Thank you to our guest blogger, Mike Forbes, who wrote this piece for howsocial.co.uk. Mike works in social media at Tesco and you can read his orignal article here.
I’m taking a topical approach to this week’s blog, and discussing how businesses and brands can utilise the Milestones feature on Facebook’s recently introduced Timeline for Pages.
Facebook has been encouraging it’s users to “Get Timeline” for months now; and it’s been difficult to miss as they’ve been pushing it pretty hard. The migration for personal Profiles is still in the voluntary stage at the moment, but Timeline for Pages was activated for all businesses and brands on March 30th. Timeline brings with it many changes: the most obvious to Fans will be newly image heavy homepages; but others such as Brand/Business Pages now being able to send and receive Private Messages will probably sneak under the radar of most casual Facebook users (despite this possibly being a massive deal for Customer Care teams, and definitely a topic for a future blog). The new addition I’m going to focus on here though sits somewhere between those two; it doesn’t scream “look at me!” and demand attention like the new Timeline Cover photos, but it’s going to be of more interest to people casually browsing your page than the new “Message” button. I’m talking about Milestones.
Two brands demonstrating well thought-out (but very different) Timeline Milestone histories are Mercedes-Benz and Coca Cola.
Mercedes-Benz are very event-driven, using their Milestones to focus on noteworthy events in the company’s history. Some of the events they’ve detailed include:
- An innovative Diesel engine patent in 1919
- Rudolf Caracciola winning 1929′s 410-mile International Tourist Trophy race in a Mercedes-Benz SS.
- An assembly plant in Brazil being opened by the nation’s President in 1956
All of their Milestones are events that they are proud of and also think will be of interest to Mercedes-Benz Fans.
Coca Cola focus on retro imagery and quotes showing individual Coke fans’ positive association with the Brand over the years. They forget all about company events and achievements, and make it about the people who are buying their products. See an example from Coca Cola’s Timeline below:
Something both companies’ Timeline Milestones have in common is the strong use of imagery, colours and video. Facebook gives you the option to create a multimedia history of your company that can be fun to browse, and which some of your Fans will hopefully find interesting enough to Share with their Facebook friends. Make the most of this tool, and don’t be lazy! A boring list of plain text Milestones (or even worse, no Milestones at all!) isn’t going to generate any more engagement with your Page. And after all, your Page is there to drive engagement isn’t it? …..isn’t it?? A list of Milestones that are of interest to your target audience can be a useful marketing tool.
Once you’ve populated your Timeline with Milestones, don’t just stop there and forget about it. You can plan in new Milestones as part of your regular engagement strategy. For instance, does your company have a designated charity you raise money for? If so, why not post a new Milestone every month talking about how much money you raised for your charity in a particular year?
1997
This year we were proud to reach our goal of raising £xxx for……
You get the idea, I’m sure there’s plenty of historic Milestones you could plan into your future content.
You never know who might be reading
Something else to consider when planning out your Milestone history is that it could become a primary place for potential new employees to research your company. How you act on Facebook, and the parts of your history you choose to emphasise as Milestones could attract or scare away potential new recruits. A lazily put together Timeline/Milestones could demonstrate a lack of openness to new ideas and technologies. And Milestones written in the wrong tone could also put people off. For example, a stuck up overly formal Milestone history could be reflective of the company’s working culture, and possibly not the image you want to convey.
How the way we use Milestones might develop in future?
With the amount of time people spend on Facebook constantly increasing, and with Facebook keen to minimize the reasons users have to leave their site, it’s quite feasible that your company’s Milestone history could grow to be used in a similar way as Wikipedia. A company history that has a much more friendly and engaging tone than the one on your company’s corporate website, but that can still be company controlled. It would also open the door to user generated Business/Brand Milestones.
A Facebook Timeline which allows Fans to contribute their own Milestones to a company’s Timeline could be an interesting prospect. I could share memories and stories for other Fans of the Brand/Business to enjoy. I could add a story about a memorable 1st date to Cineworld’s Timeline, a photo of me standing proudly beside my first car on Ford’s Timeline, or a photo of the 1966 World Cup Final I found in my Grandparents’ loft to Wembley Stadium’s Timeline.
Facebook currently has a near monopoly on cataloguing what you’re doing Right Now, Last Week, and even Last Year. If they successfully drive the Milestones aspect of Timeline, Facebook could soon be the place for storing all your pre-Facebook memories too. It won’t be quick, but watch out for Timeline becoming a visual diary, keeping all your stories alive. Want to see my baby photos? Or check the name of that restaurant I took you to last summer?
Check my Timeline.
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Our CEO Josh has written about protecting your brand's social reputation in iMedia Connection. You can read the article in full below, or on the iMedia Connection website.
Reputation has become far more consumer-led than ever before. There's a wealth of spaces for customers to comment on your brand through social media, self-published blogs, and review websites. More importantly, your customers care what other customers think. According to eMarketer, consumer reviews are nearly 12 times more trusted than manufacturer descriptions.
The weight of consumer-created content has also been demonstrated by TripAdvisor's recent press coverage, as outraged hotel owners blamed the power of online reviews for damaging their business, and even reported that some guests held them at ransom to the power of online complaints.
While TripAdvisor's story demonstrates customer power at its height, it also gives a flavor of how heavily weighted real customer experiences are for those assessing your brand's reputation. Customers want to know what other customers think, and disgruntled customers want to name and shame brands for their poor service. If it concerns your customers, then it should be concerning you. In the free-running arena of consumer-created content, a sophisticated approach is important to make sure you retain some control of your company's image.
Personal experiences are now easily shared on social media, either directly or with user-made content such as blogs and videos being circulated. One customer's poor experience of your brand quickly forms the fabric of your online reputation, a critical part of how your potential customers see you and form decisions on whether to do business with you.
Who cares what they say?
Our research has shown that not only do customers take your reputation seriously, but how you interact with customers online matters too. In a survey we carried out with New York University we found that 90 percent of customers were less likely to buy anything from a store that left customer queries and complaints unanswered on its page.
Social networks are the most dynamic part of your brand's online reputation. This includes journalistic reviews of your brand, customer to customer advice, and critically, living examples of how you treat your customers.
On Twitter, your official account is only one of many voices on Twitter. Your broadcasts don't have as much power as those of your customers. Remember these tips:
- Take your presence on these sites seriously. Devote time to making your voice interesting and useful to others. Think about what they want to hear, and cut through the noise. Remember no one has to listen to you, and insincere promotion isn't what consumers are after in social media.
- The consumer voice matters. Eliciting a positive reaction is the best thing you can do to boost your reputation, with much heavier weight than self-serving messaging. Don't tell the social world it's a great company -- show them.
How can you keep your social reputation positive?
Give customer service, not lip service.
Several retailers investigated by Conversocial in recent research, including major stores such as Walmart and Kohls, have missed the mark when it comes to real social service. Redirecting customers to take their complaints to other channels misses the opportunity for a reputation boost. Offering real help shows customers you're willing to help them after purchase. All that really counts toward your reputation is what can be seen, and pushing customers to the call center fails to demonstrate any effort to improve the situation. People often turn to social channels as the last straw, having already failed to get help via other routes. Not only do you risk losing their business, you risk missing a chance to turn things around -- customers expressing publicly their renewed faith in your company.
Reputation has become far more consumer-led than ever before. There's a wealth of spaces for customers to comment on your brand through social media, self-published blogs, and review websites. More importantly, your customers care what other customers think. According to eMarketer, consumer reviews are nearly 12 times more trusted than manufacturer descriptions.
The weight of consumer-created content has also been demonstrated by TripAdvisor's recent press coverage, as outraged hotel owners blamed the power of online reviews for damaging their business, and even reported that some guests held them at ransom to the power of online complaints.
Walk the walk, talk the talk.
Social media is fast moving; news is expected to be current and up to date, and consumers move quickly. This means speedy responses to customer issues are a must. The CEO of Twitter reported that 40 percent of tweets come from mobile devices. Responding to customers effectively can turn a negative situation around dramatically, but you have to be quick to have a real impact. It's also important to speak your customers' language. Part of giving real help is that it's genuine, and tone of voice is important. Cut and pasted responses aren't enough -- social customers want to know that you care enough to give a personal reply in a personal medium. It's a great way to influence what they have to say about you.
How do you understand your own reputation today?
The Net Promoter score has been long established as a measurement of reputation. It offers great insight into perceptions of your brand, especially when followed up with more comprehensive feedback. But understanding how consumers share experiences of your company becomes much more direct on social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Sentiment tracking goes beyond hypothetical behavior to keep a record of the real, existing recommendations and defamations taking place online. Monitoring the positive and negative mentions of your brand, specifically around particular issues, topics, and products, is the best way to keep on top of your company's reputation.
And it pays off. Social media is critical when it comes to both long term reputation and immediate customer retention. A leading telecoms firm made some exciting discoveries of the effects of good customer service on Twitter. When customers were about to leave, if the issues were resolved quickly, 90 percent remained customers, and 50 percent became brand advocates. But not just any response is good enough; you get one shot to impress -- make it count.
Follow us on Twitter here, and join the discussion in our Linkedin group, Best Practice Customer Service, here.
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We’ve produced a handy guide to help you prepare for Facebook Messages for brands.
With useful information for Conversocial users and non-users alike, this guide will show you:
- How Facebook Messages work: looking closely at how customers can reach out directly.
- How this change is likely to impact on customer service: our projections on the effect of Messages on the volume of service issues coming through Facebook.
- Recommended best practice for using the new feature to keep your customers happy.
- How you can manage messages effectively within the Conversocial.
Download your free Quickguide: Facebook Page Messages
Facebook messages are set to have a major impact on how the platform is used for customer service. You can read more about the change, here.
Follow us on Twitter, or join the discussion on Best Practice Social Customer Service
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Our CEO Josh wrote about the need to carefully target social marketing in this CMO byline. You can read the article in full below, or follow this link to see it on the CMO website.
Facebook and Twitter occupy a unique position among online communication channels. Despite the public, open nature of these platforms, they can be viewed closer to email and direct mail than other online channels. While your customers have to visit your Web site directly to receive updates, for example, on social networks you’re sending messages straight into their personal news feeds.
Indeed, there’s a lot to consider when using social media to deliver information, and fears about being intrusive are valid. To publish or not to publish is clearly a tricky question. Your customers are trying to get service from you through social media, but not all marketers are equipped to deliver, and customer-service agents’ access to send messages on social networks has been slow to take off. And a recent article about “Facebook flame wars’” revealed that posting status updates in response to a PR crisis could add fuel to the fire, inviting more customers to wade in each time.
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We’ve had some very interesting discussion on our Linkedin group this week so it’s a great time to join in the conversation. Our group, Best Practice Customer Service is the ideal place to share your social media customer service tips and get advice from social media professionals from a diverse range of industries.
As well as posting discussions, we keep the group updated with our latest blog posts and webinars. Do you have wisdom to share, or burning questions you’d love to explore? If you’re facing a major obstacle, maybe one of our members has the answer! Anyone is more than welcome to join the group here. We look forward to discussing tricks of the trade with you.
Follow us on Twitter here.
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