A recent article in the Economist about how companies should fight rumors may turn out to be pretty pertinent to our clients as they begin to engage… and fear the consequences of social media. We have heard many ways to attack social media rumors, and this study may throw things for a bit of a loop. The article cites the studies of three business school psychologists: Derek Rucker and David Dubois, of the Kellogg School of Management, and Zakary Tormala, of Stanford Business School who argue that companies who directly address a rumor may actually be doing themselves harm.

“Instead of denying false rumours, a company should put out a stream of positive messages about itself,” state the authors of the study. It sounds a lot like broadcasting doesn’t it?

While we do not necessarily think the psychologists mean to completely ignore rumors, there are parts of this advice that would serve a company well in social media engagement. Rather than perpetuating a rumor by restating it, we recommend creating content and messaging that counters the rumor without explicitly mentioning it. The more a rumor is repeated either in its defense or to propagate it, the more likely the rumor will stick.

Passivity is not an option, and neither is denial. A strong positive stream of content can go a long way.

After last week’s post on using longer format social media channels for insight, we started hearing from our clients. What is broadcasting, and should we be encouraging it?

First, a definition on “broadcasting” from a social media perspective -

Broadcasting is the act of redistributing content without the addition of incremental value.

It is sharing with the least possible effort, and Brian Solis recently wrote a thought provoking article about the balance needed between creation and consumption that can perhaps get the juices flowing.

So then is this really valuable to the enterprise,especially if it is basically just passing along a message? As we look to our clients, there is clearly a benefit to having fans, followers and customers who “broadcast” content about a company. Granted, the value of that shared content becomes more valuable when someone adds their own ideas and thoughts to it, but increasing the conversation volume around your company, product and service can only help raise the visibility of the brand across the web.

The other great thing about broadcasting from an enterprise perspective is that content created by bloggers or evangelists is generally positive or optimistic in tone. Except for the occasions where there is a PR crisis or a set of complaints, broadcasting helps most of our clients to spread the word about what they do in a relatively cost effective manner.

So what happens over time? As people filter out the “noise” and try to keep out broadcast messages, the effectiveness will be diminished. I think two things will happen here. First, people who broadcast will try to keep messages fresh by adding their own twist (they are after all trying to keep their own audience engaged). And second, companies will have to provide interesting and engaging content that does not lean too far into marketing, in order to allow their followers to quickly think of ways to make the re-tweeted content more applicable to their audiences.

Release as many press releases and content heavy stories as possible. 

Make them available to social media channels, try to keep the branding to a minimum, and develop interesting content that people want to share. 

Everyone wants to drive traffic back to the business, and there is no better way to do this than filling up a search engine with thousands of posts about your company.  Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a complicated business, but if you let other people tweet, blog and repost information about things you are doing, you will definitely get noticed by search engines.

And that’s really the main point.  Everytime some types in something about your industry, product line, etc., you want to make sure that your company shows up near the top of the list.  Search engines love social media because it’s current, and if you can make content that people share, then you can continue to stay near the top. 

As as example, if you are a lawyer who focuses on distressed real estate, then distribute as much content about the topic that you can.  It is amazing how just a little effort can help push your rankings to the top.

For a while now, most content creators have been relatively easy  to identify.  You know or can find out who writes news stories about things that you are interested in.  There are plenty of tools out there to help brands identify press sources and PR professionals who will write favorable content with respect to what you and your company are currently looking to launch.  But as our clients look to really engage across social media, sometimes it is hard to tell if a few key influencers who may or may not have a large following are worth investing the time and energy to engage.

What we are finding is that there is a real leap of faith and practice to make here.  For some brands, especially those with a technology focus or a passionate base of customers, it’s pretty simple to pinpoint the indivudals in a large bucket of content creators who can help push along the message.  But for most brands or even niche campaigns launched by larger brands, it can often feel like there isn’t enough out there to warrant the investment.

As marketers in a digital world, we need to start looking at this in a different way.  Whether you are a large behemoth of an organization or a much smaller one, the line between the NY Times and a blogger is quickly being blurred.  Everyone who tweets, blogs, etc. is putting up a sign post about your company or product that can be found through a search engine.  It’s a permanent record that is not going anywhere, and for every post or influencer that goes up, there are many more who are paying attention than those who are writing.

This is why a strong social media strategy is so important.  Set real goals everyday that have pointed achievable results over the long run.  Don’t waste too much time sifting through the chatter, but take a few minutes out of each day looking at what is being said about your company.  You don’t have to contribute a novel to each post, but thank people for good feedback and work to correct anything that may not be on point.  If you have planned out what you think is important, and how you will respond, I think that the often monumental task of engaging on social media can be a lot more manageable.

As we move towards a flatter organization with distributed and transparent communications, there is a real conflict growing between those who would have us believe that management hierarchy is a necessity and those who do not.  With more collaborative teams forming through informal networks and groups, companies need to start thinking about how they will manage output while maintaining an open structure. 

The current influx of Social Media technologies both inside and out of the organization is still very peripheral (in that it is not truly effecting the structure of an organization), but these technologies will become a stronger and integral part of many companies in the upcoming years.  Maintaining a balance between a management structure and open communication platforms will be necessary to avoid projects from becoming chaotic. 

This new level of communication will require companies to think about how information that flows through these new channels will be integrated into business.  There is a reason why hierarchy works.  It sets a clear decision maker, and as groups get larger, it is a necessity to define an individual or body to make the final call on what information to use and what to ignore.  This is one of the main reasons that I believe governance is such a huge issue with respect to Social Media.  Without a strong leader at the top making decisions and delegating based on new information through user generated media, I believe that companies risk falling into analysis paralysis.

If there’s one thing that I learned working summers in resorts/hospitality, it’s that every customer is special.  Providing a unique and fulfilling experience to each and every customer can turn brand ambassadors out of a lot of people.  And that can result in repeat customers, great word of mouth reviews and overall success in your business.  With so many companies turning to Social Media (especially micro-blogs like Twitter) to monitor consumer sentiment and customer service issues, it’s important to think of this channel in the same way that Disney engages off-line in their parks and how Zappos engages online with shoe shoppers.

Employees need to be empowered to help frustrated or unhappy customers at the first point of contact.  This is a pretty scary thing to do, because there are so many points where the system can be gamed.  But ultimately, despite the inevitable gaming by a few, most of the brands that we respect and consider to be the most customer oriented offer immediate support.  I’ve now talked to a number of marketing directors who have taken this approach to Twitter, and I think it’s a great thing to do.  Granted that you may be rewarding some consumers for bad behavior, overall, most people complain on Social Media because they actually have a problem.  If you can help resolve their problem quickly and efficiently, that’s a lot of great PR and good faith value that you can take advantage of.

People love companies who listen, and I think this is the time to really put together a strategy for what type of empowerment you want to give your employees in the online world.  The reason that there has been so much talk about Zappos these days is that they have really made empowerment and customer service a part of their core cultural values.  And they have done it in an online forum.

So here it is.  Don’t say that you are going to respond to customer complaints on Social Media and leave it at that.  Think about how much empowerment you will give your front line to act upon issues that they see coming through the pipe.  Will it be a dollar value?  Will it be a level of service?  Will it be a phone call or email?  Spell these things out, put it on paper, and then your people can work to make your customers happier.

I talked to a Social Media director today at a large chain of retail convenience stores, and she told me a simple story of how the company had used Social Media to discover that a move from French Vanilla creamer to Dark Chocolate had been something that a lot of patrons weren’t completely happy about.  She saw a few tweets and Facebook comments coming through, and alerted the marketing department immediately.  It took a little convincing, but she eventually had the French Vanilla creamer back in the stores.  Here are the lessons that I think we can all take from this little story.

Agility – Social Media can make your organization a much more nimble company.  Whether you are big or small, you can learn about even small tweaks that will make your customers happier and therefore more likely to buy your products or services.  We are not talking about New Coke vs. Coca-Cola Classic here where you have millions upon millions of people asking for a change.  That’s a PR nightmare.  We’re talking about listening to your customers on a micro-level and addressing their concerns in a real way that be the difference between a good experience and a great one.

Organization – In this case, the Social Media Director was able to get some data in front of the people who could make a change.  Agility has an inverse relationship with the size of an organization, and as companies get larger they need to start thinking about how they will funnel this information to the right people.  And then the processes need to be in place so that the right people can take action quickly against what is being suggested in the Social Media channels.  Ultimately, this means restructuring an organization to be open to this new channel of information and to react in timely manner.  But for the initial period, I would start by setting up guidelines and plan of attack when faced with Social Media data that can affect your organization.

Suggestion boxes, comment cards and feedback hot-lines have been around for a while now, and the ideas through those channels generally took a while to get through the pipes.  It was hard to tell if anyone even bothered to listen, and customers rarely got direct feedback that they were being heard.  Now we are talking about faster and more immediate questions in the public forum that can build momentum if not addressed in real-time.  To make the most of these new suggestion boxes, companies need to adapt their organizations and embrace the ideas that their customers have delivered.

When it comes to brands and Social Media, what exactly does authenticity really mean?  In a recent podcast on Duct Tape Marketing, I heard Martin Lindstrom talk about how brands can have a similar neural response as the one that people have with their own religious faith.  If that’s the power that brands have on people, how transparent can or should a company become when they engage across Social Media.

I think everyone would agree that you cannot be overly transparent, but I would make the case that you need to make Social Media engagement a very deliberate approach.  Conversations should appear authentic, but they should be well grounded in the way that the brand aims to portray itself.  It sounds sinister or underhanded, but it really isn’t.  As more people enter the overall conversation, one-on-one engagement can still happen, but brands need to have well thought out strategies on how they will engage.  And there should be consistency.

Brands produce that neural response in people, because they represent something more.  Something beyond a simple company with a bunch of people working in it.  Social Media allows a company to open itself up so that their customers can take a peek in, and know that someone is listening and working to provide them the best possible product or service.  But at the same time, people want to keep brands to mean something more.  I think that you can only do that by tempering pure authenticity with strict brand guidelines that hold true not only for logos, documents, etc. but also for Social Media engagement.

One of the big things that I see a lot of our clients doing these days after they start listening is engagging with their customers on a one-to-one basis.  Not surprisingly, a lot of the “engagement” on microblogs tends to be customer service related issues.  People are starting to realize that they can complain in a public space and get faster and often better responses through these channels.  And I guess that’s a good thing… but what happens when everyone decides to start using social media to complain and criticize companies for problems that they are having.  Are we sending the right message to say that it is okay to complain loudly (and maybe even unfairly) on social media, if you want to get what you want?

I recently talked to someone who manages Social Media at a US-based consumer company who told me that she sends unhappy customers on Social Media directly to the high-priority customer response team.  I think that’s great, and it works at this level, but is it sustainable over the long run as more and more people lay their grievances out in cyberspace?  I don’t really think it is.

And that to a degree is where Social CRM can have a place.  The example that I have heard Jeremiah Owyang (Altimeter Group) give a couple times related to social CRM involves the case of Heather Armstrong who tweeted about her experience at Whirlpool to her million or so followers.  It ended up hitting the mainstream media, and turned out to be a bit of a disaster for the company.  In an ideal world, Social CRM could have prevented this incident by giving the customer service rep working with Nancy the ability to see the social power that she could wield over the company. 

It seems a bit unfair to give someone with a lot of followers the advantage of better customer service.  But then again, how is this different than providing service to a public figure or celebrity?  When I have status with an airline or a hotel group, I certainly expect a higher level of service as well.  Maybe it is okay and actually the right thing to do to give someone with a high level of influence an edge in customer service. 

So to answer my question: I think that more people will continue to complain on Social Media, and companies will have to expand the role of customer service into microblog channels to make sure that those complaints are not falling on deaf ears.  But at the same time, we should expect better integration of Social CRM which includes not only levels of influence on Social Media, but also customer loyalty statistics and other factors to drive varying levels of service.  To that end, companies should think about their current “appeasement” strategy, so that customers do not get too used to getting what they want for screaming at the top of their lungs.  And this of course, comes from a well thought out Social Media Policy.

Who do you ask before you decide on a doctor or a specialist?  Typically, it’s a friend or a friend of a friend.  As we become more mobile in where we live, it is becoming increasingly important to have a way of picking a doctor or a hospital wherever you may be.

On some level, most people and even most healthcare professionals understand it.  But healthcare is still lagging in its ability to stay on top of what people are saying about their care and their institution across the web.  When I typically approach a healthcare institution about listening to the conversations out there, the normal response is, “Well, we’re not engaged in Social Media right now.  Maybe when we have a bit more traction on our Facebook page, you can come back and check in with us.”  What is crazy about this is that people are already talking about healthcare in a very real way across the web.  Whether or not the hospital or medical practioner is involved there is a presence.  And, I think that most healthcare professionals recognize.

But there’s a disconnect.  Why?  I think it’s because medical professionals in general hate being a part of marketing.  They do their job, and they do it well.  If someone likes the job they did and wants to blog, tweet or post it on the Internet, then great.  Unfortunately, this is not how things work in the real world.  In the same way that consumer companies need to manage their social media reputation, I believe that hospitals and medical practioners need to follow suit.

Mentions in healthcare are more important than reviews in just about any other industry.  If I see two bad reviews on Yelp!, I will still end up going (and probably will love the food).  If I see even one well written bad review about a hospital or doctor, you can be sure I will look somewhere else.  Reputation is everything in healthcare, and it’s important to be engaged, active and with your ear to the ground.