BA ‘gets’ social media

At the Future of Social Media Conference in London recently, one of the most interesting presentations was from Chris Davies of British Airways.

Chris described how the objective of BA’s recent social media campaign involving the Australian comedienne Pam Ann was to reach a new audience in a less formal tone of voice. The videos involved budding actors and actresses among BA staff who had to audition for a role alongside Pam Ann – as you can see in this example:

http://www.britishairwaysandpamann.com/?destId=full_feature

The marketing team faced a significant challenge in that Pam Ann was not felt to be an ‘appropriate personality’ to champion the very traditional BA brand, and so obtaining internal sign off was very difficult.

However, the campaign was successful and so is likely to be repeated – with over 1,200 links made to the video clips, and significant levels of positive WOM about the unexpected communication style from BA.

Chris’s learning points and recommendations for social media marketing:

• New ways of working may be required, for example sourcing business partners with specialist knowledge
• Get lots of advice from a range of sources before diving in
• Take care re legal issues around managing user generated content and mitigate the risks
• Develop a robust moderation policy
• Engage but don’t dictate the message
• Make it fun!

Technorati Tags: british airways,pam ann,social media marketing

Highlights from FOSM Conference

Last week I attended the Future of Social Media Conference in London. There were around 200 people at the event, mainly marketers from traditional organisations looking to update themselves developments in social media and how the tools could be effectively adopted by their businesses.

Rohit Bhargava from Ogilvy was one of the speakers and he made a number of key points from his recent book “Personality Not Included”:

Social Media Optimisation (SMO) is now the holy grail. For example, companies should be using a Twitter search to find out what is being said about their brand online, and monitoring comments on blogs, forums etc etc. Engagement with customers rather than impressions should be the measure of success.

Companies need to assess the quality of an online review (aka Ebay’s star system or, even the basic ‘was this review useful to you?’ question) in order to develop a system of ‘virtual trust metrics’ that contributors can rely on. A product or service rating of 4.3/5 appears to be more authentic than 5/5 – which looks to be contrived.

Suppliers have lost control of the message, because the number one influence on a customer’s purchase decision is now a personal recommendation. Recent research by Universal McCann showed that 8 out of the top 10 sources of trust are in fact word of mouth (4 from friends, 4 from strangers). In addition, you can’t choose who your spokespeople are (think John McCain and Paris Hilton….)

Another inspirational speaker was Will McInnes from Nixon McInnes. Will noted that the future is not evenly distributed – some companies are way ahead of the curve, others are way behind. Ford’s social media newsroom gives away unused professional product photos and shows that they ‘get it’ (see http://ford.digitalsnippets.com/ ) He called on audience participation to demonstrate the current disconnect between the numbers of people expecting to see ratings on a site they visit, while not providing it to others on their own sites….

Martin Verdon- Roe from Trip Advisor explained how his company now has 20 million reviews, up from 10 million a year ago. Major travel industry players such as Tui display both their own reviews and Trip Advisor’s on their website – but the independent Trip Advisor reviews are much greater in number. The next challenge for the company is the introduction of a Traveller Network, which works like a social network where people can sign up friends, and the system will show you reviews from your friends first when you input a particular destination query into the site. Keep an eye on Trip Advisor to see how this develops.

There was also a very interesting case study from British Airways which is worthy of a blog post of its very own….so watch this space!

All in all a very informative and entertaining day…with hardly a mention of the ‘recession’ word

Technorati Tags: FOSM,social media marketing

Managing your Career Progression

Further to my recent post building your personal brand online you may be interested in reading this article by Laura Smith – Proulx which is excellent and has a very similar message about 21^st Century career progression. Remember that by actively managing your online presence you can maximise opportunities to develop your personal brand in the direction that you want to take it, while minimising the impact of any negative material that might be ‘out there’…

If you’ve already tried out any of the personal branding tools, (LinkedIn, Twitter, WordPress, YouTube etc) why not use the Marketing Students Ning Community to share what you have learned so far with others and encourage them to get started?

 

Technorati Tags: personal branding,careers

So how was it for you?

 

Technorati Tags: e-learning,study skills

Now that Induction week has come to an end you may well be feeling overwhelmed with information….so here is a quick reminder of the electronic resources that are available to help you prepare for effective study.

eLanguages are a dynamic e-learning research and development group in the Centre for Language Study offering flexible delivery of online learning resources. Subjects covered include Study Skills, Academic Writing and Living and Studying in the UK.

‘Prepare for Success’ has been developed in the Centre for Language Study at the University of Southampton. These interactive multimedia learning resources help you to discover what British academic culture is like, and what kind of academic skills you will need for effective study in the UK. The resource also provides considerable scope for you to improve your English language skills.

Help with accessing and using Blackboard resources for students is available here

Is your future boss watching you???

More than one in five employers search social networking sites to screen job candidates, according to a survey of more than 31,000 employers released by CareerBuilder.com this week and reported in Computer World.

The study found that the number of hiring managers that are turning to social networks like MySpace and Facebook to check out candidates’ online behaviour has increased to 22% of employers from just 11% in 2006. Of the hiring managers who use social networks, 33% said they found information on such sites that caused them to STOP considering the candidate for a job, and 24% found content on social networks that HELPED

Technorati Tags: careers,social networks

CONVINCE THEM TO HIRE a candidate. These managers said that profiles showing a professional image and solid references can boost a candidate’s chances for a job.

The top areas of concern found on social networking sites include:

• Information about alcohol or drug use (41% of managers said this was a top concern)
• Inappropriate photos or information posted on a candidate’s page (40%)
• Poor communication skills (29%)
• Bad-mouthing of former employers or fellow employees (28%)
• Inaccurate qualifications (27%)
• Unprofessional screen names (22%)
• Notes showing links to criminal behaviour (21%)
• Confidential information about past employers (19%)

“Hiring managers are using the Internet to get a more well-rounded view of job candidates in terms of their skills, accomplishments and overall fit within the company,” said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder.com. “As a result, more job seekers are taking action to make their social networking profiles employer-friendly. 16% of workers who have social networking pages said they modified the content on their profile to convey a more professional image to potential employers”

The report recommends that job seekers:

• Remove pictures, content and links that can send the wrong message to potential employers.
• Update social networking profiles regularly to highlight latest accomplishments.
• Consider blocking comments to avoid questionable posts
• Avoid joining groups whose names could turn off potential employers.
• Consider setting their profile to private so only designated friends can view it.

You have been warned!

Building your personal brand online

Technorati Tags: personal brand,social networking,careers

Are you on the right or the wrong side of the ‘digital divide’? The gap is nowadays less about if you have access to the web, but more about whether you understand how to participate in the networked society. If you have the skills, time and confidence to navigate the online chaos you will gain access to new opportunities, find audiences for your work and enrich the lives of others. With all the free online resources available to you at University, there is no excuse for being trapped on the wrong side of the divide.

Finding a job and managing your career progression involves understanding how today’s networks work and how to deploy them effectively. Building and maintaining your personal brand (both online and offline) is critical to marketing yourself as a prospective employee or business partner, or entrepreneur seeking funding. If a recruitment consultant thinks you may be suitable for a particular role and he idly Googles your name, what will he find? Perhaps those dodgy Facebook photos will surface to your embarrassment…but hopefully at the top of the list will be the photo of you receiving an achievement award from your University, or your blog which showcases your interests and experience, or your LinkedIn profile which has links to glowing testimonials from people who know you well.

So think of Google “as your reputation management system”. This term comes from the branding guru Chris Brogan whose words of wisdom are well worth bookmarking or following. He notes: “A personal brand gives you the ability to stand out in a sea of similar products. In essence, you’re marketing yourself as something different than the rest of the pack.”

Building your personal brand takes time. Here are a few starting points I’ve summarised for you from Chris’s advice on how to start developing your Google profile:

• Get a Twitter account for real time micro blogging
• Get a Flickr account for photo sharing
• Get a YouTube account for video uploading
• Get an Upcoming account to promote events
• Get a Del.icio.us account for bookmarking all those articles and other useful links that you find
• Get a WordPress account to start your blog
• Get a LinkedIn account for your professional network
• Get a Gmail account for use with Google Reader, Calendar, Docs, and other innovative free tools

There’s more to come in a future blog post. If you can’t wait J there’s much more about how to interact effectively on these sites and build your brand along the right lines in http://www.chrisbrogan.com/img/broganbranding.pdf

online resource for dissertation preparation

Don’t forget to make use of this resource to help you progress your dissertations:

http://www.erm.ecs.soton.ac.uk/theme1/index.html

Career opportunities with Siemens

Siemens are recruiting postgraduates in a number of functional areas and they will be visiting the School of Management on 6th May (10am – 4pm, Room 3041). if you are interested feel free to pop in for an informal chat and check out their website www.siemens.co.uk  

A great introduction to blogging

If you are new to blogging, check this out:

Delivering the Value Proposition

Those of you who are taking this module on 16th April and 2nd May will soon be learning all about blogs…hopefully you will then decide to create your own! Or perhaps you already have one? You are welcome to add your comments here including a link to your blog.