Engaging the Inner Groundswell

In Chapter 11, Li & Bernoff explore methods to engage the Groundswell inside your company. They explain, "internal groundswell applications...can make [employees] feel empowered, connected, and more committed on a day-to-day basis" (p. 216). What business owner wouldn't want their employees to experience that?

Best Buy has created their "Blue Shirt Nation" thanks to Steve Bendt and Gary Koelling, the corporate marketing guys behind the project. Blue Shirt Nation is a social media platform where Best Buy employees have the opportunity to create an account and interact with one another via the internet. 

It was created to listen to what employees had to say and that is why it became so successful. Because management was talking and listening to their internal groundswell. It does not only educate management "but also enables employees to help each other" (p. 218). For years, Best Buy had built tools in a vacuum, without talking to our employees, without understanding their problems, without understanding who the user was.

Blue Shirt Nation isn't a confusing thing for any of their employees to access and use; another strength of their engagement. "Thinking about the relationships, not the technologies" (p. 224). The success of the network doesn't depend on sophisticated technology. Success depends on the trust employees put in Blue Shirt Nation. 

Now that they have been able to engage their internal groundswell, they are able to build stronger relationships and a stronger company.

The implications of the ability to engage with their inner groundswells are key to a company's success. If you can create a culture for your employees in which they feel heard, similar to the external groundswell's role, positive things will happen within your company. "No matter what you're after, in the internal groundswell, the secret to thriving is culture" (p. 230).

AND, since this is the last blog post that is assigned for this blog, I will leave you with a piece of advice from Li & Bernoff: "You should learn to think as [the groundswell] does" (p. 234).

Monitoring "Kia Soul: In My Mind" Conversations

I was a modern dancer for 12 years growing up and have always been intrigued by dance and how it manifests as an art form, therapy, and entertainment so when I saw Kia's "In My Mind" advertisement campaign for the Kia Soul, I was automatically interested in what they were doing. I'm sure a lot of people have seen the campaign as it features three life-sized hamsters in different outfits dancing to the song "In My Mind" and driving a car, the Kia Soul. The "In My Mind" campaign is basically a dance competition where participants, whom do not need to be trained dancers or even good dancers, produce a video that goes along with the featured song and have a chance to win a brand new Kia Soul.

The famous dance group, "Jabbawockeez", created a demo video to encourage people to participate in the competition:

I have been monitoring the social media activity of this ad campaign over the last few weeks and there was a surprising amount of enthusiasm! The time period up until this point in the study is October 6th to October 24th (although the contest started in September so some of the social media findings are from then).

Over this period of time I have been using Ice Rocket, Social Mention, Addictomatic, and Google trends to monitor the Groundswell reaction to the "In My Mind" contest. I have also been using the "Kia Soul" Youtube site and other Youtube videos from the contest.

• Visually aligned appearance over Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube

Each social media platform garners the same composer hamster and similar color scheme and font creating a synergy between the platforms so that the Groundswell can easily recognize the campaign and becomes part of the story.

• Twitter

October 6

October 10

(Bing News from Addictomatic)

October 16

October 24

Over the course of October, Twitter seemed to stay engaged with the competition. Kia's use of the hamsters was an idea and an image that a lot of people recognized and thought was unique about the ad campaign. In effect, the advertising was not really about the car but about what was going to get people's attention. It seems that the hamsters as a symbol of the advertisement campaign and the Kia Soul allowed for more recognition and excitement about the campaign. Also, the idea of movement and dance engaged people to comment about their own dancing and music in relation to the Kia Soul.

• Social Mention Results

The strength of the ad campaign stayed at a constant 5% which is not very strong. Sentiment rose from 27:1 to 83:1 and then plateaued at 13:1 with most feeling neutral. People felt more positive than negative though which is a good sign for the campaign. Passion ranged from 60 to 75% throughout the month while reach stayed in the 20% range. It seems that from these results the Kia Soul has created a community similar to that of Mini Cooper (example from Groundswell) whereby they have created a community and within that community, people are very passionate but the reach to people outside of their community may not be so strong. This community-centered way of selling a product can be successful if done in the right way.

• Trends Results (Google Trends and IceRocket)

According to IceRocket and Google Trends, postings about the Kia Soul peaked at the end of September into early October and have started to peak again. These results show that after the ad campaign was launched, it took a while for people to start participating but once the youtube videos went viral, participation peaked. Then, when the winner was announced, participation peaked again.

• Sales

"The latest sales figures released concerning the US car market clearly show that the Japanese auto industry is still on the receiving end of some very sluggish numbers. The same cannot be said for Korea’s Kia Motors Corp. who is riding a wave of great sales success, thanks in large part to the stylish Kia Soul.

The 2012 Kia Soul moved an impressive 63,635 units in the US during the first 6 months of the year. That gave Kia a staggering 82% percent market share in the segment, easily beating competitors such as the Nissan Cube and Toyota’s Scion xB."

Sales Figures

Month	Kia Soul U.S. Sales 2010	Kia Soul U.S. Sales 2011	Kia Soul U.S. Sales 2012	Kia Soul U.S. Sales 2013	Kia Soul U.S. Sales 2014
January	2145	5345	8091
February	3600	6684	10,876
March	5106	10,028	13,607
April	5223	10,459	10,716
May	6134	11,157	10,146
June	6429	11,314	10,199
July	8020	10,131	10,063
August	7021	6885	10,191
September	5346	6666	9467
October	6137	7109
November	5582	6865
December	6367	9624

These number show that that Kia experienced the most sales at the beginning of 2012. In September, compared to other years during that month, there were more sales but not compared to the rest of 2012. These results are quite surprising because they show a decrease in sales after the advertisement campaign was launched.

And finally....CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE WINNING VIDEO!

While there exists some active engagement of the Groundswell concerning the "In My Mind" ad campaign, it seems restricted to a certain community. I am surprised that sales have decreased since the big launch of the campaign.

For the future, I expect that the campaign will continue the way it has been going and probably not reach out to many more people. There was a great response on Youtube with people posting videos but it does not seem to affect sales or reach very much. I will continue to follow the campaign to see if there are any large changes. It seems that people are now more focused on the newer cars that are coming out but these responses are still only within the Kia Soul community. We will have to see!

Smartphone Apps a Threat to Security

When I am on the internet and asked to save my password, I hardly ever agree. Mostly, because in my Management Information Systems class I learned that once you save your password online, it becomes more accessible to others (I am obviously not very computer-savvy but that's the general idea). Since acquiring a smartphone, I have wondered about this issue even more.

Smartphones are now becoming the norm. If you walk into any service provider and ask for a new phone, they will probably only offer one or two phones that are not smartphones making it very likely that you will end up giving in (if you haven't already) and purchasing a phone that not only allows you to call and text but to access the internet, e-mail, bank accounts, cool apps, etc. In March 2012, 50.4% of consumers in the United States used smartphones, with that number most likely increasing since then. 48.5% of these users were Android users.

I own an iPhone and while I probably do not use it to its full potential, I do have some apps such as Facebook and e-mail that require me to access the apps by saving or using my passwords. So with the recent news from BBC that Android apps have been 'leaking' personal details, what does this mean for personal security and app use?

Scientists tested 13,500 Android apps and found that almost 8% failed to protect bank account and social media logins. "These apps failed to implement standard scrambling systems, allowing "man-in-the-middle" attacks to reveal data that passes back and forth when devices communicate with websites." The researchers revealed that an attacker could do a lot of things with access to your passwords including re-directing a request to transfer funds while making it look to the app user like the transaction was proceeding unchanged.

While I, as an iPhone user, may not be as worried as Android users, these findings force all smartphone owners to consider their personal security in using apps that involve their internet passwords. If such personal things as your bank account can be attacked through the use of apps, developers are going to have to figure out a way to secure data better for the future.

With an increase in marketing and PR for many companies on social media and internet, and therefore in many smartphone apps, these findings also have large implications for the PR and marketing industry. If individuals are unable to secure their information using apps on their smartphones, then the creation of apps as marketing and PR strategies may be in danger.

The Groundswell is more motivated by its peers' opinions and reviews of certain products so therefore apps like Foursquare, which allows individuals to check in to certain spots and announce the places they go to the rest of the Groundswell, are key in motivating consumers. What happens when these apps may create a threat to personal security? How will this aspect of marketing be affected? Will it be affected?

Personally, I feel a little bit worried about associating my online passwords with apps on my phone. At the same time, though, I think that we constantly take these risks when we are involved with social media and the internet. How many times have you gotten messages from Facebook friends that they did not mean to send? They were hacked! And most of us are still using and participating on Facebook, especially on our phones!

So, what's your reaction? Will you continue using social media apps that use your passwords?

Humility is Key

I bought a pair of jeans from Pacsun last year and as much as I try, I will never look like their models or feel what they promise you will feel when you wear their jeans. I tend to stick to the same 1 or 2 pairs of jeans until they completely deteriorate and after owning a pair of Gap jeans and wearing them for many years comfortably, I am a bit disappointed in my decision to invest in Pacsun as they have deteriorated faster than I would have liked. However, this is the risk that I take in buying any product. Li & Bernoff acknowledge that most consumers expect and understand that products have problems, but "it's the rare retailer or manufacturer that actually fixes them" (p. 193).

So why blog or post about your criticisms on social media sites if no one is going to respond?

The fact is, consumers are chomping at the bit to tell companies what to do. Whether you are ready or not, they are now part of your process (Li & Bernoff). The Groundswell wants to be heard and wants to have a voice.

Are companies able to move past the need to control and instead listen to consumers? "Most stores and brands aren't humble enough to do that" (Li & Bernoff, p. 193).

How do brands or companies create a balance between having their own skill and also having humility to take into account the needs of the Groundswell?

Take Dove as an example. When they launched their Campaign for Real Beauty in 2004 they took a big risk with their message by using average, everyday women instead of using young, slender, models that they had used in the past and that other brands used. While this act was not necessarily a reaction to demands from the Groundswell, Dove was able to let go of some control to win over the Groundwell.

Dove was successful at taking into account the needs of the Groundswell while also maintaining the quality of their product. "And it worked --people were definitely talking about the ad campaign and Dove" (Li & Bernoff, p. 200). Dove gave real women a voice.

So, what do you think? Do you feel heard?

Finding a Balance

Are you a social media enthusiast or just a Facebook addict?

I have a job at a frozen yogurt shop here in Worcester, MA called Yoway. I have been working there for over a year now and as you can probably guess, it gets VERY slow in the fall and winter months. So, what do I do with the time in between customers? Well, I browse Facebook of course!

It is my go-to activity to fill time, or probably more like waste time. As I sit here at my computer now with 8 tabs open on my browser (4 of which are from Facebook browsing and the rest for information for this blog) trying to talk to my Facebook friends while writing this post (sorry Professor Frechette!), I am wondering how much of my time is spent on Facebook or on websites related to Facebook. Why do I sign on in the first place when I know that I have school work that I need to get done? Why do I allow myself to go even further and sign onto chat? Maybe I have an addiction...

This is an issue that plagues most of my peers. And it must plague millions if not 1 billion people on a daily basis. How is it affecting our lives?.

...well I just stopped to browse Facebook in the middle of writing and now lost my train of thought.

That interruption is definitely affecting my completion of this blog post. But to what extent is it harmful? An article in the collegian writes that Facebook does not necessarily cause bad grades but students should be able to account for the extra time they will spend on Facebook when they plan to do homework. 

But what causes this Facebook addiction?

The Facebook profile is the perfect way to inform the world about what you are doing and actually encourages users to constantly talk about him or herself without be labelled as narcissistic. Facebook gives us permission to not feel bad about our narcissistic ways!

People also feel the need to know what it going on in their world, or someone else's world for that matter. Being a "Facebook stalker" is a very popular hobby these days as it allows you to look at other people's photos or information without them even knowing. How exciting!

So in our current world where social media is taking over our culture and impacting most parts of our lives, we must figure out a way to create balance. I guess this is something I'm going to need to work on...