Archive for the ‘Social media’ Category

For good and bad reasons, many organizations are slow to get involved with social media. It’s a mistake — a big mistake. A wait-and-see attitude might have worked in the past, but it’s a clear indication how out of touch management is with what’s happening in their marketplace.

One critical reason to start building a fan base on Facebook or followers on Twitter today is to have an attentive audience when you need them. To do that you need to be available when they need you, not when you decide the time is right. That might be too late.

Take Toyota for instance. Who would have thought that one of the most reliable brands in history would manage its first major recall so poorly? Yes, I credit Toyota for their candor and unprecedented decision of this magnitude to halt all sales of recalled vehicles. But as far as responding to questions, dealers are in the dark. Customers are angry. 

At least that’s what you hear and read in the traditional media. I wondered if that was the whole story. So in the words of Paul Harvey, here’s the “rest of the story.”

Toyota’s Facebook presence is a story of success and missed opportunity.

First, the missed opportunity. 

The first thing I did when I landed on Toyota’s Fan Page was look for the number of fans. Since a week has passed since Toyota announced the recall, I was expecting fans for this popular brand would be in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. My expectation was promptly crushed. Less than 70,000 fans were following Toyota. In what could be one of the biggest threats to a brand’s reputation in history, Toyota has a fraction of a presence compared to other popular brands — Coca Cola, Starbucks, Red Bull. 

So with only 70,000 member — are they kidding me? Coca Cola has over 4.2 million fans. Red Bull has 2.2 million. Starbucks has 5.2 million. Even brands with questionable customer loyalty like AT&T and Verizon had more fans than Toyota, with 230,000 and 835,000 fans respectively.

Those are the numbers I expected from Toyota. With a demographic base that extends from young drivers in their teens to octogenarians, why wouldn’t they have built a presence on Facebook months ago like other industry leaders? Was it fear of negativity? Was it arrogance? How could a brand so widely applauded for its laser focus on customer service and quality turn a deaf ear to the most popular communication medium today? Or did they look to their industry peers, competitors Ford (70,000 fans) and GM (107,000), and become complacent that they were doing enough already? 

Whatever their reason (or excuse) Toyota missed a great opportunity to engage with their customers in real-time to keep a pulse on the reaction during this crisis and put a lid on bad publicity. With millions of customers in its database, a fan base of 70,000 just plain sucks. 

Within this black Toyota cloud however is a silver lining and two valuable lessons for every organization.

Continue reading.

If you live on the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland, you’ll want to register today for these new courses just added to the fall schedule at Wor-Wic Community College. (If you live outside the region, contact Ira S Wolfe about on-site or web-based classes.)

Social Media 101: Link Me, Tweet Me, Friend Me
Wor-Wic Community College
Jan 28/Feb 4 – 2 night course
6:30 PM to 9:30 PM

Marketing Your Business Using Facebook
Ocean City (MD) Chamber of Commerce
Feb 3 – Lunch ‘n Learn
11:30 AM – 1:30 PM

Marketing Your Business Using Facebook
Wor-Wic Community College
Feb 11-25 or Mar 17-31 – 3 nights each course
6:30 PM to 9:30 PM

One of the biggest bonehead blunders taking place in business today has to do with CEOs delegating the set-up of their Facebook business page to the intern or youngest employee.  Why?

First of all, it trivializes the critical role social media plays in managing your brand and reputation.  While Facebook and MySpace might be second nature to a 20-something, that doesn’t mean they have the ability to put social media in its proper context.  By that I mean – social media will only be effective if it supports and enhances your strategic objectives.

Understanding how to set up an account on Facebook, doesn’t automatically infer they understand strategy, marketing, messaging, and branding. Just because I’m a frequent user of Word, doesn’t qualify me for a Pulitzer Prize.

Read more at Workplace Trends

The following book review was printed in The Courier, November 18, 2009. The reviewer was Elaine VanderClute.

The subtitle of the book “Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization” by Dr. Ira S.Wolfe, “How to Manage the Unprecedented Convergence of the Wired, the Tired, and Technology in the Workplace,” is as clever as its alliterative title.  A closer look reveals that the geeks are wired, the geezers are tired and googlization is a fancy word for technology, but Wolfe’s prescriptions for success in the workplace are much more comprehensive than his titles suggest.

Wolfe tackles a phenomenon that many might not even realize exists: the convergence in the workplace of four generations with very different ideas of how to work, when to work, where to work and why to work.  First, he identifies these four generations. The Veterans, born before 1946, are sometimes known as the Silent or Greatest Generation. They remember Pearl Harbor, Mickey Mouse, the McCarthy Era and Joe DiMaggio.  Next up are the Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, whose memories are of the Cold War, civil rights demonstrations, American Bandstand and the Beatles. Generation X, or Baby Busters, born between 1965 and 1979, recall the Challenger disaster, the Cosby Show, Cabbage Patch dolls and Kurt Cobain.  Finally is Generation Y, or the Millennials, born between 1980 and 2000. Wolfe predicts that they will remember September 11, Facebook, Wikipedia and Bill Clinton.

Mix the Veterans, the Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y together and put them in the same work environment and there is the potential for some interesting results.  Wolfe stresses that knowing the differences about how the workers in each of these generational groups approach the workplace can put a positive spin on those results.  He is quick to point out however, that the defining characteristics in each group may be typical but are by no means universal.  Using himself as an example, Wolfe describes himself as a “Gen Y trapped in a Baby Boomer body.”

Readers might wonder why the convergence of these particular generations should be any different from say, the generations that worked together in the 1940s or 1950s.  One of the reasons is that in the past, it would have been rare to have people from four generations working side by side.

However, people today have a longer life expectancy and more Veterans and Baby Boomers are opting to put off retirement or go back to work after retirement.  Another reason, according to Wolfe, is technology, hence the “googlization” in his title.  In a particularly succinct take on what is happening in the workplace, Wolfe asserts that “technology is the air that young people breathe and it is beginning to leave more experienced workers gasping.”

Lest readers think that this means that Wolfe is minimizing the contribution that the older generations can make at work, the author makes it perfectly clear that workers from all four groups bring valuable assets to work and these should be recognized and cultivated by managers.  The trick he says, to approaching a multigenerational workforce, is to use the right management style for each generation:  a supporting style for the Veterans, an empowering style for Baby Boomers and older Gen Xs, a steering style for the younger Gen Xs and a building style for the youngest workers, the Gen Ys.

 ”Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization” focuses on the mix of generations in the business world, but the application to other parts of living is clear:  people would do well to take the time to learn what distinguishes the members of one generation from another.  As Ira Wolfe says, “Bridging the generational gap is like controlling traffic at a four-way stop sign.  To avoid collisions, drivers must give-and-take from each generation to keep the productivity flowing, creating a more cordial and hopefully collaborative environment.”

CEOs hate it. They try to ban it, censure it, and wish it would go away.  But take a look at these statistics.  Are they crazy?  How can they ignore these market trends?  How can they ignore Facebook?

Facebook currently has:

• More than 325 million active users
• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
•  The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older
   

Why would any manager or business want to ignore an audience of this size?

Every business can take a lesson from the playbook of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Along with dozens of other health care organizations, the CDC has embraced social media and is going viral with the news about the H1N1 virus. As of September, tens of thousands of people had viewed CDC videos on YouTube and listened to podcasts. Over 1 million people follow CDC tweets on Twitter and 30,000-plus people are fans of the CDC Facebook page. What the CDC has learned is that social media can help a business….

Continue Reading

Did you know….it took radio 38 years to reach 50 million users. It only took TV 13 years. The Internet had 50 million users in 5 years. See a trend here? 50 Million people used the iPod in only 3 years. Today we have Facebook which added 100 million users while over 1 Billion iPhone apps were downloaded in…..only 9 months!

Is Social Media a fad….or a disruptive innovation? Watch this video about the Social Media Revolution.

With the threat of H1N1 creating disruptions in the workplace and school becoming more real with every passing day, I wonder how Skype and other social media might be tools that could minimize the impact of absenteeism.  Karl Fisch, who always offers up great posts and ideas for schools, posted a great story on his blog about how one teacher is using Skype to stay connected with the classroom to students who are home sick.  What a great idea.  How can your business use Skype and other social media to keep employees connected to work and customers during an H1N1 “sick-out”?  Should social media training be included in H1N1 preparedness?  What do you think?

Need some help figuring out how to use social media for your business?  We’re here to help!

Juggling multigenerational workforces is nothing new for many organizations.  What’s changed however is that the Baby Boomers aren’t retiring as expected and it’s capping career growth and stalling job openings for younger workers. This new phenomena is creating a state of generational crowding.

This workplace crowding  is forcing managers to do what my colleague and friend Bette Price calls “gen-blending,” a practice where different generations of workers representing multiple ranks of personnel come together as equals to solve company issues.

Cross-generational teams, according to a just published article in the Financial Times, “are about more than young people imparting technical skills to older workers; they give senior employees the opportunity to learn more about the ideals, behaviors and values of the younger generation,” according to Dan Woodward, senior vice-president at BakBone Software, who was interviewed for the article. “Young people have a different way of thinking and [to use that effectively] creates a real competitive advantage.”

Price believes “The goal is to collectively brainstorm in order to identify problems and get a broader vision of the company.”

One practice that I recommend as a key strategy for getting different generations to collaborate is for young workers to tutor management and older workers how to use social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter for recruitment, business development, customer support, and employee engagement. Time Warner is using what they call “digital reverse mentoring” to blend different generations in strategic discussions.

Gen-blending has improved company morale, according to several companies interviewed for the article.. They get better buy-in for change and avoid what one manager called “warm seat attrition,” when workers just stay around because they have no better options.

Two pre-teen girls updated a Facebook status to say they were lost in a drain in Australia instead of calling 911. Glenn Benham from the Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS) says it was fortunate a young male friend was online at the time and was able to call for help on their behalf.  Benham was concerned the girls didn’t call the Australian equivalent of the U.S. help number 911.

But in a world where an entire generation of kids has seen voice mail and email be replaced by texting and social networking sites as the primary mode of communication, is it anywhere we have yet another clash between generations?  Benham suggests the youth should conform to mainstream protocols. But have these protocols lost their relevance?  Is public safety falling the times?  Should public safety services such as fire and police have a presence on Facebook and Twitter to monitor cries for help?  Is this just another case of an older generation resisting change or a younger generation not following the rules?  Which party is creating the bigger risk?