High-Tech PR Blog >> Beyond the Hype

How Toyota Used Social Media to Stop Playing "Rope-a-dope"

Toyota's death by a thousand cuts crisis has been an interesting study in crisis communications.  

It felt like the company was standing by mute and helpless -- or worse, clueless -- as one bad piece of news after another was being revealed about recalls of popular cars, suspension of sales of some models, and speculation about the next shoe dropping regarding a recall of the popular Prius hybrid.  Throughout this painful period, Toyota has been relatively quiet except for the information regarding actions customers and dealers needed to take for cars that were recalled.  

Over the past week, the U.S. President Jim Lentz was accosted by an ABC reporter as he was leaving a meeting.  He admirably handled the assault interview, denied there was a cover-up of problems that first came to light in 2007 and quickly ducked into a waiting car.  The Japanese CEO Akio Toyoda received similar treatment from a Japanese network reporter when he walked out of a session at Davos at the end of January.  Through a translator, it was clear he was as gracious as possible, repeatedly apologizing for the situation until he could gracefully move on.

Over the past week it's been reported that Toyota brought in and activated a crisis team and it's clear that the first order of business was to get busy communicating proactively rather than sitting back taking the slings and arrows that are so damaging to a brand that has previously stood for high quality vehicles.

Goodbye Duck and Dive, Hello Diggnation

One of the more interesting aspects of this campaign to restore trust was Jim Lentz's decision to do a live interview yesterday with Digg Dialogue (embedded below), answering the community's questions that received the most "digg" votes from other readers.  It was fascinating that this social media interview was one of the initial tactics of Toyota's crisis communications campaigns, but it makes sense when you listen to Lentz's key message, which he repeats over and over again in his answers to Digg reader Qs:  "I can assure you we will do whatever is necessary to assure our customers' safety."  

Aside from the poor audio quality of the streamed Digg Dialogue interview yesterday afternoon, I'd have to judge it a successful effort on Toyota's part.  Lentz sat across from the Digg interviewer wearing a suit jacket with an open collar shirt and glasses.  His demeanor was accessible, honest and straightforward.  He used some gesturing as he spoke, but it was natural and contained.  One would assume his staff had been monitoring the questions deemed appropriate by the Digg community since announcing the interview would take place and had prepared him well for this interview, but his answers did not seem studied or stilted.

On Cover-ups and The Timeline

He used the opportunity to tell the chronology of events from Toyota's perspective, which went right at the accusations and rumors about problems arising earlier that had been ignored or covered up.  For example, to answer a question from a former Toyota attorney which said the company has known about these issues for about three years, Lentz went right at the accusation and outed the questioner.  "Mr. Miller left Toyota in 2007" and is suing Toyota (and some other parties), he explained.  "We vigorously deny his allegations."  He then explained that it was late 2008-2009 that it was discovered that pedals were becoming slow to react in European cars with right-hand driving.  He said there was one report of an issue in 2007 in the U.S. with a Tundra, but it could never be pinpointed as an inherent problem.  He then explained that it's really been since October 2009 that this has been identified as a critical issue and Toyota has quickly assessed this and is fixing it.  "What is most important right now is that the fix is in place, dealers have added additional staff . . . for customers.  That is where we start to rebuild the trust."

Lentz was asked what he drives, which was a nice softball question (and the most "dugg") and he elaborated that his wife and son each drive a Prius.  "I can tell you I would not have my loved ones driving cars I did not think were safe."

There were non-crisis questions included, such as why hybrid vehicles are so ugly, and a nonsensical (in my humble opinion) question about Steve Wozniak's problem with his Prius.  Lentz gamely answered each and was clear about when he could not give a definitive answer, but did not duck anything or seem anything but transparent.

Conclusion

In some respects, it was like a high tech version of NPR's Click and Clack.  It's too bad one of those amusing and very smart gentlemen didn't submit a question.  From a communications perspective, though, it showed Toyota is out there telling its side of the tale now and promulgating its messages about customers coming first.  I have to give them a B- overall, only because they had an Incomplete for so long before they finally delivered this A performance.

BrandBowl 2010 is nice, but what about Facebook?

 

Our Patriots disappointed us this year, so I realize how spoiled we were during the glory years when thinking about Sunday's big game.  Despite my team not being in it, I'll be interested for two reasons. One is the Saints (Who Dat!).  Do it for all those paper bag-headed fans of old! 

The second is the ads.  What will make them more fun is something cooked up by Mullen and our friends at Radian6 -- BrandBowl 2010.  It is a real-time "scoreboard" of the brands (not ads) and how they rank based upon a combination of factors drawn from Twitter chatter. The ranking is based upon a "BrandBowl" score. Its algorithm isn't entirely clear to me, but factors at least include the number of tweets of a brand and sentiment.

This is a fun way to see the what people outside of the party you might be attending think about ads as they happen during the game.  It's also a great way to show off the technical prowess of Radian6 as a real-time social media monitoring and measurement platform.  I know I'll be checking it out on Sunday.

While I love the idea, I can't help but wonder about the omission of Facebook chatter.  The Twitter population is dwarfed by Facebook's and the latter recently changed its privacy settings to encourage more members to open their news feeds to public searches.  Perhaps not enough have done so yet to make it worthwhile to include, but to make this as true an indicator of real-time brand opinion and sentiment, Facebook should be included.

Perhaps that will be the big upgrade for BrandBowl 2011. Good stuff. Go Saints!

How well do you know your Twitter followers and Facebook fans?

At yesterday's Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (MassTLC) event, Katie Paine gave her latest presentation on social media measurement.  I've seen her talk many times, but she does a nice job keeping her pitch very current, so I always walk away with something new.  Yesterday, it was the inclusion of number of Twitter followers/Facebook fans on her list of "Old School Metrics."  It was great to see this.

The basis of this is the fact that what matters the most is the action taken around social media, with key metrics being influence, engagement, advocacy, sentiment and ROI.  Katie just updated her social media measurement checklist, which is worth downloading.

It's About Quality, Not Quantity

I fundamentally agree with the assertion that number of followers is not an important metric.  That is not to say that you don't want to grow your following, but focusing on building a qualified following is what is important.  I wrote about this recently, making the argument that a company's following should be as 100% qualified as possible.  The definition of qualified will vary depending on the objective(s) that a Twitter channel and/or Facebook fan page supports.  For example, if it is a storage technology company's Twitter channel and it supports an objective of generating leads, the focus should be on getting prospects as followers and putting out information that leads them to an offer. 

In many cases, a Twitter channel or Facebook fan page will support more than one objective, so the qualified following may consist of a combination of customers, prospects, media/influencers, partners and employees.  If action taken around information put out through these channels is important, companies need to have a good understanding of the segmentation of its following/fans.  In other words, what is the percentage of followers/fans that are prospects, customer, partners, etc?

Better Insight Leads to More Impact

I believe this is an important metric to track when planning how to use these channels to support the overall measurable objectives to make sure there is proper alignment and impact.  Going back to the example above, if that storage company wants to use Twitter to support lead generation, but only 10-15% of followers are customers or prospects, the impact of that channel will be minimal.

My sense is that not a lot of companies really know this segmentation, as there are no tools (that I'm aware of) that automate this analysis.  In addition, the prevailing mentality with Twitter has been to get as many followers as possible as quickly as possible.  Reaching qualified audiences always has been important to marketers and they have more control over the audiences they can build through social media.  The easy part is growing the following.  The hard part is growing the RIGHT audience and knowing who they are.

How well do you know yours?

Conan Understood "Less is More"

From the earliest moments in the ridiculous PR mess NBC got itself into when its prime-time "Jay Leno Show" was canceled and it started messing with the time slot of the venerable "Tonight Show" and its not-ready-to-go-gently-into-that-good-night current host Conan O'Brien, the latter has shown mastery of one of the best communications skills you can have -- understanding that "less is more."  His initial statement rejecting NBC's offer to bump his time slot to 12:05 was clear, heartfelt, and focused on the impact it would have on the proud institution of the "Tonight Show."  It wasn't a whiny haranguer about what this was doing to Conan and his career.  His counterpart, Jay Leno, isn't showing similar restraint or understanding of this sage communications mantra.  At least his decision (which NBC may have prompted) to spill his guts on the Oprah Show , sitting soberly and penitently on the talk show's couch to discuss for an hour the situation, was not the best approach in my humble opinion after many years of counseling executives through PR crises.

I heard a chunk of the interview via a satellite radio rebroadcast of the show and then watched the same segments online to see how he performed.  Leno's demeanor was serious and somewhat nervous, with a loosened tie and heavy use of his hands as he was repeatedly explaining himself and seemingly pleading his case.  His tie was loosened and he leaned forward, seeming defensive and uncomfortable.  Only once did I see a glimpse of the confident comedian when he joked about the difficulties he was having because some networks were trying to sabotage his new show by refusing to give him their best people to book for his prime-time show -- "And tonight we have the animals from the San Diego Zoo!" 

Beyond Leno's hat-in-hand performance with "Dr. Oprah," his agreement to submit himself to such an extensive interview on this charged subject allowed him to betray his bitterness with some subtly pointed barbs.  While seeming to acknowledge his prime-time show failed ("I'm a big boy."), he noted that he was up against dramas that were spending up to $4M per episode on the other channels.  He also took an indirect swipe at O'Brien's statement about not wanting to destroy the legacy of the "Tonight Show" when he noted that his show's rating were down 14% but O'Brien's show's rating were down 49%.  "If you looked at where the ratings were . . . it was already destructive to the franchise."

Meanwhile, O'Brien completed his last "Tonight Show" with a statement, much as he began responding to this situation.  He was gracious to NBC for his many years with them, starting with Saturday Night Live and to his fans.  He talked with awe about the "Tonight Show," making it clear how precious this opportunity was to him and how much he enjoyed his brief stint hosting this jewel.  There were no shots at Leno.  He ended with, "Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get.  But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen."

So far O'Brien is right.  He got an amazing payoff for NBC reneging on its deal with him to host the "Tonight Show."  More importantly, he walked away with more support and dignity than Leno, the supposed winner in this negotiation.  Perhaps that's the reason for Leno's hangdog demeanor and shots across the O'Brien bow.  I saw a clip from Leno a week or so ago on a morning news show in which he quipped, "I'm staying on the Titanic."  It was funny at the time, but truly the pressure is on Leno now.  It's particularly on him since he said too much to Oprah, I believe.  Witness Late Night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel's video lampooning of Leno's Oprah interview to the tune of a sad song, with the theme  "TV isn't fair," a direct statement from Leno during the segment.

O'Brien meanwhile is smiling and keeping quiet less because of a gag order from NBC which came with the big check than because he instinctively knows "less is more."

Google's quest to create a meta social network

I caught this in my Feedly reader this morning: Google moved its social search feature from its labs to beta. This means that Google will show within its mainstream search results the opinions of those in your larger social graph about the keyword or topic on which you are searching. I wrote about the implication of this for marketers back when it first rolled out.

It is noteworthy how quickly this moved from labs to beta, which shows me how important social and real-time search are to Google and that it can't be ignored. But here's what's more significant about this.

Embedded below is a great video explaining what social search is all about. If you watch it to the end, notice the URL it directs people to for more information. It is the page where people can create their Google profile, which is necessary to see social search results. This profile not only consists of biographical information, but also the other social networks someone is part of. This is the key to the algorithm used to present the personalized results from one's social graph.

Many people have Google accounts because of applications like Gmail, Picasa, YouTube and Google Docs. The next step for Google is to get people to create these profiles, as it has been required to use newer features like social search and Sidewiki. In essence, what Google is doing is creating a meta social network.

Data shows that this is the aspect of social media that is growing the fastest and what marketers have ranked as the highest priority from an investment standpoint.  As a result, it makes sense that companies approach this as they do Facebook or Twitter, create a Google profile and treat this as a mini-hub for social media. There are many benefits, with the greatest being the ability to have this profile come up in search results for important keywords. I'll be looking at this further, but I'm curious about your thoughts in the meantime.

Please let me know in the comments.

State of social media (part 2)

Not surprisingly, the iPad reality has not met the hype.

Ah, well.  Arguably, there is more anticipation for tonight's State of the Union, so to coincide with that I'd like to conclude our two-part series on the state of social media -- particularly from where we sit in the B2B tech and life sciences work.  Yesterday, I wrote about how our clients should approach their company-level social networking efforts and how to take action on the listening they have been doing for how the buying public is talking about them online.  Today, I'll cover the two other major areas we can support.

PR as an important part of inbound marketing

The business climate still is very uncertain.  The business need our clients tell us more than any other that PR needs to support is lead generation.  For a long time, PR in our world has revolved mostly around outbound media relations -- reaching buyers through targeted media coverage.  It's no secret what's happened to the media landscape, and I agree with many colleagues in the industry that this has put focus for PR directly on the buying public vs. the media.

For most marketers, search has been an important component of their programs because it's how so many prospects find companies.  Late last year, the game changed when Google became a real-time search engine, so the information presented in search results now includes the opinions of the buying public about a brand.  In addition, the previously search-optimized company web pages are not going to appear where they once did unless a company thinks about how social media can work to its advantage in this context.

How Google ranks this information comes down to reputation -- namely how important is the source of insights and opinions about a product or company?  Earning reputation in this context is based on how well you can tell your story in an authentic way that the buying public -- and influencers -- want to share with others.  This is a key aspect to how PR should support inbound marketing.

Publish or perish

The opportunity that companies have to tell their story directly to the buying public has never been better.  In particular, companies must embrace the opportunity to drive content that conveys their perspective on the market.  They also must avoid the natural instinct to always sell and promote their product and company in the content they generate.  The buying public increasingly is turning to peers on social networks for help with buying decisions.  Companies must understand this and approach the content they publish in a way that helps prospects buy.

This means leveraging the active listening discussed yesterday to understand what kind of insights company experts can offer that answer questions from customers or address the challenges that prospects in the market face.  It also means letting the personality of the company come through.  For example, we have a client who considers one of its characteristics to be irreverent, so we're advising them on publishing off-beat, humorous content through a cartoon series that engenders sharing and drives prospects to their site.

This is where we see many of our clients focused in the coming year and we'll be exploring these four areas in more depth on this blog during that time.  In the meantime, I'd love to know how you are thinking about these areas in the comments.

State of social media (Part 1)

I'm going to go out on a limb and predict tomorrow will be the busiest day the Fail Whale has had in a long time.  Between an Apple event so monumental that bloggers are pre-live blogging, "Snoracle" and SAP earnings - it'll be enough to test Twitter's capacity.  But, I think it will be the State of the Union address that will put it more at risk.

In the spirit of this January tradition, I'd like to start a two-part series that offers high-level state of the social media state, at least as we see it here based upon work with the 70% of our B2B tech, life sciences and clean tech clients currently leveraging social media.  Today and tomorrow, I will address four major areas of focus for 2010 most pertinent to our client base at large.  I'll start with two today.

Social networking is ALMOST like air

Charlene Li predicted two years ago that "social networks will be like air."  This past weekend, I saw three TV ads in which companies had their Facebook and Twitter addresses promoted.  Verizon used NFL Championship Sunday to air new FiOS spots promoting interactive TV with chatting with friends on Facebook and Twitter as the big selling points.  Social networks may not be like air yet, but it's getting pretty close, pretty fast.

Indeed, the vast majority of our clients now have either Twitter channels or Facebook Fan pages and use them primarily to broadcast and share links to company news, events and new content on their Web sites.  They are including links to these channels via company home pages and marketing materials.  They are building followings mostly organically.

The next step is engagement.  For example, we are helping clients pivot off of blog posts by posting a related discussion topic on LinkedIn Groups populated by members of their buying public.  We are suggesting how they can craft those tweets to evoke reaction, mentions and re-tweets.  We are helping them build the most qualified set of followers and think about what those followers want in return.

Monitoring=active listening

Amazingly after 4-5 years, I still see people saying nearly every day that social media starts with listening.  This is true when you are starting out, but to take this to the next level companies need to practice active listening -- or "an intent to listen for meaning." 

We include at least basic social media monitoring in nearly every client program.  For many, we are evolving the monitoring we do not only by filtering the noise of a lot of worthless chatter about a particular technology, but aggregating the most influential dialogue into actionable reports with context that allows content creators to focus on responding, reacting and directing their insights towards this online conversation.  This listening for meaning also encompasses thinking through the fact that there is less control of the message and factoring in the sentiment and feelings about a brand by the buying public when crafting communications to go out via blogs, Twitter and Facebook (and avoiding what can happen when this isn't taken into account).

Tomorrow, I'll discuss two other major areas of focus -- how PR is supporting inbound marketing and how are increasing serving as clients' "Managing Editors."

In the meantime, I'd like to know how you're approaching the two areas above.  The comments are open to you.

Using the internet to stop texting and driving

My name is Lois Paul and I have talked on my cell phone while driving and have checked email messages while in stalled traffic or at traffic lights.  I've admitted it.  I've used a Bluetooth headset and hands-free connections in my Acura, but I've definitely talked and driven at the same time.  Texting, not so much.  Since I also listen to the radio while driving, I heard about Oprah Winfrey's No Phone Pledge that she launched with a stirring edition of her national talk show on January 18 that featured stories about the survivors of loved ones lost in texting and driving tragedies.  It certainly had me thinking that I needed to take the pledge.

I'm also impressed with the way this is spreading.  As of Tuesday, January 26, eight days after launching this initiative, 56,621 people have taken the pledge and the number continues to climb.  There have not been many news stories about the initiative.  CNN posted one and some regional newspapers provided some coverage, particularly where one of the victims or survivors featured on the Oprah Show was from their community.  But this movement is being promoted mostly virally all over - via the 3,068,561 people who follow Oprah, the official twitter feed of the talk show host herself, the O Magazine as well as Harpo Productions people who also have large twitter followings.  For example, O Magazine's twitter feed has 83,584 followers.  And it is continuing to be promoted over the Oprah Satellite Radio Channel on Sirius/XM, which has programming 24/7 from many of the personalities featured on her program, in her magazine and on their own shows, like Dr. Oz.

It's an interesting use of internet-based viral communication and the sponsorship of it by Progressive Insurance Co. has been impressively subtle.

I just took the pledge myself and am printing out the bright red and black copy of it that I'll keep in my office.  I'm hopeful it will remind the great  people in our agency and  my own teenage and young adult children who are chronic texters to seriously think about the risks of doing this while driving.  Until all of the states in the U.S. enact laws prohibiting this dangerous habit, kudos to Oprah and Progressive for bringing what she is calling "America's new deadly obsession" to people's attention before there are more completely avoidable accidents and tragedies. 

One of the callers into the Oprah Channel's "Gayle King Show" from a program last week said she and her daughters have made a bumper sticker about this that reads "Honk if you love Jesus; text if you want to meet him."

Do readers want their news local and personal?

Every week my husband scours our local town newspaper, primarily to get a sense for discussion about town initiatives that he can glean from the surprisingly active editorial page, particularly the letters to the editor.  We live in a town that has the most basic system of democracy you can imagine -- we vote in town elections and then we converge on the high school gym for sometimes interminable town meetings to ratify amendments and, as needed, stand and be counted regarding key, controversial initiatives.  So the letters to the editor are a key vehicle that various factions use to forward their agendas and try to sway decision-making.  Our town paper does not have the staff to provide deep analysis of local issues and referenda, so those of us interested in learning more about initiatives or tapping into the tenor of the debate around key issues need to read the local paper's letters section and subscribe to various email newsletters developed by activist groups in the town.  Our city newspapers -- the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald -- rarely, if ever, touch upon our town-specific issues.

I was not surprised that the most recent study  from Pew Research Center's Project for Excellent in Journalism (PEJ) revealed that most people get the news about their communities from traditional media --primarily print newspapers and local TV stations -- rather than from new media channels.

"The study, which examined all the outlets that produced local news in Baltimore, Md., for one week, surveyed their output and then did a closer examination of six major narratives during the week, finds that much of the “news” people receive contains no original reporting. Fully eight out of ten stories studied simply repeated or repackaged previously published information.

And of the stories that did contain new information nearly all, 95%, came from traditional media—most of them newspapers. These stories then tended to set the narrative agenda for most other media outlets."

Much of the reporting of the specific local stories the study tracked in the various media was not original.  Much of it came specifically from government agencies, including local police or government officials. [I must add an editorial comment here -- this means that those agencies' communications professionals prepared and distributed the news.] The coverage of these stories in non-traditional media such as local blogs were repackaged versions of the news that appeared first in the traditional media.  Interestingly, the report noted that "Traditional media made wide use of new platforms. Newspapers, TV and radio produced nearly a third of their stories on new platforms (31%), though that number varied by sector. Almost half of the newspapers stories studied were online rather than in print."  The new media channels were used to get the news out more quickly and to further disseminate it rather than to create new "news."

It's an interesting study that got me thinking about what the results would be if you took this to national stories and a national stage and evaluated where the news originated and which media were the primary research source of detail and analysis of the event or announcement.  I also wondered how this would track if the study were about the news in a particular vertical or horizontal industry or market segment.  I would venture a guess that the traditional media would still be the originator or first-to-print (online or hard copy) with major national news stories, often because they are given preference for news due to their reach and reputation.  The new media often reference key national media reports in their analysis or packaging of particular events or announcements.  This likely will vary for vertical industries which have strong traditional and developing non-traditional channels that reach their core constituencies more effectively than more general traditional media. 

From an industry perspective, we certainly can speak to the shifts in the technology marketplace.  There is a constant clamoring for business press coverage by all types and sizes of companies, public and private, although the bar for "business press worthiness" of announcements or events has been rising much faster each quarter than public companies' stock prices.  Some of the new media channels are developing good reputations among prospective customers and therefore are filling the gap when the traditional media simply doesn't have the space or the interest to carry all of the marketplace's news. 

If you really think about the evolution of media, you need to examine, as PEJ has done in this study, who the media is serving and what will happen to that constituency if the media they rely on is no longer available.  Newspapers like my local town paper are serving an important function and if they disappear, non-traditional media will have to be organized and supported economically to fill the information gap.  City or regional newspapers need to be carefully thinking -- or rethinking -- the important function and constituency they are serving if they are to survive.  Meanwhile, the non-traditional media should be watching their progress or lack of progress to seize an opportunity to fill the information gap that will be left in their wake.  And those all-important original sources of "news" -- the often maligned PR or communications professionals -- clearly will continue to serve an important role of helping provide the original content for all of these media while helping determine which channels are the best route to the ultimate stakeholder that needs to be reached.

Forrester broadens its social technographics profiles

Our conversations with clients about social media typically includes a strategy component.  An important part of this is understanding the way in which a company's buying public uses social media as part of their jobs.  Forrester refers to this as social technographics, and we have often referred to a framework it's used for more than two years in which it depicts different profiles in a ladder.

Each rung represents increasing amounts of participation and interaction with social technologies, ranging from inactives (those who don't use any social technologies) to creators (those that maintain blogs or create and post videos on YouTube, for example).  It then provides data mapped to this framework for different industries and market/buyer segments.  The data is valuable in determining the right set of objectives, strategies and social technologies to use for a social media program.

Forrester today updated its set of profiles to include "Conversationalists", or individuals that post short bursts of information on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn at least once weekly.  Its latest research shows that at about one-third of all US online adults do so.  The other interesting update to its data is the fact that "Joiners" -- for example, people that join or visit social networks -- represents the fastest growth among the different profiles.  Combined, this speaks to the fact that more of a social media strategy should be focused on social networks.

Forrester has a neat widget to look at data for different market segments.  The one below is for its data for B2B buyers.