Social Media & Digital Marketing in Singapore

Dangers Of Social Media Marketing – The People

Assuming you’ve got your product sorted out and implementing a social media programme won’t be a one way ticket to exposing all your product’s weaknesses, the next thing you need to worry about is the people who will be engaging in the social space.

Early this month there was an article in the Straits Times titled “Social networking at the workplace” where 2,008 employees were interviewed. Here’s a scan of the paper (click for larger image, pardon the poor quality, newspaper doesn’t keep very well).

Dangers of Social Media Marketing: Social Network Research

A quick glance at the statistics shows a few alarming statistics:

22% of companies have formal policies that dictate how social networking can be used – This means about 3 in 4 companies will invariably have an employee saying something inappropriate online because there are no guidelines to guard against it.

Only 40% of people “always” considers what their bosses might think when posting something online – So about 1 in 2 employees will run their mouth on channels like Facebook and Twitter to other members of your staff, your clients and maybe even your competition.

And to round it all off, only 17% of companies have a monitoring programme to manage social networking risks – 4 in 5 companies are letting these conversations go on unnoticed, and more importantly, unchecked. By the time they realise this, it will be too late.

The social space is not the place for untrained staff to “play” in. If no one is monitoring internal chatter about your brand and no one is actively educating staff how to behave on social channels, your biggest threats may ironically come from within – your own staff.

What measures would you put in place to prevent something nasty from happening?

Tags: biggest threats, engaging in social space, formal social media policies, guidelines, implementing social media programme, manage social networking risks, monitoring program, monitoring programme, product, product weakness, product weaknesses, social channels, social media policy, social media program, social networking, social networking at the workdplace, social networking risks, straits times

Posted in Research, Social Networks, online identity, social media | 4 Comments »

The DC Universe Blog – One To Learn From

I’m a huge comic book fan. I read tonnes of them each year and like all comic book fans, I get my new from the internet these days, instead of the old comic magazines that used to be published.

So one of the Big Two, DC Comics (the other being Marvel), started a blog called The Source just about a week ago and has been publishing posts fast and furiously ever since. And I think while their industry, being one that sells new product on a weekly basis, certainly fits the speed and delivery of a blog very well, they’ve used it in some interesting ways that have made me sit up and take notice.

First of all, when you get to the blog, you can’t help but notice the “After Watchmen” banner right on top. Absolutely brilliant strategic move to tie in the blog to the hit movie, and let the larger audience know that Watchmen was indeed a product of DC, many many years ago.

The next and most obvious way for DC to utilise their blog, would be to tease upcoming content. And they’re doing just that, with lots of stuff on this summer’s big event, Blackest Night. So they do stuff like that, which certainly helps put their product front and center in people’s minds, but what I really like is the way they’ve used the blog to humanise the company. For example, the blog details a day in the life of a Batman group editor, as well as pictures of certain interiors of the office.

I talk to people about starting a blog all the time, and I’m always astounded when people say their stuff is boring, no one wants to read this, what’s there to blog, the usual excuses.

There’s lots of things that can be done with a company blog. And surprise surprise, it doesn’t always have to be about your product/service/cause/non-profit/school/whatever, and frankly, neither should it be.

Tags: batman group editor, blackest night, cause, comic book, company blogs, corporate blog, dc comics, dc universe, Graphic Novels, humanise company, humanize company, marvel comics, non-profit, office interiors, product, school, service, the source, watchmen

Posted in Blogs, case studies, social media | No Comments »