Communication and Marketing Trends for 2011 from Spin Sucks:
“All companies should become media companies, in that the content they provide is valuable, consistent, and non-salesy. This will be big for B2B companies while they figure out how to use, what they’ve always considered, intellectual property to attract new customers. Examples include white papers, enewsletters, podcasts, and videos.“

Eight Social Media Trends for 2011 from Spin Sucks:
“Sites such as JustAnswer will begin to pop up, allowing people to ask a question and get real answers, from real people. The marketing possibilities become endless because you’ll begin to collect data from groups of people instead of one customer at a time.“

Reviewing Our 2010 B2B Social Media Predictions from Social Media B2B:
“The growth of audio and video content has been huge in 2010. While every successful campaign like the Old Spice Guy encourages clients and bosses to ask for viral videos, causing marketers to cringe (because you don’t make viral, it happens), they do increase the awareness of video as compelling online medium.”

Five Social Media Trends for 2011 from Social Media Explorer:
“While true that only 4% of the Internet population is using location based services (LBS), there’s no question that Foursquare and Gowalla were media darlings this year. I predict that in 2011 LBS will get more narrowly focused, which will make people more likely to use those services when they feel that there’s a) a specific value returned, and b) less of a feeling of “big brother” broadcasts to all. “

Seven Important Social Media Trends For The Next Year from TNW:
“The really exciting thing to consider is what can be achieved with mobile advertising and with all the big players … trying to crack this market the real innovation has yet to come. People all over the world are walking around with mini computers in their hands and you can basically let your imagination run wild with the endless possibilities that offers to the social media industry.”

What should you keep an eye on?
There is no question that mobile is a prominent theme that marketers and communicators should be aware of in the year to come. Mobile will add another complex layer to planning and will require the proper strategy, audience alignment, and technical support to execute successfully.

Social commerce is the other big trend that must be watched and includes everything from Facebook, Groupon, Location Based Services (like Foursquare,) to Question Answer sites. Consumers are turning towards their peers, friends, and social networks for insight into their purchasing decisions. This change in behavior will alter consumer engagement as well as provide valuable insight into group buying behavior and reveal product development opportunities.

What social media trends for 2011 are you observing, discussing, or preparing for?

(Image courtesy of Mo Riza, Flickr)

One of the most interesting aspects of Twitter is that it provides a neutral playing ground for every type of communications agenda. I often find myself arguing that the next wave of successful social networking sites will specialize in terms of target audience, vertical, or a similar differentiating factor. (LinkedIn would be a prime example of this theory. Infer what you will about my thoughts on Facebook.) While you can’t necessarily argue that Twitter is a pure social network, its success is not accounted for in the paradigm I just described. In fact, Twitter works because of its lack of specialization. It’s open and neutral, and people are using it for many different, equally relevant, purposes.

That means that within lots of large corporations right now, there is an internal battle royale happening between the marketing, PR and customer service teams over who “owns” Twitter. In some cases, that means owning the domain-level Twitter handle, like @pepsi (though you will find that many big brands, including @comcast, @verizon and @coke, failed to snatch up theirs).  But it’s not so much about the exact username as it is about who is speaking for The Brand, regardless of the handle. In my stereotypical scenario, marketing wants to tweet out discount codes or Shaq-style “first person who touches me gets tickets to the game”; PR wants to communicate with influencers (like journalists); and customer service wants to use Twitter as a 24/7 outlet for feedback, questions and help.

The problem? These audiences overlap. Maybe a journalist wants those free tickets, or a customer is looking for an answer they can post to their blog. When does the PR person throw it over the fence to customer service, and vice versa? This isn’t something I face on a day-to-day basis, but I do get the occasional email from my clients’ customers, if only because my email address is so visible on the company websites. But email these days is a thoroughly understood medium. PR, marketing and customer service people have all used it long enough to feel comfortable in its protocol and only occasionally cringe when the person at the call center doesn’t realize they’re talking to David Pogue. [Ed note: I made that up.]

One of the reasons the communications ownership question pops up with Twitter is because it’s so easy to see everyone’s hands in the pot. Twitter is open, public. But, as R/WW noted, services like Radian6 are being marketed and sold to PR folks, when their feature set is probably close to similar offerings on the CRM/customer service market. I wonder how many companies are using Radian6-like tools without their customer service staff having access to it, or even knowing about it.

There are a few solutions emerging to the Twitter land-grab. First, I think of Jenny Dervin’s presentation at a recent BDI conference. She and Morgan Johnston in the corporate communications department were upfront about their desire to own @jetBlue. They envisioned jetBlue’s Twitter presence as an “information booth.” If you identify the tool, and make the case for how to use it first, then you win. (The irony is not lost on me that jetBlue’s PR team is basically fulfilling a customer service role, though.)

Another solution, and one that I see gaining more traction, is the fractured approach. Many companies are creating naming conventions that users can recognize on Twitter as rolling up to the same corporation. While Comcast is ignoring their domain-level handle, they’ve got a handful of individuals like @comcastbill under the @comcastcares umbrella. In this example, each Comcast twitterer appears to be a part of the customer service team. But I don’t see why marketing, PR and customer service folks can’t do the same. The key is to clearly identify, either within the profile or the background, what this particular account is for while also directing people to the other related twitterers.

There are also individuals who — by choice or by accident — speak on behalf of brands, which poses its own set of problems: Which department? from corporate or agency? What if there are more than one? What if they disagree with one another?

I guess the question is, are PR, marketing and customer service at odds with one another? Will publicly negotiating Twitter turf make us open our eyes to the many other tools we can be using and sharing together (like Radian6)? Is this already happening, and I’m just not aware of it?

Or perhaps the corporate Twitterer will emerge as the next step in human evolution. Sometimes they’ll talk about the brand. Sometimes they’ll engage with journalists. Sometimes they’ll offer discount codes, coupons, and tips. And sometimes they’ll just say, “Good morning, tweeple!” In other words, the corporate Twitterer will transcend PR, marketing and customer service roles. Instead of being a corporate communicator, they’ll just be…human.

See also.

Thank you for writing to WNYC, New York Public Radio, about this morning’s broadcast of Morning Edition. What you heard was actually a mistake, when we inadvertently broadcast The Takeaway on both our AM and our FM stations at 8:00AM. Fortunately, this went on for only about a minute, before it was caught and corrected. Needless to say, we are embarrassed by this error. As you may know, we are in the process of moving to a new office, with new recording studios. This morning, our regular engineer was over at the new building, learning the ropes, and another person, who was not familiar with the protocol, was over here. Unfortunately, we have to accept that we do occasionally make mistakes, and this is especially true when we are working with new programming.

We appreciate your taking the time to write to us. Often, it is listeners who sound the first alarm when such errors occur.

Best regards,

WNYC Listener Services

Why this customer service email is great:

It starts with a thank you. Thanking me for my email is a simple, but classy, touch. Putting the thank you at the beginning, instead of tucking it away in the body of the email, makes the recipient feel that thanking them is a priority.

It reiterates my specifics. The respondent repeated the reason for my email back to me. That proves she really heard me. (Starting Over fans in the house will recognize this as a move straight out of the Iyanla Vanzant playbook.)

It admits embarrassment. It was such a small mistake (perhaps too small to get huffy about — I didn’t realize this went on for only a minute and a half. By that time, I’d turned the radio off). That’s a humanizing touch. It was just a minute, but they were still embarrassed by it. They have the same high standards that I do.

It shares the details. Perhaps the most amazing part of this reply is that the listener services team member actually told me what went wrong in the studio. That’s a level of detail you rarely get from customer service.

It subtly reinforces my valued place in their community. I love the line, “Often, it is listeners who sound the first alarm when such errors occur.” This goes beyond a simple thank you — it’s as though they were hoping a listener would raise the problem to their attention.

Bravo to the WNYC Listener Services team for providing a textbook example of a customer service email at its finest.

Second, fight for your iPhone. I am not giving up without a fight. I scoured the Web, called AT&T and Apple and thought that I’d receive a plethora of advice and support. Unfortunately, I got a lot of “Sorry, but there is nothing we can do for you” and “Just go out and buy a new one.” Well, neither of those options seemed fair. So I thought I’d try to make a list of things that you can do to help yourself. Even if you don’t get your iPhone back, you don’t want someone else using it or accessing your files.

What to do if your iPhone is lost or stolen?

1. Check your phone usage online or call AT&T. You should be able to logon and see if anyone has used your iPhone. If they are using it, and its not to call you, your journey probably ends here. You may need to shut off (cancel) your account and spend another $300 bucks on a new iPhone. However, if it hasn’t been used, keep checking it periodically.

2. Suspend your account with AT&T. Logon to www.attwireless.comand go to your account. Click on your device, click on lost or stolen phone, and click on suspend. This will prevent someone from using your iPhone to make outgoing calls. However, they can still open it and see recent phone numbers or your contact list. Hopefully, you have one that says ‘home’ or ‘work’ and they’ll still use it to contact if you if they are trying to return your phone.

2. Change your email passwords. If you are like me, you may have personal and work email synched with your iPhone. Immediately, change your email passwords so that no new mail can be retreived by the device. This will at least prevent new messages from being intercepted. This is also a lesson not to store too many emails on the device. Keep it to its lowest setting so that you are less vulnerable if the device is lost or stolen. (There is a locking feature on the device similar to the Blackberry. It’s off by default, but if you were smart enough to activate it, it could help prevent access as well.)

3. Change your Apple iTunes passwords. If you have a credit card on file with iTunes, and your iPhone is associated with that account, that will prevent the user from using your iPhone to buy music on your account.

4. Report it stolen to the local police. Hey, you never know. The folks at Apple and AT&T kept suggesting this when I called them but when I asked why, they really didn’t have an answer. I think the NYPD has more high priority crimes than a lost/stolen iPhone, but maybe if someone walked the phone into a precinct, it would help if I had reported it stolen.

5. Reach out to the community. In my online search, I saw people post appeals on Craigslist, EveryBlock.com and other sites. I even saw a few people post a few days later that they did get their iPhone back, mostly from good samaritans rather than readers of the post. Usually, you get a lot of comments from people that share in your sorrow with you since they too, lost their iPhone. So at least,  you can be miserable together.

I hope this helps someone. I’ll let you know if mine comes back. I have good karma, so it should. (But, I won’t hold my breath.)

UPDATE: March 6th, 2008

I got a call today that my iPhone was found! I am thrilled, and grateful, that it was returned. But, I am also kicking myself because I bought a new one 2 weeks ago. So, I have now paid more for 2 iPhones than what I paid for my wedding ring! (I am not sure what is more pathetic, how cheap my wedding ring was, or how ridiculous it is to buy an iPhone, or 2 for that matter!)

For my colleagues in the office, its quite funny that the cable guy has been to my house three times in one week. Thanks Cablevision! (Maybe the fourth time’s the charm because it still doesn’t work.) Or the fact that the new plasma TV I bought from Circuit City turned out to be a returned item that was used and scratched and didn’t even turn on when I took it out of the box. I have also had a month-long email argument (because they won’t talk with you on the phone) with Yahoo Shopping! (My husband has a Yahoo Store, BabyRide.com, and his Yahoo Shopping account suddenly shut off December 13th. Today we received an email saying we’ll just have to wait 28 days until the system will allow us to turn on our account again. I can tell they are really empathetic that the business lost tens of thousands of dollars in revenue during the busiest time of the year.)

Unfortunately, its not only the giant, nameless, faceless corporations that are disappointing. It’s the web design firm (whom I can’t name yet because the project is still incomplete – but, don’t worry, we are only four months past our target launch date!), my account manager at one of the big wire services that didn’t answer any of my emails or phone calls for three months… Ah, the list goes on. After a recent fight with one of these incompetent vendors, Leslie and I tried to conjure up the name of a single service provider that we had been completely, or even mildly, satisfied with. We could not name a single one. How pathetic. (Not the service providers, but we are the ones that are pathetic for putting up with it.)

As a company, we would never treat our clients the way we allow ourselves to be treated. On a weekly basis, I receive calls from PR firm refugees that have been driven out of the companies that they have been paying tens of thousands of dollars to on a monthly basis. The tales of cruel and unusual punishment that they share with us make me question why they would stay with a firm for so long that clearly did not deliver what they promised, takes them for granted and charges them exorbitant fees for college interns working on their accounts. It’s unimaginable, yet it happens every day.

I know that we over service every client that we work with, we bend over backwards to make our clients happy, we treat our clients with respect, we operate our business with integrity and we deliver value on a daily basis. Our business is based on ethical practices, honesty and transparency with our clients, and a genuine, vested interest in our clients’ success.

2008 will be our sixth year in business. We are a small firm, with a big heart. Although we may not be the largest or most profitable public relations firm out there, I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished for our company, our employees and our clients. I hope that we will continue our ‘modus operandi’ and that we will find more firms with the same commitment to true customer service.

Love a company? Despise a product? Have a technical problem that needs solving? San-Fran start-up Get Satisfaction is making your customer service needs its top priority.

“Part online discussion, part FAQ, and part social network for all your products and services”, Get Satisfaction works by putting customer service back in the hands of customers. Power to the people! Anyone can submit a suggestion (user search would be super nifty), ask a question (how can I obtain a rebate on a lost iPhone?) or publicly applaud or berate a company (Company X sucks) free of charge on this public site (fee-based add ons may come later); customers and participants alike can then put their customer service hats on and chime in with answers, solutions or comments.

There are no ‘calls recorded for quality assurance’ on this site, but some organizations are actively ‘listening’ in and participating in the discussions as well. A rating system is also used to judge overall effectiveness of answers. From what I have seen, Timbuk2 is doing a really great job at getting back to its customers with useful, relevant information to their questions; answers are written in a friendly and helpful manner and, when appropriate, injected with humor. A refreshing change!

As a consumer of many products and services, I’m always excited by sites that make ‘me’ the center of the universe, so I’m pretty optimistic about Get Satisfaction. As a marketing professional, though, I’m reminded once again why it is critically important to actively monitor and participate in online discussions, respond directly and honestly to service issues or complaints and always make me and my needs your customers and their needs the heart of your business.

NOTE: How is Get Satisfaction really all that different from other online community sites or message boards? In a recent BusinessWeek article, entitled Crowdsourcing Customer Service, Thor Muller, co-founder of Get Satisfaction, describes the service’s value. According to Muller, Get Satisfaction helps companies think more like customers, makes existing discussions public, turns noise into information and gives users the ability to engage in conversations across multiple sites with a single login.