Final Power Point

Here's my Final PP as a PDF as I made it on a Mac and the formating got a little complicated after exporting it to PP.

Monitoring Wilco

Wilco has been my favorite band for the last 4 years or so. While I have seen them in concert plenty of times and even been to one of their after show parties, where I got a chance to converse with most of their members, I have come to the realization that - when it comes to Social Media - Wilco is very much on top of things. Since the only blog that I constantly follow is Wilco's lead singer's 14 year old son, Spencer Tweedy's blog, I decided that it would be interesting to find out whether or not this blog plays a big role in Wilco's use of Social Media and whether or not there are other blogs, tweets, etc. that carry more importance than Spencer's blog does. After all, his opinion is likely to be somewhat biased as he looks up to his dad. More "random" people's opinions may be more resourceful for someone who also looks for criticism. But let's just see what is out there about Wilco, what the general public thinks, what fans think and what "haters" think.

The tools and social media that I have used and researched with are: Twazzup, Google Blog Search, Twitter, Facebook, Icerocket, Social Mention and Technorati.

It seems as though on Twitter, there are much more Wilco fans than "haters". This makes sense because many Twitter users post tweets about the song or the album that they are currently listening to. In order for any Twitter user to post something negative about Wilco, they would have to be very committed to not liking the band.

For someone who does not know Wilco, these tweets are helpful in order to get to know the band. One sees which songs are particularly popular and through the Youtube-Twitter button, a follower can also easily see which Wilco videos are being favored on Youtube. One the the most popular videos on Twitter, it was featured in Twazzup's video rubric, was a cartoon video to a Wilco song, made by a fan. The video is also one of my favorite videos, and it shows real fan commitment.

Comments on the video include:

Overall, Twazzup came up with relatively simple, nice posts about Wilco. A good start for someone who does not know the band, but nothing more but a short fun time for someone who knows the band well and who wants to learn new things about them as well as see some criticism (although the Youtube pages that Twazzup refers to do offer some sort of brief critical comments). In order to find more controversial posts, I used Google Blog Search.

This time, I came across much more broad statements about Wilco, most of which were either neutral or positive. Due to the fact that Wilco is in the music industry, more music blogs than anything else appeared. Most of them were reviews and interviews and unbiased, as music reviewing websites should be. The many interviews give Wilco a chance to reach out to many people; to all those reading music blogs or blog searching Wilco. What I also found interesting was the fact that many blogs that Google Blog Search displayed, were discussing rumors about whether or not Wilco are going to start their own music label. I hadn't heard these rumors before and they seemed to be a very controversial topic in the Wilco world.

So are Wilco really going to start their own label? Many blogs suggest so, but others display various interviews with the band that suggest that a decision has yet to be made. If something as big as an own record label did happen for Wilco, however, chances are that even the least caring Wilco fans would tweet about it. Therefore, it is fairly obvious that blogs definitely dig much deeper and that the smallest rumors can become controversially discussed topics here. It is good that there are so many music reviews, interviews and discussions on Wilco, because it shows that Wilco is a bad that is actively cared about, amongst those who know their music. Fairly little negative responses to Wilco, especially from music experts, suggest that the members of Wilco know their music well and good responses are the best publicity that the band could ask for. That is, a band like Wilco, who targets independent music audiences over mainstream radio audiences.

Google Blog Search also made me realize that there are plenty of blogs that focus, not on Wilco only, but on the same type of music. Hence, Wilco is very much featured in a lot of these Indie Music blogs. One example is Muzzle of Bees, a blog named after a Wilco song.

After Twazzup and Google Blog Search, I typed Google into Icerocket's Search Engine. The results that I got were similar to the ones that I got when I "manually" looked for Tweets on Twazzup and for blogs on Google Blog Search. However, Icerocket did show me one thing that I hadn't seen before: The first blog that came up after searching Wilco, was a blog purely based on songs of the day. The author of the blog would embed videos of these songs and add lyrics. Coincidentally, a song by Wilco was in her last post. Yet again good publicity for Wilco, as this blog is the first thing that pops up and as it is very hard to miss.

After using many other tools let similar posts, especially tweets, about Wilco appear, I came to the realization that it is very difficult to find criticizing posts about a band just by typing in their name (unless it is a band like Nickelback). Therefore I decided that, in order to find out the bad things that people say about Wilco, I would have to search for bad statements about the band. However, even after trying various versions of "Wilco bad" or "Wilco sucks", I had a very difficult time finding demeaning statements about the band. After typing in "Jeff Tweedy" (Wilco's lead singer) and "Jay Bennett" (a former member of Wilco that decided to sue Jeff Tweedy a while ago), I finally found a very criticizing blog post about Wilco. Even though my favorite band was insulted, I got really excited that with a little bit of trying I could even find Wilco "haters" through social media monitoring. The blog that reviews live acts around the London area says things such as:

"Jeff Tweedy is not a well-loved character in our household. In fact, it’s fair to say that Astral loathes him. I don’t warm to him – and there’s more of his band Wilco‘s output that I dislike rather than like – but my feelings are less hostile than hers."

"What impressed me about them is also what makes me not love them – they are tight, eminently versatile, impeccably rehearsed and extremely self-assured on stage. And that goes against my ingrained English Midlands psyche – anything this confident and slick is not quite on the level."

and

"I hope you’ve made it through this long waffle, as it paints the background for what I think and feel about Jeff Tweedy. He’s clearly one of the most talented writers, performers and arrangers of modern ‘rock’, but there’s always a barrier between me and my really liking him."

So there are unlikable things about Wilco and/or Jeff Tweedy. There are also people out there who find these unlikable things important enough to base their opinion of Wilco on them. However, it seems as though there are only very few of them and as if the positive feedback that Wilco receives from the Groundswell, outdoes all the little negative things that also may be said. For someone who has only heard of the band and is debating whether or not they should purchase their songs, the positive feedback about Wilco that is all over the internet can surely lead to a purchase. And Wilco themselves can see how fans react to various new ideas that they come up with, what type of songs succeed as well as what brings them into the news. I am not saying that Wilco opening their own record label is a rumor started by Wilco in order to get attention, but Wilco will definitely realize that rumors like this help their publicity.

Another very interesting tool that I used was Social Mention. It provided me with charts that told me exactly how "Wilco" is being used in Social Media. And the results were similar to what I expected: Many positive ones, a few negative ones - but most of them being neutral (due to music reviews as mentioned above).

Social Mention also displayed the top keywords associated with the term Wilco...

... As well as a chart about its' strength, passion, sentiment and reach:

All these numbers could be higher. The sentiment ratio of 4:1 means that for about every four good responses to Wilco, there will be one bad one (as we can also see in the sentiment chart above). This ratio seems normal for a band, as I tried out with other music acts and sentiment ratios were all fairly similar (although Lady Gaga's was 2:1... I guess controversial main stream acts are a whole different dimension). 19% of the people that write about Wilco are likely to keep doing that, those people are probably music reviewing people as well as fans. Wilco's strength and reach should be higher, but will sure to be continuing to grow, as the band is only becoming better known now.

Finally, I looked at Wilco's usage of Facebook.

Wilco utilize their Facebook page efficiently. It is up to date and all Wilco events that are taking place in the future are listed and one can RSVP as well as see the guest list. Any news are constantly being posted on the wall. 249,889 Facebook users "like" Wilco. Every wall post by Wilco has a throughout positive response:

Overall, Wilco should have no problems with what is being said about them. Music reviews, personal blog posts, tweets, Youtube comments as well as Facebook comments are all mostly neutral or positive. The bad ones are so very outnumbered by the good ones that bad publicity through Social Media should not be a problem for Wilco. Wilco themselves use various Social Media tools (Facebook, Twitter and RSS) to spread the word about various events and news about them, while fans do not hesitate to show the world how much they love Wilco and no one seems to backfire negative comments on Wilco's social media use. What I found interesting was that Spencer Tweedy's blog did not appear in any of my searches, even though it frequently mentions Wilco, maybe because Wilco is by no means the main focus of his blog. Nevertheless, it is a recommendable read for anyone who is interested in the life of an abnormally intelligent son of a rock musician.

Reading Responses to Chapters 9 and 10

Chapters 9 and 10 use various case studies in order to show the reader how important it is to embrace the Groundswell in order to see best results happen. The Snausages Breakfast Bites case study shows that setting up a private community in order to ameliorate one's product can be an extremely helpful tool. With the Groundswell, you can have your customers play an active role in the improvement of your product. Through online reviews, quick feedback can help companies to constantly be improving their products, while beforehand, product improvement was mostly done internally. Quick improvement of the product is necessary however, in order to be challenging for competitors. Not only looking at online reviews, but even purposely setting up online forums like Credit Mutuel did, in order to improve product developments are all new features of the Groundswell.

The reading specifically reminded me of one situation that I have found myself in, it being my internship at the European Headquarters of iTunes in Luxembourg. One day, I was allowed to sit in at a product development meeting. Members of the iTunes team were thinking of new things that could be launched in the iTunes store, back then they were thinking of selling ebooks and evaluating the pros and cons of it. They were also trying to find out, whatever was working well and whatever needed improvement in the iTunes store. For this, an overview of a moderate amount customer reviews was projected on the conference room's big screen. These reviews criticized already existent

features of the iTunes store but also suggested new ones. Books were a controversial topic, but at the end of the day the meeting decided to plan on launching them eventually. It was fascinating for me to see how much iTunes focused on customer input and how many ways there were for them to understand their customers. Back then there were iTunes summer concerts all over Europe and the staff had exact profiles as to what type of people went to the concerts, what type of music they mostly listened to and what type of products they would like to see in the iTunes store. All this was possible due to a short questionnaire that came with a purchase of a concert ticket. At the end of the meeting, all that iTunes had done was research on their customers, most of it being very direct and very much paying attention to the Goundswell. I think iTunes is a good example of a company that really tries to develop its' products based on its' customers' demands. It has various

online tools that help it find out what its' customers' think - that iTunes actually takes great use of these tools.

So I find myself in an Indian newspaper... (Personal Entry #2)

We all know that social media is everywhere, that information is out there and that it is impossible to fully be aware of everything that is on the internet at a time. Today, I learned that information about you is shared in such a way, that it should no longer be surprising to oneself to randomly find foreign country's newspaper articles - with their own Facebook pictures in them.

What happened to me, is that I used to be a member of Clark's International Student Association, a relatively big student group with - like the name indicates - many international students as members. Another one of the members, Anshu from India, helped out a former college counselor of hers who was writing a newspaper article about US colleges in the well-known Indian newspaper Hindustan Times. The author then proceeded to take one of Anshu's Facebook pictures of ISA at Clark and use it as a featured picture for the article. The article quickly spread through Facebook, especially since those members of ISA that happened to be in India at the time that it got released saw the article and did not hesitate to share it with everyone. Now my face is shown in a large Indian newspaper - thanks to Facebook. This could have never happened a couple of years ago. The author of the article could have never used information this freely if it wasn't for Facebook where he had access to all of Anshu's pictures as well as school info and where he finally ended up contacting her for questions as well. It seems as though Facebook (and if it wasn't, it would probably be another social networking site) is the new mostly used medium of communication - emailing is out, like we have discussed in class. I find it truly amazing that - without my knowledge or active contribution - I find myself in a foreign country's newspaper - on paper and online - and not only does my picture appear in it, but I also did find out about the article being released a couple of hours after the newspaper comes out. This form of communication is so efficient, that it almost scares me while at the same time it impresses me very much. My next step, becoming famous, should not be much more difficult with all the social media tools that are out there.

Groundswell - will POST-ing help my parents?

The first couple of chapters of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies explain the trend of social media, the different kinds that there are, why they are happening right now and the importance of understanding them. While the book also explains the negative side effects of social media (the “Streisand effect”), it has grouped the society of American internet users into creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators and inactives, while people can be in more than one group at the same time. I will focus on these groups, as well as the four step planning process called “POST” and try to relate them both to my parents’ hotel that I priorly posted about, in order to help my parents out to ameliorate their marketing as well as advertising strategies.

First of all, my parents’ hotel is located in Germany which probably changes up the internet usage demographics a little bit. However, since both countries are somewhat similar when it comes to GDP per capita, as well as percentage of people that use the internet, these differences should not be too significant, especially because - from my personal experience - it seems as though whatever social media trend is happening in the US does not take long to then come to Germany and vice versa.

Looking at the groups, 48% of the American society are spectators, who are the ones that follow blogs, watch videos, read forums, etc. Therefore, joining well-aimed forms of social media will definitely be of benefit to my parents. That is where the 4 step process POST comes into the picture. POST stands for: People, Objectives, Strategy and Technology. It is important to have a goal in mind when applying the POST strategy.

1. The People aspect of it is specifically important when it comes to my parents’ hotel: What kind of internet users are actually potential customers for a hotel located in a small town in Germany’s countryside? Due to the fact that many of the hotel’s potential customers do actually seek to conduct business with one of the local companies located close by, they are very familiar with the internet and constantly use it, especially because they have office jobs.
2. The Objectives of a hotel are very simple: To spread the word about its’ existence, its’ special offers and to have a better reputation than competing hotels in the same area. Advertising the landscape and other aspects that the town itself has to offer would also be objectives, yet they would focus on a completely different group of customers.
3. A Strategy would also have to be developed, but that would be something that my parents themselves would have to thoroughly think through. They need to go back to their older marketing strategies and evaluate whatever worked out and what did not - and make changes accordingly.
4. The final part of post would be to figure out which Technology to use. As I mentioned in my prior post, hotel booking websites are definitely a must, while Facebook seems to have also become a new medium of communication that almost seems necessary to have when owning a business. An RSS feed on the hotel’s website could be a next step to keep potential customers updated on special deals. This could however also happen through a Facebook page, as well as through pages on whatever Facebook equivalent websites there are in Germany. There is also another social medium that is rather unique to Germany, but could possibly be comparable to the US version: LinkedIn: Xing. It is a site for business professionals and advertising on it will be able to reach out to the exact group that it needs to, in order to reach all those professionals that would come to the hotel for business.

POST definitely seems like an important tool for my parents to utilize. It will help them achieve their goals much more efficiently than random usage of social media would.

All in all, Groundswell is a helpful read that is easy to relate to. I am hoping to find more strategies as well as stories in it that will make me aware of what social media can do.

Personal Entry: 1

Due to the fact that I have grown up and lived in a small hotel owned by my parents, I have always had to be part of my parents’ trying to market their hotel as well as restaurant experience in the most efficient way. As I was the youngest family member and the only one that almost fully grew up with the new benefits that came along with the internet, I became thoroughly aware of the changes of the hotel’s marketing through social media.

As my parents’ hotel is located in a small town in the countryside of Germany, technology had not always been as revolutionary in every household, as it may have been in huge cities at the same time. Newspapers remained the most efficient way of advertising for an unnecessarily long time and only around 2006, the local newspapers of my hometown started becoming more and more present on the internet. Newspaper advertisements slowly became online advertisements and local newspapers had a full second presence online. The local newspapers have actually changed so much until now, that I recently got contacted by the editor of one of my hometown’s local newspapers, who wanted to write an article about my educational path in the US. He sent me a message through Wer Kennt Wen, a German alternative to Facebook. He also told me to join his group on that website, which focused on people from my hometown living in other places of the world.

The changes in the local newspaper industry were soon extremely noticeable to my parents and their business. Announcing their hotel in the local newspapers was no longer efficient, and even though the hotel did have a website and a pay-per-click Google link by that time, my parents soon realized that other forms of social media marketing would soon be necessary.

The most significant way to advertise the hotel now, is probably booking.com. It is a partner company of priceline.com and focuses on hotels only. Nowadays, most of my parents’ bookings are a result of booking.com. Customers reviews and ratings are a very helpful tool of this website and because the website guarantees the best price, it has a large following of people.

Of course, booking.com will not remain the only website that is significant to my parents’ business, but it will remain one of the first ones. My mother has actually recently gotten a Facebook account because a Danish bus vacation service has decided to use Facebook as the main communication tool for the hotels that they send their guests to.

A YouTube account for the hotel is also in progress, as videos of celebrations such as the ones during Christmas and New Years time, often speak more than any written text could.

While my mom has asked me whether or not I find a Twitter account for the hotel necessary, I don’t think it is, just because Twitter is something well-known but not excessively used in Germany. Due to the fact that the hotel is rather small, the amount of followers would definitely be limited. Who knows though, maybe in another year or two, even the smallest countryside hotels will find it necessary to post “tweets”.