JetBlue just jumped to the head of the class! How do you make lemonade from lemons? JetBlue is leveraging a bad customer service moment — a real bad one — and using it to leverage a viral campaign to spread the message of their new Customter’s Bill of Right.
They are using YouTube.com to distribute a video directly to consumer, and gaging by the comments, I think its working. I certainly have a very positive impression of them overall, dispite their big fiasko highlighted in the news all last week. I suspect as far as branding, JetBlue just might come out on top on this one. Check out the video.
There are more than 500 Obama groups on Facebook. One of the first,”Students for Barack Obama,” was created on July 7 by Meredith Segal, ajunior at Bowdoin College who first heard of Obama when he gave thekeynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Insteadof starting “a petition or something” to encourage the freshman senatorto run for president, she turned to her Facebook page, created a groupand invited people (first her friends, later strangers) to join.
Now it’s a political action committee with nearly 62,000 members andchapters at 80 colleges, the most structured grass-roots studentmovement — there’s a director of field operations, an Internetdirector, a finance director and a blog team director — in thepresidential campaign so far. “Young people are on the Web,” saidSegal, 21. “That’s how we’re organizing.”
The key thing you have to remember is that a college student is only a student for anywhere from four years, to eght. Tomorrow’s customers (voter, supporter, etc.) are in Facebook. How are you connecting with them in their environment?
These tips and ideas came from the AdFero Viral marketing workshop I attended in January. I thought it would be worth re-posting.
A messaging tools must NOT turn into a spamming tool. Any messaging system has to be careful about not being to aggressive.The key is to find people of like-mind, and work to form them into a group.
Take pictures and videos of your offline events (videos: fun and edgy), and upload it to a MySpace profile, Facebook, or Flickr.
Manage the campaign. You have to keep going back to the people that came by your social network page, visit their profiles and their pages, and leave comments on their pages. This brings in their friends, and is a sort of “link farming†to increase awareness and visibility of your campaign.
Following up with people is one of the weaknesses of many non-profits. You have to cultivate the relationship, and work at it each level of the relationship. It takes work.
How much time or money do I need to invest? Its fairly easy to re-purpose content. If you already have a blog, you can include it in your Facebook profile using RSS. Facebook will push this content out to your friends network. There are easy ways to get out re-purposed content.
Leverage your assets, your networks of friends you have recruited, to get your message out.
Use interns. They are usually more tech savvy, and its a great way for them to learn, while providing low-cost help to a non-profit.
Start a blog! Blogs form a network online, and are essential to spreading a message.
Reaching out to blogs: Find blogs that will be supportive of your cause. Don’t just send press releases, but instead cultivate relationships.
You have to be prepared to lose control when it comes to user generated content, and online advocacy.
The risk or challenge is in the accountability that results from having everything in your past recorded, and can and probably will be brought up. An example that keeps getting mentioned is Allan’s “Makaka†incident.
This coming weekend, I will be presenting before the chapter board leadership of the National Society of Hispanic MBAs. As part of that presentation, I wanted to bring the discussion and Q&A session online, and continue the conversation here.
If you attended, and had a question I did not get to, please leave your question in the comments below. If you did not attend, but find the conversation interesting, please feel free to join in.
SYRACUSE – Last month, 23 Wawasee Community Schools students were sent to the hospital after a driver crossed the centerline and crashed her car head-on into their school bus.
When Superintendent Mark Stock arrived at the hospital, he learned no students were seriously injured – information he wanted to share with parents as quickly as possible.
Using a hospital computer, Stock accessed “The Wawascene,†a personal weblog he maintains, and posted an entry about the crash,telling parents “everyone appears to be OK.â€
It wasn’t the first time Stock used the site during a crisis. On Sept.. 19, Milford School was put into lockdown after reports that a student left the school in a fit of anger, saying he’d be back.
Stock responded with a post, writing, “We took a few calls regarding Milford School being in ‘lock-down’ so I thought I would post the real story this morning to squelch any wild rumors.â€
He is obviously found a key area of his role that the blog serves well. Considering the crisis that seem to be more and more common for schools, it makes sense. But, the key lesson in this article is the effect his blogging has had with his national standing and his peers.
The novelty of The Wawascene has drawn some national attention. Stock will speak about blogging at the National Conference on Education in New Orleans in March. He will share the podium with Clayton Wilcox,superintendent of Pinellas County (Fla.) Schools. The two will speak about “Supers Who Blog for a Purpose.â€
“(Stock) really is a leader among his peers. He was among the first superintendents to develop a blog,†said Amy Vogt, communications and media relations manager for the American Association of School Administrators. The association hosts the National Conference on Education.
The conference is the largest annual gathering of school superintendents in the U.S., Vogt said.
This year, only six of about 70 conference speakers were designated“distinguished lecturers†Vogt said. Stock is one of the six, Vogt said, saying he was selected because he is an innovator in blog use.
“It’s not a communication medium a majority of school superintendents are using,†Vogt said. “Mark Stock is definitely out in front on this.â€
Social Networking and blogging for business purposes is still a novelty, so those who do it are quickly perceived as leaders or innovators. This won’t be for long, so if you want to rise above the pack, take the initiative, and use the tools available.
For example, this coming weekend, as I have mentioned here previously, I was invited to lead a workshop presentation on Internet and viral marketing to the state chapter board members of the National Society of Hispanic MBA’s. I doubt this opportunity would have ever presented itself if it were not for my active blogging and other online activities.
Web 2.0 affords company a new, more powerful, and direct way to respond to criticisms, and engage directly with its consumers. Let’s use Starbucks as a perfect example.
This video has been viewed over 28,500 times, and has over 90 comments. Granted, most of their comments don’t seem positive, but I can tell you the campaign has gained them a lot of credibility for effort, and for getting out their message to their consumers. But the potential benefits are also great. Your consumers, and others, may just well appreciate the honesty, and come to your defense.
For example, here is an email I got today from Common Sense, a conservative political issues organization. This email goes to thousands, and had it not been for the videos Starbucks posted on their site, and the reaction, they would have never gotten this sort of a positive plug on an email list this size–for free! That is what is called VIRAL MARKETING, and while the risks are great, the rewards can be even greater.
Starbucks is coffee. Actually not just coffee, but a way of presenting coffee. Designer coffee, if you will. Lattes and such.
Starbucks is also a corporation, a demon in the eyes of some.
Recently a Starbucks rep posted a video at the popular website YouTube to defend the company against charges of being “exploitative.” Starbucks might get into a trademark dispute, or buy coffee overseas at the market price. This upsets some people, who I suppose believe that Starbucks should pay farmers double the going rate.
A pseudonymous commentator on the Starbucks video says the company “is leeching on the community, selling watered down coffee and making billions. It is easy money, no questions, their strength is in branding. . . . A company making billions on the backs of these poor farmers. . . .”
Note the criticisms. Starbucks is “leeching on” the community. How? By buying coffee that farmers want to sell, or by selling coffee to buyers who want to buy? Their coffee is “watered down.” It’s the very opposite: Starbucks is known for espresso, which is concentrated coffee, carefully prepared.
The real problem: Starbucks is so good at what it does that it’s got a recognizable name. And is “making billions.” Supposedly ill-gotten, easy gains. As if the company had robbed a bank. Well, no, my pseudonymous friend. The folks at Starbucks earned the money.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
You can watch their other two videos here. The big question for businesses is 1) Are you willing to stomach this level of openness and the potential for negative feedback? You just have to develop a thick skin, and find the opportunity among the responses.
