travel agents are dead

          For my final project I was immediately drawn to the idea of travel - growing up overseas I traveled a lot as a kid, but I never had to do any of the work (my mother covered that for us). Now I have to rely on the resources I can find and my own knowledge about traveling to get good deals in a very expensive industry. I've learned that pretty much everything you would ever need to know about traveling can be learned through the internet and especially through social media. We have such easy access to one another that it is actually quite simple to find out all sorts of information about the best sights, hotels, and airlines in just a few minutes. Traditionally we would have bought a travel guide to whatever country we were interested in visiting, but nowadays we can find out all of that information (and soooooo much more) through social media for absolutely no cost at all. All of the sites I used in my presentation can be found here (along with a few I probably didn't get the chance to touch upon!)

         This is an interesting ad by a real travel agency that makes the process of booking your own vacation really difficult and frustrating and that it's better to have someone else do it for you - to a certain extent, they are right. It can be very frustrating and there is a LOT of stuff to sort through when using social media in any way. However, by looking yourself you can specially tailor all your searches towards activities you are interested in and you can also get great advice from friends, colleagues, and even strangers through social media, so you'll know exactly what you're getting yourself into. When I was younger I was always curious as to how travel agents got all of their information and deals - the funny thing now is that it's the exact same way that anyone else can get it. Yes they have more experience dealing with traveling, and for someone who is really new to the idea it might be nice to have someone guide you through it - but in my opinion, there's no better time to start learning than the present.

         Interestingly enough, that particular travel agency makes great use of social media - they have really caught on to the trend of vacationers using social media and booking their own vacations, so they have strategically placed themselves in a position where they are more likely to be found. They have weekly updates (here is an example) to let their clients (and prospective clients) know about various changes to the organization so it is very transparent and friendly-feeling, and informs them of any really great deals that are coming up that they might want to pay attention to. 

        While I'm sure many people will continue to use travel agents to avoid the hassle of booking their trips themselves, it has always been (and is increasingly more so nowadays) an expense that most people would rather avoid if possible, especially when there are so many resources that we have access to ourselves. I won't go through my entire presentation here, instead I will provide links to all of the resources I brought up - in case any of you got Taiwan fever from me ranting about my adopted home for the whole 10 minutes of my presentation (and all the awesome pictures I've included throughout this post), the information links go straight to the Taipei pages, but it's very easy to back out of them if you'd rather look up another city. 

Starting out: Google

Every good college kid knows that Google is their best friend - just like with everything else it's a great way to get a good first look at what is popular or most important regarding the place you are hoping to visit. Once you've searched a little more in-depth it's great to go back to Google for a blog-specific search (www.google.com/blogsearch) for things like fashion tips and all the random things that are useful to know (for instance, how to effectively choose your meal when the menu is all in Chinese, or how to properly use a squat toilet).

General information: Wikipedia

Despite its flaws, Wikipedia is actually a great place to start when you're looking for information on a new place you're looking to visit - the information is generally quite accurate (more than you might think) and it's nice to have a starting point before you delve completely into crazy-research mode.

Bookings and ratings: TripAdvisor, Expedia, Orbitz, Kayak

These are all great sides to try out (I personally like TripAdvisor and Expedia), most online travelers have their own favorites, but these are some good ones to try out. If you're looking for a bargain the best advice I can give you is to book a package deal (primarily flight+hotel). I've found amazing deals on Expedia this way - you should always check the flight schedule because oftentimes they will include long layovers, but it isn't uncommon to see rates for both hotel and flight for what one alone would normally cost (just recently for example I found a $1,500 round trip one week stay in Taipei - the cheapest flight you can book is around $1,100 already, and these combos often feature really nice airlines and hotels). 

But in my opinion, the best thing about these sites are the reviews. Instead of frantically asking around to everyone you know if they've been where you're planning your trip, you can simply click a few buttons and read endless amounts of reviews about everything from hotels, restaurants, sights and more, so you know exactly what to expect out of your experience, particularly with the hotel booking. Expedia is great because you can view hotel listings in order of their Expedia rating instead of price or star ranking, so you can focus on those hotels that have the best customer experiences.

Specific information, suggestions, and reviews: Lonely Planet, Yahoo! Travel, NY Times Travel

These are all great resources to find out about fun sights to see, good restaurants and random facts you might need to know about being in a foreign country. These are great for the more traditional sights, but you can definitely find off-the-beaten-path activities there as well, and also by simply doing a Google search - every area will have different people blogging about the underground goings-on, so it's a good idea for more experienced travelers to be a little more creative with their planning to avoid the more touristy destinations.For example, Din Tai Fung is a very famous dumpling restaurant in Taipei (there is actually one in New York now) but many Taiwanese people feel that it is overpriced and you can get equally good (or better) dumplings at smaller local eateries. I recommend trying both, Din Tai Fung is great for its wide variety, and the local places often have a few really great specialties.

Information through questions and personal contact: Facebook 

The great thing about social media is that it really can provide you with whatever you need to know. It's quite common for interested travelers to post comments on Facebook or another site asking for information about a city or if anyone local would be willing to meet up and make a new friend (sometimes it sounds a little creepy to me, but you can meet a lot of different people like this). Facebook is even more useful because there are so many different groups and pages (from general interest to club/bar pages, restaurant groups, organization pages...) so you can get even more ideas for your trip (often this is a nice way to expand your reach if you've tired out the standard options).

I hope this is helpful for anyone looking to start booking their own vacations online :) It can be overwhelming at first, but it's definitely a skill that will pay off and continue to be beneficial if you are interested in any form of travel (and all of these sites are great for domestic travel too of course - if you're just looking for a getaway weekend there are great deals on B&Bs in New England!!!) 

Happy browsing :) (and wishing you had more money to afford all of these trips... #studentproblems)

Social Media Monitoring Project - Final Report

 Designer Shoe Warehouse 

               DSW is a company that has only recently become involved in social media, but has done an excellent job of taking advantage of it. In a relatively short time they have gained interest and activity through social media instead of relying on more expensive (and nowadays often ignored) typical forms of advertising like television commercials and billboards. As with my mid-term report I have divided my findings into categories presented in Groundswell by Li and Bernoff to highlight the positive advances that DSW has made through social media.

1.      Listening to and talking with the groundswell

 While I was researching for my mid-term report, the group had almost 361,000 “likes” with about 18,500 people talking about it at the time  and only a couple weeks later it now it has almost 382,000 “likes” and over 23,000 people talking about it (seen in their new “Timeline” format). In a matter of weeks they have gained 21,000 new customers to not only view but “like” their page, indicating the rapidity with which the organization is gaining a strong online following (and with the “Timeline” you can now very clearly see a the progression of their presence on facebook).             

  The reason DSW has been so successful with facebook is that it has literally gone “all out” with it. Every single comment on the page is responded to by a wonderfully friendly and upbeat sales representative. And they do not just reply back for the sake of it – if a customer has had a bad experience, someone will quickly figure out what went wrong so that they can avoid future problems. Likewise, if they notice a lot of customers commenting on the same kinds of issues, they will take note and address them – this past week for example, they gave away 50 free pairs of shoes instead of 25 with the huge increase of customers vying for them and wishing there were more freebies available.

2.      Energizing the groundswell

Another way their facebook page has been successful is through energizing their customers – most notably through promoting their rewards program. To win any of their prizes you have to both “like” the page and be a rewards member. Rewards members get regular discounts, promotions, and free shipping when they order online. It’s a legitimately good program that encourages and rewards loyal buyers and with facebook they were able to greatly increase the number of these loyal customers. In return their customers are much more likely to promote DSW to others and the facebook page allows them to build up on each other’s energy and make them more excited about being shoe lovers, and will spread their excitement to anyone who will listen.

But facebook is not the only way through which DSW is involved in social media. By using Social Mention we can get a general idea of how strong their presence is on the web. Below are snapshots taken from the summary section provided by Social Mention:

           Their numbers are quite constant and positive, but obviously there is still room for improvement, particularly in the strength category. From doing my own research I have discovered that almost all of the comments about DSW are overwhelmingly positive, but tools like Social Mention cannot properly analyze negative and positive comments given that they use key words which can be very misleading.

            We can definitely see that DSW has a constant online presence. There are a good number of people interested in the company and a pretty high following of returning customers and commenters. To get a better idea of the social media trend over time, Ice Rocket is a great tool to use. The graph depicted below shows the amount of interest in social media with the three terms most commonly used to express the company. “DSW” is the shortest and most common way of referring to the company, and there are definite peaks where there is much higher interest in the company.

These peak days often occur when a new store opens. On the day they send out a large group of spokespeople to spread the word around that the store will be opening soon. In addition to this, openings in larger cities have special events to celebrate the new store and reward the very first shoppers. This form of “guerilla” marketing creates a lot of hype around the event which ensures that there is a steady stream of hightened interest over time which energizes shoe-lovers to stay tuned and keep buying. The hype really contributes to the energizing concepts discussed in Groundswell – their customers are genuinely excited about the store and will share this excitement all over the internet and in person (which generates even more social media precense for that day).

3.      Helping the groundswell support itself

A major way this has happened with DSW is through Twitter. Going back to Social Mention, I was very interested to see that when I searched for DSW only in the microblog category both the strength and reach jumped much higher which seems to indicate that DSW is being mentioned more in shorter comments.

            Through Twitter DSW simply encourages followers to check out a new pair of shoes or store, but for the most part lets the customers do the talking and replies (as always) very positively to whatever comments they get. By using the Twitter monitoring site Twazzup I was able to get a clearer look at the intensity of the comments. There are many tweets involving the company (almost entirely positive) but the following is much lower than on facebook. Regardless, this format does allow Twitter users to help each other and comment on each other’s experiences without feeling like the company is controlling the talking points or keeping up any false pretenses.

While DSW does not have quite the sames kinds of customer self-help forums as described in Groundswell, the facebook page offers the same possibilities. If anyone has a question about how a special offer works or how to get more discounts or anything else, it is often another customer that replies to the query before a DSW representative can. This creates a great environment of goodwill and accord amongst the page followers.

Room for improvement…

            Clearly the marketing department at DSW has a pretty good grasp on the benefits of using social media to advertise their products and promote their brand identity. They now rely almost entirely on their social media, word-of-mouth, and guerilla marketing tactics to attract customers to their stores and website instead of more traditional and expensive forms – all of which rely almost entirely on the enthusiasm that their customers and employees have for beautiful shoes. In particular they have made excellent use of their facebook page to listen to, talk with, and energize their customers. They have that side of their marketing strategy completely under control. But of course there are other areas in which they could do better and expand their reach even further. From the past month of research I have pinpointed two main areas where DSW could improve its presence in social media and get more out of it – through Twitter and customer forums.

            Clearly Twitter is a great way for other people to talk about DSW, but the tool does not appear to have been taken full advantage of by the company itself (like it has done with facebook). Considering they already have similar programs in place on facebook, it would not be particularly difficult to integrate some fun events or promotions on Twitter to further energize their followers. This will give those tweeting customers more reasons to keep tweeting and to further promote the DSW brand to their own followers. It should also encourage many more customers to follow DSW and to comment more about the company, significantly increasing its social media presence. Twitter could also be used to further their guerilla marketing – it would be an interesting experiment to only advertise a store opening on Twitter (of course in a city where they have more followers). This (theoretically) would result in a group of dedicated shoe-lovers who feel rewarded for their continued shopping experience at DSW.

            On a slightly different note, an area that DSW has really made no clear progress in is the use of online customer forums. Groundswell describes the amazing advances that can be made from directly asking your customers what they want. Obviously DSW has an amazing staff filled with style experts who are paid to pick the best styles – but even they can’t possibly know everything about what their customers want. Maybe a particular style that is huge at Paris Fashion Week will not be appealing to their particular audience (which caters mostly to Americans who are trying to not go broke paying for higher quality shoes). Having a better grasp on what exactly their customers are looking for can be really helpful in lessening the risks of buying their shoes in bulk (which is generally how they get lower prices) and it will greatly energize their buyers. Having buyers who feel as though they have made a difference to the company and helped out other buyers like themselves is a great energizing tactic that pays off in the future. 

            DSW is off to a great start and has almost seamlessly integrated itself into the groundswell. They genuinely care about their customers and as a result provide an excellent assortment of shoes and high quality customer service. Confident in the value of their company they have thrived through social media and bypassed much larger and older companies of the same nature. DSW is a wonderful example of the results that can be achieved through embracing the groundswell and allowing your customers to speak for you.

....and if anyone wants to buy me these shoes, please feel free :)

Groundswell - the grand finale

          I was pleasantly surprised and, dare I say it, inspired by the final couple of chapters in Groundswell. Chapter 11 which focuses on how to use the groundswell inside your own company was a wonderful final addition to the book; I had always wondered why the employees at Best Buy were always so upbeat and eager to help me whenever I went into the store (and I’ve been in several all across the northeast) and now I understand – they like their jobs. The quote from one of Best Buy’s managers at the very beginning of the chapter was the perfect lead-in:

“I work retail. I inspire creativity and fun with my employees. I grand open stores, as many as possible, really. And I have never before loved a job and a company the way I love this one. My name is Ashley Hemsath, and I am Best Buy.” (p. 215)

          Given the current economic climate I think this chapter is even more important. Now that so many companies have cut spending and salaries and employees, those who are still left working are often faced with lower pay for more work. The examples in this chapter were a great reminder to the higher echelons of corporations that mistreating your employees is not the way to be successful in the long-term. Creating appropriate methods of connection between internal hierarchies is extremely important, as demonstrated clearly by Li and Bernoff. How many electronics stores have closed down over the past decade? (Check out this Wikipedia page if you aren’t convinced). I had no idea how Best Buy was remaining so successful, and I honestly think most of it is its phenomenal customer service. It offers the same products as every other tech store, but with a full staff that is eager to help anyone who wanders in, from the uber tech-wiz to the confused grandmother. Within the first few minutes of being in the store a representative has almost always asked me if I need help with anything, and if I don’t, they back off immediately and don’t bother me. It’s a surprisingly peaceful and relaxing shopping experience.

          To top Chapter 11, Chapter 12 was even more enjoyable and I thought perfectly summed up the lessons taught in previous chapters. My favorite comment is near the end of the chapter and summarizes what, in my opinion at least, is the most important message of the entire book:

“In this world of constant feedback, one element of some corporate cultures is definitely going away. Strategies based on deception are doomed to failure. If your high-speed Internet offering is slower in real like than your competitors’, skeptics will point a finger at the stream of online reviews and discussion groups, and people will know. If your new mop looks great and costs less but the refills are expensive, people will know. If your mortgage company underestimates how long the paperwork takes, people will know.” (p. 239)

a Dell laptop that caught fire (there were several apparently...)

For me at least, this was the most crucial message that the book discusses – as a result of social media, companies have to be better. They can no longer lie about their products or services, they can’t have prolonged periods of terrible customer service, and they can’t treat their employees any way they want and expect positive results. I loved that this was such a huge focus of the book – it forces anyone who takes the time to read it to realize that it’s not just marketing strategy that needs to change, it’s business policies and practices too.

even Walmart, one of the most profitable companies in the country has been affected  by the groundswell and forced into making changes that never would have happened without it.

          But the cherry on top for me was way at the back of the entire text, past the notes and index sections. The very last section in the book is titled “join the conversation” in which the authors take their own advice and offer an additional service to the book itself. They very appropriately say that “a book is a one way communication” and they came up with a way to make it two-way (or a thousand-way I suppose). They created a place for people reading this book and those interested in moving their companies forward with the ideas included have a place to support each other at groundswell.forrester.com. I loved this idea and really made the book feel complete to me – however the site no longer exists for whatever reason, I was only able to find forrester.com and they have separate blogs on the same issues, but nothing so specific and (in my opinion) as beneficial as what Li and Bernoff had suggested. The attempt could have failed for a number of reasons and was eventually taken down as a result, but it is a shame that it is no longer available to further this valuable discussion and ease the process for those who are trying to improve their companies and prepare them for the opportunities presented by the groundswell.

social media monitoring project - midterm report

When I say “DSW” what do you think of? Assuming you’re familiar with DSW (don’t worry if you’re not, I’m getting to you) maybe you think of their huge warehouses, their logo, or of course, an awesome pair of shoes you bought there. What doesn’t come to mind? Advertisements. Annoying sales representatives. Television commercials. Poor customer service. Need I go on…

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the company, DSW stands for Designer Shoe Warehouse and is now the largest shoe retailer in the country along with Macy’s. If you’ve been to a mall in the past few years you’ve probably passed one, and if you’re not a shoe lover you may have run away in the opposite direction screaming because the rows and rows of endless shoes. #heartmelting

But for a company that is just so huge, where are all the ads? The annoying sales pitches and silly jingles? The bad company-customer relationship that is so common amongst large retailers? It’s just not there. I’ve shopped at DSW ever since I first laid eyes on one of their stores almost a decade ago now, and until I started this project I had never considered any of those realities. You might think, well, if one of their loyal customers hasn’t noticed this, what good is it doing? DSW is involved in the groundswell so effectively, that it seems very natural. Their approach is very well-coordinated with their services and the way the company operates so that everyone, including the all-important customer, is happy.

Obviously there is still room for improvement, but it’s great to see a retail company with such a great customer relationship. As a result I want to highlight the effectiveness of DSW’s approach to social media and I’ve divided my analysis into three main categories from the book Groundswell by Li and Bernoff: listening and talking, energizing, and helping the groundswell support itself.

1.       Listening to and talking with the groundswell

It seems pertinent in talking about social media to start by showing you one of DSW’s main usages of social media – Facebook. As you can see, a lot of people like this group, and if you spend any time on the page you’ll notice that fans post things almost every minute. What’s great about what DSW does though, is that they respond to all of the posts – good, bad, neutral, questions, comments, greetings, everything. They thank their customers and tell them that they appreciate their support and their love of shoes. It creates a wonderful interaction between the store, which can oftentimes seem like a very distant being, and the customers which make the store successful.

And just so that you believe me – here is a chart taken from their pitch to investors on why they should invest in DSW. You can see that both their loyal customers and profits have steadily increased since 2001, and they’re planning to have doubled their profits from 2011 by 2015 (and they don’t seem far off given the current trend).

2.       Energizing the groundswell

Now, it’s in these next two sections were the use of web analytics becomes very helpful.

I tried a bunch of the online analytic tools and Social Mention was definitely my favorite – I love how specific it breaks down the strength, sentiment, passion and reach based on social media, as well as highlighting very specific facts like where the most posts are coming from, how positive they are, and so on.
As you can see, DSW has a pretty decent grasp on social media and is definitely being talked about, so they are doing something right. However, their numbers aren’t entirely stable – here are two snapshots just one day apart from each other:

                                   

They aren’t that different of course, but it is interesting to see that in one day their sentiment dropped significantly (how positively people are discussing their brand) while the strength of their social media presence increased. However, these numbers seem questionable to me, as I’m not really sure how Social Mention is deciding what comments are positive, neutral or negative. Because when I scroll through the mentions of their name (mostly through Twitter) they are overwhelmingly positive, either about loving shoes or the store, or just saying that they are there now. I have found very few negative comments anywhere – the closest I could find was when people post comments doubting the benefits of working at DSW, but these seem to be implying the fact that their employees don’t make any money because they spend all their wages on shoes (as I’m sure I would).

I also liked Ice Rocket because of how specific you could make your search – since so many of their social media presence is through Twitter, this was a great resource for me.

In the social media sphere DSW gets a lot of positive articles and posts written about it (from the “creators” as Li and Bernoff describe them) – the first article on this page was wonderful as it highlighted retail websites that do a great job of getting customers to buy and DSW was one of them.

Looking specifically at Twitter, the tweets are almost all positive again, and someone is tweeting at least every other minute or so.

This graph on the left shows the percent of blog posts that DSW has on any given day (obviously the numbers are small) and vary a decent amount (but if you think about it, these are really small numbers…) with each of the two high points (February 23 and March 3) followed by a clear drop. My best guess for this trend is that DSW has tons of online events where you can win free shoes and gift certificates – often these are done through Facebook where you either have to answer a trivia question or be the first to send in your request. I would assume that many people would be less interested in the company right after one of these semi-craze-inducing events (we do have other things to do with our time of course). But clearly the interest keeps going up repeatedly.

Another great way DSW energizes the groundswell is through their Youtube page. They post videos of all of their events, commercials and fun things like the behind the scenes shooting of their commercials. This way, interested viewers can watch their commercials whenever they want instead of DSW paying tons of money to air them all the time. I have only seen a couple ads for DSW, as they are pretty rare. They seem to target their audiences very carefully so they don’t waste funds unnecessarily.

This one shows the highlights of a store opening event with Steve Madden (I really want him to sign my shoes now...):

In addition there are videos like this one:

that show how to get more discounts from the store. Unfortunately, a lot of the videos with the word “DSW” in them are “double showcase winners” from The Price Is Right… so that created a strange mix of videos. This could be something for DSW to take a closer look at.

3.       Helping the groundswell support itself

DSW also does a great job of helping the groundswell support itself (in my opinion at least). Just by judging from a regular Google search, it’s clear that their sites are very popular for their acronym. Almost the whole first page of entries is direct links to one of their sites (whether for purchasing, information, locations, investments…) so it’s very easy to find anything you might want to know about them. The easy access to information is a great start to the groundswell supporting itself.

The other main way that DSW helps the groundswell support itself is through its presence on Twitter. DSW is very active with all of its free-shoe events, new store openings, and event hosting to post about. But this hype creates more interest amongst other viewers who may be more likely to post on their own the more they see this presence by the actual store, even if it is not directly related to their comment. I used Twazzup, a site that monitors twitter posts, to see how DSW uses Twitter. They constantly update their page so that everyone who follows them gets all the information they could want about sales and upcoming events.

  Judging from their minimal use of advertisements, DSW seems to rely heavily on word of mouth energizing to get shoe lovers to their stores. In part this is generated by their social media presence – a customer who has been thanked and shown appreciation (and who got a great deal) is going to be much more likely to promote the store to others. Just by writing certain short phrases on their Facebook wall you can win little gifts (I got a magnet and early information about a new line coming up) but they also give out gift certificates and other fun things. As a result, I have unknowingly been a huge promoter on their behalf – whenever a friend of mine is looking for shoes I automatically suggest DSW and if they haven’t heard of the store I will rant about it until they agree to go with me.

~        ~        ~       ~        ~

When I started this assignment I had no idea that I would be so blown away by this organization. I’m now an even bigger fan than I already was. Instead of using a constant stream of ads or focusing only on profits, DSW has really let its simple philosphy speak for itself - "we love shoes." The employees from bottom-up all love shoes and are enthusiastic about other people who love shoes. Because of this they don't need all the flash and pazzazz other companies might use, because their purpose and approach to their customers is so welcoming and all-inclusive. 

#shoeloverforever

Angie's List

This is Angie.

And this is Angie's list.

What makes Angie's list different from any other service reviewing site?  A number of things actually...

          For starters, Angie is a real person, and is the actual founder of the company. The article title "At Angie's List, the Reviews Are Real (So Is Angie)" was enough to grab my attention while I was browsing the NYTimes the other day. Simply the feeling that there is a real person behind the operation (which their website makes very clear) is very comforting, it's as if someone is actually looking out for you not just trying to get as many hits on their site as possible.

          I’d never given the site much thought since it offers services that (for now at least) are not relevant to my life. Angie’s List is a website that, overall, is very similar to all the others – it provides user ratings on services to help customers know which companies to trust. Apart from being slightly more specific in scope (they deal mostly with home remodeling and, more recently, health care) the aspect of the company that really sets them apart is that they are a paid subscription service. Most like-minded sites (Yelp for example) are free and rely on that ease of access to get more users. 

         Now, why in the world would anyone pay (and at the rather high cost of $60 per year for most users) for a site when you can just google the same information or use another review site that doesn't charge you anything? The answer - reliability. The concept of "free" with the internet is actually rather new - to the current generation undergraduate students, we do not know of any other kind of internet (where everything from Facebook, to Google, even study guides like SparkNotes are free and disturbingly easy to find). But Angie's list was founded in 1995, before the "free craze" started. 

         But what does Angie's list provide that other like-minded services do not? Here is a great quote taken from the above-mentioned article:

“The anonymity of the Internet renders it inherently susceptible to outright manipulation by unscrupulous service providers and unhappy customers, so consumers have limited means for discerning which information they should trust.”

We have already discussed this in class - even on a site where there are reviews available, we are immediately suspicious of them because no one knows who could have written them. The same article also mentioned this little gold nugget of scandalous information from Roger Lee, a partner at the firm Battery Ventures:

"There are booming businesses overseas that charge you anywhere from $3 to $5 to write a glowingly positive review."

           I have no idea where these companies exist or how they operate exactly, but it's not hard to guess. And it confirms our suspicions - yes, we are still being lied to. I can spend hours on TripAdvisor (which is still a phenomenal site in my opinion) reading the hotel reviews - this is partly because I've noticed that many people (not all, but quite a lot) who write reviews are either in love with the service so they just had to spread the joy, or they're very disgruntled people who had an awful experience and want to vent. As such I try to logically pick my way through the reviews and balance them out, but more importantly, trying to spot the fakes. I've come across reviews that, clearly, did not even belong to that particular hotel that could have come from competitors hoping to decrease their customer ratings (one bad review can seriously lower the TripAdvisor rating, which many people now prefer over the number of stars or the price to make their final decisions).

          As much as possible, Angie's list avoids that kind of problem. It requires a real person with a real name and address (and credit card of course) to register for the service. Their actual names are not listed with their entries, but the mere registration process is enough to drive away a lot of these fast-fix-types who would simply write a bunch of positive or negative reviews. In addition to this, remodeling services are more likely to place an ad on Angie's list where they know people looking for their services will be (which I think is actually kind of useful for the Angie's list users, as they can just search that particular client right there), and all of these advertisers must provide significant discounts to Angie's list members. The author of the NYTimes article said that all the discounts have more than paid for the annual membership (and saved him a whole lot of hassle and expense on bad companies of course - and when it comes to remodeling, a bad company is a really bad company).

         Finally, Angie's list does pretty much everything that Li and Bernoff discuss in Groundswell, particularly listening and talking. Angie herself has semi-regular chat sessions with users who have questions, concerns, or general comments. Her last session was on February 15th, and the session is still online for anyone to read:

You can see that she gracefully deals with both positive and negative comments, and it's wonderful that this is available to non-members as well so they can see for themselves what kind of service this is and if they are interested in joining. The company not only provides comments on other services, but takes comments for its own operation to make it as beneficial as possible to its users. They have effectively created the kind of community Li and Bernoff discuss, and it is still growing. It is a very supportive community of people going through the same kinds of issues that offers a much easier and more trusting way of finding good services. It may even encourage other companies to bump up their services when their competitors are positively reviewed on this kind of reputable site. 

"helping the groundswell support itself" - jericho

(sorry this is a few hours late professor - I wrote the reflection in Word and then totally forgot to post it!!!)

ad campaign before fan input

          Out of these last readings in Groundswell I was particularly interested in chapter 8, “Helping the groundswell support itself.” In the traditional model of marketing and product promotion, the company was solely responsible for getting the word out there and ensuring customers were interested in their products. Oftentimes, companies do not actually need to spend as much effort figuring out what customers want when they are using social media to readily dish out their opinions.

•           I absolutely loved the example of CBS’ show Jericho and how the fans were so attached to the show that they actually rallied together to let the producers know they didn’t want it to be cancelled (their appeal was so extensive that many news corporations picked up on the story, for instance ABC News' article "Nutty Jericho Fans Make CBS Reconsider Cancelling Show"). I thought that the way Nina Tassler, the president of CBS, addressed their demands was expertly crafted. It was honest, insightful, and heart-felt all at the same time. Coming from a huge corporation where the big “muckey-mucks” often seem to live on different planet from the rest of us, that was huge. Here is a slightly shortened version of her post to the forum where fans were communicating:

the ad campaign after fan input

“Over the past few weeks you have put forth an impressive and probably unprecedented display of passion in support of a prime time television series. You got our attention; your emails and collective voice have been heard.. a loyal and passionate community has clearly formed around the show… But that community needs to grow… We will count on you to… recruit new viewers… On behalf of CBS, thank you for expressing your support in such an extraordinary manner. Your protest was creative, sustained, and very thoughtful and respectful in tone. You made a difference.”

          In my opinion this was an all-around win. The viewers got more episodes of their favorite show with the promise of more if they could get enough people interested, and CBS was able to save money by not having to try out new shows to replace one that was already clearly adored and with the clear possibility for expansion (and probably continued support and suggestions from real viewers – for free!).

          Li and Bernoff called this process a “supportive dialogue” which seems rather fitting – it goes back to their earlier point about talking with their customers, not at them. When corporations (especially huge ones like CBS that can seem aloof at best and down-right uncaring at worst) make an effort to engage in a dialogue with the customers and demonstrate that they do in fact care about their opinion, it really makes an impact. Unfortunately, the fans’ efforts were short-lived as those few extra episodes were the only to be aired before CBS did officially cancel Jericho. This time they released an official statement regarding the cancellation (probably a good idea since the backlash from the fan forum could have been quite unpleasant):

“The March 25th episode of Jericho will be the series finale. Without question, there are passionate viewers watching this program; we simply wish there were more. We thank an engaged and spirited fan base for keeping the show alive this long, and an outstanding team of producers, cast and crew that went through creative hoops to deliver a compelling, high quality second season. We have no regrets bringing the show back for a second try. We listened to our viewers, gave the series an opportunity to grow, and the producers put a great story on the screen. We're proud of everyone's efforts.” (http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/03/24/us-jericho-idUSN2430060520080324)

the issue was so widely disucessed that
it even got a southpark parody!

          Again, I thought this was well-put (if a little more formal than the blog post, which is expected given the media change) and focused on the positive side of the issue while explaining clearly that they cannot run a show that does not have enough viewers, no matter how loyal the small fan-base is. This too is a lesson in the limitations of the groundswell – you can’t make other people like something they have no interest in. Even if all those huge Jericho fans got a bunch of their friends to try watching the show, if those friends didn’t like it in the first place, there would be nothing the fans could do. In my opinion the groundswell is wonderful in that sense – it does not circumvent our needs, it lives off them. Yes, it can create hype and interest that would not have existed without it, but if Mini Coopers were just bad cars, or the eBags of poor quality, no amount of hype can fix that. The groundswell is a great resource for companies with a real product that is actually needed (or at least desired) by their customers. 

          I was happy to discover, however, that CBS still had their website keep the Jericho page (until now even) where fans can watch all of the second season for free, even though the show has been off-air for several years now. It definitely shows their commitment to working with the groundswell and trying to appease their fan-base as best as they can while still being able to make a profit. 

Advertising the Groundswell - Esurance

                I have always been very interested in advertising – in particular the methodology with which advertisers use to lure customers in. What makes an ad “work”? For the most part, “coolness” is advertised (or at least an advertiser’s interpretation of coolness). In a reverse-psychology kind of fashion, it is possible to actually trace back what was considered popular at the time (to a certain extent) through what is being advertised. Take for example Esurance’s television advertisement:

                If some communications major a hundred years from now was studying us as a civilization, what would this ad tell them? For starters it brings out many facets of our culture from working out to cute animal youtube videos. Using familiar scenes is a very common advertising practice – it narrows in on the target audience (here, younger “hipper” American clients, the ad is for the “modern” world) – but it is the voiceover that just gets me. The advertisers have honed in on so many of the ideas discussed in Groundswell that I wouldn’t be surprised if they had read the book themselves. The company’s embracing of the groundswell in an advertisement shows just how important the concept of transparency is to modern clients. The narrative style invokes honesty by using a young man whose presentation, while fluid, does not appear overly scripted or complicated. He also does not belittle other companies but is still able to refer to them, while many ads have started to become almost cruel in their treatment of rival groups.

                Most importantly however, is what the ad chooses to focus on once it has passed the catchy intro – the company’s facebook page. The male narrator argues that the way you choose your car insurance should come from references by real people (not cartoon characters or fancy ads – ironic… yes, but effective nonetheless). The ad uses this more traditional form of persuasion to encourage viewers to view the more important form – the open facebook page, where anyone can post comments about the company. The television ad focuses on the positive reviews, but the actual page does not hide nor belittle the negative comments. In fact, every single comment is responded to by an Esurance employee (as was explained to a curious customer in the comment shown below). Even silly comments, like Osama who said “hi,” are replied to in a friendly and open manner. If someone has a complaint the reply message tells the person where to go to or asks if there is something they can do to help. The company also does an excellent job of monitoring this page (this must be someone’s entire job) so that replies are given almost immediately after a comment is posted on the page.

facebook.com/esurance

                Even the page itself uses a very direct image that exemplifies its decision to embrace the groundswell by saying “real customers. real comments. really.” The ideas portrayed in Groundswell have clearly become a crucial part of the American mindset in determining what companies to trust. Customers want great customer service, close relationships with the company itself, and access to accurate information. This exemplifies the “listening” and “talking” functions a company must now perform to be successful. And the facebook page is a completely free way for the company to get some insight as to how satisfied their customers are. Instead of relying on statistics and yearly income, they can see comments directly from customers that fully explain their experiences to make the company stronger and more successful in the future.