Online Reputation

A new concept, emerging with the phenomenon of social media, is ‘online reputation’, the reputation of a company established in the Internet. According to some authors online reputation is primarily build by search engines like Google, which enable people to find content online. This is in line with the social media marketing consultancy O2Nxt, which remarks that “increasing, a product’s quality and what a brand stands for is determined by Google”.

The major importance about online reputation is that the behavior a company has online and the way it is perceived by its audience has a severe influence on its image. This means that a positive online reputation can potentially strengthen the corporate image and enhance the competitive advantage of a firm. But, vice versa, a negative online reputation can potentially harm a company as well. Therefore, companies need to rethink their approach to corporate communications in order to build and protect their online reputation.

Social Media Demographics

Source: Flowtown

Although we can distinguish between different social media types and services, this determination still does not give any information with regard to user demographics. However, with regard to its utilization in the corporate context, companies could generate valuable clues from this information as to where specific target groups are active. In the beginning of this year, Flowtown published a survey using Google Ad Planner to determine the social media demographics of the 8 most successful social media networks (Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, and Ning). Although this survey might not be scientifically affirmed, it gives some evidence as to who uses those networks. For instance, it outlines that

• (1) Income: LinkedIn, Reddit and Twitter have the largest proportion of high-incomers, earning more than USD150.000 annually.
• (2) Age: MySpace has a large proportion of young users with 30% below the age of 18, whereas Facebook attracts more and more members of the age of 50.
• (3) Gender: MySpace also has the largest amount of female users, while Reddit has the lowest.
• (4) Education: Many social network users studied at least in college, while LinkedIn contains the largest proportion of highly educated users.

With studies like this, companies can easily determine social network sites to be active in to find potential customers, suitable employees, or to simply provide company information to create brand awareness and corporate reputation.

Social Media Landscape

Source: Robert Scoble

The large number of social media types makes their understanding rather challenging. The attempts to structure and categorize social media for a better understanding did not exist until recently. In 2007, the former Microsoft employee and celebrity blogger Rober Scoble was among the first to illustrate and categorize the social media landscape, which he named the Social Media Starfish.

• Blog – short for weblog - is a sequential online diary others can comment on and post images or links to other web sites.
• Collaborative Tools – include for instance open-source software products such as Linux or Firefox. The code of the software is provided on an online platform and contributors can collaboratively build, test, and improve such software products.
• Events – mean event service provider, such as ‘Eventful’. Members can upload their music list from popular listening services, such as iTunes, and the event service provider will send a notification to the user, when his or her favourite artist plays a concert close-by.
• Microblogs – are a form of blogging in short sentences, phrases or thoughts, often limited to 140 characters (e.g. Twitter).
• Personal Social Networks – are applications allowing users to build personal websites and meet like-minded people to express opinions and share information (e.g. Facebook).
• Photo and Video Sharing – are websites that organize and share content in form of photos (e.g. Flickr) and videos (e.g. YouTube).
• Podcast – are audio and video files, which are distributed via an RSS feed to subscribers of the service. The audio and video files can then be played on computers or portable digital audio players.
• White label social networks – can be described as an organization’s or brand’s own social community, including, for instance, support forums. The purposes of such private networks include enhanced customer support, product development, and customer engagement.
• Wiki – is a site multiple contributors develop a collective consensus about a phenomenon or event, often in form of texts and pictures (e.g. Wikipedia).

This division helps to classify social media according to activities, and thus provides a base for marketers to segment potential marketing a communication platforms.

The evolution of Social Media

Social media are a rather current phenomenon, just emerging a few years ago. In 2005 the consumption of the Internet has proliferated, leading to different ranges of software such as Facebook or Microsoft Messenger (MSN) that foster the formation of online communities and the interaction among people.

The development of such software was only possible through what we call today Web 2.0.. In 2005, Tim O’Reilly and Dale Dougherty coined the term Web 2.0, describing the web as a ‘platform’ where users create content and new sites, thereby, encouraging others to participate, collaborate and exchange content. Due to this participation and collaboration empowerment, Web 2.0 is often referred to as the Social Web, signifying the way people communicate, make decisions, socialize, learn, entertain themselves, and interact with each other in the Internet. Since then, Web 2.0 turned into a common buzzword, encompassing social media services such as eBay, Amazon, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, BitTorrent and Napster, to name but a few.

Due to this, Web 2.0 is often interchangeably used with ‘social media’, although there is one major distinction between the terms: Web 2.0 predominantly refers to the technical platform on which social media types and services can be used, whereas social media rather describe the social aspects of Web 2.0 applications, including participation, openness, conversation, community, and connectedness enhanced through blogs, social networks, or discussion forums.

According to Weber, the web will soon head towards the next phase of the web, featuring rich media, such as video, sound and touch transmitted via high-speed broadband connections, allowing the web to be more emotional.

Social Media Marketing

Source: Evans (2008)


Desribing social media marketing is not easy. Although there are a number of books and articles published, I had difficulties summarizing the concept of social media marketing. Personally, I found the book by David Evans (Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day) very useful.

Evans summarizes that social media marketing “involves a natural, genuine conversation between people about something of mutual interest, a conversation built on the thoughts and experiences of the participants. It is about sharing and arriving at a collective point, often for the purpose of making a better or more-informed choice.”

From this description it becomes clear that the main task of social media marketing comprises to encourage conversations by creating ‘talk-worthy’ events that result in word of mouth. The WOMMA defines word of mouth as “the most honest form of marketing, building upon people's natural desire to share their experiences with family, friends, and colleagues”. This sort of conversation can spring naturally through the so-called organic word of mouth, or companies can enhance it through ‘talk-worthy’ campaigns that foster the buzz, which is called amplified word of mouth. In my opinion applified word of mouth is the main objective of social media marketing. Another social media marketing author, Larry Weber, describes two tasks in his book Marketing to the social web: how digital customer communities build your business how amplified word of mouth can be created:

1. by creating customer experiences consumers would want and talk about, and
2. by participating in various social media services to take part in the conversations about a company

Based on the concept of this word of mouth, Evans Social Feedback Cycle (above) illustrates how this could generate in higher sales. Evans used the purchasing funnel model, explaining how consumers purchase products and services steered through marketing activities, and extended the funnel to include post purchase experiences of the overall marketing process. These post purchase experiences are generated by the user of the product, leading him or her to form an opinion and talk about it. Subsequently, this ‘talk’, influences the consideration of purchase of potential other buyers.

A very interesting McKinsey study showed that social media marketing oversimplified said results in 25% increased awareness, 19% higher consideration of purchases, 17% greater conversions from online registrations to actual purchases, and 30% higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.

From this point of view, social media marketing looks like a benefical instrument to market a company and ist products, if done rightly ...

Social Media Marketing Books

For my thesis research I found so far a couple of books quite useful, which I don’t want to keep back:

Dave Evans – Social Media Marketing: An hour a day
He manages to explain the social media phenomenon clearly and provides useful steps to examine the different social media platforms. However, what I would have wished were more hands-on guide on how to finally implement the tools and social media strategy.

Charlene Li ad Josh Bernoff – Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies
Both authors provide a very useful overview of various social media strategies and which social media channels can be used for which strategy (e.g. listening to the crowd, responding, energizing etc.)

Larry Weber – Marketing to the social web: How digital customer communities build your business
Although Weber mainly concentrates on online communities, he explains the emergence of the Web 2.0 very clearly.

Other books recommended to me include:

• Paul Gillin - Secrets of social media marketing : how to use online conversations and customer communities to turbo-charge your business
• Paul Gillin - New influencers : a marketer's guide to the new social media
• Tracy Tuten - Advertising 2.0 : social media marketing in a Web 2.0 world
• David M. Scott - New rules of marketing and PR : how to use news releases, blogs, podcasting, viral marketing, & online media to reach buyers directly

Social Media

As can be seen in the video, social media became an increasing trend. I can imagine that many marketers, for instance, recognize the Youtube video posted above. Therefore, the businesses shouldn’t shy away from it. Many companies start using social media activities to listen to customers, engage with customers, and, thus, increase the company’s awareness and customers’ loyalty. To examine this trend, I will use my old blog to post interesting insights of books and academic articles I found during my research for my Master thesis.

I picked this topic, as I think it is not only a fad, but offers new potentials for companies to put themselves in their consumers’ shoes and grow beyond what they have been capable of in the past. Dell, Lego, P&G, Dove or Linux are all good examples for this new potential. Personally, I hope to learn more about social media and the possibilities they offer.

Crowdsourcing

Source

Jeff Howe describes Crowdsourcing as the “act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call”. Basically, this means that customers, or interest groups, are involved online in the entire process of a product or service from the development to marketing (Hannestreichl).

However, crowdsourcing does only work, if a company is willing to involve customers, and interest groups into their processes. Some companies have an own R&D department that takes care of the development of products and resources. They might be less willing to ask customers for ideas and solutions (Hannestreichl).

A good example for crowdsourcing is the global online network InnoCentive. InnoCentive stands for “global web community for open innovation, enabling scientists, engineers, professionals and entrepreneurs to collaborate to deliver breakthrough solutions for innovative R&D-driven organizations.” Those specialists meet in the online community to solve various problems, delivering innovative problem solutions. Another example is Wikipedia, where everyone can publish and share information with an online community.

Personally, I never heard the term “crowdsourcing” before. However, it seems to be an interesting and innovative approach to involve customers into the product development process; not only via market research, or market analysis, but by active participation. The potential for companies to find innovative and creative ideas and solutions for the business seems very strong. Thus, companies using this relatively new approach can gain a high competitive advantage.

Search engine advertising and search engine optimising

Source

Everyone using search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or Ask regularly experiences search engine advertisements (SEA). And they fulfil a valuable task for companies that pay for those placements: SEAs guarantee unknown and unpopular web pages a high visitor rate, and can even be applied target-group specific (Gladior).

Paid listings have been commonplace since 2001. However, SEA includes more than that (SearchEngineWatch.com):

1. Paid Inclusion: a site owner pays a fee in order to have web pages included in a search engine's editorial listings

2. Paid Sumission of a web page

3. Content Promotion: engines will promote an advertiser's content on search results pages

4. Banner ads

SEAs, therefore, have different terms, including “sponsored listings,” “paid search ads,” "pay for placement," "pay for performance," "CPC listings" (cost-per-click) and "PPC listings" (pay per click) (SearchEngineWatch.com).

Due to the advantages SEAs bring, search engine optimisation (SEO) is very important. Already a lot of online companies discovered that need of SEO and offer to optimise the the process of traffic to a web site from search engines. However, the promise to ensure top rankings in search engines to clients, like for instance Weprofits does, seems farfetched.

I would say that a company can optimize its web site, and, thus, search results already through a search engine friendly site design and architecture. However, consultation in this rather new form of advertising seems reasonable. In my opinion, the new media will increase in importance for company representation every year. Thus, the presence in the internet, and new forms of advertising need to be used in order to gain a competitive advantage on the long-run.

Social media and public relations

Source

As Lee le Fever (see video) explains, social media is for the people by the people. Everyone has the chance to have a say nowadays, using free tools such as blogs, pod casts or video sharing. And there are new opportunities for real people to play a role and provide feedback, organization and promotion. In brief, social media means new opportunities to create and communicate with people that care.

Social media incorporate a variety of platforms and media including social networks, blogs, or image and video sharing. And people make more and more use of it, either individually, or within companies (Online marketing Blog). Already a great number of companies, such as HP, makes use of social media activities, like social media marketing campaigns or social media newsrooms. HP even conducts Social Media Research in order to observe large groups of consumers to find out on what buying behavior depends (Social Media Research with HP Labs).

However, Brian Solis makes raises awareness to the fact that social media is also about people, not about a new marketing tool to analyze potential target groups in order to improve products and services. Again relationship building is important to serve the needs of the people a company wants to reach.

From the business perspective, I think that social media is a very useful tool to build up relationships with public groups, which serves both sites. On the one hand, people take an influence in the company’s operations and can help to design products and services they would value. On the other hand, companies receive feedback from ordinary people, or (potential) customer, and, thus, gain a competitive advantage through developing customer-specific products and services. All in all a win-win situation.

Microblogging in PR work

Twitter

Microblogging seems to be a rather new form of pitching short messages and photos to a targeted group of people to keep them updated. According to Wikipedia micro-blogging is “a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia such as photos or audio clips”. The messages can be then viewed publicly, or by a restricted group.

One of the most successful tools regarding PR work seems to be Twitter. Originally, a tool to connect family, friends and co-workers, it serves nowadays as a device to share and discover new information among PR professionals. According to Brian Solis, published author on marketing and engagement, twitter is the ultimate “new channel for casual conversation as well as a full-blown broadcast network for breaking news as it happens”.

The principle is very simple. When registered in the system, people can start writing short messages within 140 characters, saying what they are doing at the moment. This post will be published publicly on a wall so that everyone can answer.

However, when looking at the list of posts published, one can loose the overview easily. With a number of 340.000 users (Twitter Facts), and about 2.5 million people visiting the page each month (Brian Solis), new messages are published every few seconds. Thus, one has to check new postings regularly to be updated.

Personally, I prefer Facebook to be in contact with my family and friends. It offers as well a huge amount of possibilities to share messages (short and long), photos, or videos. Furthermore, I can keep those people updated, which I have as friends, as it is important for me to have my privacy. However, I see that PR professionals have a different perspective on such tools as Facebook or Twitter. If I might start a career in PR, or journalism, I will consider to use Twitter as a tool for PR work.

Blogger Relations

Source

Keeping good relations to the public is essential for every company. This includes not only customers, shareholders, or employees, but also journalists and, since some years, bloggers. New blogs are created every day. Not only by journalists, but usually by amateurs (Blogger Relations- 10 Wahrheiten). So, if a person might be dissatisfied with a product, or with the relations to a company, s/he makes a posting online, which might damage the reputation of a company (Jory des Jardins of BlogHer). Therefore, it is important to keep good relations with these bloggers, and address their needs.

But how can a company do this? There are several advices given by professionals to keep good relations. Brian Solis recommends taking time to find out and address bloggers needs. The Social Media Training advices to build up relationships over time through ongoing monitoring and comments in blogs that are in the clients' interest, or meeting bloggers face to face at BarCamps, YULblog. Furthermore, it is highlighted to treat bloggers as individuals and get to know them.

I personally agree that genuine relations to bloggers are essential in today’s media world. We all know some examples in which a company was facing a crisis “just” because a blogger posted some negative news online. However, it should be kept in mind to treat bloggers not as a threat, but as individuals that might help to increase the company’s reputation online.

Blogs as a tool for building your personal brand

Source

Building up a personal brand is very important in today’s world. A personal brand can be described as “a presentation that reaches out and grabs the reader by the shoulders in a captivating engagement. It tells the reader how much more you can do for his or her company than the other they are considering for a job.” (Patty Inglish: Personal Brand - Resume Format Part III 75). A blog can help you to create such a personal brand.

Especially for journalists “staying findable equals sustained opportunity and flexibility” writes Amy Gahran (Media Career Insurance: your Blog). The more findable and linkable a person is, the more often the blog will be visited. Therefore, one should aim to be as findable as possible, which can be achieved through a persistent and personal blog.

Furthermore, this digital identity helps to create reputation and credibility (The Socialization of Your Personal Brand). The Personal Branding Blog describes in 10 steps how to blog your personal brand. For instance, it recommends to research the internet first before opening a blog in order to find a niche. Afterwards it is advised to pick a personal logo and theme to create a personal brand page. Finally, it is important to gain feedback and claim your blog in order to add more value to your brand. The 10 steps recommended can be found in detail on 10 steps Beginners Guide to Blogging Your Personal Brand.

However, building your personal brand via a blog is not only recommended for journalists, but can support everyone whether a student, currently employed, seeking a new job, a brand ambassador or the official community manager of a company’s social media strategy. “70 percent of recruiters report using search engines to find background data on candidates. Of that number, 35 percent eliminated a candidate because of what they found online.” (Kevin Donline, Star Tribune Minneapolis). Therefore, a blog gives you the control to publish information in favor of you, which you want others to find.

Due to the above mentioned reasons it shall be concluded that blogs generate a useful tool for building your own personal brand. A blog (1) supports you in being findable and linkable, (2) it can build up reputation and credibility, and finally (3) provides control about personal information you want others to find.

Introduction to the purpose of this blog

This blog was created to explore different perspective of media communication extending a course the course “Media Communication” at HSE. Thereby, topics covered include

1. Blogs as a tool for building your personal brand

2. Blogger relations

3. Microblogging

4. Social media and public relations

5. Search engine advertising and search engine optimizing

6. Crowdsourcing

These topics will be added weekly between 21.1. and 25.2. I would be glad to receive some comments on the relevant topic.