CDPR108 Week 11 - Ford Figo Ads

Ford’s Social Media Crisis

Last week I was watching the news and saw a story about some Ford ads that had gone viral. While at first glance the ads sort of made me chuckle, Ford certainly did not have the same reaction! The ads were never part of an official campaign for Ford, but were posted on the internet for the world to see. These ads are for the Ford Figo - which is sold in India.

It has been reported that a team of employees from JWT India, which is the agency working with Ford Figo, created the ads and posted them on the website “Ads of the World” … without approval from Ford. Of course one of the biggest problems for Ford is while they did not approve of the ads and had seemingly no control over the publication of these ads, the ads reflect poorly on Ford. While the advertising agency has been talked about in some media reports, it is not one that is widely known therefore the big news will talk about Ford and not about JWT.  

There were three ads that were published – mock ads – One shows Berlusconi making the peace sign as he drives away with three women in the trunk with the tagline: “Leave your worries behind with Figo’s extra-large boot.” Another ad shows Paris Hilton winking as she drives away with the Kardashian sisters tied up and gagged in the trunk – all wearing next to nothing. The third ad shows Formula 1 race car driver Michael Schumacher driving with F1 champions Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton tied up and gagged in the trunk.

With the publication of these ads, Ford and JWT are being accused of endorsing rape culture and supporting the corrupt lifestyle of Berlusconi. (Of course what is making more news would be that Ford has endorsed these things). Bad timing for Ford in India as well as a new anti-rape was just passed in India after much public outcry.

Ford needs to immediately take action. Three ways to show our customers, most importantly those in India, that we are taking their concerns seriously are as follows:

1.  Fire the employees who created the ads. This immediate and harsh action shows that we are not taking this lightly and that we do not agree at all with the depictions in these ads. We cannot support these ads in any way and if we do not immediately remove those responsible, we will face even more criticism. This needs to be made public on all social avenues – our website, in the news, on Facebook and Twitter. This needs to be seen everywhere as our first action.
2. Our next step needs to apologize publicly (this could be done at the same time as step number 1… explaining that we apologize for the incident and are taking immediate action)
3.  I think that Ford could then create a social campaign that shows everything we have done in the past to support women’s rights and perhaps other celebrities that we have endorsed. This would show that Ford does not condone what was portrayed in the ads and that the ad company did not understand our business at all. Our customers need to understand that Ford did not produce or approve the ads that were publicized.
4.  Ford should review their policies when it comes to outside advertising agencies working with the company. I think it would be beneficial to make those available on our website, on Facebook and on Twitter. Ford needs to take this time to become very transparent and gain the trust of the customers who have been offended by these ads.

I think with any crisis an apology can go a long way. At the same time, I think the company needs to rely on its previous record to prove itself. What I mean by that is that a company that hasn’t had such a crisis before, or perhaps has not really had bad press or bad reviews (in terms of a crisis situation) can more easily convince customers that their concerns have been taken seriously. If a crisis occurs over and over again with the same company, this company is going to find it hard to regain the trust of its customers – no matter how creative they are with their social media campaign!

With this particular crisis, I think Ford may have been lucky that while these ads were offensive and distasteful, not everyone takes that personally and not everyone thinks badly of Ford because of them. As I said earlier…and if you look at the ads yourself you might agree… I couldn’t help but laugh! The ads are cartoon depictions and really aren’t out of line with North American humour. While it would seem that Italy and India are none to pleased, there are those that say “any press is good press!”

See the ads here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I8nreeE2FE   |  http://sgrallying.blogspot.ca/2013/03/creators-of-ford-figo-ads-fired.html

CDPR108 - Week 10 - Social Media Measurement

I am now 5 months into my PR career and I am fully engulfed in our social media plan. Now that we have everything getting off the ground we are really looking at measuring the success of this social media plan and are using Facebook Insights and Google Analytics. I didn't realize there were so many free (and paid) measurement tools available other than these two options! I guess I just never really looked. I have heard of Radian6 before and had read through some of their articles and such while in my previous job.

One tool I have started using, mostly for convenience-sake, is TweetDeck. This monitoring tool has been very helpful to me because our store operates as a skating store and now a dance store, so we actually have a skating Twitter and a dance Twitter. TweetDeck has been very easy to operate and very helpful when I am the only person managing these two accounts. First of all, I don't have to sign in and out of 2 different Twitter accounts (3 if I include my own personal account); second of all I can monitor and browse through the feeds of all accounts at the same time. With TweetDeck you can also use scheduled tweets which may be useful for certain organizations or for certain information that you need to tweet at a certain time - although I have read many articles about these scheduled tweets that suggest you don't use them as you lose authenticity.

Minilytics by PageLever is something I just came across while doing this assignment. PageLever can provide you with detailed analytics for your Facebook page, but Minilytics is the free version and tells you things like: when the best time to post is; what times of posts generate the most engagement and more!

PageLever can do a lot for you depending on what you are looking for (and what you are willing to pay!). You could get analytics and other reports regarding your Facebook page and Twitter account, or you could get something more in-depth which would use these analyses to create posts and publish tweets.

Brandify is another free tool I have come across which I am going to suggest to my boss and see if we can try it out! This tool, as it states on their website, works as a report card and quickly gives you a feel of your presence online. It provides you a score, like a credit score, and then provides recommendations on how to improve your score - in turn really improve your online presence. With this tool, I kept looking on their website for the paid version... but it really is a FREE tool!

One free tool that I have found quite intriguing and slightly different is SiteTrail (www.sitetrail.com). This one is particularly interesting because you can not only analyze your own website, but you can analyse other websites as well. What does this mean for you? You can see how your top competitors stack up! You can see how many people are visiting the site, the top keywords, the top links to that site, and more!

With these four options, I think a company or organization has the opportunity to understand their own web presence, help promote it, and understand the competitors. Each of these tools could be used differently depending on the company or organization using them, but I think they could each be used no matter what!

I work for a retail business, so part of our business is done online. The SiteTrail tool will prove very helpful for us so that we can understand the other websites that are attracting customers who prefer to shop online. I'm looking forward to using each of these tools!
   

CDPR108 - Week 9 - Action, Attitude and Attention

There are many things that aid the success of a social web program but one of the most important is being able to measure your efforts. The 3 A's - Action, Attitude and Attention - are great tools for measuring social web activity.

The concept of "Action" are items that require your audience to take action. Taking action on social media is a different concept than you might think. Liking something on Facebook or re-tweeting on Twitter would be considered taking action. The business has posted something that allows you to take action and include your thoughts or ideas. Most social media tools work best when audiences take action - for example a discussion, or a poll. All of these things can then be measured which will then let you know if your social media strategies are successful. Of course the success of these actions would be determined by the business objectives that were laid out. 

The concept of "Attitude" when it comes to a social web program would be the perception that your audience/consumers have of your business/brand/identity. Through a social media program a company/business can easily measure their audience's attitude through the discussions on social media. This would include comments on Facebook posts; mentions on Twitter. While every company wants a positive attitude, the company needs to have a larger goal in mind when it comes to the concept of "Attitude." If the company has had a lot of negativity in the past, perhaps the business objective is to better respond to this negativity through social media platforms. Or perhaps there has been no known attitude toward the business, so having an understanding - whether positive or negative - could be the goal. We have learned that it is not always important to just have positive comments on social media platforms. It is important to have some negative feedback or negative perceptions and then properly respond to these in a public forum. This shows transparency and integrity. 

The concept of "Attention" can be easily measured these days and of course a business always wants a LOT of attention. The goal would be to see large numbers of people visiting your website, liking your Facebook page, following you on Twitter, responding to you on blog posts, etc. Perhaps your business/company had a goal of more Facebook followers, or more visits to your website. When it comes to attention, it is important to have a specific goal in mind. In order to measure the attention, you need to know where you started so you can measure where you are headed. 

As with any business plan, you need to know where you are starting from and where you plan to end up in order to measure the success of your social media plan through action, attitude and attention. 

CDPR108 - Week 6

I have decided to use my blog as a forum for me to brainstorm my thoughts for the essay in this week's assignment. We have been writing a lot in this course, but not in an essay format. I have also been tweeting a lot for work - so my train of thought is more in blogger/twitter language and not in "essay mode" - aka not in proper writing!

This week's essay topic:  How best can a PR practitioner charged with the community manager role serve both the needs of the online community and the requirements of his or her organization to meet business objectives?

I want to not only write this essay, but really understand this topic because this is what I am charged with in my job! (Gotta love when your work and school come together).

I think it is important to first lay out and understand the business objectives - without this base, the community manager has nothing to go by - no goals. With these objectives, the community manager needs to take a hands-on approach and really get involved with the community. The business objectives should be like the voice in the back of their head.

With business objectives in mind, the community manager needs to take a different approach than the rest of the company. Not completely different in the goals and the purpose of their approach, but in the way that they communicate. Of course this changes depending on the company's audience -but blogging, tweeting and communicating on Facebook should look a lot different than communicating within a business meeting or with the journalists of the world.

It is very important to keep in mind the time that relationship-building can take. The focus cannot be on making a sale or meeting the business objectives in a short time frame. The focus needs to be building a long lasting friendship with the community. This takes many conversations and much time!

If community managers take the time to build the relationships with the community - this will in turn serve the business objectives of the company. Making yourself a friend of each and every member of your audience.


Ok - I think I have brainstormed where I am going to go with this essay! Time to get to writing. (formally).

CDPR108 - Week 4

While I thought I would use this blog for more than just my PR class...this doesn't yet seem to be the case! So, on that note... here is the assignment for week 4.

As we learned this week, the content strategy is summarized as the analysis, assessment, creation and publication of content on social and web platforms. More and more I am realizing how important a content strategy is. Also... I am realizing that the explanation of a content strategy can become complicated.




 This first diagram is a relatively simple diagram. I like this one because of its simplicity. I think all three parts of this diagram relate to the "intent." What this diagram doesn't include is the distribution method. There is no discussion about what social/web platforms will be used. I also think the word "goal" should be used in the diagram.

This second diagram is similar in design as the first image, however I like the terms a bit more in this one. Business goals is an important aspect of the content strategy as this is your intent. You first need to determine your goals and then your strategy is used to support these goals. In turn, the "information" and "user needs" also support the goal. 

This third diagram is the one that I prefer. Although there is a lot of information on this image, I think it explains the idea of the content strategy perfectly. I also like that is shows an outcome! The goals are important to start the content strategy. Once we develop our strategy and implement it through the social and web platforms, it is important to keep in mind what the outcomes will be. 

When I first found these three images, I thought that one of the first two would be the ones that I preferred, however after looking through them, and thinking about using them in my own work, I realize that the third diagram is best. It is still a relatively simple diagram, but it holds a lot more information that can help keep you on track and guide you through your content strategy. I think it would be very helpful to print this one out and keep it somewhere where I can see it! This way I can stay on track and I will also be reminded of the possible outcomes of my work. 

CDPR108 - Week 3 Foursquare and QR Codes

I have actually been using QR Codes for advertisements for a few months now. We support several skating competitions and in turn we are given advertising space in the competition programs. During these competitions we also have a small boutique set up most of the time. Therefore, we decided that the best thing for the advertisements would be to promote our website and our online store - therefore the QR Codes are perfect. With the QR Code, we are able to link people directly to our website.

QR Codes are very easy to set up and sometimes we change the codes to send people to our Facebook page, or our Twitter site, or to provide coupons and discounts.

Foursquare on the other hand is something that I never really focused on, and in fact I needed to read these articles to remember what Foursquare is! That being said, the biggest learning experience from this week was the use of Foursquare for coupons and deals. I had no idea that you could do that with Foursquare!

I do have friends that have obviously linked their Foursquare to their Facebook accounts and I have seen them "check-in" to places however, I did not know that by doing that they could receive coupons or discounts to these places. I always thought it was just another annoying app on Facebook that told people where you were and what you were doing!

I think Foursquare could be a valuable addition to your public relations campaign, however I'm still not convinced of its popularity. I don't think it has caught on enough - and with things like Facebook offers, I think those avenues are better and can reach more people than Foursquare.

Promoted Tweets - CDPR108 - week 2

Is there any value to Promoted Tweets?

I have seen promoted tweets on my twitter feed before, however I don't think I have ever clicked on any of the links in these tweets. I know this assignment requires us to do some research on the value of these, including the cost and the reach of promoted tweets and promoted trends, however prior to doing this research I want to say that I don't think they are valuable! I am interested to see if my thoughts on this change with some more research.

Researching.... researching..... researching... researching....

I can safely say that I didn't realize the amount of targeting that you could accomplish through promoted tweets and trend. Promoted tweets can reach users in a search - when they are searching things on twitter, these promoted tweets are targeted to search terms and will appear at the top of the results page. Promoted tweets can reach users/followers by posting near or at the top of their timelines when they login or refresh their homepage. This can target your followers or users who are like your followers. Even more than this, your promoted tweets can be specific to a platform - mobile/desktop.

Promoted trends can be used to "kick-start" conversations on Twitter. business.twitter.com explains: "Successful Promoted Trends give users something new and exciting to discover, participate in, and share." A promoted trend would appear at the top of the Trending list on the side panel of your Twitter homepage. 

As I continued my research, I discovered that a promoted tweet costs $120,000 PER DAY!!! This is up from $30,000/day last year. While the initial figure is staggering, it is important to keep in mind how Twitter works and the number of people that are on Twitter. In one article I read, someone was quoted as saying they paid $4.00 for a customer, who they will now be able to keep marketing to. When you think about it that way, it doesn't seem like so much money. That brings up the concepts of the cost-per-engagement and cost-per-follow. Instead of paying a flat fee for the service, you "pay your bid price when a use clicks on, retweets, replies to or favourites your Promoted Tweet" (http://www.quora.com/How-much-is-a-Promoted-Tweet). Promoted Accounts are offered on a Cost-per-Follow basis, much in the same fashion - you bid a certain amount of money (ex. $4) to have your account promoted at the top of an interest-target Twitter user's "Who to Follow" section (http://www.quora.com/How-much-is-a-Promoted-Tweet). This goes back to the quote I read about paying $4.00 for a customer. You now have a follower on your Twitter account, to whom you can carry on a conversation, explain your business, and market to - and more than once!

When it is laid out this way, as a business owner, I would consider this to be a valuable PR solution. However, your business must have this kind of a budget for your public relations. I currently work for The Figure Skating Boutique, and we are a mid-sized business. We do not have this kind of money to spend on promoted trents or promoted tweets, and to be honest, I'm not sure that this would be valuable for us. The figure skating world is small enough that we are able to reach many of our customers via word of mouth. In turn, we have been able to generate a Twitter following of 200 in just a few months. Most of this is because of the well-known skaters that we know and that we follow on Twitter. Some of these skaters follow us, and  then their followers see that, and they then follow us as well. 

I think for large companies the idea of the promoted tweet or promoted trend is valuable. For a company like Rogers to only pay $4.00 for a customer is incredible! But for small business, or even mid-sized businesses, this idea is just not valuable. The PR budget can be better spent!