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Re: Malaysia Airlines launches FireFly to Singapore – a community airline brand. Interview with Head of Marketing

Walter Adamson — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:21:23 -0000

Taping into the phrase "usefulness is the language of brand" if Flywire can prove useful to the business segment, and they should be able to do this by simply concnetrating on the time savings, then if all else is managed competently they have a fighting chance of doing well, and good luck to them.

Walter Adamson @g2m
Social Media Academy, Australia
http://www.socialmedia-acad...

Re: Unveiling the New Influencers

Walter Adamson — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:11:36 -0000

What did you mean by this comment - the last phrase - I missed the point but it seems important to your argument?

- "...not derivative of the social web"?

"Tastemakers and trendsetters are the new influencers, but their roles in affecting consumer behavior are not derivative of the Social Web."

Thanks, Walter @g2m

Re: Unveiling the New Influencers

Walter Adamson — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:11:36 -0000

What did you mean by this comment - the last phrase - I missed the point but it seems important to your argument?

- "...not derivative of the social web"?

"Tastemakers and trendsetters are the new influencers, but their roles in affecting consumer behavior are not derivative of the Social Web."

Thanks, Walter @g2m

Re: Keynote presentation from Sydney: How airlines can have conversations with customers on social media

Walter Adamson — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:50:04 -0000

Great layout and style and sequencing of the rationale, which would also be easily absorbed by executives in many other industries.

Your community examples are great. I'm always conscious that 90% of branded communities fail, so in reality the planning takes a lot more effort than you convey in order to mitigate that risk. Of course you can't boil the ocean in one presentation but it's a simple reminder like that which can make people stop and think before rushing in too deeply.

I'm also very conscious of the fact, when I give people the typical examples of "social media success", that those smart companies such as Dell or Virgin America have only exposed what they want to expose. To make what they have apparently achieved so easily with just a few tools e.g. Twitter, actually takes a lot of hard work and cross organisational planning, training and coordination. To copy what you see on the surface will almost certainly lead to failure and a waste of resources. That's why we preach the need for a proper social media assessment and then strategy considerations, and lastly tools or branded versus social web community considerations.

In any case, love your work - you have a solid niche here and huge opportunity to help improve the customer experience. In my experience the brand depth of airlines is a thin shadow of the brand promise.

Walter Adamson
@g2m Social Media Academy, Australia
http://www.socialmedia-acad...

Re: 6 Essential Social Media Tools for Start-Ups

Walter Adamson — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 01:00:05 -0000

Good advice. You mentioned how important it is to have a clear purpose.

I think what was missing it that once you know your purpose you should then search and find out which social spaces and places are most relevant to that purpose. For example searching for the important keywords and phrases related to your purpose in the social web. This is the best way to then select which of the tools you mention is most important.

For example if you find most people and topics which are related to your purpose are in Myspace then not use doing things with Facebook even if you may personally prefer Facebook. It's this "assessment" step which is most often missed.

Walter Adamson @g2m
Social Media Academy, Australia
http://www.socialmedia-acad...

Re: Reality Check: Three reasons why legacy airline brands are dead (and who to look out for)

Walter Adamson — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:37:50 -0000

Hey we're all experts on airlines, here's my bit. I think that the legacy airlines AND many of their start-ups are dinosaurs. I could use Qantas and Jetstar as examples, trouble is they are financially very profitable and "well performing" in any sense within the world of airlines. The issue that I see is exactly the "stuck on stupid" but within the whole airline industry. So if we measure QF and JS against the other "stuck in stupids" they come out quite well.

In the real world the "success" of JS is all about low price. The "success" of QF is all about still controlling is it 70 or 80% of the Australian market, and neverending protection on key other routes. It appears to my untrained eye that they have used that route protection to close down their full service flights, not face any competition because they had the slots locked up, and then introduce their low price carrier e.g. Japan.

But that's not my big issue, that's just taking commercial advantage of government stupidity, at both ends.

The big issue is that their brands stink and their brand promises are trash and the brand behaviour is so far from stupid it is idiotic. Anyone travelling QF on any day of the week will have the same stories, some parts good, some parts bad, some parts appalling, all completely unpredictable except that noone will be at the jetway to open the door when you land on the last flights into Melbourne or Sydney - you'll wait 10 minutes for that.

Both JS and QF are all about what's good for them, keep hammering the passengers, keep letting them know how lucky they are to be allowed to be a customer, keep telling them what you won't do for them, keep restricting and taking things away and cutting out everything and then putting it back with a fee.

So in this "competitive" commercial world, why hasn't Virgin cleaned up, if QF and JS are such a mess? Actually it is the same reason - the brand promise is great and on the surface it's happy and bright. But the brand depth and brand behaviour is the same trash. Try with any of them to change or amend bookings, or to do something a little different, or to even ask questions about what options might be available, or to find out when and if your luggage might arrive. It's all the same for all of them - appalling.

Let's face it - air travel these days is mostly a pain in the butt.

Consumers are hostages to bad service whereever they turn. So price is the driver - but also apathy prevails and people stick with QF and its offspring as it has a kind of patriotic ring. I'd predict that QF has measured and reported on a high level of "satisfaction" among its travelers and FF members, and this is taken to mean loyalty which it absolutely is not.

Their TV ads, take the latest QF campaign, promises that travel on business with Qantas is "a breeze". That is the whole message. I mean really, that's as bankrupt as advertising can get and I thought that the world had moved on. There is no hope of delivering on that promise, and the behaviours during any customer engagement cycle simply destroy the message completely. The others live in the same yesterworld of fake advertising that proves your point yet again - "stuck on stupid" legacy or not in Australia.

Walter

Re: What Next for the CMO?

Walter Adamson — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 04:57:25 -0000

Isn't shaping the way the offer is communicated "branding", which as you said is what marketing has become and it has a very short half-life in the social media. So the social media is accelerating the death of branding and these types of CMOs. This also has a negative effect on brand.

If, on the other hand, CMOs were helping shape the whole brand behavior and experience, as I think Evan Scott is suggesting, then they would be also engaging in the social media in a brand positive way and not seeing it as another "channel" for pushing their brand "messages".

If they do not understand the connectivity of the business and its operations, and how that plays out in the social media, then they won't be the brand guardians. I'm not suggesting that they should be, but I am saying they can't be if they don't have these skills.

The point is that a CMO's ability to produce strategies for the social media, as an ever increasingly important contributor to brand behavior, will play an larger and larger role in defining the CMO's future.

Walter Adamson @g2m
Social Media Academy, Australia

Re: 6 Tips for Creating “Sticky” Social Relationships

Walter Adamson — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:48:38 -0000

Reminds me of the Five Levels of Bonding: Awareness, Identity, Relationship, Community, Advocacy. You add some good techniques- reciprocity for example. Thanks,
- Walter @g2m

Re: Social Media: So Easy a Caveman Can Do It?

Walter Adamson — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 02:53:50 -0000

Thanks for the write-up of the case, it's another important milestone in the evolution of thinking about social media and how to plan for it.

I'm struggling with this comment: "Social media is powerful. It’s a marketing discipline that requires an emphasis on strategic planning."

Most people commenting seemed to agree.

Social media is about the customer experience, and the brand behavior, but surely this is much bigger than being a "marketing discipline"? You know what I mean about all the other parts of the organisation being involved.

I appreciate that in the textbook sense "marketing" is supposed to be holistic and nurturing the brand across all touch points etc. But the 99% reality is that it has degenerated to "branding" and sending out "positioning" "messages" through "channels".

I don't think that it is a recipe for success to bring that mindset into planning for social media - am I wrong?

I'm also pondering if this means that "branding" as a whole is dead, as it would seem to imply sending out these messages - one way. I see you support and use the word "branding" and I'm interested to know how it fits with social media. In short I thought social media would spell the end of "branding".

I'm not saying the end of "brand", nor the end of being responsible for brand, nor even the end of advertising. I'm just thinking that brand has become a whole lot more than marketing/branding as it is practiced today.

Walter Adamson @g2m
Social Media Academy, Australia

Re: A Participation Framework for Social Media

Walter Adamson — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:45:38 -0000

Good cultural insights and reminders for an individual. We can regard ourselves as good practitioners and yet often find that even we slip of some of these key communication habits and thoughts. It's a good reminder and I'm going over my own habits now.

Re: Scaling Issues In Social Media Monitoring

Walter Adamson — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:57:48 -0000

Dave very helpful and good tips, and thanks for the update on Radian6. Two points - another option besides automation is outsourcing to a low-cost high English capacity country such as Bangladesh. As far as a Team goes, at the Social Media Academy we advocate a Social Media Team as a cross functional team for coordination, with the "work" still being done in each functional unit. Thanks for the reference to the ebook.

Walter Adamson @g2m
Social Media Academy, Australia
http://xeesm.com/walter

Re: A Dozen Applications for Social Media

Walter Adamson — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:18:45 -0000

Good post and 10 useful succinct suggestions. I think a few additions to #1 - Listening - might be of interest to readers. (1) you can use google to monitor and search Twitter, (2) for trends and sentiment collecta.com or philtro.com and (3) www.peoplebrowsr.com offers a range of useful free search functions.

Walter Adamson @g2m
Social Media Academy, Australia
http://walteradamson.com

Re: Live From NEMOA: How Lehman’s Uses Social Media

Walter Adamson — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:23:31 -0000

Great example. I wonder how Lehman's thinks about the return on investment - its obviously favourable, how would they measure the input versus the output and what sort of dimensions surround those variables. This is something every small business worries about when they set out into social media.

Walter Adamson @g2m
http://xeesm.com/walter

Re: 13 Ways to Monitor Your Brand on Social Media: Do You Know What Is Being Said About Your Company Online?

Walter Adamson — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:49:09 -0000

It's worth noting two good Australian tools, Peoplebrowsr and Dialogix, and I also use a new systems from Canada www.ecairn.com as it has good expert systems analysis of conversations to find influencers amongst blogs. We're always looking for effective and yet easy-to-learn tools for our course participants, and we currently use Techrigy and Sysomos and Scout Labs and also in Australia we have student access to Radian6. For sure, there is no one answer.

Of course there are new tools every day and the Social Media Academy is running a Tools Week in November - 16th to 21st - packed with the most compelling new tools, and the sessions are available in Australia as well:
http://www.socialmedia-acad...

Walter Adamson, @g2m
Social Media Academy, Australia
http://www.socialmedia-acad...

Re: 5 Twitter Tips for Staying Authentic and Transparent

Walter Adamson — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:57:45 -0000

Good article and thanks for the links to your other references, very helpful. This is a good straight-forward article which explains to business owners a number of things which they are are almost always asking. I often get asked if they can outsource the tweets and I'm relunctant to say yes because they can't really accomplish the intent of your article if it is not them. I know many companies offer this service, but in my experience it is obvious when you encounter these companies tweeting on behalf of their clients as their "voice" wrong.

What is your opinion of outsourcing tweeting?

Walter Adamson
Social Media Academy, Australia
http://xeesm.com/walter

Re: Why Charles River Ventures passed on Twitter’s latest round

Walter Adamson — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:21:08 -0000

Interesting observation about Facebook innovating from top-down while Twitter is from bottom-up.

Walter, @g2m
http://xeesm.com/walter

Re: What Facebook for iPhone 3.0 Means for Inigral

Walter Adamson — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:06:46 -0000

I can be annoying when an app jumps out into the browser and you have to reenter it later - start again. So this is a good feature in the FB app.

Walter @g2m
http://xeesm.com/walter

Re: The Point You’re Missing About Google Wave

Walter Adamson — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:21:54 -0000

Thanks for the insights about the platform as opposed to the UI. As an "outside" I had not picked that up before.
Walter, @g2m

Re: AP and News Corp: Facebook, YouTube, Google Are Exploiting Us

Walter Adamson — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:25:55 -0000

Rupert Murdoch remains one of the world's smartest business people, so it's hard to imagine how he could have allowed his assets to be "exploited" by a bunch of people who are often said to have "no business models". Irony.
Walter Adamson @g2m
http://xeesm.com/walter

Re: How to build a Facebook community

Walter Adamson — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:54:59 -0000

Every one of the "14 levers" very useful - thanks, really helpful.
Walter @g2m
http://xeesm.com/walter

Re: Seven ways to prevent your social media strategy from going into a tailspin

Walter Adamson — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:18:03 -0000

Good post and agree with all. I'm not sure if it is realistic to expect everyone in an organisation to be passionate about the mission. I think in terms of 3Cs for alignment - Clarity of vision, Consistency of execution, and mutual Commitment between all the parties. It's the latter - commitment - I would use instead of passion.
Walter Adamson @g2m
http://xeesm.com/walter

Re: Twitter Goes Mobile in Japan

Walter Adamson — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:19:55 -0000

Isn't this report a bit flaky? There are many very good Twitter apps from Japan, I have NatsuLion on my front iPhone screen. What's the big deal with a Twitter web version? Perhaps that could be explained more since most of the apps, just like Twitter apps elsewhere, offer greater functionality.

As for the little "cultural" snippet I think that is a popular bit of, as Nixon said, misinformation. Social networks in Japan are huge and twittering falls naturally into place. They may be reluctant to chat with non-Japanese speakers - aren't most of us the same outside of our native tongue? Or perhaps you have an authoritative source and I stand corrected?

Walter Adamson @g2m
http:/xeesm.com/walter

Re: Gmail ‘unread email’ issue resolved [Official Google Response]

Walter Adamson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:03:31 -0000

"Only a small number of users" in Google terms but both my business Gmail accounts and my personal account and up until 1.30am trying to figure out how I was being hacked and unlinking all sorts of other mail clients and services e.g. Xobni and finally changing passwords. Unfortunately only then did I stop and check Twitter, found I had wasted the last 2 hours!!

Thanks Google.

Re: BUG: Gmail Messages Being Marked as Read

Walter Adamson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:14:06 -0000

Unfortunately I checked Twitter AFTER worrying and scanning my 2 business and 1 personal Gmail accounts and checking all filters, unconnecting services like Xobni, checking again that I was not hallucinating, and finally changing passwords - 1.30am in the morning by then! I had planned to go to bed early, oh well thanks Google.

It's only a "small number of users" in Google terms but when it is you it is a real hassle.

Re: Measuring churn for recurring revenue businesses

Walter Adamson — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:08:39 -0000

Very useful operational advice, and should be built into the KPIs for revenue. With regard to "low ASP" SaaS companies and your suggestion of tracking a "particular cohort" could you give some examples of these groupings?

Do mean samples by geography or acquisition date or ???

Thanks, Walter Adamson @g2m
http://xeesm.com/walter