Social Media Taking to the Skies

Years ago, getting in touch with customer service took a lot of effort. You had to type a letter, put a stamp on it and then mail it off to a large corporation. Most of the time, you didn’t even get a response.

In recent years you have been able to get online and find an online form or email to write your complaints (or praises). This usually gives you an automated email but still much easier than in the past. With the constant evolvement in social media with your brand, your consumers can now tweet or leave you a Facebook comment that you can keep up with to hear exactly what they have to say. Sometimes, this can be more hurtful than not. It takes a lot less effort to write a rude tweet to someone than it was to sit down and type a well thought-out letter or place a phone call.

This has put more pressure on brands to have a presence on all social media sites. Whether it’s “retweets”, Facebook comments, or contacting Yelp Reviewers. They’re listening. 

Now, airlines are proving to have more involvement with their “unhappy” customers via Twitter and Facebook rather than if you had called or emailed. Due to their well known reputation of having poor customer service, the airline industry has taken a real initiative to use their social media as their number one customer service tool.

AdWeek states that JetBlue recently stopped charging for folded bikes carried on to their planes. Why? A customer angrily tweeted about it and it quickly spread around the world. “We love to see happy customers,” said JetBlue’s Morgan Johnston, who’s part of a team of 27 that monitors the airline’s Twitter account and Facebook page, which were established in 2007 and 2009, respectively. “We also understand that we’re not always going to win. But we have to be transparent about that.”

Southwest jumped on the bandwagon early. Starting their social media sites in 2007. While Delta was very late to the game, only joining Facebook and Twitter in 2010. Delta now has 14 employees who monitor their sites.

Do you find that it is much easier in this day in age to contact large corporations via social media sites? Or do you still prefer filling out customer service reports on their website. It’s nice to see such reputable companies taking great action in improving their customer service.

Facebook Timeline for Brands

This past September, at the F8 conference, Facebook introduced the Timeline format for profiles. Most of us were a little unsure of the transition. We are a creature of habit and not too keen on the idea of constant changes coming to our precious Facebook page. However, Timelines seemed promising. Giving more of a “scrapbook” look and feel. This new feature was very picture heavy and things were divided by year and special events.

Most of us tested out the feature before it rolled out to more than 800 million users. We giggled as we saw old status updates and wall posts that may have been appropriate when you were a sophomore in college. Now, you cringe at the thought of those being seen by your employer, so you quickly deleted or changed privacy updates to your personal Timeline.

That may have been what you did for the personal pages. However, what about the 4 million businesses that have their own Facebook pages? How would the Timeline look and feel for those brands?

At the same time as the announcement for personal Timeline profile pages, another announcement was made that they would wait to roll out the new feature for brands. Facebook VP of Marketing and Business Partnerships David Fischer said although these Timelines will have a lot of the same look as personal ones, it would not be an exact replica.

What exactly will they look like? Surely, the exact date when the particular brand joined Facebook would not be as important as particular moments in their history. The example used was with Coca Cola (example: they could hypothetically add an event for 1892, the year it was founded).

Rumors are swirling about brand’s well known Tabs and Apps that currently live on their Facebook pages. Right now, giving consumer easy to find information, the ability to fill out surveys or purchase items right from the Facebook page.

When exactly will companies have the ability to play and try these new features out? All these questions and more will be answered at it’s first FMC Conference this year! http://www.facebook.com/business/fmc

Are you anxious to test out the new Timeline feature for brands? Or are you skeptical of change?

 

Second-Tier Social Media continues to Refer Traffic

When  you spend your free time on sites such as Meebo, Pinterest and Tumblr, do you realize the amount of times you’ve left that site to visit a retail or some other company’s website?

Recently, second-tier social media sites have been booming with popularity. For those of you that don’t know, a second-tier site is a social media site that can house information that is connected back to a first-tier. Examples of second tier- Yelp, Groupon, Tumblr, Pinterest. While first tiers examples would include: LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

With the increase in users for these sites first-tier sites (Facebook/Twitter) are increasing with referrals but so have the sites where the “pins” and “posts” lead.

Compete (http://blog.compete.com/) analyzed the web traffic in the United States to Facebook and found with addition to referrals to a lot of retail sites during the holiday shopping season. Pinterest as well as Meebo were second-tier sites that brought in a significant amounts of referrals.

With the steady increase of visitors to Pinterest, this will be the site to watch as they have just reached a very impressive milestone. The site reached 10 million monthly Unique visitors. http://victoriasalv.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/congratulations-to-pinterest/  Pinterest’s users spend at least 98 minutes each month on their site. If you are an avid user of the site, as I am, think about how many times you’ve seen an impressive piece of furniture, scarf, gadget. Usually, when people pin these it refers you to the website where you can purchase. If you’re spending 98 minutes a month pinning and exploring the site, think about how many times you’ve left the site to be referred to the retail store’s site. That’s a lot!

Here are some interesting charts eMarketer compiled with the percentages of referrals and also the top websites visited after leaving Pinterest.

Even though referring traffic doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll buy the item when you visit it’s site, looking at social media networks this way demonstrates ways marketers will be testing their products with you, the consumer. These stats show that social media isn’t going anywhere and companies will take advantage of the connection to their audience in this way.

Heineken Serenades This Valentine’s Day

Written by guest blogger: Victoria Salvatoriello 

 

Definition of a Valentine:

1: a sweetheart chosen or complimented on Valentine’s Day

2a : a gift or greeting sent or given especially to a sweetheart on Valentine’s Day; a greeting card sent on this day b : something (as a movie or piece of writing) expressing uncritical praise or affection: a tribute

We all remember the days of coloring handmade valentine’s or purchasing a box of My Little Pony’s or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cards to hand out in class. When we get older sometimes we forget just how special those little notes made us feel.

This year, Heineken, that’s right. These guys, will be turning to social media to bring a smile to your sweetheart’s face. (Beer..brings on smiles? I can see it.)

Facebook is launching a fun application based on Heineken’s second global film “The Date” where you can actually serenade your sweetie. Advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam has co-developed this app where customers can create a personalized song in just a few clicks of your mouse. In similarity to the old days of writing a check “Yes” or “No” note for a date, the waiting game will be much in the same. After creating your song it’s all about the waiting game. You will submit your song to their Facebook wall and wait to see if your crush has said yes or no to your date offer.

Senior Director Cyril Charzat of Global Heineken Brand stated, “‘The Serenade’ is designed to take some of the stress out of asking a partner to go on a date. It’s fun, interactive and guaranteed to make an impression” – This application is part of the brand’s ‘Open your World’ global campaign which celebrates aspirational behaviors among adult consumers.

February 9th tune in to “Serenade Live,” an 8-hour YouTube event where individuals all over the world will get a chance to serenade there sweethearts live in the internet.

With Social Media constantly evolving, is this really the way of the future? Or are you still a sucker for a phone call or a face-to-face request?

To learn more check out the app http://www.Facebook.com/Heineken or follow the serenades on Twitter @Heineken #Serenade, #SerenadeLive

For more information on the author you can follow her on Twitter at @_vikster or on her blog at victoriasalv.wordpress.com.