Four Ways to Waste Your Social Media Budget

There are lots of companies out there that use social media in smart ways. They listen to their customers. They respond appropriately. They take this feedback into consideration and then they refine their message.

Too many companies, however, use social media as a megaphone, not a conversation tool. I ran into one on Friday.

Papa John’s is a Case Study for Everything You Can Do Wrong

Over the weekend, my husband did what a lot of people do on Friday night: he ordered a pizza and popped in a movie for my kids to watch.

Papa John’s was offering us a free pizza. It was all part of an elaborate Super Bowl marketing campaign. They offered a free pizza to anyone that guessed the coin toss correctly. I’m not a huge fan of their pizza but they had a chance to convert me. Never one to turn down free food, we took the bait. A few days later the promo code for the free pizza showed up in my husband’s email inbox. All we had to do was pay the delivery fee of $2.50. Problem was, the Pepsi showed up but not the pizza.

We called the store and they told us they didn’t have the order. We were given a 1-800 number and asked to give them the confirmation number for the order and the $2.50 delivery fee. After 15 minutes on hold (all of which peppered with my kids screaming, “Where’s the pizza?!” every 45 seconds), we were told there must have been some “glitch” and we could place the order again. When asked if they could waive the second $2.50 delivery fee, we were told no. We could go online to a different page and file a complaint. Does the complaint stop my kids from whining? That answer would also be no.

This is when I turned to Facebook:

Was this out of line? They thought so. It was deleted in less than an hour.

Luckily, I still had Twitter. At first, I was civil:

Then the kids whining really got to me. This is where I’m not so nice:

By Monday, I still hadn’t heard from them. After mentioning the complaint again, and five of my friends re-Tweeting it, I got their attention:

Using my experience with Papa John’s, here are four ways you know you’re wasting your social media budget:

1. You don’t have a 360 plan

For all the millions of dollars invested on in-store promos, direct mailers, email and most expensive of all, Super Bowl ads, Papa John’s should have been prepared for this. They obviously never asked the question, “What happens if someone has a problem?” They had to be prepared for millions, if not tens of millions, of orders for these free pizzas (after all, more than 100 million people watched the Super Bowl). More than a few orders will go wrong. To leave the franchise stores without any recourse other than “I don’t know. Call corporate” is irresponsible and a huge waste of everyone’s time and money.

2. You can’t respond in a reasonable amount of time

Presumably, this is one of their busiest nights of the week and when they would see most of the conversations happening. They’re going to get complaints and praise. They should be prepared for both. Social media is an immediate forum. Some time passing is acceptable, but three days? I doubt they would have talked to me at all if I hadn’t brought it up again.

3. You want to live in a bubble

Papa John’s should not have deleted my Facebook post. What they should do is accept that every customer will not always be happy and use the opportunity to have a dialogue with the customer and find out how they can do their jobs better. Putting your hands over your ears and closing your eyes is not a strategy and it does not mean that people stop talking about you.

As a promising note to this story, I also Tweeted Domino’s on Friday, hoping maybe they could end my children’s suffering. They responded immediately and although they said they couldn’t offer me a free pizza, they did send me a link to where I can offer up suggestions about how they can provide better service. Kudos to Domino’s.

4. Your answer is “That’s not my problem”

Deal with the issue where it happens. You wouldn’t tell the people answering phone at local stores to tell the customer to go online to place an order. Why do essentially the same thing on Twitter? I was complaining that my only option to try and remedy the situation was to file a complaint. So they responded and told me what I needed to do was file a complaint. They weren’t listening. They just wanted me to go away.

When I looked through past Papa John’s Facebook and Twitter posts, they were all upbeat and self-promotional. Some were things like, “Who’s ready for the weekend?” That’s fine, but it shouldn’t be the only conversation.

Real conversations are about more than small talk. The real value of social media is not that it can be used as a megaphone for advertising and public relations, but that it gives honest customer feedback and allows companies to listen and refine their message, listen and refine. If Facebook and Twitter are only a mouthpiece for other brand messages, don’t bother.

National News? Really?

I was pleased to see Max, the 85-pound Argentine Mastiff that bit 9News anchor Kyle Dyer, return home to his family yesterday. Max could have ended up being the biggest victim in this circus.

For those of you who missed it (or don’t live in Colorado), Dyer was bit by Max during a live interview Feb. 8. Max, his owner and the firefighter who rescued the dog from an icy pond on Tuesday were all present. The bite, unfortunately, was to Dyer’s face — not pleasant for any of us, but a possible career-ending event if you’re a television news anchor. READ MORE

Crash Course: Guerrilla PR for Startups

Starting a company? Want to get your name out? Don’t know where to start? Then put this event on your calendar.

Our very own President and COO, Doyle Albee, will be joining industry leaders Jason Medelson, Merredith Branscombe and Erika Napoletano for a crash course on public relations for start-ups and emerging businesses, Feb. 20 at CU’s Wolf Law Building beginning at 6 p.m.

The discussion will focus on practical and real-world advice from the front lines. This is an excellent resource for anyone just starting out or for those wanting to gain new insights and ideas.

Jason Mendelson, managing director of the Foundry Group, will be moderating the event. (Follow him on Twitter @jasonmendelson) Jason has over a dozen years of experience in the venture capital and technology industries in a multitude of investing, operational and engineering roles. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, Jason was a managing director and general counsel for Mobius Venture Capital where he also acted as chief administrative partner overseeing all operations of the firm.

He currently serves on the board of directors of Attachments.me, Brightleaf, Next Big Sound, Oblong, Occipital, Openspace, Organic Motion Sifteo and Urban Airship for Foundry Group.

Meet the Panel:

Doyle Albee, president and COO of Metzger Associates, is a nationally recognized expert in PR, marketing communications and social media strategy. (Follow him on Twitter @doylealbee) He has delivered successful campaigns for clients across a number of industries including consumer packaged goods, cable and telecommunications, healthcare and technology.

Merredith Branscombe, founder of Leap Public Relations, works with her clients to tell their stories in ways that are not just understandable, but fun to understand. (Follow her on Twitter @Merredith) Merredith found her passion working with startups after many years representing clients across the entire gamut of the technology space.

Erika Napoletano is the Head Redhead at online strategies consultancy RHW Media. (Follower her on Twitter @RedheadWriting) As the personality behind Redheadwriting.com, she doesn’t shy away from offering blunt advice about marketing, social media, business integrity and life in general. She’s a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine and the author of the forthcoming book, The Power of Unpopular (Wiley, March 2012).

About the event:

Crash Course: Guerrilla PR for Startups is Monday, Feb. 20th, from 6:00-7:30 p.m. at the University of Colorado at Boulder Wolf Law Building. There will be a reception to follow.

Get the “how to’s and how don’ts” for your emerging business from local PR experts. For more information about the panel, event and to register, visit the Silicon Flatirons website. We hope to see you all there!

Photo Credit: Salvatore Vuono

CES 2012: Lots of people, new technology

Are You Verizon Me?

Today, it would be too easy to write about the Change.org petition that got more than 100,000 online signatures in 24 hours. I could go on forever about how social media is changing the balance of power between corporations and consumers.

Instead, I’d like to ask this simple question: what in the hell did you think would happen, Verizon?

As a small business, my customers can fairly easily choose from a variety of suppliers. We have to do great work and we sure can’t piss our clients off. I can’t even consider doing something like adding a $2 “convenience fee” to my invoices. I’d like to think I wouldn’t even consider it even if I could get away with it. However, large companies — who often have their consumers tied up in contracts — do things like this all the time. Social media is now giving “us masses” a tool to fight back.

But seriously. Why? What were you thinking? And how many Verizon people OK’d such absurdity?

Verizon was profitable last year. It’s not like this was critical in order to stay afloat. Credit card fees are hard on businesses of all sizes, but it’s a cost of doing business that has to be baked in to your fees. I just can’t wrap my mind around the meeting(s) at Verizon that spawned this brain dead policy and unleashed it on their customers (and yes, less than 24 hours later, Verizon wised up).

Maybe the meeting went something like this:

Executive #1: Here’s an idea. Let’s charge people to pay us. That could be worth millions in pure profit each month.

Executive #2: I like it. What do you think our customers will say?

Executive #1: It will be fine. The PR department (Note: I’ll pick on my own for a minute here) recommended we call it a “convenience fee.” Everyone understands you have to pay for convenience. People will be happy to pay for the convenience of paying their bills.

Executive #2: Brilliant!

Kidding aside, dealing with paper checks is expensive. You have to pay people to handle them, work with overdraft issues, etc. Yet, a company run by highly compensated telecom veterans was ready to drive people back into the arms of paper checks, envelops and stamps. 1992 called: it wants it’s preferred payment method back.

Before our collective ability to raise holy hell online, this may have (a) actually stuck and (b) been picked up by the other three major carriers. Personally, I hope the true impact of social media takes us beyond our ability to push back and actually encourages business leaders to think through such ridiculous ideas and kill them in the conference rooms in which they are spawned. I’m a Verizon customer. I like the service a lot. But this is so dumb it’s offensive.

12/30/11: Common Sense-1, Verizon-0.

Ooops.

Contrary to popular belief: interns should handle your company’s social media

image by tome213

At least once a week I see a tweet about how interns should not be doing a company’s social media. Many people can cite the epic Marc Jacobs intern Twitter meltdown as a reason, but the major argument against an intern creating strategy for your social media campaign is that they don’t know enough about your company and its story.

It’s a valid point. Perhaps instead of an intern dictating strategy for a social media campaign, the happy medium is to have them handle the execution under your watchful eye.

If you have an intern and they understand social networks, you can help guide them by providing essential insight about the company, and they can execute the strategy by doing the labor-intensive work of posting social media at your direction. Not only are they learning about your company and industry, but they’re also finding out first hand how a social media strategy plays out. You may even find that their day-to-day interaction on social networks can yield new insights and ideas to improve your existing strategy.

Years ago, when I was an English teacher, I recognized that every day I learned just as much from my students as they did from me. Not just things like how ‘Solja Boy is totally not cool anymore,’ or how high schoolers really don’t like reading poetry, but I learned how a younger generation was viewing and experiencing the world. Observing their literacy of the world influenced how I approached increasing their literacy of the written word.

Remember that the younger generation has some great insight that is often dismissed due to their age and inexperience. Don’t think of an intern as someone you can simply delegate responsibility to. Instead, provide additional guidance and supervision for them to be successful. If you want to stay in control of your message and how your company is represented in the social media world, stay involved, direct the strategy, but by all means, let the younger generation take the reins and do the work. You can learn a thing or two at the same time, while keeping your eye on the bigger picture.

Is my hard work really going to pay off?

Recently, Forbes Magazine featured a story titled, “Why Millennial Women Are Burning Out At Work By 30.” I am nowhere near 30 but I still found this alarming, and somewhat familiar. Busy young women are turning to prescription drugs and therapy just to get through their work days. I’m a Millennial Woman, and I have worked really hard to put myself in a position to have a successful career. Now, all of a sudden, I find out that all this hard work might be putting me at risk, and not pay off in the long run! My dad always told me that dedication and tenacity will reap rewards, but now I am not so sure.

Penn State scandal: What not to do in a crisis

The information coming out of Penn State becomes more disturbing by the hour. At this point, Jerry Sandusky is facing 40 criminal counts for sexually abusing children. Football coach Joe Paterno has been fired. Graham Spanier, one of the nation’s longest-serving and highest-paid university presidents, voluntarily resigned, and will no longer serve on the board US Steel.

Two high-ranking university officials, Gary Schultz and Tim Curley, are currently facing perjury charges and investigations to determine what they knew when, and if this was one big cover-up that spanned decades.