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!