“SoLoMo” and Legislation

The “SoLoMo” (Social, Local, and Mobile) movement has great impact on consumer behavior and business operations. Now than ever before, more consumers are using mobile payments. According to a recent report @USAToday, the number of mobile payment users is expected to surge from 160.5 million in 2011 to 212.2 million in 2012, a 32% increase; likewise, the amount of mobile payment transactions will grow from $105.9 billion in 2011 to $171.5 billion in 2012, up 62%.

Earlier this month, Starbucks announced that consumers would be able to purchase coffee with Square’s Wallet App starting in November 2012. Eventually, consumers will be able to place an order and settle the payment even before they enter a Starbucks’ store.

When promoting mobile payment options or doing mobile marketing, however, businesses have to jump through one hoop --- they must convince their customers that such mobile app is safe and reliable and that their business is trustworthy. Recently, I received a few spam text messages, telling me that I have won a BestBuy gift card or have an issue with my credit card that needs my immediate response. Like many other consumers, I become more cautious for mobile marketing messages because of spams. Thus, spams create negative impact to those authentic mobile marketing messages as well as “SoLoMo.”

The good news is FCC (Federal Communications Commission) in the U.S.  has published guidelines and oversees the policies for communications, which regulate businesses’ using email and text messaging as a marketing or a business-to-consumer communication tool. For example, consumers must choose to opt-in/double-opt-in to receive e-mail or mobile marketing messages, and companies must allow consumers to opt-out such service at any time. More recently, FCC is proposed to ban internet to phone text messages, according to this FoxNews video.

Are such legislations sufficient in protecting consumers and thus help promote the “SoLoMo” movement? What else could be done to further protect consumers?

Or, do you think legislation should be kept in a minimal level so that companies can compete with one another with more freedom? Besides legislation, what other alternatives could be helpful in promoting “SoLoMo” while protecting consumers?

Relevant discussions:

Free Group Texting Service 

Using Cell Phones to Make Payments


References:

Platt, Spencer (October 5, 2012). Starbucks gets a Square deal. USA Today. pp. 1B and 2B.
PayAnywhere Card Reader PAR-1 (Google Affiliate Ad)

Drawing Facebook Users’ Attention by Posting “Popular” Social Media Messages

Facebook has become one of the most important means for B2C (business-to-consumer) communications. When a Facebook user likes, posts comments, or shares content with their Facebook credentials, an update will appear on this person’s wall, helping companies rapidly spread information. Companies must pay close to attention to Facebook users’ reactions to the messages they send on Facebook because Facebook users’ endorsement of a message can be very important in indicating the effectiveness of a company’s social media strategy.

In one of my recent studies (co-authored with Dr. Bei Yu), we adopted the text mining techniques to identify the type(s) of Facebook messages that are endorsed (and thus propagated) by Facebook users. We analyzed 982 Facebook messages initiated by 10 restaurant chains and two independent operators and found the following results:

• The “more popular” messages, which receive more “Likes” and comments, contain keywords about the restaurants (e.g., menu descriptions).
• The “less popular” messages seem to involve with sales and marketing.
• Dividing the messages into four media types (i.e., status, link, video, and photo), photo and status receive more “Likes” and comments.
• In terms of the content of the messages, we coded the messages into two message types, namely sales/marketing and conversational messages, which do not directly sell or promote the restaurants. As compared to sales and marketing messages, conversational messages receive more “Likes” and comments even though they only account for 1/3 of the messages in the study.
• There is also a cross-effect of media type and message type on the number of comments a message received.

Based on the research findings, we outlined several practical tactics in this paper to help companies improve their use of Facebook. They include:

• Use the eye-catching keywords when writing a social media message.  
• Focus more on sharing status and photo rather than links or videos.
• Provide a brief description when sharing links or videos so that Facebook users are informed about the content without clicking the links or watching the videos.
• Engage with Facebook users with conversational messages rather than just selling or promoting a product, service, or the company.
• Learn from the best examples (i.e. Starbucks and Chick-fil-A in this study) and see how they engage with their Facebook users.

To read more about this study and the findings’ managerial implications, please access the full-text article online at SAGE Publication.

If you are a social media manager or an expert in the field, do you think our research provide any useful insight? What suggestions will you make to help other practitioners better engage on social media sites? For future studies, what important (research) questions do you want me or other researchers to answer?

Relevant discussion:

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words 

References:

Kwok, Linchi, and Yu, Bei (In press). Spreading the social media messages on Facebook: An analysis of restaurant business-to-consumer communications. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, special issue on Information-Based Strategies in the Hospitality Industry. (DOI: 10.1177/1938965512458360)
The picture was downloaded from Ignitesocialmedia.com.

Relevant publications:
Yu, Bei, Chen, Miao, and Kwok, Linchi (2011). Toward predicting popularity of social marketing messages. In J. Salerno, S.J. Yang, D. Nau, & S.K. Chai (Ed.), Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling and Prediction: Lecture Notes in Computer Science (pp. 317-324). Heidelberg, Germany: Springer.
Yu, Bei, and Kwok, Linchi (2011, July). Classifying business marketing messages on Facebook. Empirical full paper presented in the Internet Advertising (IA 2011) Workshop at the 34^th Annual International ACM SIGIR (Association for Computing Machinery; Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval) Conference, Beijing, China. 

We Are Being Analyzed on Twitter for Marketing Purposes

Most of us know that the Big Brother is watching us on social media. So, whether or not we want to be watched is out of the question. The debate turns to: To what extent should we be monitored? And more importantly, are we being watched for a good reason?

Twitter, for example, will soon allow advertisers to target users based on their “assumed” interests and hobbies, according to this Wall Street Journal video. Twitter is able to do that because it knows what users like by analyzing their tweets, favorite tweets, retweets, interactions with other users, keywords in Twitter search, the following list, and the follower list.  

In fact, other big players in the market like Google and Facebook have been running targeted ads for a while, but I still think this could be good news because marketers will have an additional medium to reach target customers --- users on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter are different in many ways in my opinions. Besides, this could an important move for Twitter before it announces the IPO (initial public offering).  

Today’s technology allows marketers to closely watch consumers about just everything, from body temperature, motions, and heartrates in a shopping trip, to their shopping routines. I am not sure if consumers are happy about that, but I believe many marketers are. Would you agree? 

The business implications of monitoring internet users’ online behaviors, however, can go beyond marketing. HR is another good example. Social media has become a very important tool in recruitment and employee selection. Hiring managers can now analyze a job candidate’s online presence before making an offer. If a job seeker does not know how to present himself/herself with 140 words or how to leverage the power of social media in job search, s/he would miss many good opportunities.

If you are a HR professional, how do you use technology in managing an organization’s human capital? If you are a job seeker, what tactics can you use in job search on social media?

Besides Marketing and HR, what other departments can use social media for their advantages? How?

References:
The Twitter logo was downloaded from https://twitter.com/logo

Is It a Good Business Strategy to Offer Phone-Free Discount?

A restaurant is offering 5% discount to customers who leave their cellphones at the door during the meal. The restaurant owner wants his customers to enjoy the dining experience and food without getting distracted by their cellphones, according to this Fox News video. Is this phone-free strategy well received and working?

It works very well for this restaurant. Over 50% patrons have chosen discount over cellphones. Moreover, it gave the restaurant about three minute free media exposure on Fox News, with additional conversations on social media.

Honestly, this is not the first time I heard of such incident. There are resort hotels encouraging guests to lock up their cellphones during their stay because they want their guests to truly enjoy the beauty of nature.

Will this “phone-free” advocate become a trend? More importantly, is it a good idea for business to promote a “phone-free” policy?

In my opinions, unless you are the first one who initiates a “phone-free” policy and gets some free media exposure, it is probably not a good idea to discourage cellphone usage. Furthermore, I argue that business should do the opposite by encouraging customers to use mobile devices, including cellphones. My reason is simple. We are now living in the “SoLoMo” world, where everything goes “Social, Local, and Mobile.” Business must embrace the “SoLoMo” movement. If mobile devices are prohibited, how can customers capture their wonderful experience and then immediately share it on the internet? It seems to me that many customers only use mobile devices for pictures and videos these days. Many customers also want to share updates as soon as they capture a memorable moment. We cannot expect this group of customers to write long reviews and edit/upload their pictures/videos after the experience is over, can we?

What are your thoughts? Should companies promote “SoLoMo” or “phone-free” policy?

Relevant discussions:

No Texting, Tweeting, or Facebooking?! 

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

References:
The picture was downloaded from NewMediaTravel.com

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

Even though the London 2012 Olympic Games have drawn to a conclusion, many dramatic moments remain vivid in our minds. We must owe thanks to the digital photography technology, which allows us to capture images that we cannot see otherwise with our naked eyes, as suggested in this Wall Street Journal video.

Indeed, visual effect has become very important for internet users --- “A picture is worth a thousand words.” No wonder those photo-based social media apps, such as Pinterest and Instagram, are widely adopted. 

As a matter of fact, I also found supporting evidence in that regard in a recent study of mine (Kwok & Yu, in press). Our analysis of 982 Facebook messages that were initiated by 10 restaurant chains and two independent operators reveals that Facebook messages can be divided into four media types, namely status (with text only), link (containing a URL), video (embedding a video), and photo (showing photos). Statistically, photo and status receive more “Likes” and comments than the other two types.

What do these research findings mean to business then? I suggest the
following:

·         Focus on short status updates and photo posting rather than hyperlinks and videos.  

·         If a hyperlink or a video is shared, make sure to provide a brief description of the content. A description will probably help “drive” the attention from the audience. It is also hoped that Facebook users will “Like” or post comments solely based on a good description.

Going beyond the research findings, I also feel that forward-thinking companies need to consider the following:  

·         When everyone knows the “tricks” about photos and updates, companies may have to post professional and high quality pictures in order to stand out from the crowd. Most of all, high quality content is also a good indicator for the level of service a company provides. It becomes necessary to hire professional photographers to do the job.

·         “Tell” a story with a series of pictures. It is nice to have a lot of good pictures, but a good story can hook the audience.

·         Provide free WiFi and encourage customers to share updates and photos on social media. I understand that many hotels and convention centers are still charging high price for internet service, but not every customer wants to pay extra fees just to post updates on social media.  

Do you see the importance of photos in business communication? What additional comments and suggestions will you make?

If you are interested in more findings and more business implications of my study, please stay tuned and I will provide the hyperlink of the publication as soon as it becomes available online.

References:

Kwok, Linchi and Yu, Bei (In press). Spreading the social media messages on Facebook: An analysis of the restaurant industry. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, special issue on Information-Based Strategies in the Hospitality Industry. 

The picture was downloaded from Robinadelson.blogspot.com