Contently Managed - Social Media in Scotland, strategy & digital engagement » Social Media

What Rangers’ boss Craig Whyte should have said…

Craig — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:32:59 +0000

Rangers Football Club is having a terrible time of it. It used to have a really easy time in the mainstream Scottish media but of late has been more and more under fire between a tax case and scrutiny of the new owner, Craig Whyte. And there’s crisis social media and PR lessons here for any businesses.

Whyte has issued a statement that hasn’t done anyone any favours and we’ll explain why in a moment. But let’s look at the statement (as seen on ScotZine):

“In the most lurid terms, the Record accuses the Club’s management and, specifically me, of using supporters’ money to help fund the buy-out of Rangers. Not true. The Club is accused of not paying £5million in VAT. Not true.

“I can categorically assure supporters that when I launched a takeover bid for the Club it was funded entirely from one of my companies and that was demonstrated clearly to the satisfaction of the previous owner, Lloyds Banking Group and professional advisers.

WHAT WHYTE SHOULD HAVE SAID #1

If the club has paid the £5million bill then show a piece of proof – a JPG of some kind with any sensitive details blacked out.

He should also have stated which company of his funded the purchase.

A statement from Lloyds would have been good too.

It goes on…

“What is true is that Rangers, like many other clubs, has a financing arrangement in place with a company called Ticketus which enables the Club to receive revenue from a portion of season ticket sales in advance.

WHAT WHYTE SHOULD HAVE SAID #2

He should have named the other clubs that do this. Would have given the scheme more credibility. After all, if Man Utd, Liverpool and others do it, it must be OK mustn’t it? Ticketus should also have been backing Rangers up with a statement of support.

And then…

“This is a perfectly straightforward way of raising working capital for the Club. Money from season ticket sales goes directly to the Club and is used for the Club’s operations and that remains the case. In effect, all this financing arrangement does is release the revenue to the Club earlier.”

WHAT WHYTE SHOULD HAVE SAID #3

He should explain exactly what the deal is. There’s no need to but he’s currently on the defensive. Giving all the detail gets him back on a better footing, it shows there is nothing to hide (and I’m not saying there is)but the more open he can be, the better.

WHY WHYTE NEEDS TO SAY & DO MORE

Some – including those close to Whyte – may be wondering why he has to give so much information. Why can’t they just put out a normal statement and leave it at that. Quite a few reasons:

He’s being accused of various things. By being transparent and offering factual information he’s showing that he’s completely above board and being open. Being open builds trust.

Providing everything you can will also build allies and experts can look at the material provided and go “he’s completely above board, this is all legit, the Daily Record is full of nonsense.” There are Rangers fans who are lawyers, accountants, heads of big businesses who would analyse this stuff and endorse it, giving Whyte even more credibility. What businesses must never forget is that in a 2.0 age, there are people out there cleverer than you and they can make you or break you in their analysis of what you put out.

Putting out more information also heads off the second set of questions – naming the businesses and sums involved.

It would also give him a platform from which to go on the offensive. Every time someone tweeted or blogged a negative comment, his team could fire back with “See what we said in this link. We answered your point.”

He should also have put this out as a video statement and audio. And then followed up every few hours with more video and audio updated.

BUT IT’S ABOUT MORE THAN THE PRESS RELEASE

That’s only the start. Giving all the information in one place – in this case the news site of Rangers FC – is just the start. There should be people out there hitting every tweet, every blog post, every Facebook update going “here are the facts” and setting the record straight.

THIS ISN’T JUST FOR FOOTBALL

Any firm that finds itself under scrutiny should adopt the above steps as part of their crisis PR plan and should be looking at some simple steps (and if your crisis team tell you that it’s a 9-5 job, sack them):

Be open, answer as much as you can as quick as you can
Anticipate all the questions that will come your way, answer them first
Provide proof of all statements
Get your key allies – in-house, online, press, supporters, stakeholders – on board
Have video and audio as well as text ready
Have a team ready to correct any negative comments that appear

(Disclaimer in the interests of fairness: I’m a Celtic FC fan but have never carried out any PR or social media work for the club however I have been paid by Rangers FC at one point for social media consultancy and advice in a one-off capacity in the past)

“Hello Angry Birds? Did you get my press release? What build is it in?”

Craig — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:10:01 +0000

Interesting little comment from the founders of the smash hit Angry Birds game that shows one possible way PR will be evolving for the smarter, more connected social media and PR operators….Speaking in Cannes, Rovio boss Mikael Hed pointed out that the app of Angry Bird is not just a game – it’s now more or less a channel for broadcast – and that could be broadcasting songs, images, news updates – in essence, anything at all. There’s no brand – or very few – that would knock back the opportunity to be in front of 500million pairs of eyeballs.

Now, some may scoff but the smart, switched-on operator will be seeing plenty of potential in this sort of thing. Press releases in games? Perhaps as historical documents? We may not be too far off from that. There’s a lot of ways the canny PR or social media type could get coverage this way.

Of course, most will stick to just calling the news desks of the declining traditional press and ask: “Did you get my press release? What edition will it be in?”

In a BrewDog age, does every firm need a blog?

Craig — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 12:49:07 +0000

If you’ve read more than 140 characters on social media, you’ll know that many people like myself, Chris Brogan and others advocate a blog as being a main part of your social media strategy. Unlike Facebook, Twitter and other sites, what’s on your site (like your blog) is yours and all yours alone with the benefits – SEO and otherwise – that it brings. Another great thing about a blog is that you can write as much as you want – useful in a crisis and you want to get your words across. After all, there’s no guarantee that the local press will pick up your release or use a lot of it.

Which brings us to BrewDog, a young brewing and pub company from Scotland (disclaimer: I’ve done work for them in the past but not at the moment). There’s been grumblings of late from some customers about problems with deliveries from their mail order.

So James Watt and BrewDog decided not only to do something about it, but tell the world exactly what happened and do so at length in this blog post.

Now, I think it’s a fantastic piece of customer information and service update – including a discount voucher at the end – and I think that while they criticise others, they stress time and time again that the key decision(s) in all of this were taken by BrewDog.

Now, will BrewDog have told the others mentioned in the article – My Brewery Tap, Yodel, Expect, UK Mail- that they are going to be blogged about? I don’t know. They are under no obligation to do so. And what will those firms make of the blog post?

But – as Mike Ritchie points out on Twitter: “How do you think the others will respond?” Do they take what has been said on the chin? Do the try and deny it? Do they say they are being used as scapegoats? Do they even monitor what it said about them online? Because this is quite a serious boot for those involved. It’s not one disgruntled person, it’s a disgruntled firm – and a firm with a vocal and active fan base (more than 5700 fans invested £2.2million in a recent share issuing) who will remember these firms and avoid them where possible.

So how do you handle that?

Handling negative comments in a blog post

First off, you do have monitoring in place so you can see what’s being said about you, don’t you?

Judge the issue of complaint – is it one person, a company, more than one firm? How influential are they?
Be frank with yourself about your level of fault/blame
Have platforms in which you can reach out to people and tell your side of the story – blog, Facebook, Twitter, press (if need be)
Leave comments wherever someone mentions this situation
Be adult. Look at how BrewDog do this one. They point out where the weaknesses in the supply chain have been – while reminding people that they are to blame as well. Learn the thin line between criticism and blame
If the fault is yours, own up – and tell people what you’ve done/are going to do to bring in change and improve matters.
Show people on a regular basis how much you’ve changed and improved

So, in a BrewDog age does every firm need a blog? Yes, but before BrewDog were founded every company should have had a blog anyway. It should be a core and key part of any social media engagement strategy.

(As an aside, there’s nothing in the BrewDog blog that constitutes a crisis for any of the firms mentioned in it. Any of them could be on the road to setting things straight within 24 hours.)

20 tips for companies doing Social Media on Christmas Day

Craig — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 10:41:14 +0000

Been a bit of buzz – mostly people calling me a Scottish humbug (my daughter read the blog and said “you will now be known as Papa Scrooge”) over my post on Why Social Media Staff Should be Working Christmas Day – so to help people out so that they can spend more time with their toys or loved ones (or both), here’s 18 tips to minimise having to be online during Christmas Day:

20 tips for firms doing Social Media on Christmas Day

You do have Google Alerts set up for all relevant brand names and topics, yes?
Let people know you’ll be available online
Your site does work on the most popular mobiles and tablets, yes?
Have your FAQ updated and revised with most common/popular questions from this time of year at the top
In everything you put online, think like a consumer. What will they be asking?
Is your online store up and running OK? Do you have emergency contact phone numbers for any technical or PR issues that arise?
Schedule tweets across the day with links to the most commonly asked questions regarding your brands
Are there any relevant online links you can link to? Again, feel free to schedule them
If scheduling Facebook posts via Hootsuite or other tool, remember that it will impact on your Edgerank
Think about the times people will go online – for example, 3pm in the UK is a bad time as most are having dinner – and when your customers are like to be online
Is there anything you have – app for example – that you can encourage people to go to to download with their new tablets/phones/etc? Bonus points if it’s a free download (for example, a client of mine – Whyte & Mackay have a SatNav voice from a Scotsman that they make available as a free download for TomTom users)
Schedule some tweets wishing a Merry Xmas to the people who have been key helps or influencers to you over the year
Have a reply policy in place covering the most expected comments from consumers
Let people know in your biogs for Twitter and your latest Facebook updates – that you might not reply as promptly as normal but that you will reply (give them an ETA if you want.)
Check a few times throughout the day when you get a quiet moment. Having a properly set-up smartphone can be a gift for this as you can check things in the car (as long as you aren’t driving)
Remember, the odds are that if people are mentioning you for help or to moan about an issue, they just want you to resolve it quickly so they can get back to the fun stuff
Try not to post if you’ve had too much of the Christmas spirit (or any other kind of spirit) – a drunken tweet could cause the issues you are trying to avoid
As it’s Christmas, why not wish your competitors a Merry Xmas? After all, the British and Germans could do it during war. Also, the odds are they’ve taken Xmas off, so why not monitor their timelines/mentions and help people out if you can. It may get you customers in the long run…
Remember, many people will be watching TV with their laptop/mobile as their second screen for tweeting. Feel free to join in the chat if you have time
Have fun. Yes, it’s work but you can enjoy work you know

With a bit of planning and scheduling, there’s no reason to be chained to the keyboard all day long, but you should check in to make sure your customers are happy. After all, it’s the season of giving and it’s your place to give customer satisfaction and happiness.

Why your B2C social media staff should be working Christmas Day

Craig — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:51:57 +0000

Social media, we are told, is 24/7 – and surely that extends to 365 days of the year. After all, it’s not Christmas for everyone and in a global setting Christmas (for those who celebrate it) comes at different hours .

There’s two main reasons for why any consumer label or brand worth its salt will have people monitoring social media channels though: happy customers and new customers.

Social Media at Xmas is all about customer service

Children of all ages – from 10 to 70 – are online now and at Christmas you can bet they will be sharing details of what they’ve been given as gifts. What a great opportunity to start building a customer relationship, on a happy and positive note. If someone tweets that they received one of your products, tweet back saying “hope you enjoy it” or add some extra value to the message you send them.

Whyte & Mackay for example (disclaimer: client) will be sending out links to videos to people who receive a bottle of their whisky – if someone mentions the Whyte & Mackay Special, they’ll get a greeting and a link to a whisky tasting notes video, which will let the person with the bottle compare their thoughts with that of the whisky Master Blender Richard Paterson:

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can also bet that if someone asks about what makes a good whisky at Christmas, this whisky video will be getting shared (and if you’re in the mood here’s a link for a Scotsman reading The Night Before Christmas…)

Social Media at Xmas can also prevent a domestic crisis

But it’s not just about building a positive relationship. Having your brand online on Xmas Day can help make things go a lot smoother. Everyone has a toy or present that they can’t get to work right or build properly (old-school Transformers toys, Dr Who’s TARDIS and Mouse Trap I’m looking at you) and that can lead to frayed tempers in many a home.

But if you are online and see people having problems, perhaps you can jump in and help. Perhaps you’ve even been proactive and updated your website FAQ to head off potential Christmas problems. And if you’ve really wanted to be on Santa’s nice list you may even have included helpful how-to videos.

Christmas day is stressful enough for people, so if you are able to do something that helps that day go well or easier, people will remember that and you’ve minimised negative online PR for your company.

Just being helpful

It might not even be about a problem toy. People might just be wondering where to spend gift vouchers (you do have an online store that can take gift vouchers yes?), what hours your shops are open, what your exchange policy may be – all of these questions and many more will be asked on Christmas Day – some people might even want to spend their gift vouchers immediately.

I don’t want to work Christmas Day

Frankly, tough. Millions of people work Christmas Day – police, nurses, doctors, firemen, coastguards, journalists, PRs, soliders, pilots, air traffic controllers, parents, bar staff, singers, chefs, waiters. And that’s before we mention the big guy with the beard and the red outfit. If they can all do it, so can you.

And besides, if you’re doing it right – either just responding to people or helping fixing people’s problems, you’re bringing a bit of joy to someone on Christmas Day. And who wouldn’t want to do that?

For those of you really struggling though, here’s 20 tips to make your life easier if working in social media on Xmas Day.

In Social Media strategy, should you put all your digital eggs in the Facebook basket?

Craig — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 13:04:53 +0000

Interesting piece in The Drum about Red Ant moving all of Varsity Bars digital and social media content to the Facebook page and has closed down its website as it pursues a younger audience.

I’ll say one thing for them: it’s a ballsy move.The award-winning team at Red Ant do some fantastic work and their white papers are great to read, so they’ll have done their homework on this one but it strikes me as a very short-term move. I wish them all the best for it and hope it pays off but at the same time it’s not a strategy I’d encourage others to do.

Why Facebook shouldn’t be your whole web experience

We all know the stats – 800million active users, 50million using daily from iOS devices and so on – but Facebook is only one platform and at some point, just like Friends Reunited, MySpace, Bebo, Netscape Navigator, Altavista and many others, it will fade away. Anecdotally, many people are already using it less because they don’t like the new look and how stories are presented to them.

Also, while millions are on Facebook – including around half of the UK – what about those who aren’t or don’t want to be? Can you, in a recession, take the chance of missing out on reaching them?

And if you spend all your time optimising content from a SEO point of view towards Facebook, what happens when Facebook fades away?

Your website as your hub

While many a brand can try to hard and go OTT on platforms, most now accept that it’s prudent (if the audience is there) to blog and be on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and perhaps the likes of Vimeo, LinkedIn and so on if relevant. But they all do it in combination with website and mailing lists, ensuring that they can capture a good chunk of their audience on multiple platforms (miss the blog post? You might not miss the twet and if you do there might be an email along shortly anyway – all with different content).

Again, most of the platforms mentioned above may fade away – new ones will come along, others will merge – but websites are seen as the mainstay. SEO efforts are seen as spending the majority of time on directing traffic to websites as that’s where people will buy items, learn more information and so on.

I realise that this does almost sound like “No one ever got fired for having a website” circa the old IBM argument doesn’t it? Am I just being old fashioned?

Facebook as the hub and only port of call

Varsity are doing it different – and it may well be that we’re seeing a fundamental shift here. We’ve often heard of how people do more on Facebook these days and this move reflects that. For all I’m saying the website is best as a hub, we may be seeing a change come around in which all you need is the Facebook page. The videos can be stored there, the audio, the pics, the text – everything. It’s a great way of focusing whoever is working on their social media – but will they still engage on other sites that mention them?

Having said that, there does seem to be a bit of cake and eat it approach as the company still has the main URL up and running, though it is a bit worrying when you go to the Facebook page and the first thing you get is a security warning (that may just be a very paranoid FireFox though).

But what do you think? Brave move, daft move or a stunt that can easily be reversed in a year or so if Facebook starts to dip?

Will Foursquare & social media fall foul of Scottish booze ban?

Craig — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 10:44:41 +0000

Scotland sees new alcohol sales rules coming into place this weekend with the aim or curbing cheap multi-buy discounts being one of the primary goals.

But, as The Drum and The Law Society of Scotland point out, there are always unintneded consquences. In this case, it’s to do with the part of the law that states you cannot advertise alcohol within 200m of the actual alcohol.

That’s going to hit social media, especially the use of mobile…On one level, that means anyone advertising a promo deal on Foursquare could fall foul – as could any tweet. After all both are updates of the moment “At Tesco, spotted BrewDog on sale – three multipacks of Punk IPA for a tenner” is the sort of thing you could expect. But that post wouldn’t be the fault of Tesco or BrewDog.

What about people who broadcast tips on Foursquare? “In ASDA, head down to the booze aisle as yo can get three bottles of Whyte & Mackay for £20″. Again, if that’s left by an individual, who does the law go after?

There’s also the issue of QR codes or NFC chips. NFC chips in particular are about broadcasting data. Would this mean labels couldn’t have chips in them? What about QR codes which people can scan to go onto websites or YouTube?

It’s going to be interesting to watch to see how it plays out…

Should Liverpool Council dump local press and go online only after CIPR, PRCA row?

Craig — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 13:09:03 +0000

There’s an interesting story over at The Drum about a row having broken out between Liverpool City Councillors and the local press. In short, the council is banning their press officers from speaking to the papers. As you would expect, the CIPR and PRCA have condemned this, calling it daft.

But when you look at circulation and online presence, the council could go online and reach more people than they can through the traditional press. They’d also be more in control of the message. And this is the shape of things to come.
According to Facebook, 433,260 people are on the site and live within 16km of Liverpool. On Twitter, there’s at least 15,000 accounts registered in the city. Now that’s before we look at traffic to the council website, YouTube or other platforms. But it’s fair to say that a lot of people in the area are online.

Let’s look at the sales of the main papers. The Liverpool Echo does around 85,000 copies and The Liverpool Daily Post does around 9,000 copies. So, on the one hand Twitter wallops The Post but The Echo trumps that – though Facebook thumps them all.

The lesson for businesses, councils and press

The day is coming when an organisation in the UK will decide ‘sod it’ and stop speaking to a paper because they are fed up with a perceived lack of balance in articles or not getting their own viewpoint across properly and they’ll look at their own web traffic and platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter and go “We can get our message out there to people. If we write it well and share it well, we can reach more people in our target groups than through the press. We might even be in more control of the content.”

And once the regional press is seen as useless for content, it’s not long after that it will be seen as useless for advertising, impacting on paper revenues and hastening a downward spiral.

But the press aren’t going away…

“The local papers will never vanish” people say. And for the short-term (next ten years) they are probably right. But there will be more cuts, more reporters out of work, less reporting carried out. And again, circulations, will fall and readers will discover that they can get more news by going online and following certain channels.

The other argument is that of “By doing it digitally you don’t reach everyone.” True. But look at the figures above. By using the traditional press you reach a hell of a lot less people.

The other lesson in digital engagement here…

That doesn’t mean councils and organisations should just jump on and push out press releases. Using digital right – and getting the high viewing figures or hits – means being more open and sharing issues, being more involved with your community and stakeholders. It’s the organisations who do that who will be the real winners online.

Free Social Media training for Scottish police, fire and other emergency services

Craig — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:54:17 +0000

There’s been a few instances recently (including one where I was giving a quick Twitter masterclass to some police at 2am but that’s a story for another day) where it’s been clear that for many in the Scottish emergency services – regardless of it being the police, ambulance service, coastguard or fire and rescue services – social media is still something that’s viewed with a range of emotions from suspicion to hostility or ignorance. Recent events down south have done nothing to help get rid of that viewpoint either.

Now I believe social media could be a fantastic tool for the 999 services – from building grassroots community relations to helping prevent crime and get results on crime – and I’d like to do my bit to help.

I’m willing to offer free one-day training course/presentation on social media which will be backed up by the courses being made available as podcasts – video and audio – for others in the forces to view/listen to at their leisure.

The courses will cover:

Why people use social media
How the service could use social media/ideas for engagement
A look at the most popular platforms – Twitter, Facebook, blogging, LinkedIn, GeoLocation services, online video, podcasts
What costs are involved – financial and time and how to minimise them
IT and HR issues around social media and how to overcome them
How to engage
Crowdsourcing
How to measure effectiveness

As stated above, there’s no charge for the course (though travelling expenses may be incurred depending on location). If anyone is interested all they have do is get in touch via the email address or phone number at the top right of the page.

Tottenham riots give Blackberry a PR boost & win in teen market

Craig — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 12:26:09 +0000

The UK press today is blaming social media for helping spread information and details about the riots in Tottenham and elsewhere and two platforms in particular are getting the coverage/blame – Twitter and BlackBerry Messenger.

Twitter’s getting attacked for the real-time nature of updates while BlackBerry Messenger is being attacked for being a private communications network (that’s free, hence the popularity).

And while some are asking if this is another kick in the downward spiralling BlackBerry, could it actually be the opposite and be seen as a defining moment in securing the teen marketplace ahead of iPhones and Android devices?

BlackBerries have been growing in popularity of late with teens for a few reasons – many parents have been handing them down to their kids as the adult gets an iPhone or Android phone, the data tariffs have been coming down and many are taking advantage of BlackBerry Messenger being free to use (as opposed to SMS which incur a charge).

Now for teens, one of the most important things is being able to have private chats – a box which BBM ticks – but there’s also that part of teenagehood that wants to do the opposite or be different from parents. So if the parents are all about the iPhones/Androids and Twitter/Facebook where’s a teen to go for private chat or to rebel? BBM.

On top of that, the media reporting today will – even though it’s not directly meant – make BBM and BlackBerry seem quite cool to a lot of kids and teens. Its use in the riots will actually increase the desirability.

Let’s bear in mind that what’s cool to an adult – or what an adult thinks is cool for teens – is normally nowhere near what teens themselves consider cool.

The other question to be asked though is this: Does BlackBerry see this as a positive thing? Is this a Cristal/Burberry moment for the brand or will it put on an official face of “no comment” while working out how to maximise on this behind the scenes?

(Of course the real downside is that there’s now a bunch of free phones going about the area because of the looting, so there may not be any extra sales out of it.)

(And note, I’m not subscribing to the ‘any PR is good PR’ mentality – which I debate with Kate Matlock in this social media podcast (RSS link)- but the more the authoritarian press is seen to decry BBM, the more it will appeal to certain people as it will look edgy and something that gives private ways of chatting without snooping in.)