This Week in Digital – 9/4/2013

The future of advertising on TV and video is in peril, Canadians love a good deal, Google+ is more popular than Twitter globally, Facebook continues to change, CEOs are sponsoring digital initiatives, BuzzFeed is the media industry's biggest nightmare, the four types of digital marketer, the promoted tweet that set the customer service world on fire and more, it's This Week in Social Media.

A roundup of relevant links affecting our industry.

Each week at Ford, I compose a newsletter that includes a series of links about current events and trends in the worlds of technology, social media, mobile, communications and marketing in order to keep the wider team up to date on changes, newsworthy items and content that might be useful in their jobs. These are those links.

If you have additional links, sources or ideas that might be helpful, I'd encourage you to add some via a comment below or tag me in Google+. And if you’re on Flipboard, you can get these links by subscribing to the This Week in Social Media Magazine, which is now available on the Web.

Industry

• According to CBS executive Les Moonves, parity between television and online ad pricing is about 3-5 years away.
• And it may come even sooner than that, as viewers tend to have the same reaction to TV and video ads, as the eMarketer report "Made-for-Web Video Content: The New TV" indicates.
  • Related: If you haven't seen the Kevin Spacey talk about the irrelevance of which device shows are viewed on, please check watch this truncated version.

• Ad blocking is becoming more extensive. How much so? Based on a sample of 220 clients, PageFair found that 22.7% of them used AdBlock, and the more tech-savvy the user, the more likely they are to block. 

• Equally as worrisome: when asked about the most important service or feature of their future TV or video experience, TV viewers from around the world said they want the ability to be free from ads and commercials.
• If you want to be relevant and valuable to customers, give them content that's worthy of sharing. What is that, exactly? According to an Ipsos OTX survey, they share what's interesting (61%), important (43%) and funny (43%).
• Consumers who make online purchases in Canada love a good deal. At least that's the most significant driver of transactions; other top influences are customer reviews and trustworthiness of the retailer. 

The Platforms

• Facebook is testing a new "trending" section in the News Feed in an effort to make use of hashtags.
• It seems like there's something new at Facebook every week; here's a list of all of the major changes Facebook has made in 2013.
• Ahead of its expansion efforts in Southeast Asia, Sina Weibo already has 1.5 million users in Singapore.
• Sina's Weibo and Tencent's Weixin - how do the two Chinese social networks compare?
• Instagram is now banning searches for certain hashtags that may be considered explicit or profane.
• Twitter is opening its first Australian headquarters as it pushes to expand.Twitter has hired former Google ad product manager Christian Oestlien to lead its international growth.
• It's now easier to follow conversation threads on Twitter via its native apps and on the web.
• Google+ has surpassed Twitter in mobile app popularity (30% vs. 22%) around the world. The top 10 smartphone apps also include Google Maps, Facebook, YouTube, Weixin/WeChat, Skype, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp and Instagram.

Measurement / Metrics / Big Data

• More CEOs are personally sponsoring digital business initiatives. The reasons vary, but they indicate the high level interest in big data and the cross-functional aspect of digital and social media. Also, CIOs are showing more engagement than CMOs in these activities.

Legal / HR

• The FTC has made recent updates that affect so-called native advertising. Winston & Strawn, LLP gives a quick video lesson on the topic.

• New Jersey has made it illegal for companies to demand employee social media information such as usernames, passwords or other account information.

Content

• One of the best corporate blogs and a stellar example of content is the Disney Parks Blog. In a recent announcement, they shared the news that the Walt Disney World Resort has an Instagram account. But rather than offering a collection of Disney photography, they're selecting images from their park guests and highlighting those.
• Buzzfeed has become the media industry's worst nightmare: profitable, growing and investing in news. The question is whether or not the site can take on more serious news than listicles, pet photos and animated GIFs.

Bookmark / Read / Watch Later

• Of the four types of digital marketer that strategy+business lays out (leaders, pioneers, scholars and novices), it's clear that customer-centric approaches are common to each. The primary unit of market engagement is no longer the product, the launch, the trade promotion, or the advertising campaign, but the end-to-end consumer experience. And in doing so, the leaders demonstrate the ability to balance insights and analysis with activation and platforms. Where does your organization land in this spectrum?
• Who do members of Congress follow on Twitter? Unsurprisingly, it conforms with their party allegiance.
• Thinking like a consumer can help marketers separate themselves from what's familiar and take a look at the consumer experience a little more candidly.
• Mitch Joel interviews David Meerman Scott, bestselling business book author and speaker, on the evolution of social and the fourth edition of The New Rules of Marketing & PR.

Commentary

When customers businesses people behave badly.  We're told that the customer is always right, but the rise of social media has given customers a virtual megaphone to share their dissatisfaction, and there are times that we see the abuse of the platforms to strong-arm companies into giving them what they want. That's not to say that companies are completely innocent either.  A recent incident and an unrelated publication got me to thinking about poor behavior - by individuals and by companies. By now you've probably heard about the British Airways passenger (@HVSVN) whose luggage was lost and whose anger only grew when the airline's customer service handle on Twitter told him they were only open 9a - 5p.

@HVSVN Sorry for the delay in responding, our twitter feed is open 0900-1700 GMT. Please DM your baggage ref and we'll look into this. — British Airways (@British_Airways) September 3, 2013

His response was incredulity, but he didn't stop there.

@British_Airways how does a billion dollar corp only have 9-5 social media support for a business that operates 24/7? DM me yourselves. —  (@HVSVN) September 3, 2013

Getting nowhere with the customer service team, he then used the self-serve ad platform on Twitter to create a Promoted Tweet: "Don't fly @BritishAirways. Their customer service is horrendous." That's when the press coverage started. First picked up by Mashable, it was also reported by the Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, Daily Mail, the BBC, NBC, Business Insider, the Consumerist, Time, Salon.com, and many more. And now, after an interview with CNN, he revealed the final engagement numbers for his tweet: over 76,800 impressions on Twitter with an 19% engagement rate, thanks to the $1,000 of his own money spent.

Final Spend pic.twitter.com/jgTHLGzlkk —  (@HVSVN) September 3, 2013

Think about that for a moment: a customer just spent $1,000 to shame a company he did business with. This means that we're about to enter a new era of online engagement and social media. But this really isn't a social media issue; it's an opportunity to take a good hard look at your customer service practices. As I was preparing this commentary, a blog post from Shel Holtz popped up very much along the same lines ("Promoted complaint isn't a sign of a social media problem. It's a customer service problem.").  Interestingly enough Shel and his podcast partner Neville had a really great 10-minute discussion about an HBR article about using social media to help make online behavior more civil. From the article:

"There's no question that consumers have more power than ever before to call attention to bad products, services, and experiences. But it's equally true that companies also have greater power to call attention to bad customer behaviors."

It's not a matter of public shaming, but of building in processes that can incent good behavior or stave off bad behavior. In British Airways' case, having better access to customer service channels - yes, even on Twitter - during the hours of operation of their business. Three related books on this topic: Attack of the Customers by Paul Gillin; Nice Companies Finish First by Peter Shankman; and Civility in the Digital Age by Andrea Weckerle. Image credit: Stig Nygaard (Flickr)