: "Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com" and,
3. Then stand back while people e-mail to their own network of friends and associates,
4. Who see the message,
5. Sign up for their own free e-mail service, and then
6. Propel the message still wider to their own ever-increasing circles of friends and associates.
Like tiny waves spreading ever farther from a single pebble dropped into a pond, a carefully designed viral marketing strategy ripples outward extremely rapidly.
Classic Case 2: Gmail
Unlike Hotmail, Gmail came up with a different strategy. It invited a select group to Gmail. The initial invitees had a limited number of invites. As PC users were getting used to Google, they were intrigued by the ‘exclusivity’ surrounding Gmail. Very soon, people were ‘begging’ the Gmail users for introductions. Some enterprising chaps even tried to ‘sell’ gmail accounts introductions on the web!
So what was different in this case? Exclusivity, obviously!
Case 3: Multi-level marketing
Use existing communication networks – Multi-level marketers have perfected this art. Social scientists tell us that each person has a network of 8 – 12 people in their close network of friends, family, and associates. Start with one and expect the communication/service/product to ride on this network. If you have a LinkedIn account you are aware of this geometric progression.
So what are the key elements of a successful viral marketing? Ralph Wilson, very aptly sums them up as follows:
1. Gives away products or services
2. Provides for effortless transfer to others
3. Scales easily from small to very large
4. Exploits common motivations and behaviors
5. Utilises existing communication networks
6. Takes advantage of others' resources
It is not necessary that all elements must be present for a campaign to turn viral. However, it is logical to assume that the more elements are present, the more powerful the results are likely to be.
The Internet provides a perfect nurturing ground for viral marketing. You devise a plot, weave a story (3 minutes maximum – keep YouTube in mind), put it on the web and start talking about it. It can begin from as simple as putting a link below your email signature, to posting a link on facebook and twitter. As you can see, the formula for success includes a combination of some great—and free— Web content (a video, blog entry, interactive tool, or e-book) that provides valuable information (or is groundbreaking or amazing or hilarious or involves a celebrity), plus a network of people to light the fire and links that make your content very easy to share.
While this looks fairly simple, I wish I could tell you whether your campaign will turn viral. Honestly, if I knew this secret, I’d not be here writing this blog! Having said that, the fact remains that viral marketing is one of the most exciting and powerful ways to reach your audiences. It is not easy to harness the power of word-of-mouse, but any company with thoughtful ideas to share – and clever ways to create interest in them – can, after some careful preparation, hit the jackpot. And, even if you do not this time, what do you have to lose?
Friday 20 May 2011
Thursday 5 May 2011
Digital strategy can help manage your reputaion risk
Whatever be the size of your business, the most serious dent to your reputation can come from a single highly motivated individual armed with a $100 laptop and an internet connection.
Digital world has opened up a situation where businesses are constantly exposed to threats to their reputation. And the opposition may not be a competitor, or another business; a disgruntled customer, a sacked employee or even an imposter (see my earlier blog “Do you have a digital strategy in place?) , armed with a computer and an internet connection can cause serious dent to your business. Internet, and the profusion of digital forum has dramatically changed the rules of engagement. It has levelled the playing field between large businesses and single individual. What is required is the dedication and perseverance to post disparaging and (often) damaging contents about a business on key sites, stroking the flame the keeping it alive for a minimum time for it to start raging. And business leaders do not have any advance warning or time to reflect!
If your company comes into disrepute for any reason, you can expect
• A media grilling
• Negative public opinion that is hard to reverse
• Punitive fines, if applicable
• Unwanted attention from pressure groups
• Disastrous sales
• Reduced profits and revenue.
In this economic climate, can you afford it? How can you be prepared and be able to identify and kill these sparks early? What new tools or techniques do you need in your business to counter these sniper attacks?
The permanence of web comments makes the internet a challenging place for corporate reputations. There was a time when bad news that surfaced in traditional media might be expected to blow over in a couple of days. These days, however, just about every google search for a business’ name can dredge up gripes from years past. This is a good reason for communicators to take control of their online destiny and ensure they are in driving seat when it comes to steering their corporate reputation.
With a meaningful digital strategy in place, it can go a long way to keep you prepared for such situations. How does it work?
A digital strategy helps you think through the different future scenarios/events that your business can be exposed to. Let’s take the example of insurance industry. The industry has been at the receiving end of criticisms, since the onset of economic crisis. Websites, discussion forum, tweets are full of criticism on products, processes and people in the industry. Be it remunerations, bonuses, measly returns or unsettled claims, people get a (almost) perverse delight in posting criticisms on the digital forum. What is conspicuous is an almost lack of response of any kind from the companies. I am not trying to defend the insurance companies. But I cannot believe that they do not have a point of view which they would not like to share. And sometimes the insurance companies do share their points of view. But by the time, the response is written, re-written, reviewed and whetted by compliance, legal, marketing, communications etc, the number of ‘re-tweets’, post-shares and comments have far exceeded the response. The response is often apologetic, light and lost in the storm of responses.
In the current landscape you cannot afford to be reactive. Most often, you are aware of future events/triggers which have potential disruptive impact on your business. You need to have canned responses ready for it. Or, better still; offset the negative response by publishing your view point ahead of the reaction. Let’s take a hypothetical case. An insurance company has been imposed fines by a regulator for a breach. The business is aware of the fine days before it is made public by the regulator. The business can do well by identifying potential scenarios (read responses) to the news, the potential sites where the reaction would be published (for example, trade journals, blog sites of industry commentators, financial discussion forum and not to forget, their own Intranet). The marketing/PR/Strategy depart has pretty good idea of the extent of criticism that the news would generate. Armed with this insight, the business could prepare ‘wire frame’ responses to the (potential) reaction which could be quickly customised and posted, as the reactions are being aired. Or, even better, pre-empt the reaction by breaking the news themselves with details on the steps the company is taking to ensure that the breach is not repeated in future!
Planning ahead helps – this is a well known fact. Building and nurturing a mechanism to plan for such situations will relieve the business of herding the stakeholders into their war room every time there is a crisis. The mechanism to plan for such scenarios is your digital strategy team. It is a small group drawn from various key functions who understand the potential impact of various digital forum, and who are empowered to issue responses as the reactions are posted, or as an event unfolds! What helps them to perform this role is your digital strategy.
Today having a meaningful digital strategy is not less important than a business strategy. Digital space is emerging as the de facto place for sharing ideas and opinions. And, shaping them as well. In a recent survey conducted by @equalman production suggests that 78% of the consumers trust peer recommendations as against 14% who trust adverts! The various forum give you a perfect opportunity to be in touch with the popular discussions on your products and services, engage with the participants and help shape the opinion. If 78% of the users trust a peer review, there cannot be a better business case of having a presence on the digital space and engaging with them.
Your presence on the digital space also ensures that any disparaging comments/observations made are picked up and dealt with swiftly. A demographic analysis of the users can reveal wealth of opportunities for the business participating on the digital space. Analytics and insight forms a separate topic itself, which (hopefully) I will cover in a later blog.
In this world of mega-connectivity, businesses need to rethink their marketing/communication strategy to engage the customers and help shape opinion and nudge them into a buying scenario. The population is willing to listen and form an opinion on your products and services. Have you been engaging with them recently?
Digital world has opened up a situation where businesses are constantly exposed to threats to their reputation. And the opposition may not be a competitor, or another business; a disgruntled customer, a sacked employee or even an imposter (see my earlier blog “Do you have a digital strategy in place?) , armed with a computer and an internet connection can cause serious dent to your business. Internet, and the profusion of digital forum has dramatically changed the rules of engagement. It has levelled the playing field between large businesses and single individual. What is required is the dedication and perseverance to post disparaging and (often) damaging contents about a business on key sites, stroking the flame the keeping it alive for a minimum time for it to start raging. And business leaders do not have any advance warning or time to reflect!
If your company comes into disrepute for any reason, you can expect
• A media grilling
• Negative public opinion that is hard to reverse
• Punitive fines, if applicable
• Unwanted attention from pressure groups
• Disastrous sales
• Reduced profits and revenue.
In this economic climate, can you afford it? How can you be prepared and be able to identify and kill these sparks early? What new tools or techniques do you need in your business to counter these sniper attacks?
The permanence of web comments makes the internet a challenging place for corporate reputations. There was a time when bad news that surfaced in traditional media might be expected to blow over in a couple of days. These days, however, just about every google search for a business’ name can dredge up gripes from years past. This is a good reason for communicators to take control of their online destiny and ensure they are in driving seat when it comes to steering their corporate reputation.
With a meaningful digital strategy in place, it can go a long way to keep you prepared for such situations. How does it work?
A digital strategy helps you think through the different future scenarios/events that your business can be exposed to. Let’s take the example of insurance industry. The industry has been at the receiving end of criticisms, since the onset of economic crisis. Websites, discussion forum, tweets are full of criticism on products, processes and people in the industry. Be it remunerations, bonuses, measly returns or unsettled claims, people get a (almost) perverse delight in posting criticisms on the digital forum. What is conspicuous is an almost lack of response of any kind from the companies. I am not trying to defend the insurance companies. But I cannot believe that they do not have a point of view which they would not like to share. And sometimes the insurance companies do share their points of view. But by the time, the response is written, re-written, reviewed and whetted by compliance, legal, marketing, communications etc, the number of ‘re-tweets’, post-shares and comments have far exceeded the response. The response is often apologetic, light and lost in the storm of responses.
In the current landscape you cannot afford to be reactive. Most often, you are aware of future events/triggers which have potential disruptive impact on your business. You need to have canned responses ready for it. Or, better still; offset the negative response by publishing your view point ahead of the reaction. Let’s take a hypothetical case. An insurance company has been imposed fines by a regulator for a breach. The business is aware of the fine days before it is made public by the regulator. The business can do well by identifying potential scenarios (read responses) to the news, the potential sites where the reaction would be published (for example, trade journals, blog sites of industry commentators, financial discussion forum and not to forget, their own Intranet). The marketing/PR/Strategy depart has pretty good idea of the extent of criticism that the news would generate. Armed with this insight, the business could prepare ‘wire frame’ responses to the (potential) reaction which could be quickly customised and posted, as the reactions are being aired. Or, even better, pre-empt the reaction by breaking the news themselves with details on the steps the company is taking to ensure that the breach is not repeated in future!
Planning ahead helps – this is a well known fact. Building and nurturing a mechanism to plan for such situations will relieve the business of herding the stakeholders into their war room every time there is a crisis. The mechanism to plan for such scenarios is your digital strategy team. It is a small group drawn from various key functions who understand the potential impact of various digital forum, and who are empowered to issue responses as the reactions are posted, or as an event unfolds! What helps them to perform this role is your digital strategy.
Today having a meaningful digital strategy is not less important than a business strategy. Digital space is emerging as the de facto place for sharing ideas and opinions. And, shaping them as well. In a recent survey conducted by @equalman production suggests that 78% of the consumers trust peer recommendations as against 14% who trust adverts! The various forum give you a perfect opportunity to be in touch with the popular discussions on your products and services, engage with the participants and help shape the opinion. If 78% of the users trust a peer review, there cannot be a better business case of having a presence on the digital space and engaging with them.
Your presence on the digital space also ensures that any disparaging comments/observations made are picked up and dealt with swiftly. A demographic analysis of the users can reveal wealth of opportunities for the business participating on the digital space. Analytics and insight forms a separate topic itself, which (hopefully) I will cover in a later blog.
In this world of mega-connectivity, businesses need to rethink their marketing/communication strategy to engage the customers and help shape opinion and nudge them into a buying scenario. The population is willing to listen and form an opinion on your products and services. Have you been engaging with them recently?
Tuesday 3 May 2011
Building Meaningful Digital Strategy
Issue: If consumers are spending 30% of their time online, why does marketing department spend only 5% of their budgets online?
We are amidst the second wave of excitement around digital. In the ‘90s, there was a lot of excitement around the new way of selling products and services to the customers. The euphoria was short-lived. There was nothing wrong with the channel – what we failed to realise that it takes a long time for habits to change.
Over the decade, as Internet grew, our target customers have become more active online, embracing all manner of new digital media habits—from social networks to smart phones—and they are continuing to spend more time and money online despite the economic meltdown. Unfortunately, digital marketing has been largely unable to benefit from this shift. The reason is simple: People no longer need what we offer to them. We continue to dish out what we had created in the ‘90s (or micro-improved variants of the same content) and expect our consumers to lap it up.
What gets passed around as Digital Way of engagement - spam emails, banners, commercials, pop-ups – no longer catches the fancy of customers. In fact, they are actively taking steps to get rid of them. Today, customers actively take part in selection of the content, presentation and audience.
And this is not a passing fad. Digital connectivity is here to stay. It will radically change the way a business engage with the world (consisting of customers, prospects, defectors and critics). As the ‘digital way of life’ sinks in people’s psyche, it is important that businesses recognise this trend and build strategies for it.
So what is a meaningful Digital Strategy?
Digital Strategy is NOT about Social Media. Social Media is – at best - a part of digital strategy. Neither are mailers, banners or pop-up. A mere presence on the web – be it website, or a presence on the social networks – does not constitute a digital strategy. There exists a wide divergence on the exact definition of Digital strategy. For the purpose of this blog, I have used a generic definition of digital strategy as a process of specifying an organisation's vision, goals, opportunities and initiatives in order to maximise the business benefits digital investments and efforts provide to the organisation. These can includes customer intelligence, collaboration, new product/market exploration, sales and service optimisation, enterprise technology architectures and processes, innovation and governance using marketing and customer-focused efforts such as web sites, mobile, eCommerce, social, site and search engine optimization, and advertising.
The profusion of social media sites, fuelled by easily accessible tools for content generation has put customers in the centre-stage. Connected customers have become ‘prosumers’ (borrowing a term from Alvin Toffler), producing and consuming information as they surf in the digital space. They actively seek to engage with the businesses for a variety of needs. They seek information, they provide feedback and are willing to be consulted. Being empowered, and equipped with the tools, they definitely not appreciate being ignored! If they have a point of view, they post it, share it and invite comments on it. Be it a product, service, provider or an event. They can be cryptic and post their views in less than 140 words (on Twitter), and/or provide details in greater length (on a blog), and/or provide visual evidences (Flicker) or even videos (YouTube). And the list does not end there! If your website does not provide enough information on your products/services or if they do not agree with your view, they can leave comments on your website using sidewiki!
This empowerment of the prosumer poses a great risk and an opportunity for businesses. The risks are pretty obvious. A serious (and malicious) campaign against your business can be launched with little effort and, if directed carefully, can cause serious damage to your brand. After the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, for example, Leroy Stick (an alias) began publishing the tweets of a totally made-up representative of a similarly bogus BP global public relations division. While crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, devastating the regional ecology and economy, the satirical Twitterer (@BPGlobalPR) tweeted about the division’s lunch menu and other inane matters. Tens of thousands followed his updates—far more than the number who followed the real BP Twitter account. Through this low-cost effort, Stick helped keep Americans’ rage boiling as BP scrambled to plug the well and restore faith in its brand.
On the other hand, a well-thought strategy to engage with the prosumers on digital space, can provide new business opportunities, insights and opportunities to collaborate more actively with your customers and prospects alike. And that too, at a fraction of cost.
The prosumer seeks connectivity. The prosumer is looking at ways to engage with you. So why are businesses shying away from this opportunity to work closely with their customers and prospects. For one, they have little idea on the composition of the prosumers – who are they, what is their profile, are they my potential customers or just ‘teenagers wasting their time on the Net’. Second, businesses are (most often) unaware of what is being talked about them. Third, they are unclear how to channelize the prosumers into meaningful conversation, and for what purpose.
A meaningful digital strategy provides answers to precisely these questions, provides insight to the popular sentiments on your business and helps you build activities to enable you to engage with your market, build meaningful dialogue and prepares you to counter any negative sentiments arising out of internal or external factors.
Unfortunately, you cannot buy digital strategy off the shelf! Your digital strategy should reflect the uniqueness of your business. It should be based on a careful deliberation of the face that you want to present to the world, how you want to be perceived, the scenarios that you foresee and your typical response to the scenarios. These gets built and refined over time, as your digital engagement increases. Your digital strategy may get ‘dictated’ by the prosumers – they may disagree with your digital persona creating a situation for you to ‘think through’ the strategy again.
Scary as it may sound, building a digital strategy is as much simple (or complex) as thinking through your business/marketing strategy. The difference being, you work with ‘real’ insights gathered from the digital world, and the response to your strategy is far more quicker than any other strategy.
Before I end, one word of caution. Digital strategy is a one way street. You cannot decide to abandon it half-way. Once you have built your presence on the digital space and have decided to engage with the world, back-tracking can cause you more damage than before. In all my engagements, I do not fail to emphasise this over and over again. Before you start your journey, you need to be completely sure that this is the way forward, as it will radically change the way you engage with your customers and prospects going forward.
We are amidst the second wave of excitement around digital. In the ‘90s, there was a lot of excitement around the new way of selling products and services to the customers. The euphoria was short-lived. There was nothing wrong with the channel – what we failed to realise that it takes a long time for habits to change.
Over the decade, as Internet grew, our target customers have become more active online, embracing all manner of new digital media habits—from social networks to smart phones—and they are continuing to spend more time and money online despite the economic meltdown. Unfortunately, digital marketing has been largely unable to benefit from this shift. The reason is simple: People no longer need what we offer to them. We continue to dish out what we had created in the ‘90s (or micro-improved variants of the same content) and expect our consumers to lap it up.
What gets passed around as Digital Way of engagement - spam emails, banners, commercials, pop-ups – no longer catches the fancy of customers. In fact, they are actively taking steps to get rid of them. Today, customers actively take part in selection of the content, presentation and audience.
And this is not a passing fad. Digital connectivity is here to stay. It will radically change the way a business engage with the world (consisting of customers, prospects, defectors and critics). As the ‘digital way of life’ sinks in people’s psyche, it is important that businesses recognise this trend and build strategies for it.
So what is a meaningful Digital Strategy?
Digital Strategy is NOT about Social Media. Social Media is – at best - a part of digital strategy. Neither are mailers, banners or pop-up. A mere presence on the web – be it website, or a presence on the social networks – does not constitute a digital strategy. There exists a wide divergence on the exact definition of Digital strategy. For the purpose of this blog, I have used a generic definition of digital strategy as a process of specifying an organisation's vision, goals, opportunities and initiatives in order to maximise the business benefits digital investments and efforts provide to the organisation. These can includes customer intelligence, collaboration, new product/market exploration, sales and service optimisation, enterprise technology architectures and processes, innovation and governance using marketing and customer-focused efforts such as web sites, mobile, eCommerce, social, site and search engine optimization, and advertising.
The profusion of social media sites, fuelled by easily accessible tools for content generation has put customers in the centre-stage. Connected customers have become ‘prosumers’ (borrowing a term from Alvin Toffler), producing and consuming information as they surf in the digital space. They actively seek to engage with the businesses for a variety of needs. They seek information, they provide feedback and are willing to be consulted. Being empowered, and equipped with the tools, they definitely not appreciate being ignored! If they have a point of view, they post it, share it and invite comments on it. Be it a product, service, provider or an event. They can be cryptic and post their views in less than 140 words (on Twitter), and/or provide details in greater length (on a blog), and/or provide visual evidences (Flicker) or even videos (YouTube). And the list does not end there! If your website does not provide enough information on your products/services or if they do not agree with your view, they can leave comments on your website using sidewiki!
This empowerment of the prosumer poses a great risk and an opportunity for businesses. The risks are pretty obvious. A serious (and malicious) campaign against your business can be launched with little effort and, if directed carefully, can cause serious damage to your brand. After the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, for example, Leroy Stick (an alias) began publishing the tweets of a totally made-up representative of a similarly bogus BP global public relations division. While crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, devastating the regional ecology and economy, the satirical Twitterer (@BPGlobalPR) tweeted about the division’s lunch menu and other inane matters. Tens of thousands followed his updates—far more than the number who followed the real BP Twitter account. Through this low-cost effort, Stick helped keep Americans’ rage boiling as BP scrambled to plug the well and restore faith in its brand.
On the other hand, a well-thought strategy to engage with the prosumers on digital space, can provide new business opportunities, insights and opportunities to collaborate more actively with your customers and prospects alike. And that too, at a fraction of cost.
The prosumer seeks connectivity. The prosumer is looking at ways to engage with you. So why are businesses shying away from this opportunity to work closely with their customers and prospects. For one, they have little idea on the composition of the prosumers – who are they, what is their profile, are they my potential customers or just ‘teenagers wasting their time on the Net’. Second, businesses are (most often) unaware of what is being talked about them. Third, they are unclear how to channelize the prosumers into meaningful conversation, and for what purpose.
A meaningful digital strategy provides answers to precisely these questions, provides insight to the popular sentiments on your business and helps you build activities to enable you to engage with your market, build meaningful dialogue and prepares you to counter any negative sentiments arising out of internal or external factors.
Unfortunately, you cannot buy digital strategy off the shelf! Your digital strategy should reflect the uniqueness of your business. It should be based on a careful deliberation of the face that you want to present to the world, how you want to be perceived, the scenarios that you foresee and your typical response to the scenarios. These gets built and refined over time, as your digital engagement increases. Your digital strategy may get ‘dictated’ by the prosumers – they may disagree with your digital persona creating a situation for you to ‘think through’ the strategy again.
Scary as it may sound, building a digital strategy is as much simple (or complex) as thinking through your business/marketing strategy. The difference being, you work with ‘real’ insights gathered from the digital world, and the response to your strategy is far more quicker than any other strategy.
Before I end, one word of caution. Digital strategy is a one way street. You cannot decide to abandon it half-way. Once you have built your presence on the digital space and have decided to engage with the world, back-tracking can cause you more damage than before. In all my engagements, I do not fail to emphasise this over and over again. Before you start your journey, you need to be completely sure that this is the way forward, as it will radically change the way you engage with your customers and prospects going forward.
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