Le Blog de Synthesio

The story

In case you missed the latest news, Kevin Smith, an actor and director of the film “Clerks” was recently kicked off a Southwest Flight for apparently being well… too fat. He posted a Twitpic, tweeting “Hey @SouthwestAir! Look how fat I am on your plane! Quick! Throw me off!” to which Southwest replied within 15 minutes, offering him a voucher and an apology. Southwest’s new “Customer of Size” policy, “requires passengers that can not fit safely and comfortably in one seat to purchase an additional seat while traveling” which had not been the case of Mr. Smith who later claimed he had been seated comfortably and did not understand.

Clearly, Southwest has gotten a lot of attention.While the debates fly over whether Southwest was justified in its move, bloggers, Facebookers, Twitterers, even  YouTubers and more have deluged the Internet with articles about whether they should have such a policy at all, whether celebrities should be kicked off planes (Smith writes “clearly the notion of me going on Larry King scared the shit out of somebody over there”),  ad infinitum.

Southwest has ultimately reached out to the director by having a representative call him personally to discuss the matter and clear up the situation. According to Kevin Smith,

“So, Linda: I appreciate the effort you made, the time you spent with me on the phone, and the work you put into this. You, too, were a reasonable cat during our conversation. .. Thank you for that, Linda - and for being human.”

The aftermath

Although the director encouraged people to talk about “other stuff” on Twitter tomorrow, he has no idea of the monsoon of case studies, brand reputational analyses, white books, and slide shares that he has unleashed.Clearly, Southwest was monitoring social media for mentions of its name and had a crisis plan in action, even if it was the person that happened to be assigned to the Twitter account that night.

The question

So what?! He just got special treatment because he’s a celebrity. Southwest’s rapid response is certainly a nod to the current upswing in social media monitoring for online reputation management purposes, and we commend them for responding so quickly. The fact is, though: every online comment is important to a brand, just as every offline comment is. Although it is impossible for brands to cull all conversations that take place about them all over the world, the Internet is one sphere where you can closely observe how people are interacting with your brand.

Regular buzz monitoring is what can help you detect early warning signals like people retweeting Kevin Smith’s tweet (copying it along to people that are following their message feeds), republications of blog posts, increased numbers of inbound links, the growing influence of certain articles, and the influence of who’s talking. One person all by themself may not be as influential as Kevin Smith, but the fact that they are connected to people that ARE changes the playing field a bit. All it takes is for that influential person to care enough to pass the message along, and the propogation continues. Influencers online are not just celebrities. Monitoring is a crucial daily activity (if not hourly, every minute… ) that can help brands identify risks and opportunities and manage their online presences and reputations.

The turnaround

How would you advise Southwest for their online reputation strategy? Do you think Southwest was effective in managing their online reputation? Did they do the right thing by reaching out so publicly?

Looking forward to your comments and questions, below and @Synthesio.

by Michelle

We’re a little crazy: we may have possibly kind of drank a little bit of Kool-Aid. And we may sometimes think (even though we write that we don’t) that marketing using social media is the end-all be-all of marketing, Amen.

But, who isn’t if you really like your job? If you got to spend all of your work time connecting with people and building relationships that are enriching for both parties (meaning profitable for you and valuable for your customer), wouldn’t you want to brag about your job a little bit? It’s just, we feel like we get to have fun doing our jobs, and who doesn’t want a little bit of that in their life?

We know it’s not perfect: We would love to say that we have all of the metrics figured out and can calculate with a certain percentage of error and standard deviation what your return on investment will be; but the truth is – we can’t! If we could, why would we all be competing? There would be one of us. Because he would have won and become the monopolist.

So bear with us, we’re trying to figure it out the best we can because we all know that in a free labor market, whoever does it better gets the clients. And client satisfaction.

[Does the double-hand clap from Top Gun]

We still think you need it: Because the truth is, everyone is getting interested, even if they’re not actively participating in some form of social networking…yet. So why would you not go hire an ethnologist account manager to discover the wants and needs of the new consumer culture? Because the more we share information, the more we change – and the faster! So we need to be adapting our tools more quickly to appeal to the consumers’ desires. And because if we don’t, our competitors will. …guess who wins.

by Michelle

Since the start of this recession, one of the hardest hit industries has been the tourism industry. Every traveler was looking to save a buck, and the Internet provided the resources to find the lowest prices. Suddenly brand name wasn’t everything anymore. Price became king.

Travelers could easily find out that if they took the (free) airport shuttle to a hotel that was a little farther out, they could save money - more shopping, please!

Accor International hotels decided it was time to take action and start listening to what consumers have to say about hotels and hospitality services online.

Virginie Bignon, of Accor in Paris, met with us to discuss :

- Why it is important to monitor online conversations?

- Why did they choose Synthesio?

- Are online conversations helpful or just noise?

What about you? How are you listening to social media?

If an Internet user - and you can pinpoint which one - is continually leaving negative posts about your brand here, there, and everywhere, do you engage?           Or not?

We’d like to first thank Michael Fraietta of Filtrbox for getting the ball rolling with his comment on one of our earlier posts:

 I had an instance where a competitor of my new company was trying to start a debate that did not exist. He kept prodding with inaccurate statements about Filtrbox, but I thought it was better not to take the bait as it appears he just wants attention on his project. I see that a competitor of both of ours is now in a similar debate and it appears as if he is using their online presence to fuel his own. Would you engage or not engage?

Some people are quick to jump to conclusions and assume that the person has it out for them. After all, they’re attacking YOUR company.

However, before you do anything: stop, breathe, and reflect. Some of the nastiest conundrums have come out of people losing their temper in the blogosphere and regretting it later on. You don’t want your customers to see a nasty side of you, do you?

Next, take action:

1. Are others agreeing?

Try to put yourself in their shoes. If someone seems to be consistently negative and you’re not sure why, don’t immediately assume that they’re the problem.

If you see that others are agreeing with this negative person’s comments, maybe there *gasp* IS a problem. Social media allows consumers to give real-time feedback, and listening, analyzing (and engaging) is the name of the game.

Consider this: if numerous people are leaving similar complaints, check with other departments to see what the real problem is. Fill them in on the negative comments you’ve been seeing and see if you can get some clarification on the matter. Miscommunication happens, and the only solution is more communication.

2. Kill them with kindness

Sometimes we all need just a little attention. Who knows? Maybe this person has a sad life and nothing better to do than try and criticize others. We all saw it in grammar school. It always turned out to be the school bully that was having problems at home, feeling insecure about himself, or having problems making friends that picked on others. The “trolls” of the Internet are often insecure about themselves (or their product) and may just need a little lovin’. You don’t have to be overly friendly, just be real with them.

Connect with them on a regular basis via the social platform of your choice. Acknowledge their presence and make them acknowledge yours. Once they see that you’re not backing down, or stooping to their level, they may come around.

3. Turn the other cheek

You’ve determined that it’s a competitor just seeking to do no good? Well, then may the best tool win. We are all aware that each social media monitoring solution is different according to its set-up, metrics, interface, method of feedback, price, target market, and source index. Hugh Macken made a great point on his blog recently that

“They are all winners in their own right. Numero uno truly is relative and depends on the context of your enterprise’s needs.”

And so, in sum - let negative dogs lie. Social media’s power comes from its ability to spread ideas and sentiment at the click of a mouse. We’d like to use this power to spread positivity and healthy competition. And, after all - any publicity is good publicity, right?

by Michelle

The case for B2B social media has been well documented over the past few months (here, here, and here to cite just a few), but one of the most important components a business must take into account before deciding to embark on the journey that is social media monitoring, is :

Where are my clients online and how do they get their business information?

Business.com recently published a B2B Social Media Benchmarking Study that broke down responses from 2,393 participants to find out which social media resources they use to get information they need to do their jobs.

More than half of the respondents use social media sites to search for information; clearly, “Googling” your business is not enough anymore. Now you have to “Twitter search”, “Collecta“, “CrowdEye“, “YouTube” your company or brand to protect your online reputation. As for those podcasts? Here are some webinars and podcasts to follow

Corporate sites are nowhere to be seen.

The closest is visiting company blogs.

With all of this information available in real time, decision makers are clearly making the choice to rely on up-to-date information from peers and industry thought leaders - don’t you? Also, there was a significant difference in which forums B2B and B2C companies are most likely to participate; LinkedIn answers for B2B companies, and Yahoo! Answers, WikiAnswers, and Answers.com for B2C companies.

Finally, one statistic we were encouraged to see is that more than 2/3 of respondents - both B2B and B2C - chose YouTube as their #1 choice for sharing content.  See you there ;)

N.B. Business.com highlighted that “It is important to note at the outset that the results reported here are from study participants already involved in using social media for business, either using social media as a business information resource, working for a company actively planning or engaged in one or more business social media initiatives, or both.”

The report also details usage of social media in the Automotive, Computers & Software, Financial Services, Food & Beverage, Healthcare, Industrial Goods & Services, Internet & Online, Legal, Media & Entertainment, Real Estate & Construction, and Retail industries.

To download a copy of the report : http://www.business.com/info/b2b-social-media-benchmark-study

by Michelle