Nestle, the world’s largest food conglomerate took successive hits to its brand image recently in an issue related to the company’s apparent disregard for the environment. It all happened in just about three days, and the damage was fueled by activity in social media.

The Issue:

Environmental group Greenpeace said the palm oil used in the Nestle Kit Kat bars was a threat to the endangered Orangutan. Nestle sourced palm oil from Sinar Mas, the single largest producer of palm oil in Indonesia. Activists claimed that the rising demand for palm oil is one of the main reasons for the depletion of rain forests, which are being leveled to make way for palm oil plantations.

To get their message across, Greenpeace created a bizarre video spoof of a Kit Kat commercial. It portrayed a man at work eating the finger of an orangutan out of a Kit Kat wrapper. Environment enthusiasts across the world immediately spread the word, which created a public embarrassment for Nestle.

And why did Greenpeace zero in on Nestle alone? Simple – targeting a giant corporation would attract the most attention. Nestle is the largest food and drinks conglomerate in the world, and is a major consumer of palm oil with its use of this commodity doubling in just a span of three years.

Position² tracked the story and analyzed the social media buzz around it.

The Sequence:

Greenpeace launched their campaign against Nestle on March 17th, 2010, with a ‘Killer’ logo, and a tagline that said ‘Ask Nestle to give rain forests a break’. They posted their spoof video on YouTube first, which Nestle got removed due to breach of copyright.

The video was then posted on vimeo.com, and received over 78,000 views in the span of a few hours.

The attack then moved to the Nestle Facebook page, where posts from fans got angry retorts from the company’s moderator.

The blogosphere and Twitter were next, with Tweets followed by almost 18,000 people by March 20th. After this, messages were posted using Google AdWords, and the issue was picked up gradually by traditional media as well. This caused significant damage to the brand image of Nestle.

Eventually, Nestle responded to the campaign and announced that it was cutting its contract with Sinar Mars. Nestle also promised to use only certified sustainable palm oil by 2015.

Social Media Buzz

The issue generated an overwhelming buzz in social media. An analysis on Twitter from 13th March to 22nd March 2010 showed us that there were over 215,000 tweets. In fact, Nestle’s policies and customer service were driven in huge numbers due to Nestle becoming a “trending topic” on Twitter.

A share of voice analysis (graph below) shows us the break up of mentions across forums, blogs and traditional media. With over 100k mentions across these sources, the Nestle incident became a major social media controversy.



We also noticed that the overall popularity of Nestle (primarily for the wrong reasons) increase considerably during the Nestle-Greenpeace social media furor.



It remains to be seen if the issue was blown out of proportion due to the Greenpeace video or the Fan page blunder.

Facebook Crisis Management Blunder

In the midst of this, Nestle’s Facebook moderator took an aggressive stance and threatened to delete posts from fans that were protesting Nestle’s lack of care for the environment. This enraged Facebook users who didn’t back down until an apology was posted. The impact of this on the Nestle brand is presented in the chart below.



Impact On the Nestle Brand – Negative Buzz Analysis

The graph below highlights the negative mentions of Nestle between Feb and Jun, 2010. Negative buzz spiked during the 2nd week of March to the 1st week of April. The increase in negative posts could also be attributed to the Facebook Fan page fiasco.



Lessons Learned

• Brand Monitoring is indispensable in social media – This applies even to a large company like Nestle that could assume they are in control of the situation
• Practice and plan for the worst case scenario – Develop a social media crisis plan and anticipate what can happen, to be prepared for it.
• Respond to negative feedback – An offer to make good the bad is usually well received. A defensive response only adds fuel to the fire.
• Plan ahead for onslaughts through social media – Think of worst case scenarios. For instance, measures that can be taken when a coordinated attack is launched that could turn into a PR disaster…
• Hire seasoned community managers – Even a Facebook fan page needs experienced managers to deal with angry members, foster relationships with advocates, and handle crises without stress.

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For those who missed the Social Media Strategies Conference (or if you were there and would like a copy of the presentation), you can download the deck on “Generating Traffic via Social Media” by Rajiv Parikh, CEO of Position².

The presentation covers:

• How Social Media is helpful in increasing the visibility of your content
• Social Media Plan – a POST approach
• Executing the 4 ‘C’s
• Few useful resources
• Case study

Download:


Generating Traffic via Social Media

Let us know what you think!

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February 13 was like every other day at Southwest Airlines. That is, until they refused to seat Kevin Smith on his flight from Oakland to Burbank. The reason was because his extra large size would hamper the ‘comfort and safety’ of other passengers. He was of the opinion that he offered no ‘safety risk’ as he fit between the armrests of the seat. He blew off steam by tweeting about the inconvenience and embarrassment he felt at having been removed from the plane.

Turns out Kevin Smith was no ordinary passenger. An award winning Director of movies like ‘Dogma’, ‘Chasing Amy’, & ‘Cop Out’, he has over a million followers on Twitter. Tweet tweet!

What ensued was a potential PR nightmare for Southwest (Toyota anybody?).

The Story Spread Like Wildfire Online

The intensity of this incident was evident from the fact that in a span of 6 days it had 3,043 blog mentions, 5,133 forum posts and 15,528 tweets. Online media had the majority of the coverage of this event. Fortunately, for Southwest, their swift and continuous response (that too on a Saturday), ensured that the nightmare was short-lived. In fact the time before Kevin Smith’s first tweet and Southwest’s response was 16 minutes. The maximum impact of this story was 2 days before it petered out a few days later.

View the complete timeline of the tweets between Kevin Smith and Southwest Airlines.

Overall Sentiment On Twitter

36% supported Southwest Airlines’ move. They believed the airline handled the event well. 26% were of the opinion that it was poor customer service/response on the airline’s part. In other words, they expected the airline to handle the situation better. 38% said that they won’t fly Southwest Airlines.

The Response

Southwest Airlines’ response was planned and well executed. As mentioned before, Southwest responded in 16 minutes after the initial complaint with an apology. After additional rants, Southwest responded again 14 minutes later. In the morning Southwest tweeted over an hour later trying to let Kevin Smith know they were listening and trying to engage with their Customer Relations VP. The next morning they tried to call as well. The blog post on the incident was posted the next day and tweeted. Because of the response, even though Smith’s version got the lion’s share of mainstream press reports, Southwest’s response was noted (see LA Times story Incident #1 and Fatgate #2).

Southwest’s response was textbook real time marketing and customer service. They responded quickly and in a friendly way. As a result, many of the customer responses on the Southwest blog were very sympathetic, especially after Smith continued to pound away. Southwest did not block any negative comments on their blog. They apologized to Kevin Smith and offered a refund, but restated their longstanding policy of charging 2 tickets for larger people on full flights. Social influence played an important role here as Southwest Airlines admitted that it had to more carefully implement their ‘delicate’ seating policy.

Popularity Chart: Mentions Of Southwest Airlines & Kevin Smith

The popularity of discussions around the incident took a major leap on February 14th, owing to numerous mentions on blogs, forums, news and Twitter. On February 15th, the popularity fell drastically and has been heading downhill ever since. The reason is because issues between Kevin Smith and Southwest Airlines have been discussed at length in a completely transparent manner.

Overall Sentiment On Blogs

Comments on the blogosphere were remarkably neutral to the incident. About 31% reacted negatively to the incident and 17% reacted positively.

Conclusion

What this story highlights is the fact that influencers need to be listened to and engaged with as they have the power to potentially cause serious harm to your brand. Kevin Smith has over a million followers on Twitter and he is a celebrity. This makes him an influencer and opinion leader. Southwest Airlines’ prompt response to Kevin Smith’s tweet was its best move. Around 8 tweets were exchanged between both parties after which the airline wrote a blog post narrating the events and offering an apology. This led to rapid fall-off in interest with many taking Southwest’s side in the dispute.

“Companies can choose to not factor in the social influence of customers, but will be putting themselves at risk. It’s just a matter of time before a company has a social blowup, and by not trying to handle priority customers, could cause a small issue to quickly escalate into a larger one.” – Jeremiah Owyang, Partner, Customer Strategy Altimeter Group.

Methodology: We analyzed tweets posted between 13th February and 16th February. We initially analyzed the list of positive keywords associated with the Kevin smith incident. These users supported Southwest airlines & they felt that Southwest handled this issue well. We also analyzed the data from Twitter using the following keywords and assigned categories as depicted in the graph above.

Support SW airlines keywords: (”Southwest”) AND (”Kevin smith”) AND (”like” OR “love” OR “win” OR “awesome” OR “great” OR “best” OR “rocks” OR “support”)

We followed the same methodology for negative and neutral sentiment too. Here are keywords associated with negative sentiment, These users felt that the SW airlines service has poor service.

Poor Customer Service: (”Southwest”) AND (”Kevin smith”) AND (”poor service” OR “fail” OR “bad” OR “Inferior” OR “hate” OR “insane” OR “sad” OR “dislike” OR “disaster”)

We discovered there was another trend associated with this incident. Some users felt that they won’t fly SW airlines again.
I won’t fly with Southwest: “southwest” AND “Kevin smith” AND ( “never travel” OR ” don’t fly ” OR “never fly” OR “won’t fly ” OR ” never try” OR “don’t try” OR “don’t travel” OR “never going” )

Contributed by Nallai Wickreman and Jade Agnet D’costa, Social Media Marketing, Position²

• Tracking The Buzz On Apple’s iPad (0)
• Impact of Google’s Real-time search on social media marketing (1)
• Why Social Media Marketing is Essential (0)

At first glance, Google Buzz looks like a Friendfeed/Twitter clone with a few extra features thrown in. But there’s for more to it than meets the eye. To get the real scoop on how it was received in the online world, we turned to the social media space.

We analyzed a total of 311,960 tweets over two days (February 9, 10). A majority thought it was capable of giving Facebook a run for its money. Here’s how the numbers added up:

• 59% thought that Google Buzz spells the end of Facebook’s dominance.
• 24% were unimpressed. They called Google Buzz a Twitter clone and a failure on Google’s part.
• 12% were completely in the dark and had no idea what Google Buzz was all about.
• 4% were eager to try Google Buzz, but hadn’t formed an opinion yet.
• 1% didn’t care that Google Buzz exists and were genuinely not interested.

Some of the features that got Google Buzz the thumbs up:

• No character limit on posts allows for easier updates
• Option to share messages and comments or keep them private
• Updates on messages are sent directly to your inbox
• Any updates on Google Buzz appear in real time
• New comments get updated without having to refresh the page
• Google Buzz integrates with other sites such as Twitter, Picasa, Flickr, etc., and is photo friendly.

But not all agree. According to Augie Ray, a Forrester Research analyst, a massive migration to Google Buzz from Twitter and Facebook is doubtful. Users on existing social networks will find it hard to make the transition to a new network built into an email provider. Other criticisms included invasion privacy and the intrusive nature of the tool. The criticism over privacy concerns grew, and Google responded swiftly. Google decided to alter one of the most-criticized features in Buzz: the ready-made circle of friends the service provided to new users based on their most frequent e-mail and chat contacts in Gmail. Instead of automatically connecting people, Buzz will in the future merely suggest a group of people they may want to follow or be followed by

Google Buzz will get a massive user lift as Gmail has over 175 million subscribers. But it remains to be seen if users are willing to use all social media in one place. Will privacy concerns slow down the march of Google Buzz? Not according to Jeremiah Owyang, “Privacy woes will scare consumers, yet adoption will continue upwards.”

Stay tuned to find out where the chips eventually fall. We’ll continue to monitor the social media space and keep you posted!

Methodology: We discovered keywords after doing a manual analysis via Twitter search for Google Buzz.

Keywords: “Twitter killer”, “I like Google buzz”, “I love Google buzz”, “twitter like service”, “Google failure”, “twitter clone”, “socially awkward”, “auto-following”, “what is Google buzz”, “end of Facebook”

Contributed by Nallai Wickreman and Jade Agnet D’costa, Social Media Marketing, Position²

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Yes, Social Media is fun. If what you are doing is not fun then why do it.  Same goes for Social Media.

If you want to promote your business through social media and business networking, but still have your doubts on it, then I suggest you drop it.

Like I said earlier, if what you are doing is not fun then don’t do it at all. Promoting your business through the social media sites can prove to be very beneficial to your business and bring in a high ROI.

We often hear people say that promoting your business has to be taken seriously.  That is true, but who said that serious cannot be fun.

When businesses drop their feelings and hide behind their logos and not show their face, it brings in more fun, curiosity and excitement to Social Media. Getting them to do it is hard and not fun, but once they do it more business comes to them from consumers though having better trust in whom, it is they are doing business. A positive result in business is where the fun begins.

Sites like Facebook, Twitter, My Space, etc helps create a network with friends and other people, with whom one can establish contact and not just share what’s happening in and around their little world, but also exchange some very important information, like important links, or create homepages, etc which could prove to be very useful in the future.

Sites like LinkedIn, which is a business related though, can also be fun too, where people can exchange contacts and important information on any events happening related to their business.

The entire premise of Social Media is based on drawing attention to something by using effective communication through social channels.  What draws consumers to something is fun. If it is fun and exciting, they will come.

So what are you still waiting for? Unless you give Social Media a try, you will never know what you’re missing out on.

Contributed by Pooja Giri

• Tracking The Buzz On Apple’s iPad (0)
• Impact of Google’s Real-time search on social media marketing (1)
• Engagement – The cornerstone for social media marketing success (2)

The Internet was abuzz with the launch of Apple’s iPad. While the world was busy reacting to the iPad, our team set out monitoring social networks to track iPad buzz. We tracked activity from January 27 through February 28. The results are here to see!

Priced modestly at $499 for the 16GB base version, the iPad packs in quite a punch. Compared to e-readers, this sleek unit has a stunning screen, wireless broadband connectivity, a touchscreen and the ability to run over 100,000 iPhone apps. However, the iPad has received mixed reactions online. Critics have written about missing features like a camera, flash and the fact that it cannot multitask. You cannot listen to your favorite Pandora station while writing an email. At the same time, with winners like the iPod, iPhone and iMac, it’s hard to count Apple out.

Below is a summary of the tracking study.

Number Of Mentions – Apple iPad

Among social networks, there was an explosion of Tweets with over 5.2 million posts. There were 70,796 news articles, 199,979 forum posts and 246,886 blog entries. Rarely would you see so many articles about a product launch, even an Apple one.

Overall Popularity



After a burst of posts on January 27, iPad social media mentions had its normal drop in popularity. What is more interesting is how there is a steady stream of posts even over a month afterwards. There are still around 50,000 mentions per day for a product that has not shipped or advertised on TV. That is, until the Oscars on March 7th. The ad is worth watching.

Sentiment Analysis Of Blogs

In the blogosphere,

• The overall sentiment was split into neutral at 47%, positive at 41% and negative at 12%.
• After an initial burst of positive sentiment, it turned more negative as critics commented on missing features.
• Towards the end of February, positive sentiment has been rising as negative sentiment is dropping. More people are making decisions about the device. It will be interesting to observe sentiment once advertising picks up.
• Among countries, U.S. blogs commented most about the iPad followed by U.K. and Germany.

Features

• It’s a light-weight device with a 9.7 inch display
• iPad’s multi-touch screen makes gaming and navigation an experience like no other
• The new iBook app transforms the iPad into a digital reader
• For a modestly priced gadget, the iPad has a long battery life of 10 hours
• The app store with 140,000 apps make the iPad a real steal

The Verdict – Lines At The Apple Store?

With lines at the store for upgrades of the iPhone, the answer is… definitely. The Apple iPad launch demonstrates the power of consistently strong marketing and product development. Loyal and vocal followers drive the mix as well. The initial buzz has translated to consistent mentions over a 30 day period. Sentiment has varied with time because experts were expecting more features and functionality than what was announced. At the same time, positive sentiment has risen consistently as people are digesting a new product category distinct from the Kindle or Tablet PC. The power of Apple’s positive brand equity is clear when news stories are reporting on TV ads released during the Oscars. It’s clear that Steve Job’s company is a master at marketing. While we do not know whether the iPad will be a high-flyer like the iPhone or a relative dud like Apple TV, we’ll continue to track the buzz.

Methodology: We compiled results from Sysomos as well as the Google AdWords keywords tool, to arrive at a keywords set for the Apple iPad.

Keywords: “Apple iPad”, “iPad”

Contributed by Sanjeev Dhanaraj, Social Media Marketing, Position²

• Impact of Google’s Real-time search on social media marketing (1)
• Engagement – The cornerstone for social media marketing success (2)
• Leveraging Facebook for better Business Branding (1)

Google’s real time search marks the beginning of delivering a new search result for the future. In a way it has changed the way people find information on the internet.

The real-time search allows users to view live updates from social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook which impacts the search engine result page (SERP). Headlines from blogs and news websites can be viewed just seconds after they are published. For businesses real-time search can increase the efficiency of both big and small online companies.

With the launch of real-time search corporate websites need to be more active on social media sites since any conversations on social networks will consequently have an ongoing effect on search results.

Now companies and organizations need to care for sites like Twitter or other forms of user-generated content that are published in real-time. Companies that were previously involved in Twitter focusing on engagement for customers and leads, now have to also optimize keywords that are used in each tweet. What it also means to a company is that if your brand doesn’t tweet, it is going to lose on some search traffic.

Real-time search by Google has been one of the most important social media announcements for 2009. In a nutshell, it means businesses cannot ignore social media as it is an indispensable marketing tool.

For companies that want to jump into the social media bandwagon, there isn’t much time to lose.

Contributed by Shantanu Barman

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Forum posting today has become critical to social media marketing efforts that boost business successes online. Forums act as an ideal marketing tool as they help you to learn and realize newer avenues available for marketing your business through constant interaction with other members of the forum. Forum posting doesn’t mean simply posting new threads or replying to old threads in order to get quality inbound links to a website. Forum posting should be done accurately to drive targeted traffic to your website and to strengthen your brand visibility in search engine rankings. However, if it is done indiscriminately, it could result in waste of time, which could have otherwise been spent on growing your business.
In addition, getting backlinks from forums with high page ranks will help in getting direct traffic to your website. However, at times there could be a possibility of your post being edited or deleted by the forum administrator if they find that your posting does not adhere to their forum policy. Also there may be times when administrators may not allow any links in posts until they are totally relevant. Therefore, it is important to be mindful of the kind of posts you make in forums in order to take advantage of them.

Importance of forum posting in social media marketing

In order to get the best results through forum posting, it is important to keep the following four points in mind:

1. Search Forums of high Google Page Rank – To get the maximum visibility and exposure, you must post in forums that have high Google Page Rank value and visitors. Try to find forums that have active conversations and high page views. If you end up posting in forums that have very less traffic, it will not help you maximize your results
2. Make your presence felt – It is also important to let people know who you are, especially when you are out there to promote your brand or build business relationships. You can add a more personal touch and connect with people when you post in forums by using your own name rather than a fictitious or funny name that disguises your identity. Moreover, people are more likely to connect to you when they know who you are. Additionally, uploading your photo can also help to increase the responsiveness of people to your postings.
3. No Direct Marketing: Please note that you cannot talk specifically about your product or sell your product in forums, as direct marketing is not allowed in most forums. You need to select the category in the forums related to your business and start a general conversation with the forum members. You can slowly start sharing your business information once your presence is felt and accepted in the forum. This ensures that you improve your business presence and trust among the forum members. Eventually, this networking and relationsip will help your brand strength and work towards gaining search engine rankings.
4. Append a signature file and a link to your website – A signature file is a pre-written personal footer that is used as a closing line for emails. This usually contains the name and address of the sender or any other text that the sender wishes to have as his closing line. You can use your signature file when you post in forums so that people can contact you if they are interested in your product. Also, posting a link  to your website in the signature file may help drive traffic and brand visibility.

Discussion boards are generally a highly targeted group of people that are more receptive to your products and services. Therefore commenting on forums is an effective way to promote your brand.

Contributed by Seethalakshmi

• Social Media is fun (0)
• Tracking The Buzz On Apple’s iPad (0)
• Impact of Google’s Real-time search on social media marketing (1)

Social media has been the buzzword for quite sometime now. It’s here to stay. In simple terms, social media is the usage of social networks, blogs, social bookmarking, videos etc to facilitate social interaction. The main aim here is engagement through conversation. Content is king when it comes to social media because it is user-generated. Social media is more like a dialogue unlike traditional media where communication is one-way.

Social media and its importance in website promotion:

Social networking websites include Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn etc. Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon are examples of social bookmarking tools. YouTube and metacafe are popular video sharing sites. Sites like Blogger, Wordpress and Typepad are blog hosting sites. Twitter is an excellent example of micro-blogging. It is also one of the most viral platforms on the web.

Social networks like Facebook are popular social media tools. With more than 300 million active users and more than 70 translations available on the site, Facebook is kind of a big deal. It is a huge social media platform where companies engage users through fan pages, groups and events. Facebook also allows businesses to create ads.

Microblogging platforms such as Twitter are viral platforms. Twitter facilitates instant interaction. It can also be a great place to announce contests, events and even a new new blog post.

A Blog is the simplest and most effective way to build an online presence. It’s a place to discuss, debate and share ideas about your company, products and services. With a blog you can control what information you want to display. A blog also means better search engine ranking and greater visibility.

Social bookmarking tools are effective in promoting websites. It gets you backlinks and traffic. It’s a great way to share interesting and relevant links, which in turn leads to better search engine ranking and higher visibility online.

Contributed by Jade D’costa

• Tracking The Buzz On Apple’s iPad (0)
• Engagement – The cornerstone for social media marketing success (2)
• Leveraging Facebook for better Business Branding (1)

Many of you must be wondering what is a ghost blog? A ghost blog is a blog run and managed by an anonymous author(s). A ghost blog can also be a blog written by a company or person on behalf of another company or person. It could also mean that it is a blog dedicated to ghost and so on…

Ghost blogging means that someone else writes a blog for you. It’s like you hire someone who helps you out on a project, but that person gets no credit for it, and is only paid for the services provided by him or her.

But why hire someone else to write a blog on your area of expertise?  Does this practice conform to blogging best practices? What are the blogging ethics with regard to ghost blogging? There have been many debates as to whether ghost blogs should be taken seriously or not.

Many bloggers believe that a blog should be written by the owner of the blog, but there are so many people out there who have great ideas to share but don’t have the requisite writing skills to express their ideas. These people can enlist the help of ghost bloggers to write for them.

A blog is a component of social networking, which is based on openness and honesty. So would it be ethical for a blogger to hire a ghost writer or ghost blogger to write a blog? Is it fair that the ghost blogger should go un-credited?

Here are some reasons why it is wrong:

1. People reading a blog expect the person listed as the author to be the one writing the post. This expectation is critical, and is a key difference between new and old media (where, this kind of practice eroded the credibility of many marketing tactics);
2. As the owner of the blog, the danger of damage to your credibility and reputation if you get found out easily outweighs the benefits you get from hiding the true author;
3. For corporate blogs, the CEO doesn’t need to be the face of a company online. If your company has grown and the CEO needs to focus elsewhere, someone else could write, or you could set up a group blog, or the blog posts can be from “staff writers”;
4. There are plenty of other social media (and other online) tools out there. If authentic, transparent blogging doesn’t work for you, use a different medium;
5. Social media is built on trust. By misleading people about the identity of the author, you stand to lose the trust when the deception is revealed, especially if you’re projected as an “expert” in the area.

A blog is, after all, channel for an individual’s expression. Ghost blogging takes away this identity of a blog If you are interested in building a long term, sustainable image, want to adhere to the blogging best practices and blogging ethics, you would either give credit to the actual author of your blog or refrain from ghost blogging.

Contributed by Pooja Giri

• Engagement – The cornerstone for social media marketing success (2)
• How to effectively connect with your target audience through Social Media (1)
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