desktop 13 - upfront media

8/8/2019 DESKTOP 13 - Upfront Media

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ISSUE 13 September 2010

desktopan UPFRONT MEDIA publication

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Social Media and theEvolving Twitter Egosystem

300,000 Largest WebsitesVisualized with Favicons

HOW TO: Pick the Right

Social Media Engagement Style

HOW TO: Respond whenSocial Media Attacks Your Brand

Random facts, humormore...
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The number of active accounts however, remains unknown. As

Twitter better explains its mission, purpose, and value system

to everyday consumers, the number will only continue to grow.

Evan Williams also shared a glimpse of the Twitter ecosystem

and how individuals connect to one another.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2

Social Media and the EvolvingTwitter Egosystem

If the Web is Dead Twitter users have yet to hear the news

Twitter.com and m.twitter.com account for 92% of all access

and communication.

Social Science Will Reveal the Future of Social Networkings

I believe that in order to truly understand technology, the in

ternet, social media and its impact on society, business, an

culture, social science becomes paramount.

Social science is the study of human society and social relationships and its role in the evolution of Twitter, social networking

and the future of online societies is paramount.

While we focus on the future, we must also look at the past

progress.

This rapid evolution requires study in order to navigate change

lies ahead.

As technology and the internet affect human behavior and cu

ture, understanding how we got here will help us affect wherewe are going.

The future of communication, relationships, and education is in

your handsand your status updates, tweets, likes and con

nections.

Aug 26, 2010 from Mashable

An interesting visualization over at Nmap.org shows the favi-

cons of the 300,000 biggest websites on the Internet (accord-

ing to Alexa), with the size of the favicons corresponding to sites

The data has been gathered through a large-scale scan of

Nmap Security Scanner, a powerful network scanning tool used

by many online security professionals.

The smallest icons, explain the folks from Nmap, correspond

to sites with approximately 0.0001% reach, and rescaled to1616 pixels.

The largest icon belongs to Google, and its 11,936 x 11,936

pixels large; for comparison, Mashables favicon (located below

and to the left of Facebook) is 640 640 pixels large. Of course,

to explain Googles icon in its full size, you need to check out the

zoom-enabled, interactive version.

The visualization is also available as a humongous poster, avail-

able here.

300,000 Largest Websites Visualized

with Favicons

UPFRONT MEDIA | PA
http://nmap.org/favicon/alexa-1.2-small.jpghttp://nmap.org/favicon/alexa-1.2-small.jpghttp://nmap.org/favicon/alexa-1.2-small.jpghttp://nmap.org/favicon/alexa-1.2-small.jpg


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set up a very clear (if slightly old-fashioned) relationship with

the consumer. The consumer follows whatever steps youve laid

out: Retweeting something, sending in a picture of yourself wit

company swag, or signing up for a newsletter.

Then they are rewarded for taking these steps. Dialogue or com

munity isnt as important as having consumers hanging arounhoping theyll win something or get a special deal.

How you say it: Giving stuff away or offering deals works we

only if youve got some trust built up. There are a lot of scams

out there and acting like a wacko Twitter user doesnt insti

Whos it good for? Big companies with big pockets wanting to

speak from the perspective of the corporation.

Example: Virgin America. Nearly all of Virgins Twitter stream is

devoted to special deals and contests.

The bottom line: They keep the voice friendly and light, but also

faceless. The brand itself is speaking here.

Your message: Like a good neighbor, you listen to your custom

ers and engage them on an individual level, mostly to solve cus

tomer support issues or to capitalize on sales opportunities.

You monitor social network channels because thats where the

customers are, and if conversations are happening about you

brand, you want to be there to participate.

In this engagement style, Twitter is an extension of your custom

er service reps (albeit in a limited, loose way). Businesses fo


Wmagazines: Are you strong or sassy? Independent or group-

focused? When someone @-replies you on Twitter, do you re-

spond immediately or wait a couple days?

These questions are actually important to consider. Why? Be-

cause customer engagement encompasses your companyscustomer service, support, and marketing.

It also deals with your companys forums, Twitter accounts,

blogs and meetups. How various companies use Twitter, You-

term relationship consumers have with that brand.

There are some amazing success stories. Old Spice, using both

Twitter and YouTube, recently ran a customer engagement mas-

terclass that created a much-needed mania around the brand.

Dominos Pizza employee uploaded a disastrous video about

the companys hygiene standards to YouTube, a widespread

negative viral campaign ensued.

The lesson: Ensure that your engagement style matches your

companys brand, goals, and general attitude. We took a look

social web. Which are you?

Your message: Winning is sometimes the only thing. Weve all

seen things like this before: RT FREE STUFF OVER HERE

LINK #welovefreestuff. his social media personality knows

that contests and special offers generate a lot of activity and

1. The Game Show Host

2. Your Friendly Neighborhood Service Rep

hats your customer engagement style? Its a question

reminiscent of those light-hearted quizzes that proliferate

HOW TO: Pick theRight Social Media

Engagement Style

HOW TO: Pick theRight Social Media

Engagement Style

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Your message: Every customer interaction is like one amazing

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tomers by name and hangs out with them on the weekends.

Your business Twitter account is way more important to you

than your personal account (in fact you may not even have a

separate personal account its all the same to you).


HOW TO: Pick the Right Social MediaEngagement Style

Whos it Good For?Businesses whose products and services al-

customers and you would have a lot to talk about at a dinner

party, this is a good bet for you.

Example: Timberland. They run a community effort called Earth-

keepers, a set of initiatives (including social media) devoted toenvironmental action. As described on its site:

When youre an Earthkeeper, youre part of a community of

like-minded people from all over the world intent on doing the

little things and doing bigger things, like replanting eroded ar-

Earthkeepers learn from and support one another through orig-

inal and inspiring ideas of making the world a more sustainable

and livable place. And the more of us there are, the better.

Note that while the Timberland logo is on the top of the page,

its not mentioned here. In their tweets they take a more anony-

mous tone and almost always include a link to something the

community might care about (often linking back to the Earth-

keeper blog).

5. The Friend

Businesses in this style will share relevant info like menu up

dates, new products and event information but will also mix in

personal thoughts, jokes and pictures of themselves at work.

They tweet about things that have nothing to do with the bus

ness per se. These businesses want to their relationship with

How you say it:Just as you would say something to a pal. Pretty

much anything goes, though the more personal the voice the

better.

Because your engagement with your customer is based on the

friendliness of the relationship, the more natural and true to the

voice of the person communicating, the better.

Whos it good For?Smaller, local businesses. This is best when

your social media presence mostly extends your face-to-face re

lationship.

Example:Choose any local restaurant and look at their Twitte

account. There are a lot of food carts here in San Francisco likeThe Creme Brulee Cart which use Twitter to update their cus

tomer base as to where theyll be that day, but youll also see

messages to customers, friends, and other business owners.

The bottom line:They engage with their customers as friends.

It is important that you think through how you want to engage

your customers on Twitter and elsewhere on the social web.

Its important to stay true to your brand but also to make clea

the ways in which your customer engagement style furthers the

type of relationship you want with your customers and potentia

customers.

Whats Your Style?

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Here are three examples of companies who were attacked by social

media and how they handled, or should have handled the situation.

Learn from their mistakes or successes so you can stay on social me-

dias good side.

1. Ann Taylor

This past July,

LOFT, a brand

owned by Ann

Taylor Inc., post-

ed photos on its

Facebook pageof a tall, blonde

model wearing

LOFTs new silk

cargo pants, with a click-to-buy link in the captions.

What happened next is a perfect example of how social media can sud-

denly turn on you, even when youve done nothing wrong, or seem-

ingly out of the ordinary. Fans of the brand complained that while the

who wasnt 510 and stick thin.

Fans requested that LOFT prove their pants could look good on real

women. And they did. The following day, the company posted photos

to Facebook again, this time with their own staff posing in the pants.The real women came from different company departments and

ranged from a size 2 to size 12, and in height from 53 to 510.

What to Learn from Ann Taylor

This is a perfect example of how to turn a possible threat via so

cial media into an opportunity. Ann Taylor had the good sense to stop

the attack before it escalated.

Here customers had a direct and valid complaint about a product and

how it was featured. The company did the best thing possible, they

stayed calm and listened to the comments. They took the comments

into consideration and came up with a constructive resolution.


Respond

when

SocialMedia

AttacksYour

Brand

For all the praise that brand advertisers have for social

media, they must be aware that its very much a double-

edged sword.

And for all the free marketing, advertising and brand pro-

motion via Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and other plat-

forms used to help build an identity and relationship with

your customers, it can just as quickly turn on you and your

brand.

being that your company probably messed up. It may not have

been intentional, but something, somewhere down the line,

went wrong enough for someone to complain and was wrong

enough for others to vocalizing that complaint en masse. One

mistake is all it takes for social media to turn against your brand.

No one is perfect and you cant expect to please everyone all thetime, so the best trick is to be prepared for how to handle things if

By responding to Fan requests to post photos of women of differensizes wearing the pants, the company proved that they really do listen

and care about their customer concerns, and they were able to back

up the product. Its a double win for Ann Taylor as they actually gained

customer support, while avoiding a potential disaster.

2. Southwest Airlines

This past February, Southwest Airlines kicked director Kevin Smith of

Smith had apparently failed the armrest test, meaning that because

an extra seat.

seats for him to purchase and he was asked to get off the plane, andwas offered a $100 voucher by the airline, but the incident was fa

from over.

While its somewhat refreshing that Southwest provides the same cus

tomer service to all their customers regardless of their level of fame

it might not have been the best idea to tick off someone who is very

vocal on Twitter and has 1.6 million followers.

Smith countered that he wasnt large enough to be the safety risk

Southwest claimed he was, and he tweeted up a storm that caused a

social media disaster. According to Position, a search and social me

blog mentions, 5,133 forum posts and 15,528 tweets.

HOWTO:

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For their part, Southwest was quick to respond 16 minutes after

-

Smith hey Kevin! Im so sorry for your experience tonight! Hopefully we

can make things right, please follow so we may DM!

Of course, it didnt stop there as Smith continued rant-tweeting about

later conversation with Smith, explaining to others what had happened

on the plane, and the companys explanation for why it happened,

which included an apology.

What to Learn from Too Fat to Fly

Southwest had a plan, which is something that is necessary if you want

to avoid being burned by social media. They monitored their online

quick and friendly manner.

Because of this, many of the responses on their own blog were sympa-

thetic to the companys side of the incident. Not only did the company

apologize, but they offered a refund as they had clearly embarrassed

a customer.

But they also made sure to take the opportunity to restate their police

of requiring larger customers to purchase two seats, so as to make

Make sure your company is alert and monitoring your presence on so-

cial media sites, and make sure you are ready with a plan to remedy

the situation. Here, responding quickly saved the company a lot of time

and effort later.

3. Pretzel Crisps

Most recently Pretzel Crisps launched an ad campaign in New York City

with four slogans, including You can never be too thin.

The campaign launched in early August with that slo-

gan gracing bus shelters and ad stands and caught

the attention of the blogosphere after a photo was

posted online.

The photo was re-posted to the womens blog Jeze-

bel and was followed by condemning posts, tweets,

and videos from other bloggers.

In fact, I was one of the people who vocalized a

problem with this particular campaign. The slogan

the company picked is a thinspiration motto used

by the pro-anorexic community, and was called ir-responsible and accused of promoting unhealthy

weight loss.

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plies of, Thin just happens to be a good word to describe the shape

of our product.

As outrage escalated the VP of Marketing participated in interviews

with bloggers and explained, that they were a small company and sim-

ply wanted to launch an ad that would grab peoples attention.

As bloggers continued to post, a video made its rounds of one New


HOW TO: Respond when SocialMedia Attacks Your Brand

Yorkers protest calling the ads a disgrace and listing facts abou

eating disorders.

The same day, Pretzel Crisps sent out an e-mail to bloggers thanking

them for their feedback, as well as tweeting, We didnt intend to advo

cate unhealthy weight loss with our ads. Thanks to all for the feedback

The ads will be taken down asap.

The blogosphere rejoiced feeling that they actually accomplished

something, only to learn that the company replaced the offending adwith another play on a pro-anorexic slogan, Tastes as good as skinny

feels, from the initial campaign.

Further outrage from bloggers was met this time with the brush off

While dialoging with some of the bloggers, I mentioned that you can

never be too thin was just one of four tag lines that we had running

throughout the cityThe only one that people commented on was the

too thin ad. So we removed them and replaced them with one of the

other three.

The ultimate fallout from the campaign is still yet to be seen, and many

blog commenters agree that it was probably the companys goal to

anger people and get the free publicity.

But is free publicity really worth tweets like, Congratulations; you have

ruined your product for me forever with your pro-ana ad slogans. Its

too badI loved you, and How can you people sleep at night? No mat

ter how you may try to justify it, you are promoting eating disorders.

Finally, a week later the company agreed to take down all the offend

ing ads.

What To Learn From Pretzelgate 2010

For all intents and purposes, Pretzel Crisps did a great job of respond

ing to a social media attack on their product. They directly and indi

vidually responded to complaints over Twitter, and made themselves

available for interviews.

The company offered their reasoning, and then listened to the reaction

of the blogosphere. They took responsibility

they apologized, and they swiftly took action to

And then they messed up: they lied. They lied

and they refused to understand why their oth

er ad was just as offensive as the one that had

been taken down.

The company claimed they didnt receive any

negative reaction towards the other campaign

slogans, which simply wasnt true.

If you want to maintain integrity, you need tobe honest and transparent, and if youre not

your customers wont want anything to do with

you.

Honestly is the best policy. Your company needs to be open and take

cues from its customers, and know when its time to quit.

These three case studies illustrate how your brands should (or should

not) handle a social media crisis.

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If youve been wondering how to seam

integrate an experiential event with Face

here is how to do it, in real time!

Again, the guys over in Israel are doing some

ing work, this time it was Publicis (E-dologic) a

market who have developed an innovative ex

tial event for Coca Cola Israel that synced eve

who participated, live with their friends on Fac

The Coca Cola Village is a special summer ex

tial event in Israel, in 2010, they decided to r

event through Facebook, with teenagers need

collect 10 Coca Cola caps each, gather eight f

who did the same and then register online th

Facebook to gain exclusive entry.

When they got to the Coca Cola Village, the

asked to setup a special wrist band that wou

when starting each activity.

Every time you swiped, it instantly updated yo

tus with what you were doing at the event, ke

your friends up to date in real time.

Plus, the wrist band also allowed for automat

ging of all the photos taken at the Coca Cola V

The event held 650 teenagers a day, and w

seamless Facebook integration, they gen

35,000+ posts every day for the three days t

over 100,000 posts for the event!

Facebook IntegrationThe Coca Cola Village

UPFRONT MEDIA

31A Kreta Ayer Road, Singapore 088998

Trunkline: 6225 7655

Thorsten Nolte, CEO

Samir Ahmed, Philippines Country Head

Visit us at www.UPFRONTMEDIA.asia

Aug 18, 2010 from Digital Buzz

This is a beautiful behind the scenes video for IBMs Data Campaign that was re-

seen any of the campaign creative (sorry if its old?!).

What I really love about this video isnt just the fantastic insights and interviews,

to generate the amazing visuals you see, purely through code. The campaign was

created by Ogilvy and Motiontheory.

Aug 20, 2010 from Digital Buzz

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Humor

IBM: The Art Of Data Video

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http://www.upfrontmedia.asia/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUv0GU5rfHghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnpGIgzNBJohttp://www.upfrontmedia.asia/

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