Familiar with the Kit Kat Jingle – “Gimme a break, gimme a break. Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar.” Kit Kat and Nestle are offering a break that surpasses a simple candy bar in the form of an app (of all things) to alleviate social media stress.

the Social Break app is designed for the overly stressed crowd who feels that they need to keep up with their social networking sites, but just need a break from it all. From reading a recent Chicago Tribune article, it appears that keeping up with social media, especially for the younger crowd, can be time consuming and just plain stressful. This problem is growing in Asia, where social media is most heavily used.  The article explains their research:

JWT surveyed 900 19-26 year olds in China, Singapore and the United States and found that more than half considered it too time-consuming to keep up with all their social media commitments and conceded that the time they spent on such sites had a negative impact on their job or studies.

JWT says that their survey shows that young people feel under increasing pressure to maintain their social media connections, responding to friends’ requests to comment on or “like” their posts, photographs or other updates.

Nearly two thirds of Chinese surveyed said they felt pressure to be in constant contact on social media, with 58 percent saying their social media obligations caused them stress.

So, how does this work? As explained on the app’s site, users can set it up to automatically post on the bigger social networking sites – Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn- with automatically generated responses when someone tags you in a photo, comments on your wall, or shares a story on LinkedIn. This way, you can still interact with friends and colleagues while walking away from it all.

I realize this is a tongue in cheek app and meant not so seriously, but honestly, I think if we’re getting to a point where we need to automatically reply to people just to keep up, especially with automatically generated, canned responses, is it too much?

I know that personally there are times when I turn off the computer and phone just to get away from it for a day or two, but I really don’t think my silence is causing my friends and family to panic. I’m sure they may (or may not) notice my silence, but it’s not going to cause a widespread panic or change their view of me if I’m not responding right away.

I feel for the younger generation if they really feel stressed by interacting with friends in social media; it may signal a sign of the times, or a precursor to a time when social media will hit its peak and then die off in a similar fashion to the dot com bust. While I don’t think that will necessarily happen, I do wonder if at some point in the future people will go into social media overload, if they haven’t already.

Be careful what you say online, in email, or in text messages next time you’re involved in litigation – it could come back to haunt you.

A new tactic in social media litigation is sometimes referred to as a social media trojan horse. In addition to utilizing social media monitoring software, law firms are going an extra step when researching for court cases. A trojan horse is simply someone who friends or follows plaintiffs involved in a court case on social media sites with the intent to find evidence to debunk allegations.

What information can they be looking for? It depends on the nature of the case. At the most basic level, they may be looking for content a plaintiff is posting about the case itself, or details surrounding the case. They may also be looking for information about who the defendant is friends with online, trying to connect dots in some way.

In injury cases, pictures CAN be worth a thousand words. Lawyers will look for pictures posted by the plaintiff showing that they may not be as injured as they are claiming, or that their injuries are not as limiting as they claim. Recent examples include a man who was stating a back injury prevented him from working, only for the law firm to find that he posted pictures of him recently playing golf with friends.

Social media shouldn’t be used to dig up dirt on people, or as evidence to be used against them in court, but unfortunately, it looks like all is fair game when it comes to social media. Whether you’re part of a court case or not, there are some simple guidelines to follow to make sure your content is as private as it can be:

1. If you’re part of a court case, do not talk about it online or in email; you never know who can share this content with the wrong people. Only post information online that you’d be comfortable with on the front page of the newspaper.

2. Make sure your settings are private on social media sites. Especially in the case with Facebook, it’s a good idea to review your privacy settings on a regular basis to make sure updates to the site hasn’t changed the settings on your account.

3. Don’t friend people who you don’t know in person. Accepting friend requests from people you don’t know should raise a red flag. Also, be cautious of accepting friend requests from “friends of friends.” It’s a small world, and you never know who’s connected to whom.

4. Monitor who tags you in photos, and untag yourself when you see pictures that may be less than what you want people to see. Contact friends and family and ask that they do not post pictures of you online.

Reading this can make you feel like you’ve got a thousand eyes watching all the time, and that’s not the intent. Engaging with people online is fun and a great way to keep connected. Being mindful and cautious while doing so is still important, and will continue to be so as social media is used for different and more varied uses than it was originally intended.

I’ve been slow to warm up to Pinterest – maybe I’m not a visual person, or possibly I haven’t had enough time to really check it out. I do know that it is taking off in the social media world. Every day I see someone pinning something to their boards and sharing it with friends and family.

As businesses see this, they are trying to come up with ways to make it fit into their social media strategy. It’s easier for some companies to do than others, depending on the industry.

I recently received an email from Kirland’s, and I thought it was a great way to promote their business on Pinterest. Take a look  at their newest promotion:

Basically, they created their Pinterest boards with items that they sell and encouraged people to visit their boards, find things they love, and repin to their boards.  By doing so, customers are entered into the promotion and have the chance to win a $2,000 prize pack. Very simple, but very creative! This is a good way for Kirkland’s to gain exposure online while making it fun for their customers.

Clicking through in the email brings you to their “Pinning Parlor.” They did a great job in creating this landing page to be extremely successful in gaining buzz.

Kirland’s made it very easy for people to share the news of the promotion on Facebook and Twitter, and even made the promotion itself a picture that can be pinned to someone’s board. Not only that, but at the end of the promotion details, they offer a couple for immediate redemption – while they’re on the site, they may as well shop, right?

Overall, this is a great example of how companies can take advantage of the Pinterest frenzy. Again, Pinterest is not for every company, but if you’re in an industry that can benefit from visual promotions, it’s time to check it out and think outside of the box – your customers may love  you for it!

According to the 2012 American Express Global Customer Service Barometer study, the social customer is the one to watch – they are tuned into social media and tend to spend more where they feel customer service is top-notch. Not only will they spend more, they will tell more people than the “traditional” customer.

Who is the social customer? This is the group of social media savvy customers who use social media not only for connecting with friends and family, but for customer service from businesses they frequent. According to the study, this is a relatively small group, with only 17% of participants stating that they’ve used social media for customer service purposes. While they are small in number, they are engaged and outspoken, and appear to be having a direct effect on customer service and business in general.

Seems like a tall order for such a small group, but consider some of the findings from this study. People who have used social media for customer service at least once in the last year are:

• willing to spend substantially more (21%) with companies they believe provide great service, compared to the general population who is willing to spend 13% more

• more vocal about service experiences, both good and bad, telling twice as many people about their experiences than the general population does (social customers tell 53 people about an experience; the general population tells 24)

• willing to bail because of poor customer service – more than 80% of social customers have bailed on a purchase because of a poor service experience, compared to 55% of the general population.

Interestingly, whether or not you’re considered a social customer, people are talking more about customer service in general. This study shows that

• Americans will tell an average of 15 people about positive experiences – up 67% from 9 last year

• Americans will tell an average of 24 people about poor experiences – up 50% from 16 in 2011

So, even if you’re not a social customer, you may be sharing your experience with someone who is. If that social customer listens to your experience and shares it online, you are becoming a social customer by default, or at least your experience is. And, if the study is accurate in that people tend to share negative experiences more often than positive, that could lend credence to the social customer being the one to watch. They will be online sharing experiences and driving word of mouth across the board, which can ultimately impact a company on its front lines.

Paying attention to your social customer is vital. Even if you’re engaged in social networks, it is possible that your customers aren’t talking on your sites; instead, they could be blogging about their experiences, participating in forums, or using social networks that your company isn’t. In addition to social media marketing, it is a good idea for companies to utilize a social media monitoring service as well to keep your finger on the pulse of the social customer. Social media monitoring can:

• Collect all online conversations surrounding your brand, giving you a sense of the customer satisfaction perception online

• Easily find and address dissatisfied customers to alleviate issues and show that your company cares

• Identify potential challenges in customer service and make changes as needed

• When negative content strikes, monitoring tools will allow you to see how quickly the news is traveling, as well as the influence of those talking about it for better damage control

You can read the rest of the study to learn more about the findings related to customer service in general. As a business, this is a good read to better understand what customers are thinking in terms of where they do business. Ensuring that some basic customer service needs are met every time will go a long way in customer loyalty.

Mistakes happen – we’re all human and try to multi-task throughout the day. If you manage a Facebook page, you know that when you’re posting content, you need to make sure you’re posting it to the right page, or you can end up accidentally posting something personal on your company page or vice-versa. If you’re really rushed, you may do this and not even realize it right away. What’s worse is if your boss notices it first, due to a high volume of fans commenting about it on the Facebook page.

What’s a company to do? Delete the comment probably, but then what?

This happened to New York & Company months ago, and how they handled it was perfect. They turned a mistake into an attention-grabbing, customer focused experience that, in the end, reaffirmed customers’ love for the brand.

Here’s how the story goes….

An employee, thinking she was logged into her own Facebook account, accidentally posted the lyrics to Hugo’s song “99 Problems.”  It is unclear whether this employee realized the error and notified the company, or if the company noticed. At any rate, they took the first step in the recovery process, which is what any company would do:

What happened next was pretty interesting. This post generated almost 300 comments and 150 likes within a matter of a few hours. Many did not think it was a big deal, and then others started to worry that this employee would potentially be fired over this incident. Below are some of the common themes running through the user comments:

• It was an innocent mistake. No harm done.

• No offense taken. Mistakes happen and it could have happened to anyone. Please be lenient on the employee…I’m sure he/she feels bad enough. I love New York & Company, my feelings haven’t changed at all.

• This post reminded me of my coupon that I want to use, before it expire

• Turned out to be the best marketing you guys have done. i have never paid attention to NY & Co posts before.

• Let’s start a page in support of the employee who screwed up..because we’ve all done it!!

The fans were right – this one incident generated more comments and likes than any other post the company published in a very long time, if ever. Instead of letting the comments continue to build up without the company joining in, it is clear that they monitored the conversation closely. When the comments steered toward the overwhelming theme of being concerned for the employee and their future with the company, New York & Company jumped in yet again:

In the end, this was a great mistake to have happen. It gave the company a lot of buzz that day, customers were able to get a sense of New York & Company’s “personality”, and it showed that the company cares about both customers and employees. Many commented that they don’t typically pay attention to the company’s Facebook page, but this incident brought them back.

Lesson learned – mistakes happen all the time. How a company handles it can make all the difference between a positive and not so great outcome.

It’s always interesting to see what celebrities name their babies…from Apple Fiona to Max & Emmy, the public has had a long standing opinion of the names celebrities choose for their children.

This week, Jessica Simpson welcomed a baby girl into the world, and then named her Maxwell Drew. I’m not particularly a fan of Jessica Simpson, and I was only vaguely aware that she was pregnant. However, when my connections on different social media sites started sharing the news of the new arrival, they also weighed in on Jessica’s name choice.

Curious enough, I wanted to run a social media search to see what the general public was thinking. I also wanted to see if I could gauge the popularity of the new arrival compared to other fairly recent births. I turned to our social media monitoring tool to gauge conversations in the three days following the births of Jessica Simpson’s daughter and the birth of Beyonce’s daughter.

It was no real surprise to me that the name Jessica Simpson and her finance chose were not as well liked as the new parents did. From the chart below, it’s clear that more peple were talking about this negatively, though I was surprised by the level of positive conversation surrounding the name of the new arrival.

As you can see, despite what I thought might lend to an overwhelmingly negative response, most of the conversation online was neutral, more or less sharing the name the new parents bestowed on the newest celebrity newborn.

When Beyonce named her little one Blue Ivy Carter, the  results were a bit different:

Again, a lot of the conversation was neutral. However, in this case, more people liked the name choice than didn’t. Both names are, um, interesting, and I can see why more people would dislike Maxwell Drew’s name considering it is a girl.

Both have meaning – it is reported that Blue Ivy came to be as Jay-Z’s favorite color is blue and Ivy represents the Roman numeral IV, which has a special meaning to the couple. Maxwell Drew also has a special meaning – Maxwell is Eric’s middle name and his grandmother’s surname. Drew is Jessica’s mom’s maiden name. While both have special meanings and neither are really far out there in relation to other celebrity baby names, it might be that there was more of a negative reaction to Jessica Simpson’s name choice simply because it’s more of a boy’s name than a girl’s name.

I planned on stopping there, since I was curious of the public’s reaction to the name choice. As I perused some of the other analytical reports, another spark of curiosity hit. Again, I am not a follower of Jessica Simpson, so I wasn’t quite sure where she stood in the popularity realm. I wanted to watch for a few days to see if the buzz traveled or if it would be a blink of an eye type of viral conversation.

Interestingly, there was an opposite reactional buzz for the two celebrities. As you can see below, the online buzz was at its peak on the day the baby’s arrival was announced, yet quickly dissipated:

When Blue Ivy Carter made her way into the world, the results were a bit different with regard to online conversations:

In looking at this closer, it should be noted that Jessica Simpson was more vocal about her pregnancy and announced the birth almost immediately, where as Beyonce kept things closer to the vest, and it took some time for the world to know of their newest arrival. At any rate, though, it was interesting to see the difference between the two. In running this comparison a bit longer, results show that the conversation around Jessica Simpson’s daughter and name choice lasted a significantly shorter time than the conversation around Beyonce’s daughter’s birth. It could indicate that one celebrity is more prominent than the other, or that fans generally have more invested in one over the other.

While this is a more trivial topic of conversation to investigate, it does illustrate the power of social media and how opinions and thoughts can be formed through reading and responding to online conversations. While not statistical in nature, it does give brands, celebrities, and businesses a good overall sense of conversations and sentiment surrounding relevant topics.

Instagram became the rage for iPhone users – it allows people to easily share pictures in their social media networks. A new product is in line for becoming the next big thing, and takes Instagram one step further.

Meet Viddy – the app that shares videos!

As explained on their website, Viddy is “a simple way for anyone to capture, produce, and share beautiful videos with the world. Record a moment of your life, give it that cinematic look with our production packs, and share it with those who matter most.” You can record up to 20 seconds of video, add enhancements, and easily share it with your friends and family on your social media networks.

Now, it’s not exactly new, being launched on April 11th, 2011, but it has recently gained traction in the social media world, in part because of the popularity of online photo and video sharing, but more recently thanks to Mark Zuckerberg, who used Viddy to capture video of his dog as a testament to the app. Users of this app grew from roughly 4 million at the beginning of April to 16 million as recently as yesterday.

I wanted to check this out for myself, so I signed up for this free service. The tricky part, for me, was using it when I had Wi-fi capabilities. Unfortunately, I didn’t during times I would have loved to create a video clip, such as my daughter’s volleyball tournament. Nonetheless, I waited patiently until there was a moment I wanted to record and Wi-fi was available. And off I went….

It was easy to sign up – I had the option of signing up with my email, Facebook, or Twitter account. After my experience with Pinterest, I opted to go with the email login. Once the app was installed, I was able to take a video that was no more than 20 seconds. There was a stopwatch in the upper corner to remind me of how many seconds were left. Once recorded, I had the option to view, save, or delete.

There were options to edit or enhance the video, which I found a bit limiting. There were three enhancements on my account by default, and I could browse through others, such as “Glam” or “3D” which was a bit scary to me. I chose a Crystal enhancement, which appeared to make the video clearer. From there, I had an option to setup and share on any social network I chose. I do wish there was a “send to email” option so I could preview it and then share as I wanted to.

I chose the YouTube option and had no trouble setting it up. Once it was configured though, I tapped on the “post” tab so it could be published to YouTube, but had no luck. I tapped it a couple more times and then checked my YouTube account, thinking it might be there, but so far, not so much.

It was very simple to use, though the enhancements seemed a bit generic. I may expect too much from editing options for a 20-second video though. Overall, if I was a picture sharer, I think I would be interested in looking into Viddy more closely. I can see this being used in business though as a fun, quick advertisement potentially.

Are you a Viddy user? What do you like/dislike about it? Do you think it will be the next big thing in social media? There are already rumors that it will soon be bought by Facebook, much like Instagram was….do you believe the hype? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Everyone is busy these days, and social media can make your day more challenging, especially when time is limited. Most companies realize the importance of social media monitoring to gauge customer satisfaction and online reputation. DOING something with the information that is collected, however, can be more of a challenge and something that falls by the wayside.

Ann Michaels & Associates has always believed in the importance of taking a look at the collected conversations to try to make sense of it for our clients – who is talking about the client’s brand? Is it geography specific? Is the demographic landscape around online conversations similar to the client’s anticipated consumer base? These are all questions that a thorough social media monitoring program can uncover.

Thanks to our newest feature, the social media storyboard, clients can easily see what story their brand is telling. The storyboard gives this information in a simple, easy to read interface and carries a lot of information at a glance. Take a look at a sample storyboard:

Below is a brief explanation of the storyboard and what information it holds….

• The volume of conversation compared to the last period of time – has it increased or decreased? This may signal a potential issue and can easily pinpoint further investigation.

• Where people are talking – the most effective social media strategies engage customers where they hang out online. If you are spending a lot of time in one social media network, but your customers are talking about your brand elsewhere, this is valuable information. You may also discover new venues in which to continue conversation and engagement.

• Sentiment – the people show you at a glance whether the overall sentiment is positive or negative. If there are several people shaded in red in a given week or month, you will quickly realize that you need to look into this further and address any issues that may have arisen. It is also a great tool for gauging sentiment over a new marketing endeavor, or times when your company may be facing negative press or other concerning issues.

• Where in the world are your customers – the bottom row of the storyboard gives information about the places people are talking most about your brand, and, when applicable, which languages are being used. The final icon in this row will give insight into the keywords most used, as well as other helpful information.

This storyboard is part of Ann Michaels & Associates’ social media management services and is sent to client’s email on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis depending on their preferences. What story does YOUR brand tell?

Social media has made an impact in many areas of our daily lives – sports is no exception. KT Tape put out a great infographic showing how social media has impacted the sports industry, which you can see below.

Surely you’ve heard of Tebowing….thanks to social media. If you haven’t, here’s the scoop. Tim Tebow, a NFL player, was seen praying on one knee with his fist against his forehead, as illustrated in the picture below:

This phenomenon quickly spread online, and “Tebowing” became a common household name for many. In fact, when my daughter’s classmates are taking pictures after any school event, even after time has past since this went viral, we can always expect at least one of the boys, if not more, to assume this position in a picture or two.

How else is social media changing the sports landscape?

• 83% of sports viewers are checking sports related social media sites while watching the game on TV, and 63% will browse social media while they’re AT the game

• Athletes, who can serve as role models to children and teens, have a greater responsibility now. There have been times, as shown in the infographic below, that athletes have made some social media missteps in a very public way. Because of the social media transparency, they have a bigger responsibility than they once did.

• Fans now feel more involved with their favorite players. Instead of waiting for that moment to get their autograph to talk with them briefly, they can easily be followed on Twitter or Facebook and feel like they know the athlete of their choice. Following athletes on Twitter has increased greatly, and the popularity of an athlete can change significantly if they are interacting with their fans on social media sites.

Take a look at the infographic below to learn more on how social media has changed the sporting industry…

Long before social media exploded, the term “black hat SEO” was widely recognized as methods, techniques, or tools that were used to improve search engine rankings in a not-so-cool way. Now social media has its own “black hat” methods that people are using for the wrong reasons.

A “black hat” technique or tool is defined as a technique used to get “better” results faster. By better, we’re usually talking quantity over quality, and some of the methods are, while not illegal, certainly aren’t the way you’d want to run a social media campaign. This can be used to spread the word about your company faster than you could organically, increase the number of friends or followers on a given social media site, or appear to rise in search engine rankings because you’re that good. This article gives a good overview and discussion of black hat vs white hat.

This is not to say that automation tools are all bad; in fact, there are several wonderful tools out there that make managing social media much easier than it used to be. You can schedule content to be published and pull in content to help you quickly collect social conversation and respond as needed. In this case, we’re talking about those tools that are used for getting results quickly, often times leading to ineffective social media marketing.

What are some black hat social media tactics?

1. Bots that rapid fire follow or friend people: there are services out there that promise to get you thousands of new Twitter followers quickly and easily. By paying a fee, the services will follow people from your Twitter account. Sounds great, right? There are some problems with this, including Twitter issues and getting in front of the right audience.

First, there is a “follow” limit – if Twitter sees you are following too many people in one day, with very few people following you back, your account can get marked as spam. What is too many? There does not seem to be a tried and true number out there. At any rate, you don’t want to risk your account considered spam. And anyway, why do you want to get in front of thousands of people who may not care about you?

This leads to the second point – followers are based on quality, not quantity. You want to find Twitter users that are relevant to your business. If your target audience is men and women between the ages of 35-45, following several hundred 18-21 year olds isn’t effective. There are ways you can find people to follow that will be relevant to what you do. I suggest taking advantage of the search function in Twitter (search.twitter.com). You can search for keywords relative to your business to find those users who are talking about similar products and services. If they’re talking, they may be potential customers for you. I also highly recommend using the advanced search function – it lets you search for Twitter users geographically – this is great for local businesses, since you can find people who are talking about your products and services within a specific geography. It makes your follower base much more relevant than using black hat tactics.

2. Tweetbots: similar to the above, Tweetbots are responsible for retweeting or posting your content over and over, or blasting your content to thousands of Twitter users at once.

A recent blog post from QualBlog explains it nicely: “Here is how it works:  There are several firms that will re-tweet for a fee.  The firms are used for marketing and to increase a company’s website’s SEO.  One is called Pay Per Tweet.  Here is a quote from their home page:  ”PaidPerTweet lets you hire Twitter users to blast your link, ad or announcement to 100s of thousands of Twitter followers in an instant.”  Another provider is called Retweet it.  Their website claims, “We have built an amazing community of retweeters that are eager to share one another’s tweets with the world. And with a wider reach of your message, your traffic will greatly improve.”  Retweet.it doesn’t even claim to have people re-tweeting.  They likely use Tweetbots. These are just two providers that represent the industry.”

While it is true that your content will be visible to thousands of users within minutes, it can be problematic in that 1) they’re possibly not people who even know who you are, much less care about your company. In other words, they are not your target audience, and 2) it could be considered spam and cause your account to be disabled or shut down completely.

3. Posting false reviews: reviews from customers can be a wonderful thing, whether they are positive or negative. I’ve often dubbed online conversations as “the new, truest form of customer feedback.” It can give you a wealth of insight and also serve as advertising for your company. Some companies, when they have little to no online visibility, may be tempted to have friends or employees post reviews as though they were customers. Even worse, some will pose as customers and post negative information on competitors’ review sites.

It can be a slow moving process, but like with everything else, it will pay off in the long run. Work on ways to generate customer feedback and reviews online the organic way rather than inflate or deflate feedback with false postings.

4. Mob mentality in “making the negative disappear”: negative comments are not fun, and can be worrisome when you’re starting out in social media. There are companies who advertise the ability to “make the negative disappear” and while this is tempting, you should be cautious. As we’ve revealed in a past post, some of these companies go about doing so in a way that is definitely black hat, if not illegal.

While it’s not pleasant to deal with negative comments or feedback, it can be a helpful tool to promote your company. Address the negative comments head on and resolve what issues you can publicly. This shows others who may be interested in your products or services that you do care about customers and want them to be satisfied.

What if your company experienced a flurry of negative press? Making it “go away” is of course something we’d like to see happen immediately, but instead of working to find ways to make it “disappear”,  effort should be made to at least reduce its impact. There are ways to do this – the more fresh content that you publish online, the higher that content will be in the search engines when someone is researching your company. As you publish new content, the negative content becomes older and gets pushed down in the search engines. A typical consumer won’t look much past the third page of search results; working to keep your content fresh will be the best way to keep the negativity at bay, and far down in the search engines to not make a difference in the future.

As is the case in SEO, it’s a long process that takes work.  It may be tempting to use other methods to get where you need to be faster, but in the long run, it won’t pay off. Social media works best when your connected to and engaging with people who want to engage with you. If you’re making true connections and giving value to your customers, it will pay off in the long run. It’s not about the numbers – if what can be considered black hat methods give you 100,000 followers, yet only 1% of those followers care, it’s a waste of time and money.

Organic is the way to go to keep your social media strategies “white hat.” As tempting as it can be, don’t go to the dark side…