I've Got Sunshine on a KLOUTY Day!

 Social scoring.  Who would have thought it would have come to this.... BUT! As marketers, we are in luck.  These social scoring platforms offer a place for brands, people, and companies to find out how influential they are and where they can improve.  They can also see where their competitors stand to give a perspective as to what they are up against.  

Answer to Questions 1&2:

I think for a large organization or a small organization I would use Klout in the same way, to measure my influence and gain insight as to how my competitors are influencing our target market.  It is important to have an idea of where your competitors stand because it puts things into perspective.  You can think you are the best in your industry, but what do the numbers say. Since you probably do not have much access to an organizations P/Ls your best bet is to look at marketshare reports.  Now we have Klout.  With the rise in usage and importance of staying connected via social media for businesses, being influential on those platforms are equally as important.   "Dane Hartzell, a chief digital strategies for Minneapolis based Bolin Marketing" stated that, "We have a project that is using influence scores for a leading global logistic supply provider.  They are actually the largest company like this in the world, but they don't have the brand recognition of some of their competitors" (Shaffer, pg. 146, 2012).  
I would use this information in either a large organization or a small one to position the organization as a leader by gathering information about the competition.  Why is the score high? Why is their score low? What platforms are they using most? At what time of day? What is the content of their messages?  All of this information can help any company large or small reposition themselves to make their organization more influential. 

Schaefer, M. (2012). Return on influence: The revolutionary power of Klout, social scoring, and influence marketing. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Managing Employees and Social Media

Being that I work in Human Resources and have dabbled in the social media marketing department a bit, I believe that I am best equipped to answer these questions from experience and see how that pans out with our group.  With my experience in policy and handbook writing, developing social media policy should not be a gigantic hurdle for me.

My opinion on how employers should handle situations where employees are expressing negative opinions of the company via social media, would really bounce back to the policy that the employer put in place initially. Employers should be sure to cover social media usage in their handbooks and have a clear policy on how employees are expected to conduct themselves. While employers may not be able to prohibit negative comments, verbiage such as "The Company encourages use of social media, however while free to express your opinion, we strongly discourage any commentary that may risk the reputation of The Company.  We expect that if you have any questions or concerns about The Company, you will report to management immediately, so that we can investigate and take the proper steps to rectify your concerns."  Should an employee express negativity online, I think the best strategy would be to counsel the employee on their comments and find out why they feel the way they do.

I would create a social media policy that is in accordance with the  National Labor Relations Board's recommendations.
Monster.com outlines the NLRB's recommendations (2014):

• Avoid general, blanket prohibitions on any employee actions with respect to social media. This includes banning employees from talking about their job, complaining about their boss or co-workers or disparaging company policies, among others. 

• Instead of generally banning employees from revealing confidential company information or trade secrets, be specific about what employees may not reveal. While it may be okay to protect trade secrets, formulas, customer lists and technological data, the NLRB has found that employees may have the right to discuss certain aspects of their confidential employment situation (such as salaries or bonuses) via social media.  

• Give employees specific examples of inappropriate postings. Acceptable limits include prohibitions on bullying, discrimination and retaliation. Talk to a lawyer before disciplining an employee for defaming or otherwise lying about the company via social media.

• Do not restrict employees’ ability to “friend” co-workers on their personal social media pages.  

• Unless you have a legitimate and defensible business purpose as part of your social media guidelines, do not ask employees (or worse, applicants) for their social media account information or passwords.  

• Be consistent in how and when you review the social media accounts for prospective employees. 

New NLRB Guidelines for Social Media in the Workplace. (2014, January 1). Retrieved October 11, 2014, from http://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-best-practices/small-business/news/nlrb.aspx

NFL PR RACE

Michael Turney’s RACE process to describe the public relations process is outlined on the NKU site as follows (2011):

R  - Research  

A  - Action  

C  - Communication 

E  - Evaluation

I would use this method to address the Ray Rice issue in the following ways:

R- Research what actually happened during the incident.  This would involve an investigation as well as interviewing the parties involved. After the information is collected, I would research ways that similar situations had been handled in the past to be able to understand tactics that worked and tactics that failed for other organizations. 

A  - Action  - I would make a plan of action to address the incident. This may involve action, or not. Being that Ray Rice was a party involved, I feel that it was best for him to address the issue himself, however the NFL still needed to address their actions that they would take as well. 

C  - Communication  - I would have the owner of Ray Rice’s team as well as Ray Rice himself address the media to be able to speak their parts on the issue- in honesty. 

E  - Evaluation  - I would set my team up to analyze how we handled the situation and figure out if we have anything that was left unaddressed or if anything was misinterpreted by the media. 

It is important to keep in mind that this is a constant cycle process. Onces E is completed, R begins again. 

Did the NFL's senior management have a duty to inform the public about different incidents of NFL players charged with domestic violence?  

Yes, I feel that the NFL’s senior management did have a duty to inform the public. Many kids and teens look up to these players.  If they see them acting recklessly, there is a chance they may think it is ok.  Now, I am not one to say that media is the cause of violence, however, in some circumstances, children and teens do not have proper role models to show them otherwise.  

How can the NFL apply the RACE method to address stakeholders across different social media outlets?

R- Research the available social media platforms, devise a plan to create accounts and make public announcements, research how other organizations are utilizing these outlets and what is working for them and what is not.

A- Devise a plan of action to be able to make public announcements and press releases via social media.

C- Put the action plan into action and use social media as a press release platform.  Any time a press release is put out to the media, it is also posted via social media; either written or video.

E- Evaluate and analyze what is working for the organization. Are people responding and interacting in a positive way on these sites? Are people giving feedback that can be used to make a positive impact on the organization?

Turney, Michael (2011). Acronyms for the public relations process. Retrieved: September 24, 2014. From: http://www.nku.edu/~turney/prclass/readings/process_acronyms.html 

Likeable Social Media - Digital Leadership Experience Week 3- The Good The Bad and The Responsive

Consider yourself as a brand for a second.  You have had a great deal of local success and are now ready to integrate yourself into the world of social media.  You are ready for the world to see! You launch a Facebook page, Twitter account, or the like and begin to promote yourself via social media, or the brand rather. You mention all the highlights of the brand, what makes you great and why people should intrust in you.  You are gathering supporters left and right people are talking about how great you are and how much they love the brand. It seems that you have built a great reputation amongst your supporters.  You have also engaged in some great conversations with supporters of "you" and have developed some meaningful relationships.

Then it happens.

Debbie Downer posts:

"This brand is the worst. I cannot believe the experience I had. What an awful experience. I will never use them again."

Now what? You think to yourself, "My reputation is tarnished." And begin to think of ways that you can turn back time and block Debbie Downer from being able to post on you page.  Then you snap out of it and realize that this is your chance to redeem yourself and defend yourself, your brand. However, because you're thinking rationally of course, you know that you have to be diplomatic in your response and defense. You don't want people pulling buckets of popcorn out behind their computer screens watching WWW (World War Web) commence, over Debbie Downer's petty remark. 

Kerpen explains on page 75, that unless you're ready to respond to negative commentary, you are not exactly ready for the world of Facebook. (2011) "If your company is not prepared to face the good, the bad, and the ugly, then social media in general isn't right for you now. If you are prepared to handle criticism and respond appropriately, however, then, having your own social network community where people post positive and negative comments will be a huge asset."(Kerpen, pg. 75, 2011)

Using the assigned readings, please respond to TWO the following questions. 

Questions:

1. Explain what strategies, according to Kerpen, organizations should use when counteracting negative commentary on social media sites. Why is it important to keep the negative comments posted, as opposed to deleting the negative and only keeping the positive? And why is it important for organizations to respond to positive feedback as well?

2. What advice would you give an organization that struggles with poor ratio of bad vs good feedback? Be specific.

3. Why is listening first and continuing to listen an important aspect in social media strategies?  How can this social media strategy best be carried out, in your opinion? 

Kerpen, D. (2011). Likeable social media: How to delight your customers, create an irresistible brand, and be generally amazing on facebook (& other social networks). New York: McGraw-Hill.