Leftfield Interactive From way out left.

Why you shouldn’t give your Twitter account to the office junior…

Twitter is brilliant. If you haven’t realised this already can I please implore you to get amongst it. It is such a simple way of communicating with all your heros! From MP’s like Melissa Lee, Wellington Phoenix players like Ben Sigmund, and ZM DJs like Mark Dye – I’ve had conversations via Twitter often. What other form of communication levels the playing field between the famous and their fans?

One industry that uses social media well is telecommunications. I follow all those that are available. Unfortunately one of them had a bit of a gaff the other night, although I won’t reveal who this was (though I’m sure if you’re smart enough you’ll be able to figure it out).

It all started out with some very humourous banter between two particular telecommunication organisations over which one would win a pub quiz. It was the kind of banter that can be achieved to break down the staunch corporate image of a large organisation. As the banter continued you could see that it was morphing from banter to inappropriate remarks, with it culminating in the following comment:

“RT @####: @#### Mmm, you are clearly demonstrating your Two degree’s of intellectual disability. #LowIQ ^TN”

This comment is clearly over line. As expected a follower sends the following complaint:

“@### @ #### as a person with a disability, I find the original tweet, and the rude response, utterly unacceptable.”

This response from their follower may well be justified. This is an opportunity to make amends and attempt to recover the situation. However, it was not taken and a dig directly at the follower was made:

“@#### Get over yourself!”

Two tweets later and they made an indirect comment about the follower:

“@#### Just having a joke…honestly some people…^TN”

Put yourself in the shoes of this follower. Initially you were offended by a remark that crossed the line, then after you complained you received a direct and an indirect comment insinuating that you’re not a fun individual you’d be fairly annoyed. Forunately the organisation in question pulled their head out of the sand and sent the two following tweets:

“@#### Well you can log a complaint online.marketing@####.co.nz and it will be handle by the appropriate channels.^TN”

“@#### I apologise to you if you were offended by the banter. Yes I agree it was inappropriate and I am sorry. ^TN”

Although social media sites like Twitter enable you to engage with your customer in a far more personal way, you still need to retain a professional decorum at all times. Yes, your language and themes become less formal but they still need to be professional and geared towards a positive communications experience for both parties. There are two key things that help to achieve this: community management strategy and content strategy.

A community management strategy is a plan for how you will engage with your community. It highlights key words, themes, language, and tones that are appropriate to use when engaging with your community. It includes a negative experience recovery process to enable you to turn around members of your community who have had a negative experience. It provides guidance as to who is to engage with the community and on what topics. For example, you don’t want your PR people dealing with technical queries, and you do want major announcements coming from the CEO but you don’t want them dealing with negative customer service queries. Although this strategy will be a huge benefit to those who follow it, there needs to be provision for emergency situations. This includes who is allowed to post information, and generally speaking some more relaxed rules depending on your industry.

A content strategy is a plan for the kind of content and information that you will be putting forward to your community. This content and information comes in the form of carefully crafted messages aimed at your community to try and encourage further engagement and positive experiences with your brand. Examples of the kind of things discussed could be the launch of a new product or service, the testing of a new look or theme for your organisation, or the giving away of discounts and merchandise.

Social Media: Your Next Digital Communications Channel.

Kia ora all! I’m officially back in business at Leftfield Interactive! Awhile back I wrote a post highlighting my man crush on Rob Fyfe and the way Air NZ had a great PR win! Since then it’s been eerily quiet, and that’s mostly due to the fact that a) I went to watch the All Whites kick football butt, and b) we’ve been super duper busy!

One of the reasons we’ve been really busy has been social media. Social media is one of the main reasons I joined Leftfield Interactive, that and the fact that I get to wear the Panda Hat of AWESOMENESS each time I have a moment of brilliance. Social media seems to be a bit of a buzz term at the moment: you hear phrases like “I’ll tweet you” or “come ‘like’ us on Facebook” and  “don’t forget to check in each time you come”, but for some people this just doesn’t make sense!

So that is my goal today: to give you a basic outline of social media and why you and your business should seriously consider this as one of your digital communication channels.

To start with I thought instead of me trying to explain social media I’d provide you with this SlideShare presentation which sums it up brilliantly!

The world of communications has been flipped on its head by social media. In the past the communications process was very much one-way traffic – an organisation would send their message to the relevant communication channels like print and television and then they would send your message onto your consumers. Social media provides the first communication channel that is thoroughly two-way and to such an extent that it is like having conversations with your customers all the time.

The way social media achieves this two-way communication is by providing very clear and easy to use feedback channels for your customers. When you send a message to your Facebook fan base, or those following your corporate Twitter account, they are all able to respond quickly and efficiently. The implications of this are huge.

Firstly, it means that your customers will respond to your latest promotions instantly (good or bad!). No longer can the negative feedback you get from individuals be handled quietly and out of sight of the public mainstream – it’s right there for everyone to read! Secondly, it means that your customers can initiate the communications process, not just you! Your customer might have had a bad experience and instead of complaining during the experience or later to their friends and never using your organisation again, they can complain to you directly and in the most public of ways.  So, are you scared or inspired?

As with anything in life how you choose to react to circumstances determines how those circumstances will affect you. This new form of communicating should inspire you because there has never been a greater level of public accountability for an organisation than this. Imagine a client complaining about you to their 5000 followers on Twitter, then imagine a customer service recovery process that sees the whole process acted out in front of the client’s 5000 followers and the whole matter being resolved positively. You’ve turned around a frustrated client and their network of 5000 people who could have been influenced negatively without you even realising.

The whole reason Leftfield Interactive exists is because we believe people are the most inspired, relational creatures there are. We believe in helping them communicate better. We believe in always helping them to improve. The way we do this is through well thought out experiences that are clear, innovative and successful. We use digital channels and tools like social media, websites, e-mail, online advertising, TXT, and viral campaigns to achieve our client’s goals.

If you’d like to discuss how you could incorporate social media as a digital communications channel for your organisation then please get in touch.

Don’t get mad; get even.

Aloha from the new recruit. My names Rich and I’m pretty much a carbon copy of Hayden, apart from the fact that he’s the boss, and I’m not. Oh, and that he plays rugby, where as I play football (also known as “soccer” for the Americans out there). Today I thought I’d start with a fairly interesting topic, how to get even in a very professional way.

At some point in our personal or professional lives, we have a person or an organization that for some reason doesn’t like us, doesn’t listen to us, and talks a whole load of rubbish about us. So how does one rectify the situation? Well as I tell the kids I coach “don’t get mad, get even…win on the scoreboard”. One company that did this recently was Air New Zealand.

Air New Zealand is a large organization, with a terrific CEO, and a good track record of communicating with the media. However when The Listener recently published a column about how Air New Zealand’s potential merger with Virgin Blue would mean a reduction in service, and Rob Fyfe was absolutely ropable.

Before I go on I think I need to highlight one thing, this blog will be highly biased as Rob Fyfe is one of my business hero’s, and some would say my admiration for him has lead to a “man crush”. And yes Hayden, I’m man crushing on someone else.

Back to the Air New Zealand case study. Rob Fyfye and his team took an alternative approach to handling this situation. They released a media statement that can be read here. They then followed it up with this video posted here and here.  Make a cup of tea, have a look, and then lets have a chat.

Ready…? OK.  Anyone else feel like giving Rob Fyfye and Air New Zealand a big high five? He followed my approach to winning; he didn’t get mad, he got even, and he got even on the scoreboard. By taking this very humbling approach of using someone who spoke sign language to communicate a message to an organization unfortunately named The Listner Rob and his team went to town on these guys, without saying anything bad about them. Remarks such as “…if you’d just called Rob” makes Rob Fyfye seem a whole lot more accessible, as well as down to earth. It takes what was an article destroying Air New Zealand’s credibility as a quality airliner, and turns it on it’s head by saying “we’re a quality airline run by New Zealand’s 2^nd favourite dad (because who can claim 1^st better than John Key?) and you didn’t listen to us, which means you’re not credible”.

Air New Zealand is a large organization with a big reputation at stake and a big budget set aside for keeping that reputationin tact. So what about small to medium size organizations with a limited operating budget, let alone marketing budget? You still apply the same principle, you don’t get mad, you get even on the score board.

Hopefully as an SME you don’t have a national rag (see, Air New Zealand’s response has destroyed The Listener’s reputation in my mind) bearing down on you and completely lying about you or your company. However what if it’s a supplier claiming you’ve not paid your bills? Or how about a customer sulking that the job you did wasn’t up to standard? This is where you use social media to communicate your rebuttal cheaply and effectively.

At LFI we’re all about helping you get even on the scoreboard. If you’ve got some situations you need to work through, get in touch, I’d love to chat with you about them to see how we can partner with you, and ultimately stand on the sideline with you as you get even on the scoreboard.

Richard Boyd is an Account Manager for Leftfield Interactive. For further information please contact Richard on +64 (021) 807 000 or email richard@leftfieldinteractive.com