@christineptran

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.

Geolocation, Geolocation, Geolocation!

I’m loving the idea of geolocation, and can’t wait until it becomes more widely accepted. Geolocation, or location based services (LBS), is the “identification of the real-world geographic location of an Internet-connected computer, mobile device, website visitor or other” (Wikipedia).

It’s already available on our mobile apps, for example, Yelp or Google Maps. You log on, your device asks you if it can use your current location, and you’re off – to (in theory) discover new and cool things in the nearby world around you.

What’s cooler than such basic uses of geolocation, is geolocation for social networking. For instance, if you’re using a location-enabled device, tool, or service, you can opt in to notify your social network of your current location. Google Latitude offers continuous location sharing, which allows you to connect with friends who happen to be nearby. Foursquare uses a “check-in” model instead, which may be easier for new users to stomach. Twitter and WordPress are announcing geolocation tools as well. Here’s a neat article on ReadWriteWeb about how geolocation improves Twitter.  And check out Twitter 360, a new Twitter client that really takes it to the extreme by integrating augmented reality and geotagging. Turn on your iPhone camera and see arrows indicating who is Tweeting near you. It’s just a matter of time before Facebook rolls out a more prominent, though probably less invasive, role for location too.

Honestly, I can’t wait for geolocation to become more mainstream. It may be intimidating now and remain an opt-in service for the next few years. But I anticipate that geolocation will become opt-out within 5 years, meaning that most services will set geolocation on by default. It’s the next step towards making our social networks really social. Location gives us another layer of context – a very valuable one. Just think about Facebook status updates posted by local friends or Tweets from Twitterers in the area – much more relevant.

When this happens, you’ll be able to log on to Facebook and see where your friends are posting from and how they’re moving around. Right now, I’m in Southern California for a week visiting family. On my flight down, I was scratching my head trying to remember people in the area I’d want to connect with. That doesn’t even account for the people who happen to be in town on a visit, and obviously not think to let me know.

I’ve loved Facebook ever since I first joined, because it gave me a way to stay in touch with friends who live far away. I’ve been looking forward to the day when I can say, “Hey Jennifer, I’m in Seattle finally. Let’s meet up!.” But how much more compelling will Facebook be when I can see on my news feed that Jennifer posted an update from New York City, where I happen to be for a weekend conference?

It’s a great feature for friends and family, a little less so for our wider social networks. But on Facebook, geolocation integrates well – our closest friends and family are on it, we’ve created different profiles, and we’ve set privacy controls.  That’s why geolocation will be Facebook’s “killer app.”