Search results matching tag 'Dell'

Media140: personality and social media – do you need one?

255762 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:28:00 GMT

The panel I chaired at Media140 in London felt like it could have run and run (it almost did) as the question as to whether "brands need a social media personality to engage consumers" or not sits at the heart of what a lot of companies are trying to do on Twitter.

If you get this wrong you fall flat and fail. Drew Benvie, managing director of 33 Digital (@drewb), said that getting that personality right was incredibly tricky, which is why there is so much "fake and fail" out there. He said that it comes down to how you use that personality and that it should come from both the brand and its people".

Part of my question was also can you in that personality mix the personal and professional -- can you give customer feedback in one breath and holiday plans in the next?

We were lucky to have Richard Baker at Virgin Trains as he does mix it the personal and professional, helping people with Virgin enquiries when they ask, but also dropping in other comments as well.

He'd told me previously that in the context of social media his emphasis was "social" and that "without a personality you can't have a conversation and without a conversation you can't have a relationship".

When he is dropping in personal or non Virgin Train related comments he is having that conversation and inviting people to respond. Maybe as a result of that, he said that people were less likely to have a go at him than the VirginTrains Twitter account.

Will Mcinnes, MD of NixonMcinnes (@willmcinnes), made a strong point about addressing the root of your brand in order to work out what is right and what is going to work or not. You can see the brands out there that have not done this, not been rigorous in examining their brand roots, as those are the ones failing. It isn't enough with Twitter and social media in general to simply launch on the world in the way you might with a single piece of marketing.

Candace Kuss, director of planning at Hill & Knowlton (@CandaceKuss), addressed this when she said that social media "it isn't just marketing and isn't just customer service" and that is what makes it so tricky. It's because of this that big companies do not always win out because they make basic mistakes.

What's been fascinating about Twitter in part is how and social media has allowed companies when they get it right to punch above their weight. This has helped brands in the US such as Southwest Air outplay the likes of the bigger and better known likes of JetBlue and Virgin America.

Several of the panellists made the point about how screwing up in social media means screwing up loudly and publicly as both Bestbuy and Habitat have found out.

Best Buy's chief marketing officer, Barry Judge, perfectly exemplified this when he got into a spat on Twitter with blogger Doug Meacham in an incident that tore across the blogosphere and Twitter. Likewise in the UK with Habitat and its intern which was mentioned throughout Media140. It only takes one time and then you’re a case study in bad practice.

Habitat did do something right, however, on its return to Twitter: it did listen. Marketing Week's Ruth Mortimer (@MarketingWeekEd) spoke about the importance of brands listening and that the voice on Twitter can not simply be about pumping stuff out.

Although countering Will Mcinnes felt quite strongly that when brands do respond listening isn't always enough.

It is a good point, brands do have to act, but increasingly I wonder if in this always on world of social media expectations are raised too high when you have such instant access? As with instant access comes the desire for instant response and resolution. Ruth Mortimer commented here that it highlighted the need to closely manage expectations.

Richard Baker (@richard_baker) said that he tries to respond and do what he can, but clearly that only goes so far. He can't fix broken trains, but he can keep customers posted. Listening might not always be enough from a customer perspective, but the importance of it can not be underscored enough.

This addressed my point as well as to whether you have a real person and a human face, such as Richard's, or you can as easily have a cute marsupial as your voice on Twitter? As long as there is understanding and the brand is listening it seems okay to have a meerkat in the case of Comparethemarket.com or the duck in Aflac's case in the US (both are social media successes stories). The Barry Judge/BestBuy example illustrates clearly enough that people as well as cute little creatures can get it wrong.

Towards the end of the panel we moved on to discuss another potentially tricky issue relating to brands and personality in social media: who owns the voice?

Candace Kuss mentioned Scott Monty the head of social media at Ford. He has built a major Twitter presence (32,000 plus followers). What he is not is Scott@Ford. Sure, Ford has other Twitter accounts, but none have become as well know as Scott Monty who is a social media brand of his own.

When Monty leaves that brand and personality he has built up goes with him and could be a major benefit to his next employer. Candace suggested that she would advise brands to go down the route that others have done (such as Dell with @Dell et cetera) where there is an association between the individual person tweeting and the company they represent.

The same is true for Richard Baker who readily admitted he had given the issue some thought of where he and his followers might end up next. Partly to address that Richard has set up @VirginTrains, but it is an account that has far fewer followers than he does personally…

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More on Media140 on BR - Chris Quigley of Rubber Republic - Twitter is like word of mouth on crack, the Peperami Animal and other tales from Media140

Technology & Fashion: A match made in heaven or hell?

2085942 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:18:00 GMT

Last week Dell hosted an event intended to unite the worlds of fashion and technology bloggers. Their goal was to discuss how technology could be re-positioned as fashion in order to sell it to women.

With Microsoft's research highlighting that technology is as important to women as fashion, should tech brands be positioning their wares as fashion accessories? Does it correlate that women love fashion and therefore if you position technology as fashion, women will want to buy it? Is a netbook the latest fashion accessory? Would women rather have the new Dell Adamo XPS rather than a pair of Jimmy Choos?

It's not an original idea to try to sell technology as if it were a fashion accessory. LG's Prada phone was the first time a major fashion brand put it's label on a phone. Despite it's modest capabilities it sold well, proving the allure and reach of the Prada brand.

Few woman have a strong attachment to technology brands – in such a vaccum a strong brand like Prada can help shift products, even if it does seem out of place on the shelves of the Carphone Warehouse. I suspect that the Prada label puts off as many women as it attracts, since there is something frivolous about being seen to flaunt a label, especially on a something as conspicuous as a phone.

There's a big problem with the technology as fashion proposition: Firstly, fashion is by nature short term. After a single season your old fashion is out of fashion. That's perfectly fine for a £20 top from Top-Shop, however it's not so fine when you are locked into a two year contract on a fashion-phone which is no longer a-la-mode. If the networks are going to sell a phone on a 2 year contract they need to continue to offer value over this period or risk alienating the customer.

Secondly, the reasons I buy technology are very different to why I buy clothes. Technology enhances my life, builds real and intimate connections with people. It gives me a voice. And amplifies my voice to those closest to me. Fashion is transitory. I get immediate gratification but its fleeting. Its fun but not meaningful. Brands risk trivializing themselves by positioniong themselves as fashion.

Lastly, every tech brand seems to take this approach to women. Samsung's Genio talks about it's exciting colours but does not mention what value it can add. Dell's “my colour is pink” tv-spot looks like a mid-90s' shoe advert. This is clearly not a way to generate sustainable difference. As one Lady Geek said, “What my phone and shoes do for me are very different. One connects me with the world and is about relationships. The other is solely just for me” To truly understand women, tech brands must research and understand how women engage with technology. Fashion is about 'me,' technology is about 'we.'

Dell

1803648 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:33:00 GMT

'Dell hell' began when a disgruntled blogger took the company to task over its customer service

The Female Economy

2085942 — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:10:00 GMT

This month's HBR echoes much of what Lady Geek has been highlighting for the past 18 months-perfect timing for my upcoming Symbian talk. Firstly, that women represent the largest market opportunity in the world- in aggregate, the opportunity is bigger than China and India combined.

Secondly that despite this, most companies continue to market to men and fail to explore how they might meet women's needs. Or they target women as an afterthought through patronizing initiatives. Dell's Della being a perfect example. The NY Times said Dell needed to go to the 'school of marketing hard knocks.'

And namely, that those companies that can offer tailored products and services to women are in prime position to win, when the economy recovers.

Interviewing over 12,000 women about everything ranging from their jobs and education to their hopes and fears, BCG found that women are vastly underserved. Women feel few companies have responded to their need for products and services specifically designed for them. Too many businesses behave if women had no say over purchasing decisions. With the recovery in sight now, women will represent one of the largest opportunities and are an important force in spurring a recovery. One of the findings echoes Wave 1 of the Lady Geek Brand Survey;

I hate being stereotyped because of my gender and age, and I don't appreciate being treated like an infant."

Interestingly, the research highlights that women are happiest in their early and later years and the lowest point is early and mid forties. Women struggle to cope with both children and aging parents, so are most receptive to products that help them better control their lives and balance their priorities.

I could not agree more with their final point;

A focus on women as a target market-instead of a geographical target- will up a company's odds of success when the recovery begins.

My World is Pink

2085942 — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:10:00 GMT

Its official. Ladies, get your pink handbags out. The new ad from PC World and Dell is officially the most patronising ever. It starts with the line

"My world is fashion. I just have to colour co-ordinate everything. Even my laptop. That's why I love the new Dell laptop."

Pass me the barf bag. Please. It just gets worse. Should I get pink to match my shoes.... Must I go on? I am sure you get the picture. This is an example of 2 companies who have money to waste. 2 companies who have no idea of how to talk to women and most importantly, no idea of the role that technology plays in a women's life. I thought that Dell would have learnt from their latest Della 'for women' website which seems to have such bad press that they have renamed it. This is disappointing as the Dell Inspiron and 10 are fantastic pieces of kit. I also thought PC world had made some progress with their latest work. But alas, it seems a group of middle aged balding in marketing (sorry but it has to be) decided that "women are the answer."

Here's the logic.

Women like shoes.

Women like pink.

So to make women like technology, we need to pink it up and dumb it down and make it match her shoes.

Do me a favour. None of the professional women I know (which is where the biggest financial opportunity is) would be seen dead with a pink laptop. For most women over the age of 12, pink is definitely not their world. And even more offensive is not the colour, but the positioning. The women I speak to love technology.

The creativity and human interaction it adds to their life. Not because it matches their shoes. On the positive side, it confirms how much technology brands need specialists like Lady Geek to put an end to patronising ads like this.

Twitter proves major boon for media websites

255762 — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:26:00 GMT

Some interesting Twitter data from Hitwise that reveals what a boon the service is for media content sites in terms of driving traffic with newspapers in particular coming out winners.

Hitwise says that Twitter traffic has increased 22-fold over the last 12 months and a result of that increase is a leap in traffic to media websites (with newspaper sites and Twitpic amongst the sites benefiting), but not online retailers.

Last month Twitter was the 30th biggest source of traffic for other sites in the UK and accounted for 1 in every 350 visits to a typical website.

More interesting is that 56% of that traffic is sent to other content-driven online media sites, such as social networks, blogs, and news and entertainment websites.

That's confirmation of what we all know and love about Twitter. It is a great place to break news and share links to good content (okay some of it – like this – might be your OWN content, but really there's nothing wrong with a little self promotion as long as that's all it is).

What isn't happening according to the Hitwise numbers is masses of traffic going to transactional websites. Only 9.5% of Twitter's downstream traffic is sent this way.

That's as it should be. Who wants Twitter to turn into QVC? You can tell people about stuff, but if they want to buy it, well, they're mostly pretty smart and know how to use the internet.

Where there is transactional action going on (like Dell for instance), it is mostly opt-in, where people are signing up to follow Dell Twitter accounts when they are in the market for a new PC.

Hitwise contrasts these figures with other popular sites. Google UK sends 30.7% of its traffic to transactional sites, while for Facebook the figure is 14.7%.

The winners: newspapers and Twitpic

Hitwise has Twitpic down as one of the big winners to emerge in terms of traffic whether. It is definitely the site that you hear everyone mention first when talking Twitter and images.

In May Twitpic picked up one in every 13 downstream visits from Twitter with UK visits to the site up 250-fold over the last 12 months. This makes it the third most popular photo website in the UK behind Flickr and Photobucket.

For newspapers, many of which like the Guardian and the Times have multiple Twitter accounts, Twitter was the 27th biggest source of traffic to news and media - print websites in the UK during May.

The success here is finding the right level to engage with the community and to work that virally, but Robin Goad, director of research at Hitwise, makes a good point here in identifying that it is the journalists who are often the strongest asset rather than the official feeds.

"Although all of the newspapers have multiple 'official' feeds, these tend to be bland and have very low retweet rates. Journalists tweeting themselves and engaging with the Twitter community typically have more success in creating viral stories,” Goad has said.

More Hitwise Twitter stats

UK Internet traffic to Twitter increased 22-fold over the last 12 months.
May 2009 Twitter was the 38th most visited website in the UK and the fifth most visited social network
Vast majority of Twitter's growth (93% of it) occurred during 2009.
May 2008 Twitter was the 969th most visited website and 84th most visited social network.

Although on the point of Twitter only being the 5th most popular website Hitwise does not monitor third party apps like Tweetdeck, which many people use to access Twitter, which means Twitter in reality is not the fifth most popular site, but more likely to be the third most popular social networking site in the UK if not higher.

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Who's making money out of Twitter

255762 — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:28:00 GMT

The irony of Twitter is that while founders Biz Stone and Co wrestle with the question of how to make a buck there are plenty of people doing nicely out of Twitter. Dell is one and it had made at least $3m so far.

You can see why. Dell has more than 640,000 followers on its Twitter.com/DellOutlet account (it has more than 30 others) and is already one of the top 100 accounts on Twitter. I'm guessing these are people who are signing up looking for deals on PCs as well as customer service.

It's posting stuff like this:

"20% off any Dell Outlet Printer. Enter at checkout: 06G$WMFPKXPCT8 – exp 6/2 or after 1st 500 redemptions. http://bit.ly/DmmQx"

And this:

"20% off any Outlet Studio Hybrid Desktop. Enter at checkout: GS?GCWLWKMWL0Z – exp 6/2 or after 1st 250 redemptions. http://bit.ly/hLEeo"

As part of its Twitter efforts, Dell is tailoring exclusive offers to customers all of which has directly contributed to $2m in sales and another million when traffic to Dell.com is factored in. Granted this has been since 2007, but you can write off 07 and half of 08. That's kind of BT (before Twitter, well before it really when supersonic).

By the end of the year I would guess the numbers would be much higher. Of course, you know what happens? Many people on Twitter if they see a really good offer will retweet it. A retweet from a well connected user could potentially be worth thousands of dollars.

This stuff is dynamite. No scratch that. It's better than dynamite its free dynamite. An army of followers who are comprised off people actively interested in buying products who tell their friends when they see something good and it costs almost nothing (once you have accounted for the time of the person doing the tweeting).

Others firm are doing this as well. I bought a Lenovo netbook in January after being tweeted a discount code and when it comes around to buying a new fully fledged laptop it’s going to be useful to check what's on offer on Twitter. The great thing about which is it is pretty uncluttered. If you go to the Dell Twitter account you know you will find offers pretty quickly. Both of those two above were on the first page of tweets. No clicking around. It's all there ready and waiting.

There are loads of other really good examples out there including some we wrote about last week such as @Comcastcares, @WholeFoods, @VirginAmerica, @MountainViewPD and @magiccurrykart.

There are others that most people are familiar with including Jet Blue and Zappos.<a name="5436465636"></a>

There was a buzz earlier this year when there was talk about Twitter maybe charging brands. I blogged that "Twitter should charge business users", but so far nothing has come of it, but when you see the value brands drive from it you just have to think, wow this is a potentially very potent direct sale channel, why not charge a buck or ten?

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Should big brands make a move into social media?

2292853 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:07:00 GMT

Last night, as a guest speaker at The Future Laboratory's idea networking event, I had the opportunity to chat about who is doing what in social media, and the pros and cons of big brand's moves into the social media space.

Love it or hate it, with Facebook fast approaching 200 million users worldwide and Twitter adding thousands of new members daily, not to mention the popularity already established with platforms such as Linkedin, YouTube, Flickr and MySpace, the social media channel of influence can make or break a brand. Discussed was the fear factor that big brands have now toward the social media monster, and the question of whether to enter the arena, or stay out, for fear of losing control of a brand. As The Future Laboratory's mission is to look ahead and keep ahead of the curve, my counsel last night was that big brands need to define social media strategy now, rather than wait for a point in time when they may have to be re-active rather than pro-active toward the medium.

Whether it is a comprehensive strategic plan to making a brand's presence known among social media channels, or a short-term experiment into the space, such as a contest or other promotional campaign, brand's need be bold and step into this brave new world where consumers are hanging out and, in some cases, stirring their own little revolutions. In considering a few examples we discussed:

Mars recent campaign for its Skittles candy, a courageous approach that saw the website homepage transformed to showcase the brand's live streaming Twitter feed along with its Facebook, Flickr and YouTube pages. Usage triggered was so high for this campaign that at one point Twitter crashed, and the brand discovered that turning things over to consumers opens up to a challenge when not everyone played nice with the Tweets they sent along. In the end, the fantastic publicity received around the experiment, has made Skittles top of mind and won new enthusiasts for the brand, even if there has been a bit of brusing.

Comcast, an American cable and broadband provider, has been using Twitter to supplement customer service responses. They've posted a guy named Frank Eliason to man the Twitter customer service site, positively giving a corporate brand a real human being to interact with in real time. Customers simply Tweet their queries to @Comcastcares and quickly receive response.

Other big brands that are stepping into social media with a variety of approaches include: Dell, Starbucks, JetBlue, TheHomeDepot, Southwest Airlines, Whole Foods Market, HRBlock, Best Buy, Popeyes, Forrester Research, Ford, Samsung and Kodak, to name a few.

Here's a few quick tips I shared with folks last night in thinking about approaching social media for a brand:

Be Seen: What do you look like to your social media audience? Are you human, or are you something off a shelf? People want to see other people in the world of social networking so in reaching out to your audiences pay attention to showing them what you and your team look like. Upload images to your Facebook group of your brand in action -- people at events, people using your products, people in your office. Use Flickr to build an image trail of both products and people. Use YouTube to seed videos, integrating several visual tools to showcase the human side of your brand.

Be Real: Don't piss off your audiences by engaging in blatant heavy promotional use of Twitter, Facebook or other social networking sites. Show a personality and offer up a variety of information to your audience, pointing them to helpful or quirky items.

Be Brave: This is new territory for brand building, and it takes an adventurous sort to take some risks in approaching social media. Think out common sense approaches to using social networking for your brand, and don't be afraid to experiment out there.

Be On It: Assign a member of your team, or several, to be monitoring and watching for responses that come back via Tweets, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr comments, and blogs. Response to people's comments should be swift and effective, helping those with complaints and thanking those with praise.

Be Interactive: It isn't enough to hang up a billboard in Second Life or set up a Facebook group or Twitter account, unless you think out how your approach should interact with people. Think about what you can offer up to your audience that will be of interest and relevance to your brand. Can you host a virtual conference in Second Life with prominent speakers? Can you run a contest through Twitter? One company called Going.com created one of the most popular Facebook applications called Naughty Gifts, a slightly cheeky way to give adult gifts to your friends, that has produced millions of exchanges. To promote Going.com, they took the popularity offline and held adult-themed parties throughout America, promoting the events through the Naughty Gifts Facebook application.

For more about future branding trends, sign up for The Future Laboratory's Lifestyle News Network (LSN).

Thinking about social media branding,

-Lisa

Brave Brands With Social Media Strategy:

Flash report from the imedia brand summit

1319935 — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:59:00 GMT

Intel, the BBC, Dell, Coca-Cola, Samsung and Cadbury’s et al presented experiences of interactive capacity and competency in their companies.
I was asked to moderate a panel of experts from the newspaper industry, the BBC, the online travel world and the global advertiser on the state of the nation of the impact digital technique has in the world of communication. A very high quality panel discussed a range of issues, including how businesses are organising themselves for effectiveness in the digital world, and what some of the challenges have been in getting them there.

Peter Ward from WAYN (the travel social network) spoke well about how his business has pushed the limits of technique from the beginning. As with many other social networking sites, WAYN enables its users to create a profile and upload photos. Users can then search for others, and link them to their profiles as friends. If you register it is possible to send and receive messages using email, discussion forums, eCards, SMS and instant messaging. Matt from the BBC spoke about how stakeholder management remains a skillset we need to excel at since the need to get so many interest groups focused on a single strategy around the consumer is as critical in the BBC's world as it is in the world of brand communication.

Simon Shipley from Intel was firm in his belief that delivering digital work required a commitment to learning new skills. Intel has undertaken a serious programme of training internally to digital knowledge. And the ability to develop communities of interest amongst target audiences has been one area of growing effectiveness. Intel runs a programme aimed at IT Managers, a critical audience (in both meanings of the word) called the IT Manager Game. It’s proving to be more and more effective as time spent and quality of content consumed through the game play increases. It’s a completely ‘non-traditional’ activity, which makes it harder to measure in terms of media metrics, but easy to measure in terms of effectiveness of shifting perception and commitment to the Intel brand.

Anne Foster from the Newspaper Marketing Agency reflected on how the demands of advertisers had changed to reflect the audiences, and the mood in the media industry was definitely a focus on sales and ROI rather than brand. Also there were different levels of media need by category. We had talked offline about an increased interest in emotional factors influencing decision making, which, and how we are in danger of too much focus on the short term. It’s inevitable, though, in current forecast market conditions. Anne also presented a strong grip on the statistics of consumer behaviour, how they consume media and what this means.

Measurement remained a big issue for everyone. I put the question to the floor “is anyone happy with their measurement?” and the universal response (although in such an environment it’s natural for people not to give too much away) was “not really.” There are new dynamics of measuring digital media, and dashboarding gives us a view, but there is a shortage of common currency, both in planning and measurement. For example, the current pressure on ROI and direct response means refocusing on click through, but as consumer behaviour online has adapted to the range of content and browsing behaviour, click through just isn’t enough.

So what’s the answer to that? Again, opinions varied, and the room was divided on what we’re trying to measure. My take is that if we accept the job of the marketer is to be gaining or defending ‘share’, or launching new products, services and variants, then we need to have people with the broad view as well as the detailed ability to pick targets off one by one. Share, of course, is only one aspect. Profitability is another, and sustaining profitable share is the job of everyone, not just the marketer. There is universal need to learn, however, how ‘being part of the conversation’ can be measured in these terms.

Enfatico spoofer owns up

255762 — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:19:00 GMT

A blogger and online marketer Robert Gilbreath has outted himself as the one behind the highly entertaining Enfatico spoof that gave us Enfartico and grabbed some nice headlines last week.

Based in Austin, Texas, he blogs at Adomatica.com. "I built the website a week ago and 'leaked' its existence to a couple of Ad blogs. I used some fake/funny whois data and that is why the site is down. More later regarding why I did it and what I learned from this online gorilla effort...".

One to watch.

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Wonder what the chaps at Enfatico thought? Lol.