Misuse of Social Technology - Week 9 Activty

Organisations are always trying to make the most of social technologies these days and generally hey get the job done right. But if there are good things, there also bad things that can come from these tools. So which organisation 'misused' social technology?

Amy's Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro is an upscale full service Retail Patisserie as well as a full service European Bistro & Bar.

Restaurant owners Samy and Amy Bouzaglo were featured on an episode of Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares. They were soon dumped by Ramsey after being too difficult to work with. After airing, they received negative feedback through social media which appeared to had struck a nerve in the couple. They replied by using Facebook as a means to defend themselves against all the hateful comments. However, many of us understand that there are certain ways to deal with negative comments. The Bouzaglo's ended up pouring more oil on the fire as the comments kept piling on top of each other. It got to the point where the pair were uploading posts full of foul language and threats whilst trying to defend each other. Here is a link to their Facebook page.

From this,

To this,

Receiving bad feedback from a well known chef on national television is already bad for business. But to be provoked by hateful comments and to search and reply to these post with just as negative language only makes things worse. The couple then tried to defend themselves again by saying that they were hacked which only fueled readers to argue their point even further. The outburst on Facebook resulted in the downfall of the Bouzaglo's reputation and thus reduce the number of customers they would have. Reputation and ratings are the most important things to a restaurant. Having bad reputation on sites that are there to get your business brand out in the public and poor rating is the last thing any restaurant owner wants.

It is hard to say how much they actually lost but receiving a negative review would have only led  a decrease in customers. This could mean increased expenses via employee wages, produce and lane as they would not be hitting weekly or monthly targets. 

Restaurant owners like this can avoid misusing social technology by simply not using social technology as a means to vent out. The posts can also be removed from the main page to avoid further commenting and communication between the owners and users. Professionalism should always be shown. Education is another way to avoid misuse of social technology as it provides awareness and experience for different situations [1].

So has there ever been time where you regretted using social technology? Thanks for reading. Don't forget to head to my profile if you have any questions.

[1] Dundas Lawyers, "Legal risks of social networking for business". [Online]. Available: http://www.dundaslawyers.com.au/legal-risks-of-social-networking-for-business/. [Accessed: September 9, 2014]

Old Spice Campaign ROI - Week 8 Activity

Look at your keyboard. Now back to the screen. Now back to the keyboard. Now back to the screen. Fortunately, everyone knows where this is going. Look down. Now back up. Where are you? You are still in the same place about to read a blog about Old Spice's ROI (Return of Interest).

For those who are unsure of what Old Spice is, it is a brand of male grooming products. In 2010, Old Spice launched an advertising campaign Smell like a Man, Man. The whole point of the campaign was to make everyone talk about the brand and to answer questions made by the fans with the usual of social sites like Facebook, Twitter and mainly YouTube. In the end, 186 video messages were made answering fan's questions and comments with an estimate of more than 65 million views. Below is the original Old Spice ad.

If we look at the Return of Interest for Old Spice during this campaign, it would look something like this:

• According to sites, the campaign cost about $11 million.
• On day 1, the campaign received almost 6 million views
• On day 2, Old Spice had 8 of the most popular videos online
• On day 3, the campaign had reached over 20 million views
• After the first week of old spice had over 40 million views
• Subscribers to the YouTube channel went from 65 000 to 150 000
• The number of people following Old Spice on Twitter increased 2700%
• Facebook fan interaction was up 800%
• Oldspice.com website traffic was up 300%
• The Old Spice YouTube channel became the all time most viewed channel
• The campaign has generated 1.4 billion impressions since launching the ads 6 months ago
• In the last 3 months, sales were up 55%
• In the last month, sales were up 107% from the social responses campaign work
• Old Spice became the number one brand 

After doing a bit of research, we can calculate and estimate how much they earned by using social tools. According NLSaha, YouTube partners can earn:

• Subscribers: A youtube partner will get paid $0.05 per subscriber. If a person has 100,000 subscribers for example, they they will have made $5000. 
• Channel views: A youtube partner will make $0.01 per channel view. If a channel has 1,000,000 channel views, the person will make $10,000. 

Therefore,

• After 1 week, Old Spice would have earned $400 000 from channel views (40 million x $0.01)
• Made $7500 from YouTube subscribers (150 million x $0.05)
• To date, they have 247 368 066 channel views which equals to $2 473 680.66 and 424 648 subscribers which equals to $21 232.40. All these are rough estimates from VidStatsX as it may not include multiple uploads of the same video.
• Other elements could have also increased the money earned from these videos like affiliate advertising.

We can also see from the above points that the brand name has spread like wild fire on other social sites increasing the product sales. The strengths that came from this campaign were:

• The cost of producing video content was significantly less than for a TV shoot. This means that content was easily accessible to the viewers and watched at their own discretion. Competitor 'Axe' spent approximately $30 million according to different sites. 
• By uploading content on YouTube, they were able to make use of the original fan base and also a place to make extra money with ads since there videos gained so many views.
• They connected with other well known people like Ellen DeGeneres and Perez Hilton, who had larger social followings, to make the word spread faster online.
• They focused on social tools and pages which already had a fan base. This encouraged commenting and sharing in the community.
• The most important part was creating traffic amongst all social sites and getting the name of the product to increase product sales in store.

Although it is not officially stated, the Old Spice campaign gave a very success ROI as the brand did become the #1 brand with the use of social tools to increase all forms of sales. Thank you for reading and leave a comment if you have a favourite Old Spice video. Check me out on my page if you like what I do or find me using all that social jazz!

Walmart the Social Bug - Week 7 Activity

So everyone is using some kind of social tool to somehow enhance their organization. So far I've talked about VistaPrint, Ford and CSIRO. Today's organisation resides in the retail sector and is one of the biggest retail store better known as 'Wal-mart'. 

What is Wal-mart you ask?

It is an American franchise which acts as a grocery store and an automotive repair shop. It is very similar to that of Big W catering for your every day needs. They have made use of every social technology like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Youtube and LinkedIn. By being connected to all the social media, Wal-mart is able to get its name out to create a strong presence within the community.

One of the great things about using all these social tools are that they are able to advertise certain products. According to McKinsey's report, Wal-mart demonstrates the 4th lever of using social technologies to gather insights. Wal-mart advertises products depending on the chosen theme for that period on their social pages . The information Wal-mart can gather from Facebook and Google+ is how individuals react, comment and like these themed posts. This allows Wal-mart to sell specific items to an individual according to the data gathered from their use of social tools. 

Wal-mart also has a Pinterest and Youtube account. This can be interpreted as the organisations personality as only selected images are uploaded and each video tells a different story. Through Twitter, they promote employees and events to get followers more involved. By displaying a positive and a connected community, Wal-mart bolsters their reputation which can result in increased sales and customer intake. 

So what all these social tools have in common is that they allow customers to comment and talk about their interests. According to McKinsey's report, this is a representation of the 5th lever where Wal-mart uses all these social tools to communicate and interact with their customers and employees. From advertising discounted products on Facebook to uploading videos about Wal-mart helping the community on Youtube, Wal-mart has successfully made use of social technologies as a retail organization.

Thanks for reading. Hope you got something out of this and a laugh from the picture. Come hit me up on my page if you want to talk about anything else!

To Blog? Or To Wiki? - Week 5 Activity

So we've discussed how a printing organization uses Enterprise 2.0. We've talked about how a motor company uses Enterprise 2.0. So what about a organization that provides scientific research? 

One of the biggest and well known scientific research organization which has made use of Blogs and Wikis is the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). They were once known as the Advisory Council of Science and Industry when they were originally formed in 1926 and have made many notable inventions like aerogard and Wi-Fi.

CSIRO have their own Blog site and Wiki site. The scientists there use their blog site to talk about anything scientific but mainly, to get the word out about things you would not generally hear on TV or any where else really. Thus, they are trying to get the word out about the on going research being done by their company and release information so the public can comment on their processes and increase awareness.  Such blogging and sharing of information defines the demand forecasting lever of the operations and distributions of the value chain. An example of one of their blogs is titled 'Ghostbusting in the Gulf' which explains how debris in the ocean are affecting the marine life and CSIRO research to pin point a solution. This example makes the reader want to support the cause and become more aware of the issues out their and thus giving CSIRO bonus points to their reputation.

CSIRO Wiki page is a place to learn workplace procedures and protocols as well as the general organizations architecture. Just like any wiki, it is open to the public to read and edit and add. The page itself is still incomplete, however, it is a good place to collaborate between internal and external users. From the McKinsey Global Institute report, this would be an example of the 9th value lever which is defined as intra- or inter organizational collaboration and communication via the use of social technologies. CSIRO wiki page enhances their business by allowing to everyone to work on similar topics, reduces time on searching and communicating with other team members. This also leads to thought leadership and therefore individual reputation boosts which can be seen as a Marketing lever as it makes the business look more professional and open for further partnerships.

Both sites focus on collaboration and communication between all users which is how these social tools enhance CSIRO's business. So which profession do you think benefits the most from these social tools? Thank you for reading!

Ford Benefitting From Value Levers - Week 4 Activity

Many success stories have come from organisations implementing Enterprise 2.0. For example Alcatel-Lucent had 60% of employees collaborating on the new platform to be easier and Yum! cut the time to release international menus from 18 months to 4 months. Such results come from the understanding of 10 Social Technology value levers published by McKinsey Global Institute in 2012.

One of the many organisations who have benefited from these value levers are the Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Michigan in the United states. They manufacture and distribute across 6 continents with about 164 000 employees producing the Ford and Lincoln brand.

The Ford motor company have implemented Enterprise 2.0 with their FordSocial website, Flickr and YouTube accounts which fall under the marketing and sales segment of the value chain. The first value lever of this segment is deriving customer insights which is exactly what the FordSocial is made for. This website allows Ford users to express their story and their experience with their Ford vehicle. There is also an ideas section which is simply their for motor enthusiasts who may have liked a certain design or want something extra from Ford. These are ways of understanding the community and the best way to expand on ideas and create objects that Ford already know the customers will like. 

Ford also has a Flickr and Facebook account for users to upload images of their Ford vehicle which is a form social commerce. Ford uploads images of the latest designs and upcoming work onto their Flickr account to capture the people's eyes and to sell their brand. They encourage the community to do the same for example, someone may upload their image with their new Ford vehicle and tag the Ford brand or like the Facebook page. The use of photos and tagging is a great way to attract new viewers and draw in existing audiences to the Ford Website. Liking the Facebook page also shows which friends have done so and can create common interests.

From what we can see, Ford makes full use of social technologies to sell their product and to give the brand the friendliest image to the community. By marketing their brand online, Ford is able to give customers deeper knowledge of their products and can make use of customer feedback for future designs. On another note, a customer of Ford wanted them to produce a mobile app, what do you think? Yay or nay?

Thanks for reading!

Same Objective, Just Different Social Tools. - Week 3 Activity

After many clicks and skim reading, I've come to realize how big it is for businesses to apply enterprise 2.0 strategies. I say this because the little guys are now able to talk to the head honchos removing the middle-man and the general hierarchy that we once understood. How do they do this you may ask? With social media of course... And many other processes... But our focus today is how these organizations have successfully incorporated social tools to expand their business.

Our first example is Vistaprint, a business which provides a printing service for all your printing needs and one which has filled my junk mail. They have achieved the enterprise 2.0 objective of staff engagement with the use of the wiki platforms, a website made for the community, used by the community and edited by the community, and Intuit, a problem solving business which created a brainstorming platform.

Their initial issue was that Vistaprint had no proper way of managing information. With a staff of approximately 80 staff, public folders, shared drives and blogging platforms were not enough. They then met another issue as the business started expanding and more engineers were required, the problem of training 75 engineers in a short period without breaking the software. By analyzing these issues, they eventually found the drive to implement Enterprise 2.0.

There answer was to incorporate an enterprise wiki by creating articles with just a title and leaving it as a blank page. This allowed employees to work on and edit freely on different sections which came out as better quality work and better timelines. This cut the training time by 50% which came to about 4-6 weeks where we all know time is money. They then came to answer the issue of managing information by using a brainstorming platform by Intuit. This allowed employees to share and innovate which meshed smoothly within the companies existing culture as this was one of their strong points. 

Another business example is McDonalds, one of the biggest fast food restaurants, have achieved the same goals as above through staff engagement with the use of blogging and a feedback Awareness platform. A senior executive of McDonalds struggled to communicate with a large number of employees in the organization. 

To resolve this issue, he turned to blogging, one for employees only and one for customers only. By creating two sets of blogs specific to the readers, it allowed employees to share information and ideas as well comment on subjects making it a two way flow. The blog specific towards customers was a community blog called Open for Discussion. This was essential to the business as it was a good source of customer feedback and it also gave the customer feel like they made a difference and encouraged them to participate in the community.

From both businesses, the key enterprise 2.0 objective was staff engagement. Both businesses allowed their to be a two-way communication disregarding any form of hierarchy. This allowed more ideas to flow in in less time. We can also see that by allowing communication between different status levels will bring forth different types of opportunities. This could be creating new product, leading a team to manage company objectives and so on. All this collaborative work and the concept of community creates a better atmosphere for the organization and can only result in positive outcomes.

In regards to the Wikinomics business models, both business clearly show each step. For peering, both VistaPrint and McDonalds created opportunities for the community to have their say about ideas and products with the use of blogs and other social platforms. For ideagoras, VistaPrint a wiki was created for anyone and everyone to gather to exchange ideas and solutions. Lastly, for prosumers, McDonalds Open for Discussion platform made the consumers the producers as it gave them the chance to talk about what the next themes and products should be.

Thanks for your time. Let me know what you think about any of the above and see you soon.

Hello to the Blogging World - Week 2 Activity

I'm not the blogging type of person... Not that I know of anyways. It has never caught my interest since I'm the type of person who takes a really long time to read and visualize what is going on. That's why I watch "vloggers" instead, a nice and quicker way of understanding the person and their views about anything and everything. An example would be like the Youtubers Timothy DeLaGhetto and Bart Kwan. They both have unique personalities and have different views because of their very different lives but still positive either way. Vlogs are a lot easier to see someone's personality than a blog. I consider these to be good vlogs because they openly express their thoughts in a way the viewer can understand and relate. To me, if I can turn their style of vlogging into words, then I know that this will be a blogging style that I can comfortably continue with for however long.

With that said, the purpose of my blogs will be to allow the community to see how I see things and feel how I feel towards certain subjects. With the power of words, a pencil, a pen and a piece of paper, I intend to pull in the community and make space for people to question, critique and possibly be educated by what is to come.

My intentions are to create relevant and resourceful posts. Things that people can easily understand and relate to. I even intend to create some kind of hand drawing related to upcoming activities and post. Why you may ask? Well, whilst watching the video in the lecture where the artist is drawing everything that is being said, everyone's eyes were peeled to the screen as it was very captivating. Mine won't be as amazing but it wouldn't be the same as the vlogging style if their wasn't anything to look at apart from words. Maybe I can get better at blogging and drawing over time!

My strategy to gain readers is to simply make content worth coming to read and look at. I intend to engage with readers and promote my blog through social media platforms and engage with other students by commenting and sharing my thoughts. Advertising is clearly the main strategy, but making people like my blogs and having them talk about it to other people is even better.

So which Youtube vloggers do you follow or enjoy? Let me know so I can check them out. Also, give me a theme to make for my next blog drawing? Hopefully it will be better.