Digital Stuffing

As a follow up to the comments on my post about Eurostar – a communications failure not a social media failure I thought I’d take a look at the wider picture of the role social media plays in communications and companies approach to using the channels. Since I started writing this post, Robin Grant of we are social has posted his account of the day, explaining the relationship they have with Eurostar, which was pretty much as I expected.

360 Communications

Companies have multiple routes available to them for communication but they also have multiple sources. Sales, marketing, corporate communications, customer service, reputation management, crisis management, they’re all there and they are all going to have a different toolset available to them. For most times, separating the control and the budget behind these seems to make financial sense, at least in the current corporate arrangements. But when there’s a crisis, all of these channels need to work together. If there’s a problem with a product or brand, then most people don’t see the internal silo walls, they would expect to get the same information wherever they go, wherever there is a touchpoint.

Crisis planning is not something that should be left to a crisis. It needs thought and preparation. In an ideal world, the plans should use ALL the available channels, whether that is getting the CEO on the TV or getting active on Twitter. The crisis team should therefore have access to everything they could possible be use – and have the training to use it. All the necessary passwords should be ready to go, so if the comms team need to use marketing channels, they are easily able to do so. They don’t have to find out who is in charge of the Facebook page, find out where they are and get them to send the passwords in, they need to be there. The same with the website – there should always be an easy way to get news and information quickly onto the site.

One thing I did find interesting is that Eurostar have gone through this before, but none of the lessons seems to have been reflected upon and procedures adjusted.

The reality of introducing social media into brands

The reality is that in most companies still don’t think this way. From my perspective, companies seem to start using social media in two broad categories: customer service, driven from internal staff and set up and managed from them or marketing driven where they bring in an agency to advise them. External agencies generally have a very tight brief, they need to focus on the campaign that they have been given. Robin makes this clear:

When we first met with Eurostar, as we do with all of our clients, we talked to them about the need for to put a real-time social media listening and responding programme and crisis plan in place, and proposed a conversation audit and consultancy project to help them implement such a programme. As is common with any business at the early stages of coming to terms with social media, they could see the long term benefits of such a strategy, however as adapting their existing processes had wider implications across the business they decided to start small by moving forward with the Little break, Big difference campaign, to learn from the experience of engaging in conversations in social media.

This is consistent with my experience. I’ve always tried to speak to companies about using the tools holistically, but the money and focus is only on the one thing. They don’t have the budget nor the internal authority to expand the remit of the brief, the changes required to put these processes in place are too large for them to do there and then. If they’re lucky, they’ll have time to experiment, learn and expand the role of social media internally.

In the Eurostar case, the company had not yet implemented the use of social media monitoring or crisis management. A company that had been contracted to work in one area stepped up to assist, using the channels to get the word out despite it being out of scope. They’re also having to do their own version of crisis management as their reputation is being hit, being the people behind one of the few online channels Eurostar has.

Should a company use the tools in a crisis when they haven’t planned?

Yes, but with care. If there’s already a Twitter feed, facebook page, blog or whatever out there that can be used and the company has a willing partner ready to step in, then yes. This is what has happened with Eurostar. However, I’d be less inclined to suggest a company with no experience to assign someone to suddenly to set up these channels in the middle of a crisis if they have to spend time and effort trying to understand them. That’s not to say it should not be done, if you can get someone to focus on monitoring, assessing and responding to these channels if will go a long way, but the middle of the crisis is not the best time to be learning about the finer points of Twitter etiquette.

In summary:

• Customers expect a company to use all channels available to communicate in a crisis and don’t care if you only use Twitter for marketing. They expect the you to use what they have
• Planning is essential. Training is necessary. Looking at communications as a whole is needed in a world where there are more than the old broadcast mechanisms controlled by gatekeepers, when anyone can be a reporter about your issues.

All companies should be learning from the Eurostar situation and reviewing their crisis plans ready for when they need to do something. So what are you waiting for?

As hundreds of Eurostar passengers languish, Eurostar ignores Twitter

That’s the headline on Mike Butcher’s Techcrunch article – I think it is missing the point. I’m finding myself getting annoyed (probably irrationally) about the tone of certain people on Twitter regarding the Eurostar. The problem is not a social media or twitter failure, it’s a complete communication failure on behalf of Eurostar. Twitter should probably be the least of their worries over what else seems to be failing, although there seems to be a belief that if only the Eurostar Twitter account was working then many of the comms issues would be sorted.

Eurostar

Two issues I see here. Of the 2000 or so people still stuck on trains, very few are likely to be using Twitter. I did a random sampling of tweets mentioning the issue and found 3 people who are are a train. Even if it’s a 100 people, not really enough to do efficient communication. Secondly, after being stuck on a train without power, I’m guessing if they have phone power left, they are using it to connect with family and friends, not with Twitter.

Here’s where I see some failures are:

• What appears to be a depressing lack of onboard communication to let people their know what is happening. This comes from the TV and news reports
• Not organising transport to get the people off the trains, or moving back to London.
• The inability to quickly update their website with news. I was looking at this last night and there was no-way I way I could see to get arrival or departure information. The news was not updated about the situation until late this morning. Not just about the stuck trains, but about the cancellations of today’s trains, which impact many more people.
• failure to notify today’s travellers directly
• the failure to be all over the news and other broadcast media to get information out to as many people as possible
• Finally, the failure to use other comms methods, including Twitter to amplify their message

I feel the focus on social media is in a wrong place. Mike calls out the 2 Eurostar accounts he could find eurostar_uk and little_break. The first of these looks looked like a general marketing account, probably run by there marketing team, not necessarily the first team on call when there’s an operational issue. (Update: Between starting this post and publishing the eurostar_uk twitter account has gone away and Techcrunch is reporting it is not official) The second is a campaign account, set up specifically for a single marketing campaign by agency We are Social, who in all likelihood have no remit to do anything else EXCEPT that campaign and will not be in any comms loop. As it is, they are working hard to get information and updating it this morning. Update: Robin Grant of We are social responds

Now, Mike does have a point; brands need to be aware of what communications channels are there and the PR Crisis Management team need to have access to them all, even if they are just campaign related, or marketing related. Access details need to be ‘in the manual’ Just because the original purpose of a channel was marketing, does not mean it should not be co-opted when necessary. But Twitter is not going to save the day for Eurostar, they have far bigger issues.

PS: I spell checked everything except the title!!!!! fixed now

The Campaign

Cabwise is an initiative from Transport for London which has been around for a while.

Text CAB to 60835* to get the numbers of one taxi and two licensed minicab firms, in the area you are texting from.

SO wherever you are, you can information about a way to get home. The campaign this year is focused on women and the dangers of rape.

There’s also a video which depicts what may happen – and does for some – in a way that they’ve given an age warning of over 15.

The posters are pretty common around town and the video is being pushed via social media. It’s a long-running campaign and this is just the latest incarnation to get the message across. There’s no new or different way of using the online tools, just another shock tactic to try and get the message across and reduce the incident of attacks.

The Pitch

I’d been seeing the posters around for a while but got notified about the video with an email from GoViral. I’d been following the comments over at Katy Lindeman’s blog, where she has posted a couple of time about approaches from Go Viral who are offering to pay her for views for posting a video from Stella Artois, with a follow up post about an email exchange she has had with the company. According to that exchange they are reviewing their T&Cs to make it clear that people who post content from them and receive payment have to disclose it. So I was very surprised to see an email from them without a link to the T&Cs and without a comment in the email about the requirement for openness and transparency when it comes to posting what is paid media. In fact, when I questioned the mailer about the post, including a link to what I had written in The Guardian I got this response:

the issue that Claus is dealing with is a separate one and for a different campaign

The fact that it is a different campaign is irrelevant. The same rules apply to all campaigns and all clients and adding a mention of the responsibilities to the emails is surely good practice and a quick result whilst waiting for the lawyers to update the T&Cs.

I have no problem, in general, with paid for media spreading into social media – as long as the rules are clear and the companies involved are aware of the legal issue and don’t encourage bloggers and other publishers to break the law. As a company, Go Viral should be setting the ground rules with clients and making sure they too are aware of the requirements.

I support the campaign but I’ve not received any payment for this post (I grabbed the video and uploaded it to my YouTube, so I’m not being included in their ‘paid’ results.