Social media changes the crisis management strategy



http://hollywoodoncrack.net/camille-grammer-quits-real-housewives-beverly-hills-reunion-sho/

Recently, I am required to consult on one crisis Bravo faced two months ago.
Bravo is a cable television channel owned by NBC Universal, and produces original reality content, such as "The Real Housewives", "Inside the Actors Studio", and others.

"The Real Housewives" is one of the most popular reality series. The series follows the lives of relatively affluent, bourgeois housewives and professional women in the suburban or urban areas of several American cities, and the suffix portion of the title takes on the name of that metropolitan region. ( Wikipedia)

On August.15,2011, "the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" husband Russell Armstrong killed himself. Because Russell once mentioned this TV show made his life under big stress in an interview with People magazine, his death put Bravo and its Reality TV franchise into a difficult situation.

Then how did Bravo handle this crisis?

Russell's death was reported on August.16. In the wake of the Armstrong suicide, Bravo executives didn't hold the press conference or respond to journalists as expected, instead, they declined all the interview requests. On the contrary, Bravo executive Andy Cohen immediately acknowledged the death of Russell on his own Twitter, said, "I am so very sad about today's news. My prayers and thoughts are with Taylor Armstrong and her family." Other cast members also reacted to this strategy on twitter and Facebook quickly. A statement from the Bravo's official forum reads: "All of us at Bravo are deeply saddened by the tragic news of the death of Russell Armstrong. Our sympathy and thoughts are with the Armstrong family at this difficult time." Messages were spread out fast on the social platform, and before the journalists making any comments, many people had already known about the accident.
It's interesting to notice a fact: Bravo chose the social media as the first battlefield instead of the big media. Also, in the whole process, Bravo took more measures on the social media. In this case, traditional media was not regarded as critical as before to solve a problem.

In the past, journalists were the only bridge between the truth and the audience. However, the delivery of information was edited and time-costed during the completed process. Uncompleted disclosures easily lead to misdirection, and many cases were not perfectly handled due to the misdirection of the reports. Now, the social media provides a platform for corporations to enable their words heard directly and widely in the shortest time. Companies could take more control in their own hands of the communication with audiences. No wonder Bravo and other companies would choose to skip the traditional media at the first minute when the crisis broke out. They have to disclose the real situation and create a favorable public opinion environment before the intervention of the big media.

Social media does not only change the way of Marketing, but also change the way of crisis management strategy.

Forever 21& Social Media

Picture: http://fashionlawyerblog.com/?p=371

Celebrated by many fashion-conscious and trend-savvy shoppers, Forever 21 has become a phenomenon in the fashion world, and is developing quite rapidly.

There are several brands under Forever 21: Forever 21, Heritage 1981, Forever 21 Girls,and 21 Men. Literally we could tell that its main target audiences are young people.

Many factors have contributed to the success of Forever 21, one of which is social media.

Forever 21 currently uses a vast number of social networkings. Its web site is polished-look, and convenient for customers to purchase online.

 Link: http://www.forever21.com/

Besides web sites, Forever 21 is active in Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and the Skinny ( Blog). Its Twitter has already owned 215,965 followers, and 5,167,081 people like its Facebook.

Also, Forever 21 follows in the footsteps of other big brands like Kia, Snuggie and Toyota, tapping into the YouTube audience with a new online video contest called the ‘Haul of Fame Contest.’ This contest asks girls to make their own haul videos showing off their favorite ‘Back to School’ fashions. Contests like this are great publicity for brands, because each  haul video is spreading the world to tell about the brand and this fun opportunity to win cool Forever 21 prizes.

These social networkings all provide a link to its official website. Therefore, an information network was developed through the social media with Forever 21's official website at its hub, sending the latest news directly and widely to customers as soon as possible. This network not only offers customers an integrated online experience, but also enables the company to hear what the audiences really think.

The active performance on these social media shows the emphasize Forever 21 has put on these new communication platforms. As Forever 21 clearly positions its target audience under 30, who are also the main users of the social media, it's necessary and smart for Forever 21 to make this strategy. Let's look forward to a better social media campaign conducted by Forever 21!

Reference Link: http://socialtimes.com/forever-21-youtube-contest_b19901

iPhone5 turns out to be iPhone4S

Yesterday's Apple Special Event: Let's Talk iPhone turned out to be a big disappointment to most Apple fans.

There were several rumors of concerning the launching date of the iPhone 5, but no one doubted the actual existence of this new product! People had been eagerly anticipating the arrival iPhone5 for a long time and some of had even waited on line to buy one. As Apple always likes to use the “hunger marketing strategy” to generate interest in their new products, once again the customer's appetite had been stimulated to ravenous proportions. However yesterday, Apple did not meet everyone’s expectations and the result was a severe fall of its stock price.

Now the emotion of anger and disappointment is spreading on Twitter and Weibo. People make jokes of iPhone4S as "iPhone for s**t". And there are many other interesting comments on this event, such as " There were always surprises in Apple's launching conference every year; this year, the biggest surprise is no surprise at all!". The most funny thing is the cry of China's Emulational mobile phone makers. They have already created the copies of iPhone5!



picture: http://store.taobao.com/shop/view_shop.htm?user_number_id=334927212



                                picture:http://news.itxinwen.com/yejingdongtai/2011/1005/354505.html



Like most people, I was a little angry with Apple at first. I remembered in September there were news re-twittered by thousands of people that iPhone5 would be launched on October 5th.. Then I suddenly realized that Apple never officially announced the coming of the iphone5. I searched on the Weibo and Twitter only to see " We are going to launch a new product in October" . Also, the invitation to media was creative and mysterious, but never referred to iPhone5. So, the fact was that the launch of iPhone5 was just media speculation, but became a ‘fact’ after several misquotes. What Apple did concerning this rumor was to just keep silent. This unique company really did good work on strict confidentiality, which successfully satisfied people's curiosity and created the much more buzz for Apple.

Only rumors, no truth. It seems that Apple played a trick on all of us. But maybe we would be more correct in saying that this time people worldwide deceived themselves… with the strong help of social media.

excitements of Internet

Internet has became an indepensable part in my life. But even now, I would sometimes be shocked by the strong ability of the Internet. And, as a student major in Arts, I am so curious how were these magics completed by the technical experts.There are some exciting moments still fresh in my mind.
1) Google
Google is absolutely a powerfulsearch house. I gain most of my information from Google. However, I was still shocked when my friend put my Chinese name as the key words. The eightpage results were all about me. These results included all the articles or words I ever published on the newspaper or online, all the name lists I was on and all the prizes I received,etc. My friend immediately knew my past quite well as soon as she
clicked on the "Search" button. At that time, I was astonished at the plentiful information about myself, some of which even I could not remember, feeling I was naked publicly.


2) Instant message

Almost everybody in China has a QQ account. 2011, QQ launched its new software Weixin (Which is similar to Talkbox). You could not imagine how satisfied and grateful my mum was when she knew she could send and receive voice message instantly with me via Weixin. As I would go to U.S.A, mum was quite worried about the usual communication difficulty with me due to the difference of telephone operators and the time zones. But Weixin made these obstacles disappear. She was greatly released after I taught her to use this tool. I could still remember my mum's big smile on that day.



Picture: http://baike.soso.com/v1728583.htm
3) Online mapping tools

When I put my uncle's U.S.A address into Google Map, I could not only see the drawn map,but also the satellite images. The clear picture of sky, houses, garages and the road let me know in advance about the real place I will go to, though I was still in China. Also, I could click on the map to have a detailed view of houses or cars. The feeling of reality is very strange, but fantastic!



4) Spireware

I never took the Spireware seriously until one day my computer crashed. My friend forced me to install a Spireware. Then it found and killed more than 100 virus in my computer. I was quite shocked, and fully realized our computers would truly get contaminated and ill just like human beings. Then every time, the spireware warned me of the attack or the suspicious virus, I could not stop wondering how could it recognize the good or the bad. What a powerful and patient doctor!


Picture: http://www.yesky.com/115/1802115.shtml

5) Taobao
Americans have Ebay, we have Taobao. It's amazing when you find something which you don't expectto be sold online on Taobao. Now I don't doubt the fact that Taobao sells almost anything, including poison I think.Just joking. I was always surprised at the creativity of the sellers and the vitalityof the whole virtual market.



Picture: http://tb123.banzhu.net/

Link: http://www.taobao.com/

Today, more social media merged to satisfy people's need for social,especially the social networking sites which have become an important part in the youth's life.

In USA, social networking has experienced several transformations. From the first generation of the social networking site SixDegrees.com to now's Face book, Twitter,etc, it's quite different no matter in technology or the social approach.  In China, there are also similar social networking sites such as Weibo, RenRen,etc. They all have a considerable amount of audience and seem to be able to sit back and relax.

However, the quick fall of Myspace( USA) and Kaixin Net(one social net once owned the largest audience in China ) has warmed us of the risk the social networking sites face even in their blooming period.

picture: http://info.ic98.com/1/n12413.html
(This is also a link to the article discussing about the fall of Kaixin Net)

From my perspective, the priority of a Social networking site is to keep their current audience. Strategies vary in different corporates. Some focus on the development of new customers, while some take more care of the current audience.I think a mature social networking site should definitely be the latter one.

Take my experience as example.During my undergraduate,I used RenRen( similar to Facebook) as my social platform because most of my classmates were on it. Then Weibo( similar to Twitter) was introduced by Sina, and became hot among people. But to me, I never thought about trying this new social media, as I already had large followers on RenRen, and I got used to it. However, now I am a Weibo Fan. Why? Because gradually, most of my friends spent more and more time on Weibo, and in order to communicate better with them, I had to create and update my Weibo account. Now, when I want to post some news, I will surely choose Weibo. Same situation occurred to my other friends. They wanted to know more about my status, so they began to change their platform. According the butterfly effect, Renren Net lost a large amount of audience in short time.

        

And of course, more participants and more news make a social networking prosperous and energetic. Therefore, from this case, we can see that the audience of the social networking usually act like an ant colony. They could get together quickly to raise a net up, but they could leave like avalanche, causing disaster in short period. In conclusion, people's desire of social is the key to the success of social media, but it also could be the poison.

On the contrary, if a social networking site could keep a group of people, then more people will gather naturally. Therefore, how to keep the current audience is the question all the social media need to think about first instead of how to attract new group, I think.

Social Media in Marketing

 Recently I am attending the Strategic Marketing Communication Program in Interpublic Group(IPG).

During the training, we learned and practiced the key elements in Marketing communication. When we case-studied one corporation" Ports", I came up with some view of social media on the context of Marketing.

As we all know, there are four circles essential to a successful marketing communcation-clients, brands, delivery and content. In the midst, "delivery" is critically important as a bridge between organizations and republics.

Time is changing. In the past, the model of delivery was called " push" model. The "push" model showed the traditional process of persuation: The corporates just put the selective information in front of audience. It's one-way communication. However, in today's such complicated and different communication environment, the model of delivery became to " pull", which means audience are now more willing to discover the deep information from various resources by themselves. This change helps the delivery of message, but also makes the delivery hard to control.

In this "pull" model, social media is one of the three basic online systems used mostly by audience to visit the media. Another two media are Internet/ Search Engine and Mobile phones. From this fact, we could see the importance of social media. And that's why most marketers use social media as tools.

" We don't have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it!" Erik Qualman said. Actually, most young people are using social media. And I believe the most users of social media belong to the young generation. From this point, I began to think whether how a brand treats social media will decide, to some extent, which group of customers it will have in the future.

Take the case of " Ports" as example. This is a Chinese brand which always intends to be luxury and sets the
high-end people as the target audience, especially successful women. So Ports became a synonym of " mature" and "stereotype". This could be confirmed by the participation of Ports in social media. The followers of Sina weibo is just 4498 which is so miserable compared to those well-known brands such as Chanel and Coach. The messages delivered by this Sina weibo is just 129. According to this, we could see Ports doest not take social media into serious consideration. I should not judge the strategy of Ports. However, this will lead to a risk of losing such a huge amount of potential group, for other similar brands are trying their best to interact with audience and show their customer-friendlyness at the same time.

Ports' Ignorance of social media may judge from the fact that most of current customers are not Weibo fans. However, the ignorance of social media will result in the very difficulty to discover a new and young customer group which will become the target audience someday. Now Ports wants to deliver a fashion and energetic image. But without social media, I doubt the efficiency of its effort.