I try not to be one to jump on band wagons, which is why I’ve totally left the whole Google Buzz nonsense alone. That said, when I think there are other points to be made about situations involving companies, consumers and social media, if its a band wagon that’s rolling by then I’ll gladly step on, even momentarily. Such is the case with SouthWest Airlines, Kevin Smith and what we’ll have now forever refer the situation to as “FattyGate”

Does Size Really Matter?

Does the size of your Twitter following account for anything (1.6 million +)? How about the fact that you not only tweet, you blog and you even have a podcast? Add on top, you’ve acquired a cult following, write screenplays, produce and direct movies and even act in a few of those movies. Let me introduce you to Kevin Smith, the guy even owns a comic book store in Red Bank, New Jersey. I’ve been a huge fan ever since I found out he was the guy behind the movie Dogma – any guy that has the kahunas to cast George Carlin as a Catholic Cardinal and Alanis Morrisette as God, has one heck of a sense of humor in my book. I follow this guy on Twitter, read his blog and occasionally listen to his podcast. I do have to say though, I refrained from seeing Jersey Girl, too much Ben Affleck for me.

Now does the size of your Twitter following (who you actually converse with), number of fans on Facebook, and comments on your blog posts account for much? How about the reposting of your videos, and links to stories about your great customer service encounters, and ranking #1 in the airline industry for a slew of ‘good things’? Let me introduce you to SouthWest Airlines. I’m a huge fan of them too, ever since the weekend my father died and how well they treated me, SouthWest Airlines won me over.

I state all this in this manner to show a few points:

1. I like both of the parties involved
2. Both parties involved are extremely social media savvy
3. Both parties involved have very avid, emotionally attached fans.

This Isn’t About Kevin Smith Being Fat …. Or Is It?

Lets face it, we all know, heck even Kevin Smith knows, he’s no 136 lbs. Michael Jackson skinny.   That’s really not the point here, and Kevin even points it out in his blog, that it isn’t about him being over weight. This is more about being consistent and truthful with your policies. Here Kevin Smith has a point.

He also has a point about how all of this was handled. If your policy states the arm rests come down, you don’t impinge on other people’s space and you aren’t in need of a seat belt extender, then, why pull the “people of size” policy card?  Whether he originally purchased two seats or not, doesn’t matter at this point if you were claiming he is being pulled from the flight because of his size and but yet he’s passed all your ‘tests’ that he’s not in violation of that policy.

What would have been a little bit more wise on SouthWest’s part was to not put him on that flight because he had originally purchased the two seats, and they wanted to accommodate those two seats again.  Kevin claims to buy the two seats so he can avoid talking to strangers, not for weight reasons.  I’m sure SouthWest would have wanted to accommodate that wish because of who he is and understanding that maybe he just wants to be left alone at times, had they really thought this through.

What “FattyGate” Really Exposes…. SouthWest Airline’s Inconsistencies

What’s at the real root of the issue here is not the two blog posts blaming Kevin Smith for the incident (sorry SouthWest, but that’s how it comes off), but what they were admitting they were wrong with, the “person of size policy” and how it was handled.  Immediately after Kevin Smith started tweeting and posting his picture that he got on the next flight and wasn’t thrown off because he was fat, his fans, and other SouthWest passengers who’d heard about the situation started posting other pictures.  These were pictures that were showing passengers that looked twice the size of Kevin Smith, without the “two seat” rule and SouthWest not enforcing the policy.  Inconsistencies can be a real problem for anyone in social media, and now SouthWest knows that from experience.

Admitting Fault is Good Public Relations, Asking For Help is Golden

When you admit you are wrong, truly wrong, people are willing to forgive you.  When you ask for help in trying to correct what is wrong, people are even more willing to assist you.  When you admit your wrong, but yet say in a very round about way,  “we’re sorry, but it’s really your fault because you are fat“, by posting your policy at the bottom of the post that’s suppose to be an apology, that really isn’t a good way of winning over those people who you want forgiveness & help from.

Why SouthWest just doesn’t say, “you know what Kevin, you are right, we’re not consistent with our policies, this was our mistake we’d like your help to fix it,” is totally beyond me.  The guy has likely bought hundreds of tickets by now on the airline – anyone could see that in their system (i.e. he was a loyal customer).  They guy has a following.  They guy knows how to use social media.  Why not recognize this and work with it?  If anything, SouthWest has consistently been social media savvy, not stupid, so this really makes me wonder who’s steering the boat over there?

Hiding your inconsistencies by trying to push blame elsewhere isn’t wise in social media.  Any form of denial only brings a much larger magnifying glass into every thing else you are doing wrong and makes you the media’s next punching bag.   It will even get you on the front page of CNN for all the wrong reasons.

Situations like these have to be seen as opportunities, especially if you are in or planning to be in social media, other wise they’ll eat you alive.  Solving problems like these with the help of your audience or those who feel wronged, makes evangelists, rather than enemies… which would you rather have?

*Airline Passenger Photo Credit:  ButtonMonkey

A Candid Interview with Pauline Ores, Social Media Strategy, Principal Analyst, IBM Market Insights (Part 3)

With challenges, lessons learned, and strong social engagement experience under her cap, Pauline Ores shares with us the future of social media including issues, truths and where to place social media focus when it comes to business objectives.

1. Where are you heading with social media? 

Speed of adoption attests to quantity and breadth of social media value. Most people would agree by comparison, the value social media as a modified push marketing tactic is negligible. That said, as desktop publishing transformed the field of graphic arts, I have no doubt social media will transform the field of marketing― even if firms elect not to participate.  More and more consumers expect, if not demand, companies pay attention and stay in sync―in terms of product development, customer service, business strategies and models and more.

Personally, the is the aspect I find most interesting are the new interactions social tools and services enable―so in some ways, I’m less focused on social media then most. An unusual pursuit perhaps, but well supported here, as IBM has a long history of exploring problems from a variety of perspectives. At the same time I would never want to give up working with colleagues on the execution of near-term social media tactics and research, as that helps ensure longer-term plans add value.

2. There is a lot of wrestling between PR firms, digital agencies, and the new “social media” agencies about which of these firms are more equipped to offer strategy, research and execution services.  In your opinion, who should do what?  From the client side perspective, which pieces belong where?

Like any other engagement, the key is who, not which―it’s about who you will be working with at these firms vs. the types of firms. 

In terms of execution, my personal preference would always be to work with a team that has actual community building experience, a team that can point to a community or social platform they built―demonstrating they truly understand what it takes to people to join and actively participate. Too many people assume if their vendor understands social applications and platforms, and have personal experience using it themselves, i.e. their own blog, they have what it takes to build a community, which is not necessarily the case.

For strategy, I would lean towards the team that can deliver a social media strategy centered on business vs. social media activities. One that would articulate how an investment in social engagement program furthers the overall business strategy, delivers on the brand promise and helps the business evolve. This suggests a consultative-focused engagement, so their ability to closely collaborate with their clients would be another important factor.

3. What are some of the biggest issues in social media today?

What we might define as issues today stems from social media marketing’s need for a variety of supporting elements evolve―marketing, funding, business processes, resources, internal skills, etc.  Social engagement programs have different requirements but are of course, executed in an environment almost exclusively optimized for traditional marketing. For example, it is not uncommon for marketing programs to have a defined beginning and end, and be funded quarter-by-quarter whereas, in some instances you’d have social engagement programs that, ideally, never end.

In terms of execution, investment for new social media programs involves shifting funds from marketing activities that can demonstrate ROI, on the assumption the new social media program will provide more value, however social media rarely provides comparable measurements. We’re all faced with a similar challenge – measure marketing ROI and the unique value only social engagement programs can provide, with few if any social media measurement applications and standards.

In B2B arena prospects, clients and partners see great value in engaging employees, so locating subject matter experts and growing internal involvement can quickly become a bottleneck―not insurmountable, but again, specialized processes and applications would help.

Longer term, to be truly effective, as large scale social media programs are rarely contained in single department, we’ll need scalable systems capable of coordinating activity across different roles, departments, and divisions.  This system will need to manage the massive amount of ‘outside-in’ dialog, route this to the right teams, and help track value of both the internal and external contributions. Challenging, yes, but not impossible.

Taking a ‘helicopter’ view, this is the same lag in development we’ve seen time and time before.  As social media marketing teams discover and clarify their requirements, it is inevitable that marketing teams, agencies, and developers will spring up to address them, just as they did for search and web marketing. New organizations like the Social Media Advertising Consortium, SMAC.org, are working with clients, vendors, and agencies on common vocabulary, practices and metrics.

Thank you Pauline!
Pauline, it was great to be able to spend time with you and get a peek into how IBM is leading B2B companies with their enterprise social media development! No doubt we’ve all learned how it is possible for large companies to successfully implement social media in an effort to connect employees to each other and employees to customers. Thank you.

A Candid Interview with Pauline Ores, Social Media Strategy, Principal Analyst, IBM Market Insights (Part 2)

Pauline shared with us yesterday how IBM is strategically and tactically addressing social media. Today we’ll learn from Pauline why:

• Larger companies might just have an easier time implementing social media;
• Being a talented traffic controller is important;
• Basic training isn’t enough to ensure success; and
• A market researcher can help you take the garbage out.

1. How difficult is it for a company the size of IBM to implement enterprise social media development?

We are a very large firm with nearly 400,000 employees worldwide, but the advantage of a social approach is that size becomes an asset rather than an obstacle―as more members join and help develop the program, we get a more and more valuable contributions. The more teams join the easier it is for our enablement teams to understand how to best support, mentor, and guide their programs.  Having played such a large role in defining the program participants don’t need to be sold and furthermore, help spread the word.  So contrary to what you might expect, getting many different teams to collaborate speeds up the process.

2. What are some of the key challenges?

For us, beyond delivering actionable insights we have to ensure research results flow to all the right teams.  Obviously we share the resulting insights with teams that commission the research but there is potentially even more value to be gained by sharing these same insights with other departments. So our next challenge is to develop communication channels and connections to ensure we inform a variety of roles and teams, which as you can imagine could easily become a major air traffic control issue.  Ideally we can also track the impact these insights help deliver, demonstrating the value of our social media research and execution investments.

Social media has much more to do with who you are, as individual or a company, than what you do― it makes the boundaries around firms translucent if not transparent. IBM has a strong values-based culture and is committed to its clients―so for us, social media tools enable our teams to respond more quickly.  If your firm doesn’t have clarity in terms of brand values and/or doesn’t encourage staff to put customers first, I would suggest social media should be the last, not the first, step of a much longer process.

3. What advice can you give on internal skills development for social media?

Invest in and adopt social media and collaboration tools internally―they enable employees to quickly provide the much larger and more detailed responses external social media interactions often demand, as well as provide an internal sandbox where, assuming they’re new to these tools, they can learn and practice.

Realize that a few quick ‘101’ application tutorials, how to use Twitter, isn’t enough, as it’s not the tools that make it happen, it is what some refer to as ‘social engineering’ or community building practices. Having even a few resources with community building and engagement skills will ensure you have a program that delivers value for both internal and external participants―which again is key to success.

If you don’t have that expertise in-house seek outside help, but make sure any agencies or consultants can walk the walk and provide references of pointing to communities they built vs. pages, sites or applications. I can’t stress strongly enough how critical community building and engagement skills are to success. Locate the resources you have or hire in, then have those people mentor others to grow your corporate skill set.

4. How mature is the market when it comes to research tools (often called “buzz monitoring” or “listening” tools)?  What is the sophistication level of what is out there?

Not sure if you are referring to sophistication of the tools, processes or clients, but all three are evolving.  For clients, I think it’s important to realize social media research tools today are market research tools, and having market research professionals involved in the process provides value. Secondly, clients should realize the tools themselves are not a panacea, it’s very much GIGO― ‘garbage in, garbage out’―process, great results require a lot of upfront work and planning, which again is something a trained market research professional can provide.  IBM’s best-of-breed Market Insights team played a large role in increasing the value we get from these research tools.

Social Media are just tools, right? Wrong. Pauline shares why tomorrow.

In tomorrow’s final post Pauline will share with us why companies need to stay in sync, why social media is more than tools, and why the ‘who’ is more important than the what. HINT: Not all agencies are created equal.

A Candid Interview with Pauline Ores, Social Media Strategy, Principal Analyst, IBM Market Insights

Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting with Pauline Ores, Social Media Strategy, Principal Analyst, IBM Market Insights, where we discussed her role at IBM and where IBM is heading with their social media endeavors.

In this three-part series, Pauline will discuss the social insights practice, strategies and tactics, insights and lessons learned, how their employees are the core of social media, and the future of social media.

1. What is your role at IBM?

I’m focused on what IBM can do to accelerate and amplify the growing number of IBM employee-led social engagement programs, ensuring they benefit all participants, inside and outside the firm.

On a day-to-day basis I’m involved in two related but different activities. Tactically we’re defining how social media research should be used to inform measure and in some cases coordinate cross-IBM social engagement. We also consult with marketing teams helping them integrate social engagement approaches into their larger marketing activities―which isn’t to say we have all the answers, often it’s a matter of introducing teams who then help each other.  Strategically, I am focused on understanding how social media will transform the field and practice of marketing and communications.

2. Why is social media important at IBM?

Our strategy is to lead in the market with our employees―put our employees first as the ambassadors of our brand. Our role in marketing and communications has shifted from being the channel of communications to better enabling our employees to be the face of the company.

As you know, IBM has been researching and developing technology and solutions in the social computing space for decades―ranging from advanced text-analysis of unstructured content to collaboration software. The earliest adopters of social media were IT programmers, and in many ways they defined many of the basic tenets of today’s ‘Internet culture,’ and so we’re fortunate as it is an integral aspect of how we work with each other, as well as with clients and prospects.

3. What approach have you taken to enterprise social media development at IBM?

Personally, I’m a big believer in the ‘near and far’ approach―iterate quickly as a means of arriving at a working solution and, at the same time, reflect on how to best define the problem. Having been involved in the launch of several new fields, I’ve learned problem definition and scope, a ‘meta’ consideration that is all too often assumed, has an enormous impact on outcome.

Say for example, you set out to produce Wikipedia’s three million plus English articles―and by default, you rely on the same hierarchal, linear process used to produce print encyclopedias. In retrospect, it seems obvious this process won’t scale, but if Wikipedia didn’t exist, an unreflective ‘execution-driven’ approach would have started down that path, presumably cutting off any thought of such a large, living resource. My point here is that Wikipedia’s open and highly collaborative methods of production are an integral element of what it achieved.

Thinking about the best approach for an enterprise social media research and enablement program, we realized anything other than a social approach would quickly hamper development. We settled on a federated model, one where teams would retain control of their own funds yet benefit as a member of an enterprise-wide program.  The result: more teams than we imagined wanted to participate, which in turn has accelerated the program’s value in terms of research, collaboration and peer-to-peer education.

So, how did IBM implement social media across the enterprise?

Be sure to stop back tomorrow for part two of this interview series to find out! Pauline will share how IBM has addressed and implemented their enterprise social media development approach. HINT: Larger is sometimes better!