ESSEC Business School: Social Media Monitoring Project

In a press release dated May 6, 2010, the President of ESSEC, Pierre Tapie, presented the objectives and strategy for development for the next five years.

"Faced with the challenges of internationalization, the growing demand for higher education in emerging countries and the new needs of students and companies, ESSEC has developed an ambitious plan to maintain its position amongst the top business schools of the future."

REELING IN THE WORLD'S STUDENTS

According to the press release, the number of students worldwide will have doubled by the year 2015, going from 100 M to 200 M students.  Fifty-five million of these will be coming from China and India, but these countries will not be able to handle this number.

 " To live up to these new stakes, ESSEC has set new ambitions:  be one of the top 20 business schools worldwide, in the top ten of Asia and one of the top five in Europe.  To gain notoriety on the international scene, ESSEC is putting into place a common brand name, called ESSEC Business School."

Because the modest-sized school (5,550 enrolled students) has a significant presence throughout the world, one of its goals is to develop interconnectedness between all participants via the internet.  In addition, the school plans to raise €150M by 2015:  €79 M from companies, €41 M from public financing and €30M from Alumni.  If the school wants to find funding, it needs to develop its visibility.

INSTITUTIONAL WEBSITES

The first indication of the school's internet presence can be found on its websites.  You can already sense a difference between ESSEC Business School, the larger entity and its Executive Education Department, which has ranked 10th in the world in 2010 for Executive Education, N° 1 in France and N° 4 in Europe for open enrollment programs, ranking done by the Financial Times.

On the ESSEC Business School website there is a news page for press releases and an RSS feed for ESSEC events.  Not a lot in terms of Social Media, or in terms of regularly updated content.

We can compare this to its Executive Education Department website, which is much more tech-savvy, which unfortunately is not much of a compliment.  On its home page, we can see links to Facebook, LinkedIn, (LinkedIn description of ESSEC  here) Viadeo and Twitter.  However, you discover they are pretty much just there to decorate the page if you delve a little further by clicking on the links.

SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING 

• There is a real lack of social network groups affiliated with ESSEC.  
• The school has maintained an old-fashioned approach of  what I will call a hierarchical system of social networking.  On pages of the website, we can see opportunities to network via physical events, for  which you'll be notified by joining the special interest group.  Alums are noted on these pages as contact people. 
• Imagine how much more dynamic this would be if these people could contact each other via a forum and their area of interest! 
• And they could reach out to members world-wide, not just those who could participate in the physical meetings.
• The school uses PR sites to notify the public of its press releases.    
• I found no evidence of any social networking activity using Addictomatic, Social Mention or Ice Rocket.  Their approach is definitely pre-web 2.O and it needs to be brought up to speed.

Social Mention gives us a 5:0 ratio in terms of positive sentiments expressed on social networks.  Clearly people are proud to be affiliated with the school, but aside from using it as a kind of calling card, what can they really do with it?

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HIERARCHICAL COMMUNICATION:  2nd example

We can see a decent amount of web activity that follows the typical top-down method of communication.  ESSEC has been in the news for researching VideoGames and their influence on Kids in Sports. 
These articles are present on the official website, but also on various blogs and other resources.  The quality of the media coverage is impressive enough, with big leaguers taking notice:  Business Week and the New York Times (see article), for example. 

Not only does big league press talk about ESSEC, but ESSEC's partners are big league, so we know they've got stuff to brag about:  joint projects with the Louvre, the prestigious Concorde Hotels chain, visiting professors from Harvard and the like.

SO WHY AREN'T THEY OUT THERE TALKING AND BLOWING THEIR HORN?

If so many ESSEC reps are busy out there doing things, why isn’t ESSEC promoting those events?  Or helping its associates to spread the word about what they are doing.  It is a cultural phenomenon, true, that the French generally don’t like to brag about individual success, considering it in bad taste.  But training can be done so that they can see the advantage in it for them, for their science, for the world, for whatever reason that may motivate them.  Everyone wins here.

I found one consultant, called The Orangeman, who was in charge of "360° marketing for ESSEC :  print, web, advertising, PR and HR."  Why no talk of SM?  


The groundswell is out there talking about them, such as bloggers and aggregate sites who spread the word about MBA programs around the world, but don't take preference with one or another.  Maybe there is a way to work on this aspect, researching these existing sites and finding ways to augment the information that is out there, providing them with additional information.  Tighter links could be developed.

 Another example of this would be F1GMAT, a one-stop resource portal that helps people with their GMAT preparation, MBA Applications and give prospective students the latest information on business school events, deadlines and other developments.  They should hook up with groups like this around the globe to promote ESSEC’s activities.  

Taking this idea one step further, ESSEC could launch an on-line newspaper in the area of their specialty or specialties, just as gamasutra, who posted ESSEC's findings on video games, follows what is happening in the gaming industry.

There is absolutely no mention of ESSEC (well almost) on Twitter, except for a visiting professor and my own announcement that I had undertaken this project.  Nothing on MySpace, which we might agree is no longer as popular as it once was.  Twitter needs to be used to send events news, awards, etc. to its followers.  I found on Digg an announcement for scholarships.  This is a great opportunity to show the school's benevolent side.  But this again, is coming from the groundswell, following a PR announcement on the side of ESSEC.  ESSEC needs to diversify how it communicates with the public.

VOTRE TUBE, NOT YOU TUBE

One area where ESSEC appears to be quite present on the Web is on You Tube, with 101 videos found by Addictomatic.  Many of these videos are student-initated, others are put on-line by the school.  The problem is, too many are in French, not English.  A possible solution to attract international audiences would be to put English subtitles on them, or perhaps to even dub into English.  ESSEC SELLS PARIS(video)

Other top French schools seem to do a better job marketing themselves:  Sciences Po, HEC and INSEAD are good examples.  This should be a major motivator in getting ESSEC to move forward in its promotional tactics.

And finally, to end with some irony, I managed to find one article saying that a representative from ESSEC will be giving a speech at a Cornell Hospitality Research Summit  that will feature hands-on strategies and tactics for using social media.

Go figure.  Perhaps change is closer than we might think.

Reading Reflections #2

 from the book Groundswell, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff

Four ideas:  Energizing, helping, embracing, connecting-transforming.

Word-of-mouth is nothing new.  But energizing the converted masses is powerful.  They enter into details about your product or service that you would never have thought of.  You can use these details to improve your offer and/or tailor it to your fan base.  The latter can help to spread news of what you offer and convert others.

According to the authors, « our surveys show that 76 percent of customers use online reviews to help them make purchases. »  They go on to say that only 25 percent of e-commerce sites have customer reviews, but 96 percent of those who do « rate them as an effective merchandising tactic. » (p. 138 )

The internet opens up new avenues for customer reviews, which cannot be evaluated as fully in traditional structures, such as returns or (non-)repeat purchasing. 

« It’s about making them feel like a stakeholder », we read on p. 144.   And in effect, it is.  People feel connected, heard, valued.  It is like a democratic institution, which presents rights for voters and accountability for their representatives - or in our case, companies and organizations.

Major tips in energizing the groundswell:
1)  You must be able to anticipate how to deal with negative comments before embarking.  P. 145 « community is about people’s need to connect, not your need to control. »

2)  Like the beingagirl.com site that we mentioned in Reading Reflection #1 (hyperlink), we should build a community around our products, not a community that promotes the product itself.  The latter is your objective, not your followers’.  For example, Lego promotes a site about BUILDING with Legos, not about which Legos are available for purchase.

3)  Make sure you target people who use the web and join social media groups.  For this, use a Social Technographic Profile Chart to make sure your social media product corresponds to the people you are trying to get on board.  An example of this: 

Helping People Help Themselves

Some figures pertaining to customer service :  a call to a call center costs a company $6 or $7.  If it is a technical support call, the price increases to $10 or $20.  If the groundswell can provide the answers, your savings are considerable.

People have a natural desire to be helpful to others, to mentor others and to be recognized and shown appreciation.  This can be a powerful motivator in creating a worthwhile community on the web for your business.

A noteworthy example is Jeff Stenski, who the authors estimate has saved Dell a million dollars by allowing people to circumvent the help services Dell provides.  (p. 160).  So if your company has a product that is likely to pose lots of questions for your customers, you should seriously consider beginning a forum.  Your customers will be satisfied if the community can answer their questions, they feel a part of a group and since their overall experience will have been positive, they’ll even be more likely to buy from you again.  A very profitable by-product of this phenomenon.

On p. 165, the book relates the CBS Jericho story, which is about the series’ planned cancellation.  Since the groundswell supported the series and told CBS how much it hoped the show would continue, CBS used that enthusiasm and energy to promote its show.  First CBS satisfied their appetite by giving them another seven shows, then gave Jericho a chance at a second life by asking supporters to spread the word about the show.  Jericho became their « baby » as much as CBS network’s.

The basic premise for helping the groundswell help itself is, understandably, asking questions and getting answers.  Wikis can provide this service, but they are a lot harder to get off the ground (p. 168)  I would guess this is because they appear to be more academic in nature - or at least in appearance - rather than social. 

Bazaarvoice.com’s approach of having a Q&A section for each product page is a great idea.  People can see product description, price and reviews all at once. 

Tips for creating a groundswell support group:

1)  See if there is already an existing community.  The example of TiVo on p. 174 relates how one TiVo rep monitors a non-official community of users to support them, to listen to what they are saying and also to use them to spread the word about TiVo news.

2)  Be prepared to invest adequate resources initially to get the project up and running.  After that, you may be able to taper those resources.

3)  « Advertise on sites where your customers shop; put the community’s Web address on the cover of the owner’s manual. » (p. 175)

4)  Be sure to include the thread « improving the community » and listen to the groundswell.

Embracing the groundswell has to do with showing the on-line community that you ARE listening and that you DO value their opinion by integrating their suggestions.  Actions speak louder than words.

Crédit Mutuel’s program is an interesting one to note.  The French bank created a website entitled « sijetaisbanquier.com » which asked its clients to provide ideas as if they were indeed the bankers.  The bank also chose a contributor a week and awarded them with a free iPod.  The comments provided them with a new perspective, much like the cancer patients mentioned in Reading Reflections #1, giving the bank ideas that would enhance their relationship with its customers. 

The most important result is to put these ideas into practice, which is what they did at Crédit Mutuel.  They implemented a program « The bank you can talk to » and showed it was true by acting on these ideas.  For the bank to continue to live up to its slogan, it will have to continue listening to its customers and embracing what it hears.

Crédit Mutuel’s example is in the service industry, but the grocery store Loblaw’s example shows how we can change our products by listening to what customers say.  The connection between the website’s customer reviews pages being placed in stores next to products is an effective way to bring the two worlds together and promote both at the same time.  And of course, improving products to suit the reviewers’ criteria guarantees success. 

Transforming

Changing our products is one thing, but are we prepared to change our company??  The cut here is much deeper, but we can reap incredible rewards.

Take the Unilever-Dove example in Chapter 10.  To appreciate the story fully, you really need to read the book.  (Buy it here)  Nevertheless, hereafter are some of the elements of this successful two-year campaign, which combine audacity, challenging traditional precepts of beauty and creates crossovers between traditional advertising, television shows and the power of the internet:

There was a viral success of Dove’s « Evolution » You Tube video, which drew in double the viewers of its SuperBowl ad, which had cost $2.5 Million, compared to zero dollars on You Tube.

The Evolution video is given the advertising industry’s highest acclaims at an awards ceremony in Cannes, France.

Dell story shows us how, now that dialogue is opened up, people expect to be heard and they expect their demands to be met much more than when they were voiceless.

I will finish with a key passage on pages 201 - 203: 

 « You should have in mind a three-year outlook of where
 you want to take the organization…describe what the
 relationship with your customer will feel like in the future.
 You won’t necessarily know what technologies you’ll use,
or what kind of message you’ll have, but you should have
a vision of the kind of conversation you want to have with
your customers. »

Vital words:  vision, conversation, relationship, customers. 
Technologies will change; Focus on those four words.

Rachel Maddow: NAACP chief on being snookered by Fox News

excellent discussion on how scare tactics are used in race relations, which prevent us from moving forward to a post-racial society.

Rachel Maddow: NAACP chief on being snookered b..., posted with vodpod

easy media manipulation w3o

For this week's original posting, I would like to pause and reflect on Shirley Sherrod, the now former USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) official forced to resign after an internet mishap that is indicative of the dangers of our excessively fast-moving world under the influence of the internet.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/07/21/agriculture.employee.usda/index.html?hpt=C2

According to the Washington Post: "Sherrod, a black woman appointed last July as the agency's Georgia state director of rural development, was forced out after a blogger circulated a video showing part of her March 27 appearance at an NAACP banquet."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/21/AR2010072101460.html

The video was taken out of context and portrays her to be an 'angry black woman' who could be biased against whites in making her decisions and even unwilling to help white farmers. The contents were criticized by the NAACP, who did not go further than to look at the internet clips even though Ms. Sherrod is respected in her job and furthermore, the presentation was given at a NAACP event.

Ms. Sherrod may now be offered to take her job back, but she says the trust has been broken. She wonders how she could go back to work for a group that clearly does not trust her, if they can be swayed so easily by false reporting.

An quick analysis of the situation:

1) Radical right-wingers use the clips on a blog to discredit their target;
2) The information posted on the internet is taken at face value. The NAACP denounces her comments;
3) The scandal of this black woman saying she would not help white farmers due to injustices she faced during her lifetime spreads like wildfire on the web;
4) She loses her job;
5) Investigation is made into her real comments and the entire video is now recognized. It is widely accepted that the internet clip took comments out of context and do not reflect the real sentiments of Sherrod;
6) The NAACP apologizes;
7) The USDA announces it will reconsider her case;
8) Sherrod announces the trust has been broken and she may not want her job back.

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/politics/2010/07/21/am.shirley.sherrod.interview.cnn

Racism in America is put back on the table. Credibility lost. Time and energy lost. Bad karma created.

Comments?

Reading Reactions #1

Some thoughts and observations on reading assignments until now (ref: Groundswell: by Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff - Harvard Business Press (2008)

The book's first story about Digg and the HD-DVD code holds many lessons for us regarding the Internet and who holds the power regarding so many facets of life in today's inter-connected world:

Lesson 1: The best way to ensure that a secret code is made public to all is to fight to keep it secret.
Lesson 2: There’s not much companies and industry can do to squelch the mobs of messages out on the internet (which is food for thought regarding conspiracy theories and supposed government cover-ups)
Lesson 3: Harnessing the power of the internet would be like lassoing a tornado - pretty well impossible. The only harnessing you can do is to try to ride the wave and use its force to serve your purposes.
Lesson 4: Put in the words on page 13, if you can’t beat ‘em...

The internet is a vast sharing phenomenon. Sharing ideas, pictures, private details and yes - information that some people would rather not have revealed. The mentality is one of open sharing and making useful contributions. Open source software, for example, allows people to use software for free and contribute to make it better, if they can. Contributing to the internet reflects a mentality of generosity, of exchanges. Everything that you put on it should be done in that vein of benevolence. At least, ideally.

The book mentions the martial art Jujitsu, which trains you to use your opponent’s power to your advantage. Hmmmm. Is this trickery or something new??

The Social Technographics profile is represented by a ladder which shows a natural progression of internet participation. OK, so now I’m confused. I seem to have jumped from a joiner, since I use FB, LinkedIn, Viadeo for example, to a Creator, since I have a few blogs, plus manage a FB group. Actually, I guess I’m now a critic, too, since I comment on classmates’ blogs, so just missing the collector step. But wait, I have tagged FB pictures, so maybe that counts. Had no idea I was wearing so many hats and am such a proficient member of the www.

And I love my new identity as an Alpha Mom - gotta get a t-shirt made for that! Maybe I’ll design one and sell it on the internet. Sounds very cool - superhero style. But we AlphaMoms knew that already…

We can work with the web’s power by first determining various profiles and meeting people where they live. It’s not about creating your own SN arena independent from all others, but to have a presence wherever the opportunities lie. Piggyback onto select existing entities, like Eons and Gather for marketing to older folks.

Exploit the differences between groups of people, if it serves your cause. And if you’re a huge company like Wal-Mart, you can’t water down the message to serve all of your customers, but rather you gotta be everywhere - bold, wise and tough, as the song goes. As opposed to traditional print and broadcast advertising, which can allow for regional differences within the US, the internet needs to offer a broader perspective geographically, but a narrower one demographically. And a very useful comment from the book on p. 62: « find the levers that you can pull to get your customers and employees to participate with you [to accomplish a business goal] ».

Part Two: Ze nitty gritty
As with everything in communication, it’s the objective and the audience that are your two primary focus points. Don’t jump on the internet bandwagon because it’s the next new thing; do it because you are convinced it will bring something to your company in a very specific way. Then find the way that will lead you to the result you are seeking.

To help you determine that objective, start with People. What are they talking about? What do they want? What are they ready for?

How do we get to that point? Listen to them and respond to them. Start small, open communication between you and your customers and get them to communicate the message to others, thanks to their enthusiasm for your product and the connection they feel to your company. Customer loyalty, I believe it’s called.

Some ways to avoid failure: try to anticipate backfire effects - you don’t want the SM platform to become a vehicle for customers to badmouth your company. And don’t get in over your head, which is why you need to start small, evaluate every six months, change strategy if necessary and then forge ahead.

Case in Point: Chapter 5 related a cancer patient’s reactions to his treatment, which were very moving to me. I would like to draw a parallel with the internet and how personal stories are what we all seek, rather than statistics and theory. And I love the passage on p. 80 « these [customer] surveys will never tell you what you didn’t think to ask » Listening to bloggers, etc. speaking about your company will teach you much more than you could imagine and much more than you could pay for. Monitoring the web is a priceless resource.

Along the same lines is the entry from Tracey D who regards her own doctor’s advice/opinion as gospel, compared to all the faceless, impersonal information she might find on the internet. Completely understandable when you’ve been diagnosed with cancer. This leads to realizing that doctors are a cancer treatment center’s best friend. The same goes for kidney dialysis centers, and other logical connectors beyond the medical field.

When you monitor the groundswell, you can often find that as online promoter activity goes up, so do sales. So get out there, find who’s talking about you, cultivate them, energize them and hang on for the ride! If you’re lucky, they just may put you in the driver’s seat.

Wanna see an iPhone in a blender? Check it out. Then read the book or comment here to discuss why this is such a brilliant way to sell blenders.

Every form of communication you post should encourage your followers/targets to comment on it and create a positive relationship - with you or with other followers/targets. Don’t be afraid of joining « renegade » groups. You can befriend them as well.

And when renegade groups say negative things about you - or if your competitors do - do not remain silent! You must address the comments, stand up to them. Silence does not translate as dignity but rather leaves doubt in the minds of internauts. Open up, explain things as you would to a friend or family member. Be honest - even when bad things happen. Don’t cover up.

The Proctor and Gamble SM www.beingagirl.com is another great example. Use a broader net (here the subject of growing up) to capture girls and then bring them in more closely to discuss more intimate subjects. The free samples for followers is also a great approach. Again, we are ensuring customer loyalty by allowing girls to belong to a group and give them special privileges as a part of that group.

power to the people? w2o

The subject of my first posting for the Social Media Marketing & Communication class blog may not be the most positive or the most encouraging for the future of social media, but it is nevertheless at the heart of what it is all about. Perhaps the greatest advantage of social media is that it is now up to us as a common group to express ourselves on what is important to us, what we want to pay attention to and spend our time doing, in order to influence the powerful media magnates in a profound anti-institutional way. We can turn things on their head and challenge the powers that be.

Granted, the internet has opened up so many avenues to us all, from on-line encyclopedias, to on-line shopping and cybersocializing in all its forms. The yellow pages directories used to boast that everything was at our fingertips thanks to their volumes, but never have we had access to so much so easily. We can really let our fingers do the walking on the internet! People can surf, select, evaluate, comment and generally make decisions on purchases and politicians from just a few clicks that they have judiciously chosen or have been chosen for them by a search engine.

Several questions need to be addressed regarding the validity of the people's choices that will determine the future of this powerful tool called the internet, compared to the people's need for a more structured intellectual community to provide leadership on the internet and thereby impact society. Does the latter have a fighting chance in the morass of dumbed-down, if not base, expressions of the human spirit that we can see flooding the internet? Does the internet really change the dynamics of the People in relation to existing powers, in terms of their capability to change what they don't like? Another major concern is how people can sift through the completely false information that circulates on the web and not be taken in by these cyber wives tales. Cognitive specialists say the brain is evolving differently due to the influence of the click, click, click mentality and its multi-tasking companion.

First let’s take political power. Haven’t we always had the ability to change what we don’t like in a democracy? Does the internet change that? Was this truth simply an illusion or a missed opportunity to create the society we could all be proud of? The internet has the advantage of allowing us to access messages from the horse’s mouth, rather than rely on political analyses. It gives us opportunities to network and forge alliances that work towards our goals, whatever they may be. But I am afraid the People have become, or have always been, far too passive, myself included, in determining our own destiny and doing what is right for ourselves and others. The internet allows us to access a spectrum of opinions, but does it make us more receptive to opinions or make it easier to find comfort in ideas that support our own and ignore the rest? Can having too many choices make us a more segmented population? In the past, we had debates with friends whose opinions we valued ; today we seek out like-minded individuals.

The internet has changed the speed at which we expect things to happen and our level of patience with things that do not move quickly enough. We have reduced writing to a telegraphic style and some are incapable of going back to the basics. I do agree that language has an organic quality that should be allowed to breathe with the times and evolve. This has happened continuously over the centuries to give us a language that has been enriched by other languages, peoples, experiences and technologies. This is not a problem. But the diminished internet version of English is troubling. One of the basic rules of effective interpersonal communication is to wait for our emotions to calm before responding to another person’s comments. Too often, we respond off-the-cuff à la George Bush, to fellow cybernauts, without thinking things through intelligently, acting on pure emotion, supposed wit or just to crack a joke and amuse the gallery. How can we mentally process all the information around us in a logical, thorough way when we have bells and buzzers going off around us constantly: pop-ups, e-mail alerts and the like?

In spite of all the ingenuity of the human race and its accomplishments, there is a pervasive laziness that exists among us. American culture has always valued entertainment and is an impressive leader in the field. Will we use the internet for convenience, easy access and entertainment or instead to educate, inform, convert and serve the people in ways that will change lives for the better? Who do we turn to for direction? The corporate press that has converted to the internet? The same broadcast media that need to keep their advertisers happy? Radical intellectuals on either side? Or the man down the street plugging away at his computer - the guy you used to debate things with over coffee or a beer? Maybe the substance of our lives hasn’t changed that much over the past 15 years. Perhaps the difference is purely - virtual.