Binary Perspectives and Media Bytes – Jacobv.com
India on Social
Any relatively smaller brand seeking brand recognition, in one of the largest emerging economies, can learn from Finnair. At the time of writing this post, the video of a Bollywood dance performance from the Finnair cabin crew is at more than 4 million hits.
You can color me skeptical on the implied cabin crew grassroot initiative. Nonetheless, this video now viral on social media, has probably earned Finnair more publicity and goodwill in India, than any billion dollar commercial ever could.
With Facebook touting India as one of their largest markets in the near future, there are obvious benefits to hitching on to the Indian social media marketing bandwagon. However, it is not clear that businesses in India are ready (like many businesses elsewhere).
Most social media efforts I noticed, during my recent visit to India, were heavily influenced by traditional outbound marketing methods, rather than relationship building strategies.
Companies seem to be using social media as uni-directional promotional tools with little thought to other opportunities. An example was my experience with cleartrip.com and Jet Airways.
Social vs. ‘Policy’
I admit, it wasn’t my shining moment when I booked a round trip from Chennai to Mumbai, instead of the other way around. However, I did phone cleartrip.com within 10 minutes of the erroneous booking.
Rather than rectifying the issue, I was told that the only way around the problem was to cancel. I had to pay a penalty too – half the fare of the round-trip!
Reason? Airline (Jet Airways) ‘policy’! The ‘policy manual’ was apparently, pretty much carved in reinforced concrete.
My tweet pleas to @cleartrip and @jetairways were met with similar responses. On the forums too, cleartrip.com staff were clearly playing by the dreaded ‘policy manual’. Emails to Jet airways were apparently forwarded to the ‘concerned’ department (thanks Web Manager, Mr Chandra Swamy, a glimmer of hope…you deserve a raise).
Ultimately someone, somewhere, decided to play fair. My protests across these channels seemed to have the desired effect. I received a refund (minus nominal penalties) from cleartrip.com, after about 3 days. The cleartrip.com team deserved praise (duly tweeted) for finally tearing down that ‘policy’ wall.
However, the damage was done. Multiple opportunities to retain my business, by phone and via social media, were squandered. I re-booked my trip via makemytrip.com, careful to avoid Jet Airways.
Social media marketing bubble
There is no rule that prohibits a twitter team from assisting a customer. If anything, the real-time benefits of social media allow departments to work together and react quicker to customer service and brand perception issues. A pass the buck to the other department game is dangerous when negative sentiment in a tweet, video, facebook update or blog post can go as viral as any Bollywood dance performance.
Social in a marketing only bubble is pretty much doomed. The speed and transparency inherent in social media has made it ever more important for interdepartmental cooperation. This fact is still lost on many businesses.
Businesses have to be able to look beyond the ‘Like my page and do my contest’ approach to social media. There seems to be room for leadership, and rewards, for those who can turn things around.
Anyways, my opinions have probably been biased by my singular negative experience. Any examples of Indian businesses that are using social media effectively, across multiple customer touch points?
The Birds! Failwhale version
Before Angry Birds and Twitter there was Alfred Hitchcock’s classic ‘The Birds‘. Perhaps, newer generations will learn of these films only via passing references like this one. In any case, I’ve now completed the third installment of my Halloween, Hollywood inspired content series.
p.s: It’s all fun and games until a whale gets hurt. Do we really need whaling these days?
You may republish the above parodic art-work (at your own risk) online as long as you link back to this post.
Influence Peddling Down The Rabbit Hole
This post started out as a comment on Aaron Biebert’s post, grew some and ended up on this blog.
To Aaron et al.,
I am curious about a few things. Perhaps you and/or others, can clear it up for me.
Klout right now:
1) Klout’s Twitter centricity.
I know Klout now connects to other social networks but Twitter still seems to be the primary mover of Klout scores.
Have you tried ignoring twitter for 4-5 days and totally rocking it on Facebook? I suspect your Klout score will drop (as it did in my tests). Maybe Klout does not have access to Facebook’s walled garden.
I could be wrong though, so would like to hear from others; Anyone with a high Klout score who is NOT active (maybe tweeting a cpl of times a week) on Twitter?
2) Current social media trends
If #1 is true then your hypothesis would lose some steam.
Unless
- Twitter is considered the most important social network
- Everyone who is influential is expected to have an active twitter account
But really, even in the US what exactly is the %age of active twitter users among internet users? 13%?
3) Evolutionary trends in social media and technology
- New, emerging and/or competing social media networks could undermine or even grow more popular than twitter (e.g: Google +).
- Will they open up to Klout? To what extent? e.g: Will the influence metrics within a private FB ‘group’ or G+ ‘circle’, like a high school or health-issue related community, be measured?
- What about paradigm shifts in computing? More on this below.
4) Can there really be a single Standard of Influence?
Regardless of the above points, how do you reduce a concept like influence, which is inherently relative, to a couple of numbers? Data and analytics, currently measured by Klout are inadequate.
e.g.: I am more familiar with Mark Schaefer than with you. If @biebert has a Klout of 90 and if @markwschaefer has a klout of 75 , even if for the same subject (social media). And both of you gave a call to action on the same topic, I am more likely to respond to Mark’s call than yours.
I guess data and analytics at the micro level, a person-person influence meter rather than an absolute number, would be the way of the future. The current self-proclaimed ‘Standard’ of Influence is far from that and thus, imho, fatally flawed. Even misleading, if taken at what it proclaims to be.
I suppose, we could consider that Klout will be in beta mode for a while, while these things are figured out. You are after all, really talking about the future, Web 3.0
The Klout to come
5) Will you be out-klouted soon?
You already prefer to respond, to the Klout endowed over the poorly Klouted. You have derived conclusions about the growth of Klout from this behavioral shift.
If the growth of Klout (or similar) is inevitable (as you say), so then is the fact that organizations with sufficient resources will soon have higher Klout numbers than a blogger like @biebert or @markwschaefer. After all, most entities will have to make sure that adequate resources are allocated towards boosting Klout numbers. Data can be gamed.
Where will this rabbit hole lead to? Back to square one; systems of ‘influence’ as it was before the ‘Trust agent‘? Where those with resources, again, become the most influential?
Will ‘Trust agents’ face a choice between obscurity and selling out to highest bidders? Will influence metrics then end the social media revolution?
6) Deeper down the rabbit hole
Right now, there is great global uncertainty in political, economic and social systems. Aren’t all your assumptions on the future of influence metrics like Klout, made on the basis that these established systems remain mostly unchanged?.
What if coming changes force us NOT to rebuild the older pattern of ‘influence’. It did not work that well the last time. There is enough pain all around.
Seems like very shaky ground to build a case for an unsubstantiated and fuzzy metric like Klout.
What if Klout (and similar) is the disrupted instead of the disruptee (like you make it out to be)? What if cognitive computing changes the way online information is created and accessed?
Too many loose ends
The current validity of these influence metrics are ill defined. Their future utility is mired in the uncertainty of innumerable variables. Can you be sure, without any doubt whatsoever, that Klout should and will matter as much as you say?
If you’re not that sure, should we let it matter, right now?
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