@christineptran

Some research on consumer trust

Today, I spent some time researching consumer trust, specifically, who consumers trust when making buying decisions.

Your first instincts are right – we trust our friends and family first. That’s why companies are tripping all over themselves to develop and implement social strategy programs. They hope that some of their biggest fans are your family and friends, and more importantly, that your family and friends are speaking on their behalf.

Here are the most notable studies published within the last year:

Trendstream, a London-based research consultancy, surveyed 32,000 consumers worldwide in 2009 and published the results in their Global Web Index (you can view a neat interactive map of internet behaviors here).

According to their research, close friends and family members score highest on trust, when it comes to opinions on brands we’re considering buying. Click on the image to view a larger version.

Earlier in the year, Nielsen published the frequently cited data below. From a survey of 25,000 internet consumers across 50 countries, Nielsen’s Global Online Consumer Survey reports that 9 out 10 people trust recommendations from people they know. Not far behind are consumer opinions posted online, and interestingly – brand websites.

You wouldn’t think that brand websites would still be relevant would ya? (Though this data is global, US only data for brand websites is the same.)

Most recently, Edelman published their Trust Barometer 2010. There were a few gasps of disbelief, with headlines such as Consumers Trust Their Friends Less. Though really, this research is less about consumers and more about the general opinion of corporate America.  Hard to believe that it’s looking up! Maybe it has to do with companies using social marketing to develop more person-to-person dialogue. Anyway, I’m including the Trust Barometer in this list because you’ll likely come across it if you’re looking for data on consumer trust.

Bottom line:

First, you can probably find research to support any position. Second, it’s a no-brainer that we trust our friends and family most. Yet, companies have to figure out how to facilitate more sharing and advocacy on behalf of their brands where friends and families interact.

Seaworld doesn’t shy away from backlash

Here’s an example of a company that has embraced direct, two-way conversation to engage their customers, and hasn’t shied away when the going gets tough.

You may have heard last week that a Seaworld killer whale killed its trainer. You can find some commentary here and here. This woman was well trained and knew the risks of her job. Yet her death isn’t without controversy. Animal lovers have come to the defense of Shamu and animals everywhere. And Seaworld has responded appropriately.

The @shamu Twitter account sent out this tweet last Thursday:

Seaworld has responded via its blog, with a message from the president, a tribute to the trainer, a statement from the family, and more.

And, most importantly, Seaworld keeps its Facebook fan page open to a lively debate – only shutting it down momentarily last week because of “inappropriate photos and videos.” Comments on the page include angry vitriol, reasoned criticisms and defense, and condolences for the trainer’s family.

The truth is, many of those with the sharpest criticisms were probably never fans of Seaworld or any other animal park. Having a platform for their remarks, at Seaworld’s fan page and blog, may show that the company is listening. More likely, it helps contain some of the nasty comments that would otherwise be circulating the rest of the social web – and be searchable later.

I think animal parks can serve important educational purposes, though I’m not a big fan of small concrete pools and training animals to do tricks.

Still, Seaworld responds appropriately – really, the only way it can, once it’s embraced a two-way conversation with customers.

Facebook’s Sentiment Engine

On Sunday – Valentine’s Day, Facebook published new results from its sentiment engine, measuring if relationship status correlates with happiness. According to their analysis, it does. Read more.

These results follow from their USA Gross National Happiness Index, published in October 2009. Facebook data scientists have put together a sentiment engine which analyzes word choice in status updates. The idea, generally accepted by social psychologists, is that what we write provides a window into our “emotional and cognitive worlds.”

According to Facebook, positive words include “happy”, “yay” and “awesome,” while negative words include “sad,” “doubt” and “tragic.”  Read more about how words are collected and rated by LIWC, or the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count.  This tool was adopted by Facebook in its own research.

[If you hadn't read the report last year, It's no surprise that the happiest days fall on holidays, with Thanksgiving ranking at the top. The saddest day was January 22, 2008 - the day of the Asian stock market crash and Heath Ledger's death (really?). The second saddest was Michael Jackson's death.]

I plugged in all my Facebook status updates from November 1, 2009 to today and came up with the following analysis via LIWC:

And for good measure, here is an analysis of my tweets:

Nothing earth shattering here, but keep in mind this is one tool and I’m using the free version. (How I’m equally personable and arrogant/distant beats me!) Plus, you can’t deny the significance of this kind of data across 400 million Facebook users worldwide. Instead of knowing what people are searching for (per Google), Facebook tells us what people are thinking. This kind of information is valuable to everyone from social psychologists, to cultural anthropologists, to politicians, to marketers.

Companies should already be monitoring sentiment around their brands wherever people are talking. Facebook. Twitter. Forums. Comments. Buzz? I’m not sure what tools exist to do this well – so if you’re using one to monitor sentiment around your brand, please let me know.

Facebook currently hoards its social analytics, but you can bet that a sentiment engine will be on the market in the future.

Oh, and if you’re interested in reading more: This NY Times article discusses how a happiness index might be a better measure of “national self-worth” than economic indices.

Southwest Airlines on the Social Media Defensive

By now, most of us have seen examples of social marketing disasters (Domino’s Pizza, Motrin Moms). The mainstream media and blogosphere love this stuff.

On Saturday, filmmaker Kevin Smith took a standby flight on Southwest Airlines, on his way back from MacWorld in SF. Essentially, Kevin got booted for not fitting into a single seat. He was rightfully upset (read the details in the links posted here) and tweeted about it. With over 1.6 million followers (as of 2 days after the incident, anyway), a small firestorm erupted between @ThatKevinSmith, Southwest Airlines, and his most ardent fans.

Here are some of Kevin’s initial tweets. There are many, many more. Read them, they’re fun.

Here’s Southwest Airlines response:

The next day, Southwest addressed the issue via its blog. Unfortunately, it took a good idea and executed badly. It offered the half-a$$ed apology:

“You’ve read about these situations before. Southwest instituted our Customer of Size policy more than 25 years ago. The policy requires passengers that can not fit safely and comfortably in one seat to purchase an additional seat while traveling. This policy is not unique to Southwest Airlines and it is not a revenue generator.”

Customers took notice, with comments like this: “A heartfelt apology is not usually followed by justification of the action. Pathetic” and “Apparently your mother never taught you how to apologize.”

So the conversation continued on the Twittersphere and on Southwest’s blog.

Finally, Southwest offered this post the next day, expressing a bit more contrition: “The communication among our Employees was not as sharp as it should have been and, it’s apparent that Southwest could have handled this situation differently.”

Okay, so what does this all mean – how much does it really hurt Southwest?

Apologies were made within 48 hours. Kevin Smith even says he’s done talking about it. Southwest has long-standing goodwill with customers, low fares, and an unbeatable refund policy.

Really, it’ll probably just be a minor bump as far as PR crises go. Though things might be different had Southwest handled this more poorly.

The really important lesson from this is that if your company chooses to embrace social media, you’ve got to think about the kind of relationship you want with your customers (ahem, esp customers with 1.6 million followers) and what this means. In fact, even if your company doesn’t embrace social media, you should have a crises response plan if situations like this arise.

Southwest’s social strategy is mature relative to many others, yet according to its own admission:

“It is not our customary method of Customer Relations to be so public in how we work through these situations.”

Southwest may not have anticipated all the ways customer relations might look like with social media in the mix.

Bottom line:

There are going to be very public discussions about your brand amongst your customers, with and/or without you. At the very least, have a go-to response plan in place and provide the proper training to every customer-facing employee in your company.

A Few Social Media Guidelines to Consider

I recently read a couple dozen corporate social media policies, all from the the Altimeter wiki.

Most have the requisite, run-of-the-mill guidelines, such as:

• “Respect confidential and propriety information about the company.”
• “Be transparent.”
• “Add value.”
• “If you’re blogging for yourself, include a disclaimer that these are your personal views and not those of Company XYZ.”

Here’s an example of one I liked best: Intel Social Media Guidelines. It’s concise and written in natural language (no legalese), meaning employees may actually read – and remember it. I’d tend towards an even shorter policy, under 1-page, if possible. Gartner has an 8-point policy, with one sentence summaries and expanded descriptions. Nice!

I found a few gems I thought particularly interesting and/or resonant:

From Coca-Cola (on the Digital Buzz Blog):

Coca Cola has a Social Media Certification Program! So, “all associates who wish to officially represent the Company online must complete the Social Media Certification Program prior to beginning or continuing these activities.”

Coca Cola also asks its employees to “Be a ’scout’ for compliments and criticism. Even if you are not an official online spokesperson for the Company, you are one of our most vital assets for monitoring the social media landscape. If you come across positive or negative remarks about the Company or its brands online that you believe are important, consider sharing them.”

Another gem from Coca-Cola, and important for a global brand: “Remember that your local posts can have global significance. The way that you answer an online question might be accurate in some parts of the world, but inaccurate (or even illegal) in others. Keep that ‘world view’ in mind when you are participating in online conversations.”

Edelman, a PR agency, reminds its communications professionals: “When it doubt, always take the long way; there are no short cuts in social media.”

Back to Gartner again: “Don’t ‘give away the farm’: Avoid posting the kind of information and advice for which clients pay Gartner.”

And finally, this one is probably a tough one to stomach for lots of corporate communications department, but Robert Scoble explains: “Post fast on good news or bad. Someone say something bad about your product? Link to it — before the second or third site does — and answer its claims as best you can. Same if something good comes out about you. It’s all about building long-term trust.”

Got a good social media policy or guideline to share? Please do in the comments below!

If Toyota Had a CCO

photo credit: blue_j

On the drive home last night, I heard this Talk of the Nation story on NPR: How to Bounce Back from a PR Disaster. Obviously about Toyota if you’ve been following news for the past week. A good listen – and imho, the most reasonable assessment of the situation I’ve heard and read yet.

Take a look at the news and you see headlines like: Toyota’s Digital Disaster, Toyota broke cardinal rule of crisis management, and Toyota’s Recall Antics Spread Virally.

My take?  You can’t argue with decades of leadership in automotive reliability. It’ll take a lot more than this recall (which happen all the time and affect all companies) to diminish my trust in Toyota.

By the way, I just bought a new used car, and during the process only sought out Toyotas, Scions (Toyota brand), and Hondas. Reliability was my top criteria. While I ended up with a Honda, this recall and the so-called “PR disaster” wouldn’t have turned me a way from a Toyota if I were still looking for a car.

Though it does appear that I don’t represent the mainstream view, as public perception of the Toyota brand has dropped significantly.

So what’s Toyota to do?

A couple posts ago, I wrote about an HBR article concerning the customer-centric organization. In it, the authors presented their vision of the Chief Customer Officer.

Imagine if Toyota had a Chief Customer Officer.

As the public face of the company and most senior internal evangelist, a Toyota CCO would be the first to acknowledge the issue and offer a sincere apology to customers. A Toyota CCO would brief the executive team on how to handle the customer crisis from a customer-centric point of view. A Toyota CCO would engage dealerships, ensuring a positive experience for customers who bring in their Toyotas for repairs.

A Toyota CCO would work closely with corporate communications and customer support to disseminate this message to its customers, wherever they may be off- and online. A Toyota CCO would reach out to, seek feedback from, and rally customer advocates, who prior to the crisis were already engaged in a formalized customer advocacy program. A Toyota CCO would coordinate efforts to listen to customers – collecting customer sentiment/feedback and funneling it back to the company. A Toyota CCO would empower a team to respond to detractors (like this one) and redirect the message back to Toyota.

I don’t think Toyota’s botched the recall by any means (yet). In fact, I think they’re handling it as best as most companies would. But Toyota would be better served if it had a CCO, who could coordinate the customer-centric response and inject the customer point of view across all facets of the recall process.

Is Apple the Most Social Brand?

This article in Ad Week names Apple as the top social brand. Read here:

The key to brands coming out on top on the social Web is to have great products people want to talk about. It should come as no surprise then that Apple dominates a new list of the world’s most social brands.

via Apple Dominates Social Brand Ranking.

These rankings were conducted by social media management company, Vitrue. The announcement hasn’t been made on their blog yet, but here’s the methodology from last year’s Social Media Index rankings, which sounds to be the basis for this year’s Social Brand ranking:

The Vitrue SMI calculates scores about the brand’s social conversations. We apply a series of algorithms to reflect the frequency of usage, the size of the social media environment, and the magnitude of the conversation. The result is a single numeric score for each brand: the Vitrue Social Media Index (SMI).

via The Virtue 100 – Top Social Brands of 2008

Product leadership and buzz are great, but it doesn’t make a brand social. In fact, Apple is arguably one of the most anti-social brands. I’ll give them credit for their annual MacWorld and a great in store experience, but Apple doesn’t undertake any social or community marketing efforts. While there are legions of adoring fans (me included) talking about Apple, Apple doesn’t really care to talk with us.

So, Apple isn’t a social brand – but not every brand needs to be social. Then again, not every brand continually delivers innovation and carves out whole new industries.

Update:

I wrote this post yesterday (Sunday), and Vitrue updated their blog with the official announcement today. You can read it here: The Vitrue 100 – Top Social Brands of 2009. Their methodology includes a daily analysis of online conversations taking place in these areas:

• Social Networking – general sharing
• Video Sharing – high engagement of viewing time and authenticity of dimension
• Status Updates – aka Micro-Blogs; key influencers who chatter and actively push content
• Photo Sharing – social meta data
• Blogs – general blogsphere, commentary mentions

1000 Tweeting Tax Pros at H&R Block

This tax season, H&R Block is making a big push for its “H&R Block at Home” software with a social marketing campaign.  Previously fearing that digital would cannibalize its retail business, management now recognizes that digital can’t be ignored and hopefully, will drive more business to their 4000 plus franchises.

Here’s an interesting peak at what they’ve got up their sleeves:

The core of the social-media plan is a 1,000-member tax-professional team, chosen from 100,000 H&R employees across the country, who have been “social-media-qualified.” The tax pro force’s main domain is the home website, where there are both community pages as well as direct “Ask a Tax Advisor” buttons staffed beginning Jan. 5. The tax team will answer questions directly, of course, but will also “listen” in to concerns or problems being discussed within communities and forums and respond accordingly.

via Digital: Tweeting Tax Pros Leads H&R Block Social-Media Push – Advertising Age – Digital.

Sounds like a really promising idea. This is a great way to engage prospective customers. They’ll feel good about getting free and quick advice from a tax professional – and for many, online interactions will lead to more in depth person consultations. H&R Block breeds goodwill and builds brand loyalty, while cross promoting their digital and retail services.

I’m curious to know what criteria H&R Block used to select the 1000 member team, and the training each member received. Sounds like a fun way to keep your own employees engaged as well.

I’m Thankful for Google

This is coming a couple days late, but a book review in the NY Times today inspired me to express my thanks for Google during this Thanksgiving weekend. The review is for Googled: The End of the World as We Know It, by Ken Auletta. A little sensationalistic wouldn’t you say?!

photo credit: Marcin Wichary

While every media exec in North America thinks Google is “voracious…has gargantuan ambitions, it’s too rich, it’s too smug, it makes money off of OPC – other people’s content,” there’s no denying that it’s made the world a better place from a consumer’s standpoint.

So, in the spirit of Michael Arrington’s recent #iamthankfulfor-esque ode to Apple, here’s why I’m thankful for (and how I use) Google:

• For search that works
• For a clean search page, with an occasional dose of personality
• For web-based email with threaded conversations, labels, and tons of fun stuff in labs
• For integrating chat right into email
• For an affordable (even free) small business office suite in the cloud (Calendar, Docs)
• For maps that look good
• For alerts delivered to my inbox every evening
• For news and blog search
• For image search
• For Blogger (which I happily used before WordPress and Posterous)
• For the range of time-wasting cute pet videos to productivity-enhancing self-help videos on YouTube
• For Picasa which is the easiest and best integrated photo management app imho (if only for Facebook integration though)
• For lengthy previews of books
• For mobile maps on my iPhone
• For a comprehensive suite of analytics and webmaster tools
• For innovating geolocation with Latitude, which I’m slow to adopt but like the idea of
• For a phone number and voicemail service which transcribes my messages
• For Chrome, which isn’t available on Mac yet, but for which I’m eagerly awaiting
• For turn by turn maps on Android, which I won’t be using anytime soon, but which is cool nonetheless
• For trying to maintain its “Don’t be evil” ethos, despite being the biggest brand in the world and all indications that this is becoming less and less possible

Update: I forgot one! For helping me save on my monthly phone bills with SMS through Google Talk.

Take-Aways from Social Media World Forum

The Social Media World Forum, in Santa Clara this past Monday and Tuesday, focused on how big brands use social technologies to engage customers. Representatives from brands like Coca-Cola, Nissan, Intel, and GM presented on recent marketing campaigns employing social technologies. It was a first of its kind conference for me – and it was great to see established brands experimenting, learning, and sharing their lessons with the community. Here are my favorite moments from the conference:

• Michael Brito, formerly of Intel, talked about actionable listening over active listening. That is, listening with the goal of improving the customer experience in concrete ways. Michael discussed how Starbucks successfully did this with its My Starbucks Idea customer community. Last year, Starbucks launched its Splash Sticks, “plastic plugs for sip holes” which prevent spillage, an idea which came from a customer on the site.  (See pic and USA Today story here.) Michael also described the “Intel Star” campaign, which he was personally involved in while working at Intel. The campaign ran a hilarious ad about Ajay Bhatt, the co-inventor of the USB. You’ve got to see it, especially if you have any love for geeks. The spot was so popular, Intel added an accompanying t-shirt contest and built a contestant community. In Michael’s words, “Sometimes little things you do that create valuable customer experience.”
• Jeff Parent, VP Sales and Marketing of Nissan Canada, talked about a grass roots marketing campaign for Nissan’s new Cube.  Knowing it was a niche product, Nissan targeted a younger demographic which tended to be early adopter, socially connected and skeptical of traditional marketing. They opted for 100 percent social media driven campaign, inviting 1000 “people on the street” to enter to win 50 Nissan Cubes.  100 of these invitees were shortlisted and given a blank canvas to share why they deserved to win. Contestants created 35,000 YouTube videos, posted 30,000 Tweets and 10,000 Flickr photos, and organized Tweet-ups and dance-offs. What was most interesting about Jeff’s presentation is that Nissan conducted a pure social media campaign, and now has a baseline with which to compare future hybrid campaigns. How much awareness did Nissan raise with this campaign? In March, 12% of their target market had heard of the Cube, by May – 23%, and by July – 32% of their target market, and 52% of Canadians of all age groups. More importantly, sales of the Cube are on target with forecasted goals.
• Christopher Barger, Director of Social Media at GM, delivered an honest and funny presentation about engaging in social media as GM was about to file the biggest Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US history. He joked about being “the most hated brand in the US” at that time. While others thought he was “nuts,” he believed that the only way to “rejuvenate a brand and get through a crisis was to be as open as possible.” GM created a temporary social media team to listen, respond, and interact with customers during the crisis. GM’s CEO posted a video to thank the 12,000 dedicated supporters who had joined GM’s Facebook fan page at the peak of the crisis. GM brought in its most vocal critics to receive and act upon marketing and customer experience feedback. All the while, GM made sure that their employees received the appropriate training to engage directly with customers. They took a “thousand flowers bloom” approach, fostering dialog and learning throughout the company, where even engineers, finance, etc. were joining the conversations. Members from GMs communications and marketing teams worked for an entire year in the social media department, learning new skills and diminishing others, and then returning to their teams and dispersing the knowledge they’d gain. In GMs words: “Immerse and disperse.”
• Finally, check out this video presented during the conference and created by one of nearly 35,000 contestants in last year’s Queensland, Australia “Best Job in the World” campaign (This particular contestant didn’t win, but it’s great nonetheless). Chris Chambers, Director of Digital Marketing at Tourism Queensland, spoke about the wildly popular contest, which awarded one lucky contestant a 6-month job on the Great Barrier Reef with $150,000 AUD salary. The contest received extensive mainstream media coverage, including a spot on Oprah, and raised global awareness of Queensland as a holiday destination.

This is a just a brief run-down of the day 1 of the conference.  It continued yesterday as well.  Overall, one of my favorite conferences this year.

Update: Michael Brito offers his take on the conference here on his blog, as well as a nice Flickr gallery of pics.

Update: Just found the Conan O’Brien interview of the real Ajay Bhatt.  Good stuff.