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I just want to share with you one option that is now available on vkontakte.ru (which as you probably remember a Russian version of Facebook). And I'm also curious if you have it on Facebook. Vkontakte and OZON.ru (something like Amazon.com) are now doing a project which is called "List of wishes". This list will be published on a person's profile. On OZON.ru there will be a button "I want it". So you can choose any item you want and it will appear on you vkontakte page. So your friends can help you to buy this thing paying from 1 ruble up to the whole price. The process (how much money has already been collected) will also be reflected.  I think it's a great idea; at least it solves some problems with choosing a right present for your friends.  

Social Media Monitoring: Victoria's Secret

For the monitoring report I have chosen Victoria’s Secret company. I can’t say I’m its fan, but I really like the products it offers. So it was interesting for me to study what people say about this company and how it interacts with groundswell.

There’s no need to say that I have found a great amount of talks connected with VS. I’ve started by reading through blogs and found out that VS is not discussed there a lot. Mainly people share links to the clothes they like without commenting them. And upon the whole having studied the sites advised to us I didn’t find much information.

On socialmention.com I studied mentions of VS:

What concerns the tone of mentions it was quite surprising for me.

As you see the tone is mainly neutral. I really believed that VS has a great amount of fans. What surprised me, is that people don’t actually discuss the products of VS. Their favorite topic is VS Angels and fashion shows. At first I thought that it was weird and considered it to be a disadvantage of the company. But then I realized that VS created a great community and it is a great tool of talking to the audience. Like in the example with beinggirl.com, people can discuss any topics they want but they are anyway connected with VS. Both girls and guys admire VS models and looking at them, people like things they wear.

As you probably know VS talks to its customers mainly through Facebook. It has about 18 mil fans on Facebook. And there is great level on engagement going on there. Mainly comments are super positive.

But no matter how hard I tried to find answers to at least some these questions I failed. And in general I’ve got an idea that it is one way conversation. VS initiated the conversation but doesn’t always give a feedback. 

I think that VS Pink community is a great idea. It targets younger (teenage) audience by uniting it by “beauty” concept, as well as attracting audience by offering special discounts, coupons and other bonuses. The relationship between customers and a brand is deepened there. You may see it on Twitter, for ex., where VS is eager to answer its customers’ questions.

Through PINK Nation and its Facebook fan page, fans and followers can join in the discussion of why they love VS PINK products and which ones are their particular favorites. So PINK nation is a wonderful social media tool for listening and talking to the audience. But it mainly targets teenagers. Though the main audience of VS in general are women 18-25. For them I would suggest organizing conversations with the models. I think that will be a good way for energizing the audience. As well as providing voting for styles and other offers. As far as I noticed VS doesn't do anything to "embrace" its audience, to involve it into its world deeper. For example, it would be great to give girls an opportunity to create their own lingerie or swimwear and organize kind of a competition to encourage them to suggest their ideas about perfect outfit.     

Both Facebook and Twitter pages enable customers share what they like with their friends and thus expand the audience.

On Youtube one may watch all Fashion shows, shoots, interviews with VS models. There are a lot of videos where simple girls show their purchases among which VS is constantly mentioned. This is a good way to share shopping experience with the friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVAG9WyYKl0&feature=related

You may find some videos on Facebook VS which are very popular among girls.

Ch 9,10

Embracing customers and transforming organization: next steps for successful development.

Chapter 9 is mainly about tapping the customers to tell you what they want and thus to enable you to innovate better products.

• customers are eager to tell you what they want

• with customers being aware, you are able to make constant improvements and innovation happens more quickly

All the cases of the chapter perfectly illustrate all the benefits you can have from involving your customers into the process. And it doesn’t matter much what tools you use (community, reviews, etc. ), you make people feel that they are listened to, that they are being important; besides they get a better product or service, exactly the one they want, and they get it fast. That’s what makes a customer happy – to realize that he not only a source of your income but an apparent participant of some process. I loved the case about the bank, Credit Mutuel. “The bank you can talk to” – so what? And the bank found a wonderful solution: it touched people’s feelings and appealed to creativity, imagination, ambitions (the phrase “if I were a banker” for me sounds like a topic of school composition “If I were a millionaire”). So it made people excited and involved. And though some answer were like from a composition, some of them were useful. But it is important not only to set a task, but to reply to it and show that it can work.

Speaking about banks. Here are 8 reasons why they use groundswell:

1. To monitor potential clients before giving them loans
2. To search for debtors and defaulters
3. To quickly exchange information between the employees of the bank, to solve problems online, for training
4. To learn about current events going on in the bank
5. To search for employees and experts
6. To popularize the brand
7. To listen and talk to the clients (to find loyal customers, to ask their opinions and suggestions, etc.)
8. To use this knowledge for the bank’s benefit and benefit of its clients

Examples of banks using Twitter:

Bank of America - http://twitter.com/BofA_Help

Deutsche Bank  – http://twitter.com/Deutsche_News

BNP Paribas – http://twitter.com/BNPParibas_com

Societe Generale – http://twitter.com/CareersSocgen

ING DIRECT USA – http://twitter.com/INGdirect   

Citi – http://twitter.com/citi

Wachovia – http://twitter.com/wachovia

The next chapter speaks about how to transform company’s work with its customers. And we get a good idea that it’s not easy and fast. There are 3 elements of this process:

-          don’t rush, move slowly step by step, let people think over all the changes

-          have a plan and a clear vision of what you want for your organization

-          get executive support

And I really like how these steps are illustrated in Dove’s case. Everybody knows that changes are always hard. People are usually scared of changes, of taking risks. You never know how everything will turn out. In this case we see groundswell is already dictating its rules to the companies and that’s why risk is worth taking. But it will take time. If you want to succeed, first listen what people want and expect from you. Then your company, its employees and executives get used to the idea of changes. And you need to be honest and open with your customers. That’s what the case with Dell teaches us.

Week 3. Ch 7,8

In the chapters we get better understanding of commercial implications of the Internet. People sharing their opinions on products/companies greatly contribute to various businesses, save their money and make them move further. Word-of-mouth is a greatest tool which companies need to learn how to use, i.e. how to energize their customers. I loved the example of Ebags (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6-OmLq82eU: that’s pretty much the summary of chapter 7), and I was so energized by the authors of the book that I told my roommate about this website. It turned out that she is now thinking of buying a new suitcase since hers has recently cracked. So she went to the site, found the bag and ordered it.

As it is said in the book there are three main techniques to connect some brand’s enthusiasts:      

• tap into customer’s enthusiasm with ratings and reviews
• create a community
• participate in and energize online communities of the brand enthusiasts

Another technique which I can suggest is to make people have fun, and people will like you and talk about you. I've got this idea by watching this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd8KFUrPcS8

And speaking about emotions, I was impressed by Michelle and TJ’s story about the support which they received through social network. I think that kind of thing is very important. In our social network there often appear groups which call for help, for support to the families which need money for medicine or operations for their children, etc. And I see how many people join the groups. Unfortunately it‘s hard to estimate how many people do actually help and contribute money. Another question is, how many people trust such kind of appeals.

“Clearly, the groundswell is a fantastic support system”.

Another example of support systems is Dell support forum. It excites me that Jeff Stenski just helps people without even being paid for that. That is a wonderful proof of the whole idea of groundswell – connecting people; everything is about relations. A commercial side of it – it saves money. One answer given by Jeff “is all online and searchable. … That’s at least $1,000 that Jeff has saved Dell   with this one post alone”. Isn’t that incredible?

Getting people building something together is the best option, from my point of view. That always unites and makes people happy. “Using wikis is a common way for companies to harness the collaborative power of their employees”. Outsiders of a certain company can contribute to the wiki in various areas not covered by this company, and it adds value to the clients. They feel that they are important not only as customers who bring money but also as collaborators.  

Week 2

“Brands belong to customers not companies”

Understanding of this makes companies realize how important it is to know how to listen and talk to groundswell. Creating “listening machine” is not easy that why I love these chapters – they give precise and useful advice what do. In every marketing campaign the essential thing is to study your target audience first: what it is, what it wants, what you want to get from it etc. Having a goal and a plan will help you move in a right direction. Talking to the target market is even more complicated. And various examples show us that. I really love the example of George Wright, Blendtec and his videos, as well as P&G case. That is brilliant to create a site where your audience will be free to discuss embarrassing or frightening topics. The example of Mini campaign vividly shows how sales results depend on following online buzz and participating in it. It’s true that people are fed up with ads and don’t trust them much, and opinions of bloggers are more appreciated. So informal communication with the target audience is necessary (the example I have on my mind is corporate blogs of billionaires, or when our President and all officials published their incomes on their blogs). But you need to be careful and find out if your audience in ready for such kind of communication. Besides in Russian there still exists a problem of lack of the professionals who can assist you with your social marketing campaign.   

Reading 1

To start with, I really loved the book. Even for me, for a person who is far from social media, it was easy and interesting to read it. The notion of groundswell was absolutely new to me and I was really surprised how much it is used. I got two main ideas from the chapters which are

·         shifting power from institution to people

·         concentration on relations not technology

I think both these things are very important. Nowadays people are speaking about machines and technologies substituting real communication, feelings and emotions. Older generation says that very soon we will forget real life and will exist only in virtual reality. That’s what we often hear in Russia. So many movies and books touch upon this topic. That’s why this emphasis on relations is very important. After reading the chapters I realized that social media really connects and unites people. And the idea that once something got in the Internet it always stays there seems incredible to me. No matter what status the institution/person has and how much money he’s got he cannot get rid of undesirable information in the social network (the picture Barbara Streisand’s house is still there and I enjoyed it :)). Another thing that I loved in the chapters is practical advice given to businessmen and companies which can very useful. I have already written how much social network is popular in Russia, but unfortunately its importance and potential in work, in business, in PR, etc. is just beginning to be realized, and all the knowledge we have about social network is just starting to be applied.  

One aspect of groundswell interests me greatly. That is peer-to-peer lending services and social students’ loans. I have studies this topic a bit before. It excites me and I’m really sorry this doesn’t yet exist in Russia. For example http://www.greennote.com is a social lending site for student loans that appeals to people’s good graces more than their wish to make a huge return.  It helps arrange and manage student loans amongst a student’s friends and family. It aims to make it easier and less risky for a student to arrange education finance from the people that they already know. Besides it helps students to escape from an annoying procedure of getting all documentation; and it has a number of other very significant advantages. And in general the idea of Peer-to-Peer lending which is a sort of financial transaction (primarily lending & borrowing, though other more complicated transactions can be facilitated) which occurs directly between individuals without the participation of a traditional financial institution, seems fascinating to me, mainly because it is based on people’s desire to help e.o. and on people’s trust to e.o. Besides technical, financial and time benefits, it may help people find friends and simply good people all around the world. Besides Prosper, which is mentioned in the chapter, there are various web sites, such as Zopa, Lending Club, Fynanz, Qifang, www.kiva.org, which target different audience in different countries.

Another idea which I got while reading the chapters is connected with my work. Students create blogs and start topics on SNS devoted to their courses and professors where they can freely tell their opinions about their classes, schools, teachers, etc. As a tutor I now don’t have to ask them about it and be afraid of dishonest answer, or distribute evaluation lists, which takes more time. I just go on Facebook and find out what my students think about me and my lessons and as a result make my classes more interesting and productive. There is only one problem here. Not all the students see a boundary between useful and productive criticism and too personal and offensive statements. That may lead to certain conflicts.

One more way to use groundswell in our profession is connected mainly with forums, but also with blogs and some SNS. Professors of Linguistics in Russian universities when writing their thesis very often deal with various concepts (for example, “American rock star”, or “Eccentric”). They need to study these concepts from different points of view beginning from definitions in dictionaries, and ending by research how people (better natives) perceive these concepts (the dictionary may give one definition, while people of different cultures understand that differently). So what our professors do, they start searching for the information in existing forums and create their own forums and blogs.