Marriott and the impact of social media: the conclusion
Marriott gave me a great opening to a speech on social media and a lesson in how anyone can create content, distribute that content and influence a brand conversation. Above the first four slides of a talk I gave at Sears.
If you’ve been here this week you know the story of my dripping hotel room ceiling and my frustration with Marriott’s initial response. But I’m pleased to report the story has a happy ending for all involved.
For starters, the ordeal gave me a brilliant opening to a speech I was making to Sears HC the next day. Perfect timing for a talk titled “The End of Us and Them,” and the thesis that media is now in the hands of two billion amateurs rather than a select group of privileged professionals.
I opened with a photo of the ceiling, thanked Sears for putting me up there, and then proceeded to reveal the early morning Tweet stream along with a video I’d shot and edited on my iPhone that morning calling out Marriott. (Truth be told I didn’t actually post the video on Youtube, but faked it in my presentation to make the point.)
Needless to say it got a great reaction and emphasized that in an age of social media, when consumers control both content and distribution, all brands need to learn a different set of rules and behaviors.
Anyway, the rest of the story worked out well on a number of accounts, too. When offered free nights and points by the Marriott (nice of them) I told them, “no thanks,” and instead requested a public apology on Twitter and a comment on this blog. The point wasn’t to embarrass anyone but simply to get the hotel to admit its mistake, acknowledge my frustration, and turn the entire mishap into a conversation from which people could learn.
It appears to have worked. The comment stream on the last post is a rich one. It questions whether one’s social footprint influences the response that they get from a brand. It reveals disappointments with service in general. It earns Marriott credit for engaging. And, perhaps most importantly, it shows that a blog post that exercises a little restraint, replacing the venom-filled rant with some productive advice, gets a slightly better reaction that one that simply vents.
Furthermore, the hotel actually suggests that there’s room for improvement in both customer service and employee responsiveness. We may even see a guest bill of rights.
Lance Misner, the manager of the Marriott Hoffman Estates, has become a reader of this blog, a Twitter user, and maybe even a convert to social media’s potential for learning, engaging and marketing.
Here, in fact, is what he’s had to say in response to my last post and his own exposure to the story playing out in the social space.
“Let me say first of all that I do not know anything about Twitter so if I sound ignorant I am. I signed up myself in order to publicly apologize. I hope that worked.”
“There are some incredible things going on in the business world as it relates to social media. This has been a real wake up call, I need to embrace these concepts and find opportunities to further market our property. In fact I am looking forward to showing your blog at my staff meeting on Tuesday.”
“I would love to pick your brain as this old dog needs to learn a few new tricks. I hope your presentation went well at Sears and if you are home, or wherever you are tonight, I hope you are able to get some rest.”
I supposed I should add that Lance also threw in a bunch of points and an upgrade to the big suite next time I’m in town.
Lessons?
We should make our issues public.
It’s smarter to offer suggestions than criticism.
We should welcome any brand or individual who tries to learn and engage.
If we want brands to deliver better service, it’s partly our responsibility to guide them there and hold them to it.
This just in: Just as I was about to post this, I got an email and phone call from Marriott headquarters letting me know they plan to use this as a learning and training experience. Not sure if it would have generated that kind of response if it weren’t posted, blogged and tweeted about, but that turns out to be just one more reason that consumers should wield their new power and brands should heed it.
Finally I made it clear to Marriott that I hoped no one employee would be called out, but that it the entire incident be turned into something positive.
Your thoughts?
Four social media lessons from the New York Times
For years the doomsayers have predicted – and in some cases even rooted for – the demise of the New York Times. Print advertising revenues plummeted. Ownership of and overpayment for papers like the Boston Globe drained resources. Endless digital real estate diminished the value of every online property’s available ad space.
But the Times isn’t doing all that badly at the moment. For the first time in a long time total ad revenues stayed flat rather than falling. In fact in its most recent quarter, digital ad revenue jumped 21 percent. Operating profit doubled and an improved cash situation gives the paper more time to plot a strategy for real growth. Given that the recent good news comes in a miserable economy, I’m betting the venerable paper pulls it off.
If you look at the Times from another perspective – that of partnerships, social media behavior, and content – the company’s actually a shining example of how to hold onto core values and evolve at the same time.
Here are four things it’s done that serve as examples for any traditional company, including advertising agencies.
Get over the not invented here syndrome
For more than a couple of years now the Times has offered up content from a number of new sources that in earlier days would never have justified an appearance under the masthead. But there they are: ReadWriteWeb, GigaOm and other blogs’ content front and center on the Technology page. Stop there once a day and you practically have a centralized source of content. Granted it’s filtered by the Times, but there’s only so much filtering you want to do on your own anyway.
Lesson: There are plenty of great sources of content outside your walls and beyond that generated by your staff. Why not take advantage of it, whether it’s for your company blog, the blogs you maintain for clients, a YouTube channel, or any of the other places you need content?
Embrace change and new technology as fast as you can
OK, perhaps the Times hasn’t always been lightning speedy at this, but in the last couple of years they’ve done a pretty decent job. Case in point is their iPad app. Not only were they among the very first publications to have one, it was well thought out with a clean, simple interface and just the right amount of content for a pad. All the sharing you need is built in. And while its elegant lacquer-black type on the iPad’s white linen background presents the ideal screen experience, their standby iPhone app’s not bad either. I’ve read 5000 word magazine articles on the thing.
Lesson: Create utility. Make your brand available everywhere. Consider the context in which the user is engaging.
Be social in every way possible
I like how the Times does this, too. Times People is what every brand with customers or subscribers should do: introduce them to each other. It’s a benefit to users. It helps to spread content around. And it gives readers an added reason to come back and share what they find. The Times also does a pretty good job on Twitter. They’ve created their own lists of writers by category, and even gathered recommended lists of other writers and bloggers by categories that include technology, the arts, opinion and more. They don’t always engage as much as they should, but it’s still a valuable feed to keep you informed. Need someone interesting to follow? Go grab a new list.
Lesson: Take advantage of all the social tools and tactics. Market your employees and their content. Gather your company’s social presence and make it easily accessible to customers and prospects.
Great content wins out in the end
Want to know the reason that properties like the Times along with other content creators of note (including great creative advertising agencies) will always prevail? Quality content. Not only does the Times continue to deliver stuff you want to read, they’ve done a damn good job covering the very topic we’re talking about right here: digital technology and social media. Consider two great examples from the last week alone. One on whether Twitter encourages a distortion of who we really are. A second on whether the digital age diminishes originality and encourages plagiarism. Great stuff that will keep you thinking.
Lesson: Don’t abandon the core values that got you where you are. Just bring them to life in new places and apply them to relevant subjects.
What do you think? Is the Times doing it right? Can you replicate any of their practices? Will the “paper” survive?
A conversation about environment, culture, social media and donuts
Got a wonderful visit yesterday from Darryl Ohrt, the Prime Minister of Awesome for Humongo. The digital shop is doing a road tour. They’re visiting friends, generating content, and putting social media into action because, well, because they can. They’ve got a video camera to record stuff, Twitter to connect and promote, Vimeo to post their videos, and a blog from which to report. What else to you need?
Anyway, Darryl and I spent a few minutes talking environment, culture and social media – three of my favorite subjects. It’s been a year since Mullen has moved from the isolated woods of the North Shore to the heart of downtown Boston.
Answering his questions reminded me just how important any company’s physical environment is to fostering culture and innovation. Or in our case to inducing collisions. We want people, opinions, disciplines and ideas crashing into each other, hence our open floor plan and physical integration of disciplines. In an age when the creative team includes technology, UX and digital design and the output can be anything from an app to an eco-system, everyone has to work together in a space that encourages it.
At the same time, Darryl’s road tour — combining video, social, blogging and the mobilization of a community to spread the word, drive inbound links, and create new new connections — reminds us of another equally important point. And that is if you want to lay claim to anything remotely resembling knowledge of the new way to market, you have to get out there and actually do things.
You can follow along with Humongo Nation if you want. Check out the blog. Or watch the entire content from yesterday’s video featuring @stuartfoster, Kane’s Donuts (damn they’re good) and folks at New Balance. And as always, if you want to leave your own thoughts about culture, environment and how they work together to inspire people, go for it. Thanks for stopping by.
Instant, personal, social and creative on a horse
It was only a year ago that most ad agencies turned their noses up at the mere mention of Twitter. (The comments are gone now, but half of them were beyond harsh.) It was only a year ago that most social media agencies went around declaring that traditional ad agencies just didn’t get it. It was only a year ago that advertising creative teams would scream bloody murder if you expected them to generate creative within a couple of days, never mind hours or even minutes.
Well, things change quickly on the Internet.
Today, ad agencies are scrambling to catch up on what Twitter’s all about. Even some of the old guys are showing up.
The social media “gurus” are pulling their feet out of their collective mouths as ad agencies start to raise the SoMe content bar.
And those writer/art director teams that used to whine about shorter timetables? They’re disappearing as quickly as those tweets you saw in your morning stream.
And if they’re not, they will be after today as the Old Spice campaign running on Twitter and YouTube reminds us that everyone was wrong.
The ads that even the anti-advertising crowd loves have harnessed the speed of Twitter and YouTube and combined it with the personal interaction allowed by both to produce a bunch of new spots that speak directly to individuals, responding to their Twitter posts, comments on Reddit , and ramblings on YouTube itself.
If the videos were genuinely being produced in real time, they’re brilliant. And even the whole thing was preplanned, with incoming Tweets and scripts prepared in advance, well the illusion is great. (Hope I don’t sound like a cynic; I want to believe it’s the former.)
I haven’t contacted or spoken with anyone at Weiden and Kennedy, the agency behind the Old Spice idea, but clearly they have just gone out and done what is likely to be labeled one of the best examples of “the new integration.”
Ingredients: big, clever brand idea; social presence that realizes content is as important as the product it represents; opportunity for consumers to participate; responsive, real-time engagement (including faux pas and obvious glances at the script); and a built-in ability to share.
Of course having the formula doesn’t mean you can replicate it. That requires more than free platforms and a branded Twitter account and YouTube channel. It takes talent.
Congratulations to all for a very cool and amusing idea. F@&*. Wish we’d thought of something like this first.
Relate posts:
ReadWriteWeb on how the videos were produced.
AdWeek on Old Spice ruling the web.
Even the New York Daily News
You don’t need a gigantic network to create, experiment and succeed
I was excited today to make a small donation to The Bucket Brigade, a project that might actually end up a book; presuming Bud Caddell’s attempt at crowdfunding its publication raises enough money.
According to Bud’s Kickstarter pledge page, if he manages to solicit $5000 from his social media friends and followers, he’ll have enough cash to take time off to write and pay an editor to help him complete what he promises will be directions for how to profit in the “attention economy.”
It’s my guess that Bud will raise his money in no time. And I hope this post helps in some small way. Bud’s experiment – in his words he’s “trying to prove that there’s more value in our networks than we can even fathom” – is the epitome of what new social media platforms like Kickstarter and Kachingle or old ones like Twitter and Facebook allow us to do.
We live in an age when anyone can publish, broadcast, design a product or start a movement. The only thing stopping us is fear, inertia or lack of a network. If Bud raises his $5000.00 – in $25 and $100 increments – it will be one more reminder of how much power has shifted to the individual.
Bud has 5000 followers on Twitter. That’s a pretty good number, though a far cry from a Chris Brogan. He has a blog that gets between 4,000 and 12,000 visits a month. That’s influence, but it’s not Seth Godin. I point that out as a reminder that you don’t have to be Brogan, or Godin or Gary Vaynerchuk to make things happen.
Sheena Matheiken’s The Uniform Project raised over $100,000 to send kids in India to school. Its Facebook fan page has 7,400 “likes,” while it’s Twitter followers number just over 5,900.
Erik Proulx, with his blog and his supporters on Twitter, was able to produce Lemonade the movie and get started on Lemonade Detroit. Erik has a similar number of followers and blog readers to Bud.
When you get started in social media – one person among millions, with nothing more than a Twitter account and no clear set of instructions – it seems unlikely that you can actually accomplish all that much. But you can. If you follow the examples of Bud, Sheena and Erik – engage, give, share, create, experiment – you’ll be surprised at what you can do.
Got other really good examples of what individuals have done by gathering a community, building a network and trying something ambitious? Please share here. And as always,thanks for reading.
