MTV Launches Facebook App Aimed at Reducing College Student Debt

FROM: http://www.policymic.com/articles/3501/mtv-launches-facebook-app-aimed-at-reducing-college-student-debt/category_list

Rita Solomon in National, Education

MTV recently launched a new Facebook app, My College Dollars, aimed at reducing the increasing amount of national college student debt. Complete with application and financial aid information, motivational videos, and other resources, the app uses students' Facebook profile data to determine the best financial approach toward a higher education.

Perhaps MTV is launching this initiative only for good press, but nonetheless, the widespread influence MTV has on the millennial generation makes it a great platform to fight against rising college debt.

It is encouraging to high school and college students to see a mainstream media source finally tackling the previously unaddressed issue of student debt. Since the financial crisis of 2008, college students have amassed over $1 trillion in student debt, the largest amount of consumer debt in the nation. MTV’s choice to engage in an important social and economic issue integral to its young viewers is admirable.

Although the videos, aid, and advice offered by MTV’s app may not be better than those offered by alternative websites with the same intent, the widely viewed network boasts a viewership demographic of 18- to 24-year-olds, proving its superior influence on youngsters regarding college acceptance and financial aid.

The collaboration with Facebook also better integrates aspects of social media into MTV's network, a way to connect more deeply with millennials. Targeting social media as a forum for change will impact today's students more than ever.

There may be concerns that the app infringes on the privacy of users, as it accesses a user's race, gender, age, location, and other personal information to make educational choices. However, the scholastic benefit attained from this localized information access far outweighs privacy concerns. Additionally, young people have adopted other social media apps that access private information.

Despite publicity stunt and privacy concerns, MTV’s admirable campaign to increase higher education and decrease alarming amounts of student debt should be encouraged and made an example of. If other large entertainment networks followed MTV’s lead, we would perhaps find a faster resolution to our nation’s student debt conundrum.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Social, Mobile Meet Shopping: Retailers Must Scramble

FROM: http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/enterprise_apps/232500010

If this week's National Retail Federation Big Show is any indication, social and mobile commerce are remaking the way we shop. IBM, Epicor, Microsoft and Microstrategy help retailers adjust for the trend--and profit from it.

By Doug Henschen,  InformationWeek

January 18, 2012

Retailers already have a long list of multichannel marketing options including retail stores, websites, email campaigns, contact centers, kiosks, catalogs, and other methods. So adding two more channels is no big deal, right?

Wrong.

If this week's National Retail Federation Big Show in New York is any indication, social and mobile commerce are remaking the way we shop.

Retailers are looking for any possible edge to solicit product and store recommendations on social networks, to tap into the wealth of information and opinion shared by consumers on Facebook and Twitter, and to tie mobile apps into customer databases and loyalty programs. The theme at the show is "engage and evolve," a nod to social and mobile commerce trends discussed here at length in keynotes and breakout sessions.

There's a justified fear that those retailers who don't use mobile and social to their advantage will be abused by channel-savvy customers. They've seen what customers are saying online and want to be able to understand and change the conversation. And they've seen customers in their aisles researching products and price checking competitors on their smartphones.

 

Tech vendors exhibiting here are pitching software and consultative insight like so many car salesmen, praying on the hopes, aspirations, and insecurities of retailers who fear they're missing out of on the trends. Highlights from leading enterprise applications and analytics vendors include the following announcements:

 

IBM probes the social consumer. Having surveyed a whopping 28,500 consumers, IBM released a study here that showed that consumers are more than willing to share with retailers through social networks. In exchange for a better, more personalized shopping experience, consumers will tell all about their media consumption (75%); age, race, gender, and income (73%); name and address (61%); and lifestyle details such as hobbies and other interests (59%).

 

What's more, consumers told IBM they want to receive more communications--not less--from retailer if it can be delivered through their preferred media channel in a relevant way.

 

IBM also probed some 1.2 million Facebook updates, Twitter tweets, and social videos using its Cognos Consumer Insight social-media-analysis technology to find out more about brand sentiments. One key finding was that the discussions around some brands is all about the transaction (price, availability, where to purchase, and so on), whereas other brands evoke lifestyle-related terminology (self-improvement, style, love, "I can't live without this brand"). With this kind of insight, manufacturers and retailers can tune their marketing messages or try to change their image and consumer perception.

 

Epicor mobile app ties into CRM data. Epicor Software introduced Epicor Retail Clienteling, a tablet app optimized for the Apple iPad and designed to deliver customer insight from Epicor's CRM application. Epicor's CRM-integrated Clientelling app creates a "personal shopper" experience by exposing the sales associate to the customer's recent buying, shopping, and service history captured in the CRM system's multi-channel customer database. Customer insight is no longer confined to back-office computers or point-of-sale terminals.

 

Microsoft collapses channel silos. The customer bought it online, but in-store employees can't see those transaction records because that's a separate system. Or perhaps the marketing department launched a big promotion, but store employees are caught unaware and balk a honoring a discount. These are the sorts of siloed-channel problems that plague many retailers. Microsoft says Dynamics AX 2012 for Retail, launched on Tuesday, eliminates these problems by ensuring a consistent platform from the supply chain all the way to the point of sale. AX also supports integration with third-party systems, says Microsoft, and the modular architecture ensures that custom connections and interfaces don't break when you upgrade to the next generation of the ERP app.

 

Microstrategy taps into Facebook data. What if you could tie customer Facebook accounts with their loyalty programs? Microstrategy is offering mobile and social tools to help companies do just that. Alert is a mobile app platform upon which organizations can build engaging mobile applications tied into loyalty programs and Facebook accounts. Wisdom is a corresponding tool for marketers that lets them segment, analyze, and target customers by applying predictive analytics and analyses against data aggregated from loyalty card members and Facebook friends.

 

Clothing retailer Guess is using Alert and Wisdom to improve interactions with and understanding of customers. Guess is offering a just-launched, Alert-based mobile app to its more than 4 million loyalty card members. The app will let users see their loyalty points and awards status, lookup purchase history, scan barcodes for more detailed product information, and check out a "Look Book" showing the latest merchandise and related accessories. Customers who share credentials can log on through Facebook and share their likes and network with friends.

 

Using Wisdom, Guess will apply predictive analytics to segment customers, send targeted campaigns with cross-sell and up-sell recommendations, and get a better understanding of education levels, incomes and customer likes, such as favorite songs or concerts customers in various markets will be attending.

There's no doubt that mobile and social make multichannel marketing that much more challenging, but according to retail futurist Nita Rollins of Resource Interactive, who spoke at NRF on a panel on "Trends to Capitalize on for 2012," it's creating more opportunity for retailers.

 

"What we know now from dozens of reports is that the multichannel shopper is more valuable because they spend more and buy more frequently," said Rollins, who added that by 2014, analysts expect 53% of purchases to come from online or Web-, mobile- and social-influenced consumers. "There's a lot of pre-shopping going on and digital is the first step on the path to purchase. It's our job to ensure that digital either closes the deal immediately or enhances the in-store experience."

 

Nominate your company for the 2012 InformationWeek 500--our 24rd annual ranking of the nation's very best business technology innovators. Deadline is April 27. Organizations with $250 million or more in revenue may apply for the 2012 InformationWeek 500 now.

Distant friends are Facebook’s most influential

FROM: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/9020935/Distant-friends-are-Facebooks-most-influential.html

By Matt Warman, Consumer Technology Editor

7:00AM GMT 18 Jan 2012

New research commissioned by Facebook suggests that users are most influenced by online friends they are less close to in real life.

Users typically have a far larger number of friends on the social network than they are able to see in person regularly. The greater numbers of these distant friends mean that, collectively, they are more influential than a users’ close friends.

Facebook has been eager to demonstrate that social networks do not create an ‘echo chamber’, where users only come into contact with the opinions of a few like-minded, close friends. This is particularly important as sharing web links becomes a larger part of the site than posting more personal ‘status updates’.

Writing on the Facebook blog, Eytan Bakshy of the site’s data science team said that “Social networking technologies like Facebook let us connect to hundreds, even thousands of people - and have fundamentally changed how people get their information. We found that even though people are more likely to consume and share information that comes from close contacts that they interact with frequently, the vast majority of information comes from contacts that they interact with infrequently.”

Bakshy’s study is “among the first to rigorously quantify influence at a mass scale”, Facebook said. “The research also suggests that Facebook isn’t the echo chamber that some might expect – social networks actually encourage the spread of novel information and diverse view points,” it claimed.

Bakshy added that “distant contacts are also more likely to share novel information, demonstrating that social networks can act as a powerful medium for sharing new ideas, highlighting new products and discussing current events”.

New Research Report: Meet the Connected Consumer

FROM: http://www.zmags.com/blog/?p=1080

by adminon January 16, 2012in Uncategorized

Do you consider yourself a connected consumer? Is your laptop next to your tablet and smartphone on your couch or nightstand? Maybe you have a go-to device forbrowsing and shopping?

Today we published a new report that reveals that consumers don’t turn to mobile apps for shopping, but do havedevice preferences when shopping different retail categories. It also sheds light onthe popularity and potential of tablet and Facebook shopping.

Who is the connected consumer?

Contrary to assumptions, the average connected consumer is not a texting teenager or a hipster with more devices than flannel shirts.She is 40 years old, earns $63,000 and owns several Web-ready devices. She’s all over Facebook, loves to browse catalogs and is enthusiastic about shopping via her devices. Does she look familiar?

The most revealing take awayfrom the report washow clearly mobile and tablet apps, on their own, are not meeting connected consumers’ browsing and purchasing needs. Onlyfour percentliketo shop using mobile apps, compared to 87 percent of PC owners,14 percent of smartphone owners and nine percent of tablet owners who prefer to browse and buy from Web and mobile sites.

It is also interesting how consumers are starting to make concerted choices about which devices they use to shop different retail categories. For example, 53 percent of shoppers for electronics and 39 percent of toy shoppers prefer to usetheir tablets. Not surprisingly, music is more actively purchased using smartphones.

Of course, connected consumers love their tablets. So much so, that 87 percent of them used their tablets for 2011 holiday shopping andspentan average of $325. Tablet owners are shopping from their tablets at least weekly and almost half of them said they expect to do even more tablet shopping in 2012.

Did you know that 34 percent of tablet-owning consumers are already shopping using Facebook? Did you even know you could shop on Facebook? For now, this is mostly in the forms of daily deals and couponing, as few retailers are actively selling on Facebook (with the exception of a few brands, like Express, that are actively selling on Facebook.) Given more than 80 percent of connected consumers are active Facebook users,social commerce is the next big frontier for retailers and brands.

What does this all mean?

Retailers need to step up to the tablet. Some retailers are already embracing this opportunity, using adigital catalog approach – check out the catalog thatKenneth Cole, for example, used during the holiday shopping season. Moving forward, retailers and brands need to be ready to engage with connected consumers– wherever and however they chose to shop – by providing creative,browser-based shopping experiences that drive product discovery and inspire purchases.

Study: Why Do People Use Facebook?

FROM: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/study_why_do_people_use_facebook.php

By Alicia Eler / January 16, 2012 12:00 PM

Facebook is an accepted means of communication. It is a never-ending virtual social gathering filled with adopted puppies, cute LOL kitties, baby announcements, viral articles and videos, events, groups, organizations and fan pages. But why do people really use it?

A new study entitled "Why do people use Facebook?" from Boston University's Ashwini Nadkarni and Stefan G. Hofmann proposes that the social network meets two primary human needs: (1) the need to belong and (2) the need for self-presentation. The study also acknowledges demographic and cultural factors as they relate to the belonging need, and the variation of personality types on Facebook usage.

The study defines social networking sites (SNSs) as "Internet-based services that give individuals three major capabilities: The ability to construct a public or semi-private profile, identify a list of other users with whom a connection is shared, and view and track connections made by individuals and others.

Who Is Using Facebook? A Breakdown by Demographics

Before 2009, MySpace led the social network race. By April 2009, it was dead. A 2008 study by E. Hargittai found that Hispanic students made up 25% of the MySpace population as compared to only 14% of Facebook users. The demographics of Facebook are quite different. Women are more likely to use Facebook than men, and Hispanic students were less likely to use it than Caucasians.

A study from 2009 by Grasmuck, Martin & Zhao found that African Americans, Latinos and Indian students displayed "greater intensity of cultural selves (marked by specific consumer and popular culture preferences) than the White students and Vietnamese ancestry students."

This is in line with findings from the Facebook Data team, which shows the steady increase of black and Hispanic users in early 2009, and a decline of the number of Asian users. This data looked at surnames on Facebook with data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau to see percentages of racial minorities on Facebook.

What Types of People Use Facebook? A Cyberpsychology Approach

Previous studies have looked at the similarities between offline personality portrayal and online personality, proving strong connections between real personality and Facebook-related behavior. Extroverts report the most friends and highest engagement levels. People categorized as conscientious types - disciplined, organized and achievement-oriented - report the least Facebook use.

Facebook engagement results in a trail of virtual residue, including photos, videos, links, status updates and other traces of a virtual presence. A 2009 study by Ross et al. found that personality types that ranked high on neuroticism claimed the Facebook Wall as their favorite component. People who were low on neuroticism, however, said photos were their favorite. A 2009 study by E.S. Orr, et. al. found that while shy individuals had fewer friends on Facebook relative to nonshy people, the shy individuals spent more time on Facebook and liked the social network more overall.

A 2010 study entitled "Narcissism and social networking web sites" found a positive association between narcissism and Facebook use, especially in relation to profiles and photos, both features that allow users to promote themselves. The study found that people with a high level of narcissism and people with low levels of self-esteem spent more than an hour per day on Facebook.

Frequent FB users "exhibit a high level of extraversion, low self-esteem, high levels of neuroticism and narcissism, and low levels of self-esteem and self-worth are associated with high FB use." The study goes on to note that frequent Facebook use may be associated with lower academic performance, but it may lead to higher self-esteem and a sense of belonging.

We All Want To Be A Part...Of Something: Facebook and the Dual-Factor Model

Everyone just wants to belong, right? In the online aspect of our lives, Facebook offers us that virtual sense of belonging. The study claims that Facebook meets two basic social needs: (1) the need to belong and (2) the need for self-presentation. Self-esteem and self-worth are associated closely with the first basic social need, to belong. Facebook use is, of course, also influenced by sociodemographic and cultural factors. Females and ethnic minorities tended to use Facebook more than males and Caucasians.

This last part of the study looked at Facebook use in individualistic versus, which emphasize individual achievements and success, versus collectivistic cultures, which focus on harmony within the group. In these cultures, individual gain is less important than the social group. The study hypothesizes that "members from individualistic cultures are more likely to share private information with their Facebook friends and more likely to raise potentially controversial topics as compared to Facebook users from collectivistic cultures."

People in collectivist cultures are more likely to stay in troubled marriages and jobs than people in individualistic cultures according to a 2000 study by Diener. As such, Facebook can serve as a support system for those people in collectivist cultures, who have frequent interactions and a close circle of Facebook friends.

A study called "Mirror, Mirror on my Facebook wall: Effects of exposure to Facebook on self-esteem," looked at the results of being exposed to information presented on one's Facebook profile, suggesting that it can help enhance self-esteem. This proved especially true when a person edited information about the self.

Can Facebook enhance self-esteem through offline friendships? A 2010 study by Lou in Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, 70, found that Facebook use intensity reduced perceived levels of loneliness, but FB's improvement of a user's social life did not improve the user's self-esteem.

Other studies have found correlations between Facebook use and improvement of self-esteem. Yu and colleagues collected surveys from college students majoring in business at an undergraduate school in China. Results showed that FB use benefited socialization and social learning outcomes, including higher levels of self-esteem. The findings in this study suggest that "the association between self-esteem and Facebook use is complex and possibly moderated by cultural and social factors." In collectivistic culture such as China, Facebook use may enhance self esteem. Still, more research must be conducted.

What about Facebook use and social connection? Disconnection often times motivates Facebook use, and being connected rewards it according to a 2011 study by Sheldon, Abad & Hirsch, the authors discovered that "frequent Facebook use correlated with feelings of general connection in life and also with feelings of general disconnection in life." In yet another study, researchers found that "the correlation of disconnection with Facebook use was mediated by the tendency to cope with disconnection via Facebook." In other words, Facebook became both the outlet for disconnection and the perpetuation of it.

Another 2011 study by Kim & Lee that visualizing social connects on Facebook actually boosted users' self-esteem.

The Bottom Line: Facebook Fulfills Our Need for Self-Presentation

Studies have found that on Facebook, the self you portray is not idealized - it is the real you. But a 2008 study by Zhao, Grasmuck & Martin found that the Facebook selves appeared to be socially desirable identities that individuals aspired to have offline but do not have - yet. Furthermore, identities created on Facebook differed greatly from those constructed in anonymous online environments.

What about Facebook's impact on impression formation? If you're going on a date with someone you meet on OKCupid, for example, chances are you've friended them on Facebook to get a better idea of them. Recruiters are using Facebook to screen potential job applicants. An overabundance of friend connections actually produced doubts about FB users' actual popularity, according to a 2008 study by Tong.

The study concludes this section with the idea that Facebook profiles reflect the users' public persona, which appears to be "shaped by the need for self-presentation." These types of needs guide the users' behaviors, profile photo and number of friends, all of which make up one's impression of the user.

So, Why Are We Really Using Facebook?

Facebook currently has 800 million users worldwide. According to the study, people use Facebook to fulfill two basic social needs: the need to belong and the need for self-presentation. Facebook use is also influenced by outside factors, such as cultural background, sociodemographic variables and personality traits.

These findings account for the oft-cited "shutting off Facebook for a period of time" social experiments that we tend to see floating about the Internet. In this "Facebook detox," the user felt upset about the Facebook privacy settings, and a general sense of information overload. So, he "detoxed" for a period of 30 days.

A recent New York Times article entitled "The Facebook Resisters" sparked a similar controversy stemming from concerns about privacy, alienation and a feeling of information overload. Friends of mine have often times referred to Facebook as a "black hole."

Mashable writer Sam Laird conducted a similar experiment. He deactivated his account in July 2011; five months later he wrote about it in "My Life Without Facebook: A Social Experiment." While he did find that he no longer had the "should I post this to Facebook?" question lingering in the back of his mind all the time, and he spent less time in front of the computer overall, there was one thing he missed.

He missed those "funny Facebook photos from parties or nights out come up when hanging out with friends." Laird wrote that he found himself "playing catch-up when someone brings up an article someone else shared on Facebook."

He misses what most every Facebook user would miss if they shut down their account: that sense of belonging and of self-presentation. These are the reasons people use Facebook, despite its long list of privacy issues.

Consumers Show 20X Preference for Browser-based Web, Tablet and Mobile Shopping Over Apps, Finds Zmags Study

FROM: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/16/4191399/consumers-show-20x-preference.html
Study of connected consumers reveals device preferences across retail categories, and growth in tablet and Facebook shopping

Published Monday, Jan. 16, 2012

BOSTON, Jan. 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

News Facts:

• Zmags, the leading provider of rich media mobile and social merchandising, today released the findings from a study of the behaviors and profiles of online and mobile shoppers. An infographic of the survey results can be found at http://www.zmags.com/blog/?p=1080
• A key finding was that only four percent of consumers prefer to shop using mobile apps on their smartphones or tablets. This may surprise retailers for whom branded apps have been a priority over browser-based mobile and tablet commerce strategies. By comparison:
  • 87 percent of consumers prefer to browse and buy from websites via PCs or laptops.
  • 14 percent prefer to shop via mobile websites on their smartphones and nine percent with tablets.
• The survey also revealed that, while tablet shopping is gaining traction across many retail categories, consumers are starting to show category-specific device preferences. For example, 53 percent of shoppers for electronics prefer to use a tablet. Retailers will need to balance investments to ensure their tablet, smartphone and Web shopping experiences are optimized to match consumers' growing device preferences.
  • After electronics, shoppers for toys displayed the most preference for tablet shopping (39 percent), followed by clothing (37 percent) and travel (26 percent).
• The connected consumer's tablet use and spending activity is on the rise. The survey found that 87 percent of tablet owners used their tablets for 2011 holiday shopping and spent an average of $325 with their tablets. Additionally, more than half of tablet owners browse or shop from their tablets at least weekly.
• More than 80 percent of connected consumers are active Facebook users, and tablet owners display a distinct preference for brand engagement and shopping on Facebook. This presents retailers and brands with a powerful opportunity to monetize their Facebook brand presence.
• The full Zmags report, entitled "Meet the Connected Consumer: How Tablets, Smartphones and Facebook are Changing the Ways Consumers Shop" can be downloaded at http://org-www2.zmags.com/resources/connectedconsumer/step1
• The survey of 1,500 consumers who own a computer, smartphone and/or tablet was conducted by Equation Research for Zmags during November 10-14, 2011.

Supporting Quote:"The study clearly demonstrates that mobile and tablet apps, on their own, are just not meeting connected consumers' browsing and purchasing needs in an increasingly complex retail landscape -- and that browser-based commerce is their preference," said W. Sean Ford, COO and CMO of Zmags. "For retailers and brands, there is enormous opportunity to capitalize on this complexity by designing engaging and consistent browser-based shopping experiences optimized for each device."

About ZmagsZmags helps thousands of the world's most progressive global retailers and brands design brilliant and consistent marketing and merchandising campaigns across social, mobile, tablet, and e-commerce platforms, driving product discovery and inspiring impulse purchase(s). Using the Zmags on-demand rich media merchandising platform, leading brands have measurably and dramatically increased customer engagement, conversion rates, order size and brand loyalty without the burden of IT constraints. Zmags is among the fastest growing technology companies in North America, ranking #70 on the Deloitte 2011 Technology Fast 500. Zmags is headquartered in Boston, MA. with European offices in London and Copenhagen. For more information about Zmags, please visit http://www.zmags.com/.

Contact:Samantha McGarryInkHouse for Zmags781-966-4107Zmags@inkhouse.net

Managing social media complaints before they explode into tweets, YouTube videos and Facebook shares

FROM: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2012/01/managing_social_media_complaints_before_they_explode_into_tweets_youtube_videos_and_facebook_shares.html

Saturday, January 14, 2012, 6:00 PM

By Janet Cho, The Plain Dealer The Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- No one knows why a Papa John's worker in New York identified an Asian customer as "lady chinky eyes" on her pizza receipt last Saturday

But within hours after an exasperated Minhee Cho Tweeted, "Hey @PapaJohns just FYI my name isn't 'lady chinky eyes,' " untold thousands had seen her Twitter post and photo of the offensive slip of paper.

The Twitterverse exploded with outrage ("WHAT!? Awful!" "My jaw = dropped.") and ridicule ("Better ingredients, better racism, @PapaJohns").

And suddenly Papa John's International, the world's third-largest pizza company, found itself having to apologize and defend itself for the questionable actions of a 16-year-old employee.

The biggest lesson for other companies?

Don't think this can't happen to you.

Social-media experts warn that not enough business owners have thought about how to handle a public-relations nightmare and protect their brands in a situation like this.

What's scary is that to the public, any employee who interacts with customers is the face of that business, even when they do something wrong, said Dominic Litten, social-media and interactive PR manager for Point to Point Communications in Beachwood.

The adage about how unhappy customers are more likely to share the story with their friends becomes exponentially more dangerous on social media.

Things that used to stay small and local can suddenly spiral out of control because people can share something with everyone they know with a single click, said Lisa Zone, executive vice president of the Dix & Eaton communications consultancy in Cleveland.

Protecting your brand from digital assault

1. Don't wait until something blows up to create a digital media strategy. Create an online presence via a company website, Facebook fan page and Twitter account and start interacting.

2. Be vigilant for mentions of your company's name online. Set up Google alerts. Search Twitter hashtags. Check YouTube. Repeat as necessary.

3. Hire someone who's social-media savvy to inhabit your online accounts. This person can interact with customers, re-Tweet nice things people say about you, give your brand some online personality - and help you identify potential problems quickly.

4. Respond within 24 hours to anyone bad-mouthing your brand. And, yes, this means you'll have to stay alert 24/7.

5. Take complaints seriously, even if you think they're silly or ludicrous. You never know what will catch the public's fancy and spark a public-relations nightmare.

6. Answer questions or address issues in the same venue where the problem arose. If someone's complaining via YouTube, you need to engage the person on YouTube, too.

7. Anticipate that something could balloon out of control, and decide what to do about it. Have a response plan that outlines who's going to respond and how.

8. Reassure people you're going to correct what went wrong. You don't have to say that someone's been fired, but people like to hear that you're serious about making it right.

9. Keep apologizing. Fewer people will click on your apology than the incident that started it all, but you still need to try to make amends.

Crisis scenario ahead of crisis

The time to create a social-media response plan and decide who's going to be in charge of it is before anything terrible happens, Zone said.

Circle the wagons and do some scenario planning, said Ben Brugler, executive vice president of Akhia, a public-relations and marketing firm in Hudson.

"How would we deal with this, what would we say or do if this happened?" he asked.

"Decide who becomes your voice. Who will be your single point of contact?"

Having a policy in place also helps you avoid having other employees speak for your company, which could make a bad situation worse.

"While an intern or a very junior staffer may be really savvy about using a specific social media, they may not always be the best suited to serve as an external voice of the company," Zone said.

"It's all about customer relations. The only difference is that it's done in the social domain instead of at the returns desk at the local retailer or on the phone with a customer service rep."

Companies that test the social media waters with a Facebook page are sometimes surprised and unhappy when people post unflattering remarks about them.

But the point of having that page is to engage and interact with customers, to find out what is being said about your business and why, said Barbara Paynter, a partner at Hennes-Paynter Communications, a crisis communications consultancy in Cleveland.

That enables you to build your own community of supporters who may come to your defense if something bad happens.

'Know what's being said'

"It's important to know how people are using these sites, what's 'trending' and what elements of your business could actually be affected," Brugler said. "And of course, it's highly recommended to be a frequent user of those sites yourself."

Companies need to pay attention if the same complaints keep cropping up or if there seem to be patterns to what people are saying about them.

That's because the complainers who aren't satisfied with the answers might decide to kick it up a notch and launch a full-scale campaign against the company.

Some recent examples:

Verizon Wireless' fee: When Verizon Wireless announced last month that it would charge a $2 convenience fee every time customers paid their bills online or over the phone, more than 166,687 of them signed an online petition protesting the charge.

Within hours, Verizon had changed its mind.

Its president and chief executive issued a statement saying: "At Verizon, we take great care to listen to our customers. Based on their input, we believe the best path forward is to encourage customers to take advantage of the best and most efficient options, eliminating the need to institute the fee at this time."

Christmas FedEx delivery: A customer watched incredulously as a FedEx employee tossed his computer monitor over his gate, shattering it, instead of ringing his doorbell. He posted the security-camera video on YouTube.

"FedEx Guy Throwing My Computer Monitor" has been viewed 8,338,424 times.

It prompted a YouTube response by FedEx's Senior Vice President of U.S. Operations saying: "I was upset, embarrassed and very sorry for our customer's poor experience. This goes directly against everything we have always taught our people and expect of them. It was just very disappointing."

 

The FedEx apology video has gotten 470,099 hits.

Charity shopping trip goes awry: A Mayfield Middle School teacher who says she was told by an employee at the Mayfield Heights Target store that her student council members were not welcome to make their annual shopping trip to the store posted an open letter to Target on her Facebook page (which has since been taken down) last month.

After thousands of people linked to her letter via social media, the teacher, school district and Target said it was all a misunderstanding and rescheduled the trip.

Target contributed $400 in gift cards to help the students buy more diapers, clothes, toys and other necessities for Providence House crisis nursery that day.

 

Protests won't go away on their own

If a public relations crisis does crop up, companies need to react promptly, preferably within hours of the incident. "A story can spread in minutes," Brugler said.

Consider the fact that even when it's something positive, such as when Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow threw the game-winning touchdown in overtime against the Pittsburgh Steelers last Sunday, fans were tweeting about it at a record-setting 9,420-tweets-per-second.

Getting out ahead of the story will let you control the message and create a channel to control the questions -- and potentially shorten the lifespan of the story, Brugler said.

Whatever you do, "don't delete messages or hide them," hoping that they'll go away, Zone said.

When Target failed to respond to questions about why it was turning away the Mayfield students, people started Tweeting that their messages were vanishing or going unanswered. Target said it never deleted any posts, but its Twitter account and Facebook page never mentioned what happened at its Mayfield store.

Another big no-no is to blame somebody else for the problem.

When Best Buy warned some of its customers on Dec. 21 that some gifts ordered online wouldn't arrive in time for Christmas, it made the situation worse by offering "a non-apology apology," Paynter said.

The company said: "Due to overwhelming demand of hot product offerings, we have encountered a situation that has affected redemption of some of our customers' online orders."

"That's the kind of apology that if I were a customer would make me even more frustrated, because instead of taking responsibility and saying, 'We apologize that we don't have the merchandise,' " Best Buy blamed it on customer demand and its suppliers, she added.

The FedEx vice president could have said the same thing and blamed overwhelming holiday orders and stressed drivers, but instead he offered a heartfelt apology that helped the company save face, Paynter said.

FedEx's apology video is now held up as an example for other companies.

'Admit you were wrong, take responsibility'

Companies need to reach out directly to irate customers and say, "Give us a chance to make it right," Zone said.

They might offer a phone number or e-mail address so the person can talk to someone directly to get the problem resolved.

The best responses are short, quick and to the point and ideally fit within a 140-character Tweet.

"Admit you were wrong, take responsibility and don't minimize it," Paynter said.

In Papa John's case, the company Tweeted back within hours to say: "We are very sorry for this incident & would like to contact you to apologize."

It spent the next several days Tweeting individual apologies to every person who had re-Tweeted the incident.

Nearly every Papa John's Tweet since Jan. 7 says: "Please know the employee has been terminated & a formal apology has been given. We've also reached out to customer personally."

In the Target case, the store manager reached out to the school and reassured the students that they were welcome to shop there when Target just as easily "could've said that it never happened," Litten said.

"But once it became a national story, then it became a problem."

Social-media experts say that they can't predict why some incidents ignite and others die out but that businesses need to be aware of the possibility that something that isn't addressed could get bigger.

Restaurants can respond to negative reviews on message boards by saying, "We're sorry about your last visit and want to make it up to you," which both acknowledges the person's frustration and gives the restaurant a second chance, Litten said.

"If you take a previously unhappy customer and turn him into a happy customer, that's a much better story to tell."

Consumers Give Facebook Shopping a C+

FROM: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2012/01/consumers-give-facebook-shopping-a-c.html

By Cynthia Boris on January 13, 2012

This past holiday season, consumers had more ways to shop than ever before, online, offline, mobile, and even through Facebook. eCommerce company Baynote, put together a report card for each of these areas based on a consumer survey. The results aren’t surprising but still interesting, particularly as they relate to social media.

Overall, 84% of consumers said their online shopping experience was “good” or “excellent.” This was only 78% last year.

As you can see from the chart, retail websites were rated highest across the board. The biggest problem mentioned in this area was the ease of finding the product they wanted. 44.1% said they were frustrated by too many options when they used a searched engine. After that, they found that many of the offered links led to generic pages or sites that didn’t actually carry the product. Obviously, there’s room for improvement here.

Shopping on Facebook

When asked if they bought anything from a Facebook fan page, 91.4% of respondents said no. But here’s the kicker, 80.2% said that they weren’t even influenced by anything they saw on social media or their social media connections. Ouch.

On the flipside, 55% said that getting advice from friends on social networks was at least “somewhat important.”

Sounds like marketers still aren’t making the connection between social sharing and social shopping.

Beyond that, privacy was a big problem for potential Facebook shoppers. They gave it a C. The shopping experience and personalization both rated a B-, which was on par with smartphones and tablets. Frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t score lower in that area.

Overall, consumers gave Facebook a C+ on the report card, the lowest of all shopping avenues. Better luck next year.

Taking it to the Streets

Mobile fared only slightly better than Facebook on the Baynote report card and I don’t get that. The saving grace was in the area of privacy. People felt more secure buying from their smartphone than from Facebook, but even better when shopping a retail site. What’s that all about?

Thinking this through, I’d guess they’re separating privacy from security. I’m not sure putting my credit card numbers into a phone app is secure, but I’m pretty sure the store I’m buying from, isn’t going to post my purchases on the web for all to see. With Facebook, I’m not so sure. I’ll trust a fan page with my credit card, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a “Cynthia just bought a guitar” message pop-up on my friends’ feeds.

Some good news is that 49% of tablet owners used it to make a purchase. Tablet owners are still a very small portion of the overall ecommerce community, but it’s encouraging.

In spite of the fact that tablet shopping is easier than smartphone shopping, consumers gave it the same grade. Going forward, I would expect the tablet’s marks to come up to those of any online retail site, but we aren’t there yet.

The Baynote 2012 Holiday Online Shopping Survey is loaded with interesting nuggets. There are pages on cross-channel marketing, more specifics on privacy issues and specifics about personalization. It’s worth a look-see and all it will cost you is your contact information. Click here, if you want to check it out.

Customer feedback online: now there's a fashionable trend

FROM: http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/industry-insights/media/customer-feedback-online-now-theres-a-fashionable-trend

Manar Al Hinai

Jan 13, 2012

I was lying on my bed the other night, contemplating whether to go out and watch a movie with my friends or stay in, when I received a BlackBerry Messenger text from my cousin.

A few days after launching her virtual multi-brand fashion products store, where she conducts sales through a dedicated group on BlackBerry, she sent a questionnaire asking group members about her business venture.

My cousin's questionnaire approach is not something original or new, although I did feel it was a bit premature.

Marketers and businesses conduct surveys and monitor focus groups for the same reasons: to improve their products; ultimately increase sales; and to retain customer loyalty.

I have always been an advocate of surveys and focus groups, and I am constantly delighted to take part in product development discussions. I believe that the least a company can do is to take customers' considerations into account.

And even though the main objective behind focus groups for some businesses is to increase profits, others also genuinely consider their customers' needs.

Aaron Schwartz, the founder of Modify, a small watch company in California, is among those to have benefited from the modern evolution of the focus groups concept.

His company's slogan says it all: "We're not craftsmen. We're just good listeners".

Mr Schwartz's watch line is not targeted to the typical fancy watch lover, but rather to young, trendy customers who want to wear budget-friendly, edgy and customised watches, with the opportunity to mix and match the face and straps of their timepieces, hence the company's trade name of Modify.

Given that his company's main goal is to listen to its customers, Mr Schwartz has been devoted to Facebook from day one.

And even though he has built a following of more than 2,000 fans, he felt Facebook was not the ideal platform to engage in one-to-one conversations that would provide him with an insight on what his customers really wanted.

So Mr Schwartz turned to Napkin Lab, a program founded in 2010 that directs fans and followers from social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook into structured online focus groups.

Napkin Labs can be installed as Facebook applications, or apps, free of charge, or can be run as custom-made websites at a monthly cost of US$99 (Dh363) and up.

Business owners can ask their followers questions related to their business through various "labs" - groups dedicated to different topics.

How cool is that? There is no more any need to drag people to meetings.

As well as responding from the comfort of their homes, or mobile phones, followers can also generate faster responses. Think about how much money business owners could save instead of taking participants out to dinner, or paying their travel expenses.

As I run a fashion line, I could ask participants in my lab to chip in with ideas about what colours to introduce, or where to launch my line next, with the push of a button.

Participants can view and comment on what others post, creating a real dialogue feel.

The lab also has interactive features. For instance, a business person could run a "challenge" such as "Help me come up with names for my products".

Not only will lab runners receive great ideas and responses but they will make their customers feel involved in the production process; a guarantee of generating word-of-mouth publicity within social circles.

Napkin Labs is not the only company that turns customers into idea-pitchers. Other providers include UserVoice and Jive.

I decided to experiment with the focus group concept the old-fashioned way.

I sent an email to my fashion label's Facebook followers asking them what their favourite colour was, and what would they like to see in my upcoming collection.

It was overwhelming to see how much my customers wanted to be involved. They even suggested design ideas if I ever wanted to expand my fashion line to include men's clothing.

It is amazing how simple applications installed on social networking accounts can advance businesses. I cannot wait to run my own lab.

Manar Al Hinai is a fashion designer and writer. She can be followed on Twitter: @manar_alhinai

Study: Facebook may help student GPA

FROM: http://www.usustatesman.com/mobile/study-facebook-may-help-student-gpa-1.2684030

By ARIANNA REES

Published: Monday, January 9, 2012

Updated: Monday, January 9, 2012

College students who use Facebook to collect and share information are more likely to have higher GPAs than those who use the site for socializing, according to a recent study conducted by professors at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania.

The study, released September 2011, examined use of Facebook by nearly 2,000 participating college students attending public four-year universities. Its stated purpose was to determine the relationship between the regularity of Facebook use, types of activities participated in on the site, time spent studying for classes and the overall GPA of participants taken straight from college registrars.

Researchers found that use of the site positively impacted student GPAs when students shared links with friends and gathered information, mimicking common educational behaviors. Adversely, engaging in socializing, chatting or updating statuses negatively impacted both student GPA and time devoted to studying.

Reynol Junco, the researcher behind the study and a professor at Lock Haven University, said, "While further study is necessary, these results do help educators understand which Facebook activities could prove problematic and which were beneficial — when to target interventions around comparable online and offline behaviors like excessive socializing, and the possibilities of using Facebook to enhance student learning and engagement."

Lock Haven researchers observed a negative relationship between the amount of time students spent on Facebook and GPA, which means the more time spent on Facebook, the lower the GPA.

Students who spent 279 minutes more than the average few minutes spent on Facebook per day had GPAs .37 points below average, according to the study, and though it's not a large number, it is evidence that excessive amounts of time spent on the site are detrimental to student academic performance.

USU students, like most users, frequently participate in Facebook activities, such as game playing, sharing and socializing, but some students, such as freshman Brittany Benson, say only rarely is the site used for the educational purposes outlined in the study.

"That study could be right if the only thing that happened on Facebook was information sharing and gathering, which almost never happens," Benson said.

Benson said she spends most of her time on Facebook chatting with friends, commenting on pictures or playing games, but it doesn't hurt her schoolwork.

"Facebook itself does not get in the way of my academics," she said, "but procrastination in the form of Internet surfing, Facebook and gaming sites sometimes distracts me."

Good use of time is something college students struggle with, Benson said, but she believes good time management skills can prevent the overuse of social media sites like Facebook.

"Generally, college students probably do have a hard time managing the amount of time that they put into Facebook," she said, "but I believe that most of us can prioritize enough to decrease our wasted time."

For some students time management isn't an issue at all.

Christian Cannell, a senior double majoring in biochemistry and economics, said, "I spend most of my Facebook time socializing, but I don't get on Facebook enough for it to be a problem. I get on Facebook maybe four times a week, on average, not usually more than half an hour."

Tyler Esplin, a sophomore English major, said he finds the results of the study interesting, but the site does not interfere with his academics.

"I don't really think it gets in the way too badly," Esplin said. "It's important to be able to shut off the social part of your brain when you need to and really buckle down and get school done, and I think, for the most part, I've gotten the hang of it."

Esplin said he uses the site to share interesting information, which Junco's study states may have a positive impact on overall student GPA. He added that many Facebook users tend to share irrelevant or useless information, and he said he tries to avoid that when he's online.

"I would say most of my time on Facebook is spent posting interesting things that I've found elsewhere online," Esplin said. "I try not to let it be an outlet where I stream the useless garbage that I'm doing."

He said, "I like to think of the movie ‘Easy A' as an example, where one of the kids posts, ‘Having an OK day, and bought a Coke Zero at the gas station. Raise the roof.' I at least try to keep it at a semi-intellectual, artistic, emotional or interesting level."

Junco said while the results of the study are not entirely conclusive and further research is needed, educators can use Facebook as a tool to help students do better in school and also educate themselves more thoroughly.

The site has individual features that if used appropriately, Junco states, can increase student learning growth. A correlation exists between communication and positive academic performance, he added, and one specific example of something university faculty members could do to encourage the site's educational uses is begin course-related discussions via self-administered Facebook groups.

Thousands of websites have incorporated the use of buttons and tabs allowing visitors to share what they read at the click of a button. By encouraging that type of behavior on Facebook, Junco states, students can more fully experience the educational benefits of the site.

– ariwrees@aggiemail.usu.edu