The dangers of dabbling in social-media for promotional purposes

The other day I posted on the Power of Social Media and cited the case of Busted Blonde, NBR and the Veuve Cliquot competition. Yesterday I drew attention to the publication of guidance by ISACA on Social Media Risks. One factor identified by ISACA was the need to:-

Include social media training in the organization’s regular awareness communications or information security training curriculum. Users need to understand what is (and is not) appropriate and how to protect themselves and the organization when using social media.

The NBR/Veuve Cliquot incident illustrates this well. There has been considerable media comment in NZ both online and in the MSM. Much comment in NZ, often negative, was directed at NBR.

In addition there has been considerable overseas comment. Apart from press comment such as this piece by Anthony Rose in The Independent – When cliquot lost it’s Veuve, this item in a trade journal caught my eye.

Marinel FitzSimons – The Drinks Business described the situation and concluded thus:-

But the ever-effervescing temper of the bloggers has not been calmed, as the current quarrel is that she is not receiving her weight in Champagne, but in Champagne bottles.

As one blogger puts it: “[NBR] had a com­pe­ti­tion, they enlisted social media, they changed the rules and got smashed via social media. It isn’t good enough to get away with­out a penalty pay­ment, and I say they should pay her weight in Cham­pagne, as per the terms and con­di­tions, with­out the bottle.”

This tale is yet another example of the dangers of dabbling in social-media for promotional purposes.

Ms FitzSimons makes a very good point. If you are going to use Social Media, make sure you know what you are doing and why. Develop a clear strategy and understand the risks.

In this regard, I found this article- When A Social Media Campaign Goes Bad –  by Dr. Colin N. Clarke, who is a senior strategist for The Flint Group; he studies how and why people choose to consume information to be of considerable interest. At the beginning he writes:-

An interesting case study has recently emerged in New Zealand that underscores the power of social media… and how it must be wielded CAREFULLY.

Dr Clarke then backgrounds the whole affair, including some quotes from bloggers. He suggests that the original premise to harness Social Media was sound, but it failed in the execution. Indeed, just like many business projects do.

He comments:-

What is one of the most important elements of a social media strategy? TRANSPARENCY. And this is where NBR failed.

The fallout is beginning to reach a fevered pitch in New Zealand as bloggers and mainstream media are now berating NBR for its lack of transparency. True to the nature of social media, the court of public opinion is speaking out and it’s not pretty

So now a lot of media coverage, but not favourable coverage.

Dr Clarke highlights how Transparency is critical when using Social Media and concludes his piece with this:-

NBR and Veuve Clicquot opened the social media door when they created the campaign. The best move they can make now is to create extra space on the podium, include the popular vote winner and celebrate. Maybe next time they will plan their social media strategy more thoroughly, and make sure that the rule of TRANSPARENCY is heeded.

What failed social media campaigns have you experienced? How did they fail you?

EDIT – Five days after the social media eruption occurred, NBR posted this apology and awarded the popular vote winner a grand prize as well. A graceful apology with a bit of humor, it is interesting that NBR states it did not intend to “compromise transparency.” No doubt a lesson learned by NBR in how to properly engage in the social media environment.

The bold text is inserted by Dr Clarke.

This media coverage and the comment piece by Dr Clarke vividly illustrate what happens when media campaigns go wrong. When a good idea is poorly executed!

Some Thoughts:-

This case brings out a number of key issues.

1. Using Social Media not only potentially incurs technology and  related risks, but as with other initiatives incurs Business Risks. In fact in some instances, such as this one the Business Risk may be the greater risk run.

2. Social Media inititiatives should, in the same manner as other business projects, be subject to a Business Risk Assessment as part of the proposal for the project

3. Social Media campaigns must be run by people who understand the nature of the media being harnessed; or with input from same

4. The rapidity with which issues/problems can spread due to the nature of the Social Media world means that risk planning and mitigation strategies are essential.

5. As with all initiatives an appropriate governance framework should be in place, one that is flexible and responsive, with appropriate underlying processes and policies

A last word from Anthony Rose:-

It may yet well be a win-win situation though if you believe that all publicity is good publicity (ask Max Clifford). Remember when the champenois sued Yves St Laurent for calling its fragrance Champagne? It may have cost YSL a packet in legal fees, but it was nothing compared to the profits reaped from worldwide sales of Champagne, the fragrance, and publicity for the brand. Could the last laugh belong to the marketing-savvy Widow after all?

Call me cynical, but?

The power of social media

If ever you wanted a demonstration of the power of Social Media and the NZ blogosphere consider Busted Blonde, National Business Review and Veuve Cliquot.

The video makes the situation clear:-

Then the outburst of complaint and dismay on Facebook, blogs when NBR said BB had not won, was such as to lead the NBR publisher Barry Colman to stump up with the champagne for BB. No doubt the bad PR that NBR was attracting influenced the decision.

Thus in NZ we had a clear validation of the impact that social media has today. It is hard to imagaine a similar outcome without the digital environment that we have today.

Rise of the paywall?

One much touted approach to the ‘paywall’ business model for news media is that being promoted by Journalism Online. This article is an illustration of  some of the articles appearing, especially in the US media. It remains to be seen how the service will work and what sort of packages will attract readers. The business model envisaged apparently will allow each publication to decide it’s own package and the nature of restricted content.

Frankly, I wonder if it will work. It may have some success, but that success may well be at the expense of other publications.

For example, prior to the NBR erecting it’s paywall I had stopped buying the NBR print edition, because at NZ$9.50 I increasingly felt that it was an expensive item for what I received. I turned to the e-paper. That option was discontinued around the same time the paywall came into force. For a limited time, soon to expire I will receive the print edition.

Yet I find that the NBR does not really afford me anything special at the end of the day. If I really want to I can go to the library to read it, or buy a one off copy.

I am certainly highly unlikely to pay the expensive subscription to go behind the paywall.

The business model needs to accommodate casual readers and permit access at a low per article price, not the expensive per article price a number of publications now seem to charge.

Now a model along the lines of Press Reader’s which gives you access to many journals at varying levels might work, but is that what Journalism Online envisages?

We will have to wait and see. One thing though, I do not think the individual paywall will work for many newspapers, unless thay have a global reach and range like the FT and the WSJ. The NBR is, in my opinion, just not that special.

Other media may struggle given that there will still be a plethora of other sources such as BBC, CNN, ABC etc

Russell Brown interviews Barry Colman

I have been posting see Media:but not as it was on the Barry Colman of NBR/new media debate as exemplified by Bernard Hickey’s remarks .

Russell Brown interviewed Barry Colman this week on Media 7. It is a shame that he did not have Hickey on and let Bernard and Barry debate this for say 30 minutes.

Here is the Colman interview. I am not convinced by Colman’s remarks, especially as the first 2 items behind the paywall today were in the print edition, yet I was sure I heard him say to Russell that the material behind the paywall was going to be unique.

Steve Brill on saving the media

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Steve Brill on saving the media“, posted with vodpod

Yesterday I posted on Chris Anderson’s concept of Free. In addition on Friday I wrote  about the discussion re the impact of the internet on media now underway in NZ, as well as elsewhere.

Bob Cohn of The Atlantic introduces Brill and the video:-

My first real job in journalism was writing about labor unions and workplace issues. Brushing up, I read a book called The Teamsters that was then about six years old. It was an amazing history of power, greed, and crime at the most powerful union in the world, back when unions had real power. The author, a Yale Law school grad named Steve Brill, published the book when he was just 29. He went on to an impressive career as a media entrepreneur: founder of American Lawyer magazine, founder of Court TV, founder of Brill’s Content, columnist for Newsweek. Now he’s got a plan to make journalism pay, and it begins online. Hint: “The Atlantic is idiotic to give its stuff away for free.” (Note to my old boss and friend Chris Anderson: He’s not so enamored of the Free concept.)

Anderson replies in the thread linked to the reference above. He suggests that Brill and he are not that far apart.

Aspects of Brill’s argument appear to align somewhat with what Barry Colman of NBR is advocating. Yet I think Colman’s content is not as deep nor as rich as that of say the WSJ. That renders charging much more difficult.

Media:but not as it was

Recently I have been commenting on changes underway in the media, especially with regard to the disruptive impact of the Internet upon traditional print media.

Posts such as ‘Dead Tree business models and Time, Newsweek decline -The Economist rises being the two most recent.

Now the issue seems to have erupted in NZ, especially in the NZ Blogosphere with the announcement by Barry Colman, publisher of National Business Review, that he intends placing 20% of NBR website content behind a pay barrier. For this he intends to charge a massive NZ$298 per annum.

Lance Wiggs has written an excellent analysis the whole is well worth reading, but in Colman’s announcement – rant as some have called it – Colman wrote the following

And to add to the madness it has been the aggregators that have profited the most from the supply of that free news copy.

Wiggs responded:-

This is an indication that the NBR leaders don’t really understand the current news internet business model. The aggregators, such as google news, are driving traffic to the NBR site, and without them the NBR would be even worse of than it is. By locking them out of the subscription area NBR will dramatically reduce their ability to make their compelling, orginal and timely content available to the world. The writers behind the wall will lose relevance, and the newspaper itself will diminish.

Colman is thus falling into the trap that others elsewhere have done.

In this regard I suspect the good people at NBR may not have read the excellent essay on the future of media by New York University digital media scholar Clay Shirky, entitled Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable. They should read as well a piece by Steven Johnson, a speech he gave, Old Growth Media and the Future of News.  These two pieces foresee a radical, indeed brutal shake up of the media landscape.

Andrew Keen writing in the UK Independent commented:-

Their media may have been different, but their shocking messages were the same: newspapers are history, the two visionaries agreed. The traditional business is no longer viable, Shirky and Johnson both announced; newspapers are being replaced by futuristic digital news networks that will barely resemble their archaic print ancestors.

It seems to me that NBR and others have yet to recognize this.

Now as to what takes the place of traditional media I do not know, nor I suspect does anyone else.

To a considerable extent I think that to date many in the  media in Australasia see the web as an adjunct and an alternative, rather than as the dynamic change mechanism that it is in reality. Indeed, some media really do not seem to ‘get’ the internet at all.

We live as the Chinese curse would have it ‘In interesting times’. Certainly as Bob Dylan wrote ‘the times they are a-changing’. This change will have major cultural impact as well as impact on the mechanism of information delivery.

As Andrew Keen additionally commented:-

As Shirky wrote, “this what real revolutions are like.” They are invariably bloody and chaotic events in which “the old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place.” Non American journalists, publishers and editors should take note; like the unsentimental Clay Shirky and Steven Johnson, they must dare to think the unthinkable and imagine the unimaginable.

Are our media owners doing this or are they merely reacting. Is their attitude similar to the peculiar comments expressed by Richard Posner recently over the need to restrict or stop hyperlinking.

Some NZ Blogosphere reaction to Colman’s comments can be found at Cactus Kate, Whaleoil, Kiwiblog, Anti-Dismal and Julie Starr amongst others, as well as Lance Wigg’s piece referenced above.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. We are in a time of change and one where the full disruptive effect of technological change has yet to impact and the extent of the changes is as yet not visible in all respects.

Green is good for business?

Green Is Economical

• Old Thinking: Companies have long mistakenly thought that adopting environmentally friendly processes adds costs.
• New Thinking: Green practices like recycling, reusing and reducing waste can cut costs because they make a company more efficient.
• Proof in Action: At the Subaru of Indiana plant, workers are constantly devising and revising green initiatives. The factory has dramatically reduced waste per vehicle and puts no garbage in landfills.

The above summarises some key points from a Sloan Management Review/WSJ article on how going green can make money for companies.

In NZ, NBR writer Allen Swann reports on how Zespri has re-engineered processes to reduce carbon footprint and identified potential savings of $17 million a season.

What benefits could be gained elsewhere in the NZ economy if the attitude adopted by Zespri and by Subaru of Indiana was adopted more generally. In addition the lessons learned could well then form the basis for services to be provided to others.

Further, these cases illustrate how competitive advantage can be developed in a world that increasingly desires product providers to demonstrate environmental credentials.