New Facebook Professional Page

For those readers who are interested, I've launched a new Facebook Professional Page.  I hope you will check it out.  You also can follow me on Twitter if you wish.  

Southwest Airlines: Remarkable Customer Service Once Again

Last week, my wife and I tried to book some flights on Southwest Airlines using credits we had for some cancelled flights from last year.  Unfortunately, we had waited more than twelve months, so the credits had expired.     When we called Southwest, they explained that they offered  a six month grace period, and therefore, we could still use the credit toward a new booking.  The customer service agent indicated that it would take thirty days to receive those vouchers though.  We explained that we wanted to travel sooner than that, and we didn't understand why it would take a month to receive our own money.  The agent told us that she did not know how to expedite the matter.  

Frustrated by the phone call, I sent a tweet to Southwest explaining my problem.  Someone responded to me in a matter of minutes.   I provided some more detail, and within a half hour, I was assured that we would receive the vouchers within 2-3 days.  It did not take nearly that long.  In fact, we received the vouchers within several hours, and we were able to book our travel with ease. Problem solved, happy customers.  

I relate the story because it is yet another example of how Southwest Airlines has empowered its employees to act quickly to remedy customer problems.  It also shows, however, that social media can be a powerful tool for customers, if used appropriately.   Great companies monitor social media closely, and they act immediately to address problematic situations before issues get beyond their control.   The best part... satisfied customers take to social media to complement firms that go the extra mile to resolve problems.  That's precisely what I did, and what I'm doing here on this post.  

Elmer's Glue: The Slime Craze

In 1947, Borden introduced Elmer's Glue packaged in a glass bottle. Over the years, it became a key item for elementary school classrooms throughout the country. Seventy years later, Elmer's Glue (owned by Newell Rubbermaid now)  has experienced an interesting phenomenon, fueled by social media.   Product sales have skyrocketed over the past year, as young people throughout the country enjoy the "slime" craze.  They've all learned how to make slime using Borax and Elmer's Glue.   In March, Money magazine reported on the remarkable profit-making venture launched by Theresa Nguyen, a 13-year old from Texas.  She earns $3,000 per month selling her slime creations.  Her Instagram account has 665,000 followers.   Her most recent post already has 149,000 views.  Unbelievable! 

Newell has ramped up production of its glue to meet skyrocketing demand.  Meanwhile, the company has also set up an extensive website with its own videos, recipes, and the like.  It all sounds like a terrific story.  Why should Newell be careful though?   Kids are fickle.  Fads come and go.  Will the slime craze be sustainable, or will kids move on next month or next year?   Newell will have to be careful as it ramps up production.  The company will want to be cautious about making large investments to extend capacity.  Moreover, it will have to careful as it manages inventory.   It should strive to meet rising demand while the craze is ongoing... after all, you have to take advantage of the fad while it's ongoing.  However, you don't want to get caught with huge amounts of excess inventory if the fad suddenly stalls out.  In addition, you have to think carefully about how to extend the surge in demand. How can you take steps to insure that it's not just a passing fad? How can you come up with new recipes or ideas that build upon what kids are already doing?   How do you create activities that art teachers and others can use that enable sales to continue to grow?  Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you don't want to damage the authenticity of this craze.  You don't want kids and parents to begin to perceive Elmer's as pushing sales in an inauthentic way.    You want kids such as Theresa to spread the word more so than the corporate social media managers.   Authenticity should be a key priority as the company takes steps to market its product.   

Engaging Your Consumer to Create New Products

Leading companies have become much more adept lately at co-creating new products in close partnership with their customers.  They do so in a number of ways, including intensive ethnographic research, crowdsourcing projects, social media contests, customer advisory councils, etc.  One example of an interesting approach is the "Do Us a Flavor" campaign conducted by the Lays brand of potato chips (owned by Pepsico).  This Knowledge@Wharton article describes the effort.  This excerpt explains how the program worked:

Anyone who had a chip idea in mind could visit Lays’ Facebook page, enter some information about their flavor and be rewarded with a shareable image of “their” bag of chips. The company teamed up with Facebook to turn the “like” button into a vote of “I’d Eat That.” Lays’ Facebook cover photo became a rotating billboard, which featured a new submission every few minutes.  A panel of judges and campaign spokespeople — celebrity chef Michael Symon and actress Eva Longoria — helped narrow the contest to three finalist flavors: sriracha, cheesy garlic bread and chicken and waffles, and then opened the vote for a winner to the public.

14 million people voted in this campaign, and the bags of chips for the three finalists flew off the shelves in a matter of hours.  Of course, the campaign's true value extends well beyond the sales of these new flavors of potato chips.  In my view, the value lies in the learning that is taking place as the campaign unfolds.  The brand managers identify flavors that excite customers, as well as those that clearly do not.   They also learn about the type of people most likely to engage closely with the company via social media.  Perhaps these customers share other important needs and wants along the way.   Moreover, the company engages the customer in a way that may lead to more sales for the brand overall.  They drive traffic to important retail partners, and they give those retailers something new and exciting to merchandise.  Finally, they help the company reach millennials, an important group for whom the brand may otherwise become less relevant amidst many new choices.  

Bryant University's College of Business on Twitter

If you are interested in learning more about Bryant University's College of Business, where I serve on the faculty, please follow us on Twitter at @BryantCOB.   Hope you enjoy the conversation. 

GM Turns "Chevy Guy" Gaffe Into Positive Promotion

During the presentation of the World Series MVP trophy, a Chevy manager (Rikk Wilde) became very nervous.  He had a hard time getting the right words out, and eventually he described the Chevy truck as, "class-winning and leading, you know, technology and stuff."   Soon, #chevyguy and #technologyandstuff began to trend on Twitter.  GM didn't reprimand the employee.  Instead, Wilde's bosses understood why he had become so nervous.  Moreover, GM decided to capitalize on the social media buzz created by the gaffe.  They even incorporated the gaffe into their online promotions.  Jamie Barbour, a social media manager at GM, began the company's efforts by tweeting at 1:29am: "Truck yeah the 2015 #ChevyColorado has awesome #TechnologyAndStuff!"  Then the company used #TechnologyAndStuff with three online video ads the next day.   They even bought prime time spots during late night comedy shows to run one of those ads.   I love these types of stories.  Companies should be willing to laugh at themselves sometimes, and they should turn these types of gaffes into marketing opportunities whenever possible. 

Social Media and the Reluctance to Speak Up

The New York Times reported this week that Pew Research and scholars at Rutgers University have published a study on the so-called "spiral of silence."  That phrase refers to the tendency people have to not discuss their political views in public because they fear a clash of opinion with close friends, work colleagues, etc.   Keith Hampton and his co-authors examined whether the "spiral of silence" applied in the world of social media.  In other words, does social media help stimulate debates about public policy issues?   They examined the behavior of 1,801 adults with regard to one major news story: National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden's disclosures about surveillance programs in the United States.   The scholars discovered a discussion about this controversial public policy issue was less likely to occur via social media than in person.  Moreover, the individuals who were reluctant to discuss the issue in-person with others did not view social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook as better places to share their views. They also were reluctant to speak up via social media.  The people who do share their views tended to be those who have a strong belief that their friends and followers on social media are like-minded on these public policy issues.  Of course, the study only examined one public policy issue, but the findings should cause us to think about social media's effect on public debate.  To the extent that discussion occurs via these platforms, is it often simply a dialogue among like-minded people?  

When Should You Respond to a Negative Review or Online Complaint?

A customer has had a negative experience.   He or she takes to social media to register a complaint.  Does your company have a fast response capability?   How do you decide when to respond to a poor review?   If you think that you move quickly, check out this amazing story from a recent Fast Company article by Stephanie Vozza:

While dining at the Mexican fast food chain Boloco, a customer sent out a tweet complaining that the music was too loud. Boloco, which operates 22 locations in New England, prides itself on responding to all feedback within 24 hours. This time, they set a record. “We saw the tweet right away, called the restaurant and told the staff to turn down the music,” says Allison Doyle, director of marketing for Boloco. “We also described what the woman looked like from her Twitter picture and had the staff deliver a cookie to her. Then we retweeted her tweet, adding the word ‘done.’ She was floored.”

As the article rightly points out, not every complaint or negative review warrants an immediate response.  Sometimes, people are simply expressing a preference, and that person may not be in your target market.   Most customers in your target market may, in fact, like a particular attribute of your product or service that is the subject of a negative comment.  You do not want to overreact in that case.   Some situations may require a bit more time to study and evaluate.   In those instances, you may wish to let the customer know that you are investigating, without offering a particular remedy.   You need to do your due diligence first before offering a knee-jerk reaction via social media to a negative comment.  

Social Media Strategy

My former colleague Mikołaj Jan Piskorski of Harvard Business School has written a new book titled "A Social Strategy: How We Profit from Social Media. In this interview excerpt from Forbes.com, Piskorski offers two important pieces of advice for companies as they engage customers via social media platforms. I highly recommend reading the book.


Brands often are too eager to inject themselves into conversations about their product. Despite a brand’s best efforts, most consumers are not going to identify with or trust a brand the way they would a friend. To alleviate this problem I recommend that companies focus on facilitating interactions between their customers.

The second issue is that companies often engage socially without clear business goals. Instead, they focus on getting the highest number of likes or followers, or getting highest rates of engagement. At the end of the day, none of these metrics matter if they do not lead to higher sales or lower costs. Companies that have mastered the social space start with their business objectives and ask: “What is the source of my competitive advantage, and how can I use social platforms to strengthen it further?” Without asking this question first, many efforts in this sphere end up having no business results, even if they create a lot of engagement with their customers.

Building Buzz for Fall TV Premieres

The ABC television network has announced that three comedies premiering this fall will actually appear first online.   Viewers can watch the premiere online before they will debut on the network.  The comedies are The Goldbergs, Trophy Wife and Back in the Game (see trailer for The Goldbergs below).   The goal is to create some excitement for the show and begin to build word-of-mouth ahead of the network premiere. Presumably, social media will be a big part of that buzz-building strategy.  In general, I'm pleased to see the networks doing some innovating.   As readers of this blog know, I've been critical of how the broadcast networks have stuck to an antiquated model for prime time television (fall premieres, shows on once per week, etc.).   The networks do face one risk with this type of strategy though.  They will have to be very mindful of what's happening on social media, but they should not overreact.   Immediate Twitter reactions are not always representative of the broader audience.  The creators of the shows do not want to change course dramatically without putting social media response in context.    On the other hand, it is very useful information that could be used to adjust the direction of a show.   In decades past, many network shows changed considerably during their first season or two.  We sometimes forget that the shows did not come roaring right out of the box as we now recall them.  As an example, do you remember that the Cunninghams actually had three children during the first season of Happy Days, or that the Cosby family magically added a child during the second season of  The Cosby Show?   Shows do change and adapt a fair amount int that first season or so.  Social media and the early response to these online premieres could be helpful today in adapting shows, not simply in building buzz. 

True Engagement via Social Media: Honda's Latest Campaign

Honda launched a very creative social media campaign recently designed to truly drive engagement.  The company created a powerful back-and-forth conversation with its customers.  To kick off its summer promotions, Honda asked customers to write tweets using the hashtag #wantnewcar if they were itching to ditch their old car for a new set of wheels.   The company responded with six-second personalized Vine videos in response to some of these creative tweets.  The Vine videos made suggestions for new Honda cars and encouraged these potential customers to take a closer look.  As you might imagine, this campaign created quite a conversation between Honda and potential customers, as well as among consumers.    Check out this creative exchange as one example of the type of back-and-forth that emerged.  You can see that Honda was truly trying to have some fun with this campaign. 

Did the social media campaign have an impact?  It tripled Honda's engagement via Twitter.  According to this article, the hashtag has been used nearly 7,000 times.  The article reports that, "The word 'Honda' received an estimated 247 million impressions between July 14 and Tuesday morning." 

Has this incredible level of social media engagement with the consumer led to increased revenues?  That will be the key question.  We will watching closely to see if Honda reveals any data on the connection between the increased social media engagement and auto sales. 

Flocking Behavior on Social Media Can Lead to Narrow Thinking, Flawed Decisions

Ethan Zuckerman has written about an important issue regarding our use of social media.   The Harvard Gazette recently wrote about a talk that Zuckerman gave at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.  Berkman noted, "Human beings flock; we tend to seek out people like us."  He argued that individuals tend to engage in a great deal of "flocking" behavior on social media platforms.   They find and follow people who are very similar to them.  He says, "We have a talent for finding people with the same socioeconomic background or racial background. But this tendency to flock may be keeping us from finding the information we need... My fear is that our tools are not promoting diversity."   In short, we are not experiencing a wide range of perspectives on issues and topics.  We are hearing from voices that are similar to ours.  As a result, we are vulnerable to the confirmation bias, i.e. we are looking for information that confirms what we already believe.   Cognitive diversity can be an important factor when making decisions, yet social media seems to discourage the nurturing of this key attribute.  For more on Zuckerman's work, see this Ted Talk below:

Amy's Baking Company: From Bad to Worse

Gordon Ramsay recently featured a restaurant called "Amy's Baking Company" on his popular TV show, Kitchen Nightmares.  I have posted a trailer for the episode below.    Erik Sherman of CBS Moneywatch writes, "The clip actually does justice to the full episode. By the end, Ramsay has done something for the first time on the program: He walks away from the restaurant, declaring that the owners can neither accept criticism nor follow suggestions."   The company had itself a major public relations problem.  What did they do?   They took to social media to respond.  Things got worse.  Instead of accepting the criticism and trying to apologize and promise to make amends, they attacked their critics!   Then, when the public relations nightmare got worse, they claimed that their social media accounts had been hacked.  Amy's Baking Company then launched a new Facebook page.  What did they do?  They continued to attack their critics!  Now they have removed that Facebook page as well!   It's an unbelievable story.  What's the lesson?  Where do I begin?  Let's just say we could start with one piece of good advice when it comes to social media:  Take a deep breath.  Sit on that draft for awhile before you post it in a fit of anger or frustration.  Maybe even better... don't go on reality shows! 

Oreo: The Power of a Nimble Social Media Strategy

By  now, many of you have heard of Oreo's social media grand slam during the Super Bowl.  While all of us sat through that lengthy delay due to the power outage, Oreo's social media team unleashed the tweet heard round the world.   The tweet read:  "Power out, No problem."   The tweet included the photo shown here.

15,000 people retweeted that simple message.   More than 20,000 people "liked" it on Facebook.   Oreo's Instagram followers mushroomed from 2,000 to 36,000.   

Forbes reports on the most interesting part of the story - namely, how they managed to engineer such a rapid and highly creative response.  Apparently, Oreo's brand team had set up a "command center" at advertising agency 360i’s offices in New York City.    All of Oreo's advertising agency partners set up shop together at those offices, with Lisa Mann, an executive from Oreo's parent company on the  phone.   Mann explained how they moved so quickly:  “Because everyone was together, they had everyone in place to jump on a real-time marketing opportunity, which was, how would Oreo see the blackout? And Oreo saw the blackout as an opportunity to dunk in the dark.”

What a terrific story!   I love the fact that preparation yielded such a great result.  They knew that the Super Bowl represented a unique opportunity.  While so much attention is focused on the television ads, social media represents a huge opportunity at low cost.  With the blackout, everyone took to Twitter.  The volume of tweets exploded.  That posed a challenge for many firms though. How do you stand out when the Twitter world suddenly became so crowded.   Being prepared and ready to move so quickly turned out to be a tremendous advantage.   

Notice that Oreo did not try to be controversial or outlandish.  They stayed true to the brand.  So many social media and television advertising efforts associated with the Super Bowl yield poor results, because they emphasize being funny or controversial at the expense of communicating an authentic and consistent message about the brand.  Think about some of the ads you saw this weekend.   How many times did you think to yourself:  While that ad was funny, I'm not sure I know what it has to do with that product or brand.  

Do we really care about internet privacy?

Why do people disclose so much personal information on Facebook?  Harvard Business School Professor Leslie John and her colleagues have conducted several fascinating experiments regarding internet privacy.   For instance, they developed a set of provocative questions regarding activities such as the use of drugs, viewing of pornography, etc. - creepy questions according to Professor John!   Then they examined whether the form in which they asked the questions might impact the extent to which people disclosed private behavior.  In one experiment, they established three conditions - all with the same questions - with data collected from respondents passing by a set of laptops set up on the Carnegie Mellon campus.   HBS Working Knowledge describes the three conditions as follows:


In some cases, they took an online survey titled "How BAD Are U???" - deliberately designed to look unprofessional, it featured red font and a pixelated cartoon devil.  Other participants received a deliberately professional-looking survey titled "Carnegie Mellon University Executive Council Survey on Ethical Behaviors," which sported the school's official crest. A third set, the control group, received the relatively neutral "Survey of Student Behaviors." 

What did the scholars find?   Students taking the purposely unprofessional-looking survey tended to admit to many more of these private behaviors than the students in the control group or the professional condition.  It seems odd, in a way, because you would think folks would be more hesitant and concerned about privacy on a site with a very unprofessional appearance.  Instead, it makes them less inhibited!   According to John, "When you're on a very official-looking site, it sort of cues you in to think about the concept of privacy.  We argue that oftentimes, privacy isn't something that's at the forefront of people's minds until you cue it." In fact, further experiments showed that privacy cues embedded in the surveys tended to make people more hesitant to disclose certain private behaviors. 

User-Generated Content: Engaging Customers, Enhancing Brand Authenticity

Leading edge companies leverage user-generated content to bring their brands alive, engage some of their biggest fans, and emphasize the authenticity of their brand.  They don't just solicit customer reviews, collect likes on Facebook, or ask customers to vote on items that they should sell.  They actually encourage customers to help them tell their brand story.  Paige Beaumont, Assistant Editor of the Post Advertising blog, writes about the impact of user-generated content:  

Great user-generated content (UGC) should not exist in a vacuum—it should be reused, when and where appropriate, to bring color and authenticity to a brand’s marketing.  As brands expand their social-media footprints, many have also (smartly) placed more emphasis on engaging with their fans. As a result, they’ve begun proudly featuring selected consumer contributions in print, TV and online advertising. Dedicated fans often create a gold mine of content that’s just waiting to be explored, and in due course, brands have begun to dip into this resource. It’s the easiest and most direct way to build relationships with customers, because their passion for their favorite brands makes them happy to respond and share their stories—messages that are infinitely more compelling than what the brand might say.

Paige offers some terrific examples in this blog post.   For instance, she highlights an advertisement by Target that features real home videos of high school students opening their college acceptance letters.  The ad clearly evokes an emotional reaction, and Target appropriately makes a connection to their own efforts to donate a portion of revenues to schools throughout the country.  

Averting a Social Media Crisis

Perhaps you have heard this story of how the American Red Cross averted a social media crisis some time ago.  I heard about this incident from one of our accomplished Bryant alumna with expertise in social media.  I felt that the lesson was worth sharing for those who have not heard about it.  The story can be told by three tweets.  First, an employee at the Red Cross mistakenly used the Red Cross official account, rather than her personal Twitter account, to write about her personal (drinking) behavior:

Ok, so now we have a problem.  It's not a major crisis.  The Red Cross could simply have issued a standard apology.  However, they added a creative twist.  They used a bit of humor to spice up their apology.  Here's the tweet:

The story gets better.  Then Michael Hayek of Dogfish Head Brewery noticed the events transpiring on Twitter.  He chimed in with a third tweet.

Shazam!  The Red Cross managed to turn a mini-crisis into a positive moment.  For me, it shows the value of using a bit of humor appropriately to handle problems that sometimes emerge on social media.  Moreover, it shows how you can turn negative moments into positive ones with some creativity.   For Dogfish, it was a good moment to connect with fans and encourage them to do something positive for a worthwhile charity.  Talk about a win-win scenario. 

Is YouTube An Oppportunity For Terrific Advertising Experiments?

Alex Konrad has written an article for Fortune titled, "Pepsi, Brewing up viral magic."   The article describes how Pepsi debuted a new "Uncle Drew" ad for Pepsi Max on YouTube.   According to the article, "In the five-minute clip, 'Uncle Drew' amuses, then mesmerizes, a pick-up basketball game and its fans with crossovers and dunks unbecoming of a white-bearded, paunch-carrying old man, and only possible because the true identity of 'Uncle Drew' was a carefully disguised young basketball star, the clip's writer-director Kyrie Irving."  (Irving is the former Duke player and current NBA Rookie of the Year who plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers).   What's interesting is where the ad went next... it is now appearing on television as a 30-second spot during the first few games of the NBA Finals between the Miami Heat and the Oklahoma City Thunder (go Thunder!). 

That progression is somewhat unique, going from YouTube to television.   I find it very interesting though, and I think more firms should emulate this strategy.  This story proves that firms can and should use YouTube not just as part of a social media marketing strategy... They should think of YouTube as a land of experimentation.   YouTube offers an inexpensive way to experiment with new ad strategies.  The cost of failure is minimal, and even the ads that don't become viral sensations can be "useful failures" in that they may provide powerful learning opportunities.  

If firms are to use YouTube as a powerful mechanism for low cost, low risk, fast experimentation, then they need to have clear methods of evaluating these experiments.  Konrad's article explains that Pepsi had just such a method of evaluation:

"Pepsi Max brand team member Sam Duboff, who led creation and development of the piece, says 'Uncle Drew' had to satisfy three major metrics in order to justify its adaptation into a television segment. 'Uncle Drew' had to keep viewers engaged, hit the brand's target demographic, and generate its own legs through word of mouth. With 80% of viewers watching through the 4-minute mark, a 82.1% male viewer group that skewed towards the brand's core 25-44 age group, and over 5 million views from embedded YouTube players suggesting the viewer watched over a media site or Facebook, Duboff and his team hit all three." 

Jon Stewart on the Internet and Social Media

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The Facebook-Instagram Deal

Wow! What else can you say?  Facebook pays $1 billion for a company with 12 employees and no revenue.   I'd love to see the discounted cash flow model that my students could come up with to determine that valuation! 

What's going on with this acquisition?  First and foremost, we have to remember that photo-sharing is a crucial element of the Facebook experience.  As my former colleague Mikolaj Jan Piskorski likes to say, Facebook made it socially acceptable for all of us to become exhibitionists and voyeurs to some degree!   In that sense, Instagram has emerged as a major threat to Facebook.  As people spend more time sharing their photos via Instagram's mobile app, they are likely to spend less time on Facebook.   That reduced time on Facebook will cost the social media heavyweight a significant amount of advertising revenue.  Moreover, rumors of a possible link-up between Twitter and Instagram (or perhaps even Google and Instagram) surely made Mark Zuckerberg more than a bit nervous.

What challenges will Facebook face with this acquisition?   Zuckerberg has announced that he intends to continue operating Instagram as an independent company with relationships to other social media platforms such as Twitter.  Users will still be able to post photos on other social media services, follower users outside of Facebook, and can choose not to share photos on the Facebook platform.   In some sense, this move is a type of vertical integration.  When that happens, firms also face the challenge of competing with their customers.  Instagram will now be competing with its customers - i.e. Twitter and Google Plus compete with Facebook.  Will that cause friction?  Will it cause Instagram competitors such as Hipstagram and PicYou to steal away users?  Facebook will have to be quite careful as it manages those relationships.

Some experts have wondered why Facebook could not have achieved some of the same benefits without having to acquire Instagram. Could they have formed an alliance or partnership with Instagram?  Perhaps they could have.  However, such an arrangement may have made it more difficult to engage in the type of close coordination required to integrate Instagram more deeply into the Facebook platform moving forward.  If Instagram simply were to remain an independent company, then an alliance might have made more sense.  However, I think more intense coordination and integration is coming... and a merger probably makes more sense in that instance.