Dough-nut start a digital battle with Greggs - they will win!

Greggs this week provided a glowing example of how to handle a social media nightmare after an offensive version of their logo appeared on Google on Tuesday.

On 19th August, Britain's biggest bakery chain was inundated with thousands of tweets after a fake company logo appeared in Google searches, insinuating that Greggs has been supplying faeces to the less classy end of society for over 70 years.

The spoof image, pulled in from uncyclopedia.wikia.com, appeared on the right hand-side of Google when users typed the company name into the search engine.

Thousands of people were quick to point out the error to the company’s social media team who reacted brilliantly to the unexpected busy day at the office.

 

^{The infamous fake logo. Photo: uncyclopedia}

A common reservation of starting up a social media presence is often the fear that it will encourage negative messaging.

With their response to this nightmare, Greggs proved that PR disasters can occur even without the adoption of social media networks, and goes even further to show that using platforms like Twitter can be fundamental in very quickly turning a negative into a positive.

Here's how the social media team at Greggs cleverly used Twitter to control the situation, whilst using it to their advantage to portray their fun personality through light-hearted responses to tweets received and jovial interactions with Google:

Greggs' intelligent, witty and timely handling of this incident via Twitter has resulted in huge positive feedback and buzz around the brand. 'Greggs' was trending on Twitter and stories have been published surrounding the baker's reactions to the event in the likes of the Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Guardian.

What we can learn from this is that to be absent on social media is to lack a powerful crisis management tool. The risks of negativity resulting from being active on networks such as Twitter are far lower than the likelihood of such activity generating positive and impressive engagement, which would otherwise be unattainable when relying purely on traditional forms of media and communication.

If you'd like to chat to one of our social media gurus, contact the office on 020 72657 880 or tweet us @Lambinthecity

How to 'handle' Twitter

Do you make this 'Twitter handle' mistake? Gone is the belief that Twitter is a platform exclusively for celebs.

Everyone these days seems to be on Twitter - are you? If so, are you aware of all of the mistakes people make on this platform?

You have probably spotted the following examples:

• Those who haven’t quite grasped the concept of Hashtags:

• Those who don’t pay attention to the character limit:

• Those who don’t shorten links:

But there’s one important mistake you could be repeatedly missing, especially if you use Twitter for your company's marketing communications..

You may know that to ensure a tweet includes another tweeter's account and is alerted to them as a notification, you must tag or 'mention' their Twitter handle by typing an '@' followed by their username. However, many people are unaware of the implication of placing these mentions at the start of a tweet.

Did you know that by starting a tweet with someone’s Twitter handle, you are limiting who will see it?

When using Twitter as part of an integrated social media marketing strategy, you probably spend ages crafting the perfect tweet. We know we do.

When wording a tweet, front-of-mind are your efforts to show your clients and followers all of the impressive tweeters you interact with, and the goal to ensure that your communications are exposed to as many relevant and influential people as possible.

All of this hard work can be wasted if you are unaware of this widely unknown Twitter rule.

Unless you have a word/character before the @ symbol, ONLY the followers of BOTH you and the person you have mentioned will see the tweet on their feed.

To guarantee that you are not one of the millions of Twitter users making this mistake, you should always avoid starting a tweet with a mention.

Sometimes, however, this may alter the effectiveness of your message, or take up valuable character space. Here’s a sneaky tip: begin your tweet with a full stop.

Simply inserting this (or any) character before the handle will remove the rule which restricts who the tweet is visible to, and will no doubt go unnoticed by most people who are unaware of this catch.

Had you noticed it before?

What other Twitter mistakes have you come across?

photo credit: mkhmarketing

Are you smarter than a 6 year old? Maybe not when it comes to technology...

What's your DQ?

As part of their eleventh Communications Market Report, Ofcom has conducted a research study measuring the confidence and knowledge of communications technology to calculate an individual's 'Digital Quotient' score, or 'DQ', with the average UK adult scoring 100.

The study, among nearly 2,000 adults and 800 children, found that six year olds have the same understanding of digital technology as 45 year olds, while digital confidence seems to go into long-term decline when people reach their 20s, culminating in a steep drop at the age of 60. The graph shows that 60% of people aged 55+ have a below average 'DQ' score.

According to Ofcom, the ‘millennium generation’ of 14 and 15 year olds are the most tech-savvy in the UK with the highest score of 113. The research suggests that this mid-teen peak is due to increased broadband and digital communications access while growing up.

More time online than asleep

The difference in score is reflected in shifting communication habits, with younger consumers embracing newer technology and taking advantage of mobile devices. Children aged 12 to 15 are less likely to talk on the phone, with the vast majority (94 per cent) of their communications seeming to be text-based via instant message such as whatsapp and social media services such as Facebook.

In contrast, UK adults spend a fifth of their communication time speaking on the phone and a third on email. On average, UK adults now spend 8 hours 41 minutes using media and communications - more time than they spend sleeping!

“The communication habits of all ages are shifting as they embrace newer services and take advantage of portable connected devices,” says Ofcom.

Communication and media habits 

• More than six million consumers have 4G mobile subscriptions out of a total 55 million
• 4 in 10 households now have a tablet, up from a quarter a year ago, while 61 per cent have a smartphone
• Total communications revenue was unchanged at £60.2bn in 2013, although average per household fell to £117.08 with the largest decrease in mobile services
• TV viewership dropped below four hours per day for the first time since 2009
• The UK TV industry generated £12.9bn in 2013, up 3.4 per cent mainly due to higher spending on sports channels

Facebook @ Work - Like or Dislike?

Making work more fun “Facebook at work” usually refers to people wasting the day stalking frenemies from their desks instead of doing their jobs, but apparently this is about to change.

According to an anonymous source inside the company, Facebook is currently working on a way to position the social network as having a rightful place in the office.

“We are making work more fun and efficient by building an at-work version of Facebook,” says the source, who refers to it as “FB@Work” and says the effort is based in London.

What’s not clear is whether FB@Work is being built as an internal communication platform, or  as a way for companies to leverage Facebook to drive new business.

Everyone at Facebook is doing it...

“Everyone at Facebook uses [it] for work,” explains one ex-Facebook employee. “Most of their communication and planning is done though Messages and Groups. It would be a pretty natural thing to try to expose this way of using Facebook to get things done at the office to the rest of the world.”

External companies are already using Facebook for work, too.

“Facebook Groups and Messaging have already [transformed] how we communicate,” Clara Shih, CEO of Hearsay Social told Ingrid Lunden. “We know 100% of our employees are on Facebook. Rather than...ask employees to login to yet another system, we [created a Facebook Group] to house many of our real-time company chats and conversations.”

But this project is not a new venture. Facebook has supposedly been stopping and starting the idea for 3 years, due to the battle between the potential opportunities and challenges of doing so.

Stopping and starting

“This is one of two projects that constantly get started and come close to being launched but have been cancelled at the last minute,” reveals another ex-Facebooker.

The other? A controversial version of Facebook for under-13s.

With the latter, privacy is the obstacle. Enterprise presents a different problem: “Facebook employees find using [it] for work communication really useful, but it wasn’t clear whether it would serve a broader demand.”

It as also been hinted at that Facebook has wider plans for an enterprise product aimed more at competing with LinkedIn.

“Facebook is thought of as a community and place for friends, and LinkedIn feels more transactional,” the source says. “Facebook has to be careful not to lose that community appeal.”

Obvious opportunities

Regardless of the challenges, there are obvious opportunities if Facebook did ever launch “FB@Work.”

“[The] blurring of personal/professional online identity creates opportunities for Facebook to play a role in enterprise services,” says Shih.

What do you think - would you 'add' or 'ignore' FB@Work?

photo credit: FACEBOOK(LET)

Survival of the Tweetest - Hux's Claim to Fame!

One of our Directors, Mark Huxley, has written a piece on social media which has been published today in Insider Quarterly as part of their Summer issue. Hux introduces his article by acknowledging the shift in the insurance sector's thinking, whereby the vast majority is now taking its digital footprint seriously and considering how social media can be harnessed as a channel to help spread company messages in a different way.

He comments that the sector is catching up quickly, and goes on to explore the various benefits generated by social media and the trends which have appeared amongst businesses who are using it effectively, with a particular focus on LinkedIn. But beware, there is an important need to take care with the "more publicly ubiquitous social media channels" such as Twitter or Facebook.

The final and perhaps most important point to consider is that, whether or not a company elects to engage themselves with social media, in reality there is not an opt-in or opt-out.

Brands across the globe are being spoken about every minute of every day across the entirety of social media in all its various guises, where news travels at the speed of light and where reputations can be made as well broken in quite literally a matter of minutes.

Read Mark's full article on the Insider Quarterly website.

photo credit: Jason A. Howie

Throwback Thursday: Social Networking in the 1600s

Coffeehouses vs. Social Media

Social networks are constantly under attack for destroying productivity.  This infographic claims that the use of sites such as Twitter in the workplace is costing the American economy a massive $650 billion each year.

But this is not the first time such concerns have been expressed. In the 1600s, worries arose surrounding a new social, media-sharing environment: the coffeehouse.

Coffeehouses were just as evil as social media

England’s first coffeehouse opened in the 1650s, with hundreds following suit. Coffeehouses offered more than just a hot beverage; people would visit to read and discuss the latest news and there were even specialised coffeehouses for discussions on specific topics, eg politics or shipping.

However, not everyone approved. Opponents moaned that coffeehouses were a distraction from productive work. Sound familiar?

Just like social media, critics accused the novelty of the coffeehouse of taking over lives and killing productivity. However, coffeehouse advocators saw it very differently.

Samuel Pepys would have been a Twitter-holic

Samuel Pepys made countless references to “the coffeehouse” throughout his diary, depicting the lively conversations he enjoyed there. This may have been due to their lack of recognition of social distinctions, where patrons were encouraged to engage in conversations with strangers from different walks of life.

This also sounds similar to modern social networking. Conversations on Twitter, LinkedIn Groups or even TripAdvisor do not segment contributors by social class. The nature of this widely open platform is what provides the scope for otherwise unattainable opportunities and knowledge.

This notion of facilitating the mixing of new people and ideas is what made coffeehouses ‘crucibles of creativity’.

From coffeehouse to Lloyd's

Businessmen used them as meeting rooms from which to transact business. Edward Lloyd’s coffeehouse, popular amongst shipowners, captains and traders, became the famous insurance market Lloyd’s. Not quite the counterproductive enemy which the commentators had made out…

Although some bosses degrade the use of social media at work as “social notworking,” others embrace corporate versions to encourage collaboration, discover employees’ talents and reduce the use of e-mail. McKinsey (2012) found that the use of social networking within companies increased the productivity of “knowledge workers” by 20-25%.

The spirit of social media reflects that of the coffeehouses, which helps illustrate the potential for innovation and productivity, despite the negative commentary. It is therefore clear that, on the topic of dangers associated with new technologies, we can learn a lot from the past.

A final thought...

How many of you are reading this blog on your smartphone from your local coffeeshop?!

photo credit: NY Times