Should we let bots tweet for us?

Posted on July 28, 2011 by GG Benitez

There is an interesting article in Wired Magazine where Steven Levy argues that at some point bots could do our tweeting for us. That’s because we already our online identities don’t exactly show our full personality:

But as software gets better, I suspect that bots might make fewer such gaffes or even, in some ways, surpass our performance. In her book Alone Together, sociologist Sherry Turkle observes that our personas on social networks are already fake—they’re not so much who we are as idealized projections of who we want to be. “It’s like being in a play,” as the subject of one of her studies explains. “You make a character.”

But is this really what we want? Do we want to talk to a human or a robot?

There instances where a world where bots do some of our online communication for us while leaving the more complex tasks up to us. For example, tweeting links can be scheduled already. As well as direct message responses in Twitter. Not to mention tools that let us post the same status message to a wide range of different networks one belongs to.

But how about responding to a question a customer has in real-time? Or solving a customers problem in real-time? Or having a back and fort conversation with someone else on Twitter?

There are bots that automate most simple social networking tasks but I think more importantly, the issue we should really focus on is that there are people that are managing fake identities online.

It’s very easy to create fake identities. It’s easy to deceive people into thinking they are in conversation with a real person. I know of a couple of firms in Mexico who employ a few hundred people who manage in any point in time a three to five fake identities. They use these fake identities to create campaigns and maximize likes on Facebook. These same fake identities are used for their other clients. The number of Facebook likes are fake.

This isn’t new and I’m sure it’s going on in the U.S. But in the superficial world we live, in where superficial metrics such as Facebook Likes matter, it doesn’t help to tell the story of a brands true worth.

So, should there be more measures taken against fake identities?

Man Builds Auto-Circling Google Plus Bot, Google Throttles Him (readwriteweb.com)
Steven Levy on Letting Bots Do Our Tweeting for Us (textually.org)
10 Twitter Bots That Are Actually Useful (businessinsider.com)
The Tower Bridge Twitter bot comes back online (thenextweb.com)

Want to become more trustworthy on social media? Learn from Domino’s Pizza

Posted on July 21, 2011 by GG Benitez

It’s somewhat easier to gain trust but what happens when you lose it?

Case in point: Domino’s Pizza.

If you don’t know or remember, a pair of employees filmed themselves doing a plethora of horribly disgusting things to Domino’s sandwiches before serving them and posted the video on YouTube 2009. It went viral in an instant, racking up more than a million views, blowing up on Twitter, rampaging around Facebook walls and firing up the blogosphere.

The incident nearly doomed Domino’s because of its bad initial crisis management, but now it’s reinvented itself as wholly transparent through those digital platforms, according to MarketingDaily.

From the article:

Dennis Maloney, vice president multimedia marketing at Domino’s, told the Association of National Advertisers’ social media conference in New York Thursday about how the pizza chain reinvented itself.

Maloney said that while the fix included fixing the crust, sauce and cheese, the company had to alter — fundamentally — how it presented itself to the public. In short, it had to integrate with social media; the company based its reinvention on transparency.

Part of that complementary digital/social effort involved a pledge that Domino’s would stop using aesthetic doctoring of marketing photos of its food. The company then encouraged consumers to take photos of their pizzas when they arrived, and upload the shots to a Domino’s social hub. The goal was to promulgate the new transparency position and prove that Domino’s pizza looks good as is.

The fact that some of the photos were critical and showed how the pizzas arrived in various states of disarray led to a national TV spot in which Domino’s CEO J. Patrick Doyle, displaying one of the photos, apologized — saying it would not happen again.

This is good stuff. This is called taking the extra step to regain customers trust. It’s also a great strategy to regain credibility for it’s product.

Back to the point, if Domino’s Pizza would not have jumped into social media it would’ve been a worst disaster. They recognized that they needed to jump in and acknowledge their mistake. That was the first step in regaining trust.

It’s funny how being transparent makes you more trustworthy. If companies behaved themselves accordingly and put the time in to build relationships with their audience we wouldn’t have these types of PR disasters.

Sounds obvious. Well, it is. You to put in the time to become trustworthy. The more time you spend on them the more trusting you become.

This isn’t surprising. People automatically start trusting other people when they grow familiar with them. But it’s not just that, you have to add value to the relationship.

Digital Oxytocin: How Trust Keeps Facebook, Twitter Humming (fastcompany.com)

Psychology of sharing: email is still the most popular sharing tool

Posted on July 20, 2011 by GG Benitez

While social media sharing revolves around Twitter and Facebook, email is still the most popular sharing tool.

This is a key finding from a study commissioned by the New York Times Customer Insight Group that aimed to answer the question: Why do people share?

This study uncovers:

Primary motivations for sharing
Six sharing personas
Essential steps for marketers aiming to get their content shared
Impact of sharing on Information Management
Cycle of sharing
Enduring role of e-mail in the age of social media Continue reading →

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