Monday, March 25, 2013

#Social Media

By Dr. Cecil Clements 25th March 2013

Was looking at a Times of India business article that said, "Burger King is in talks to revive its India plans" and I think it's in discussion with Everstone Capital to revive its entry plans into India. Burger King, as you may know, is the world's second largest burger chain after McDonald's and it's making a big push into 3 Asian markets including China and Indonesia.

But what caught my eye recently was an article that talked about how Burger King had woken up to one whopper of a problem. As you know, their burgers are called 'whoppers'. But what happened was that on February 18, their Twitter account got hacked into and the hackers changed the name to McDonald's and placed in the background an image of fish McBites, which is a McDonald's product. In the hour that it took for officials to regain control, hackers proceeded to send 53 tweets to the burger chain's more than 80,000 followers. When you have 80,000 followers, you are quite popular and when you have 53 tweets going out from people who have hacked in to your followers, it's causing a major problem.

But Burger King wasn't alone in this kind of situation. Less than 24 hours later, a similar fate befell Jeep. Hackers replaced the company's twitter avatar with a Cadillac logo and explained to Jeep's 100,000 plus followers that the company had been sold because its employees and CEO were found using drugs.

That company too wasn't alone. International Media retailer HMV, in late January, found that a disgruntled social media manager had hijacked one of the company's social media accounts and aired to the world details about recent layoffs and mismanagement, etc.

So while we look at social media and see the amount of trouble that you can get into by people who can clandestinely come in and hack into security and manage to send out misinformation, the question is – what do we do about it? How do you react to something like that?

Ryan Holmes, writing in Harvard Business Review, says, "Banning social media altogether is no longer a realistic option. That's a kneejerk reaction. There is tremendous good that comes out of social media today. Retreating from social media means ceding a significant competitive advantage. I've learned that a little common sense, a little training and the right technology can go a long way in helping to keep these things in perspective."

So when you look at social media and you try to move away from this knee jerk reaction, 'what needs to take center stage for us?' would be the question. I think as we look at social media, we need to realize that there's a huge market that is open for us – an avenue for products to be sold and showcased on social media. In fact, McKinsey Global Institute, research arm of the business consulting giant, has published a lengthy study on 'Unleashing value and productivity through social technologies.' They say, "Social Media could add upto $1.3 trillion to the economy" in an article by Quentin Hardy. That is probably from the US. But what they say is, "People matter. The main challenges are organizational and personal, as managers have to develop non-hierarchical cultures where data and knowledge are exposed and shared and not hoarded. It's crucial that you begin to use the people who have this kind of expertise in order to optimize social media opportunities.

Closer home, an article in Business Today says, "India Inc. spends Rs 1,200 crores on social media today". That's a recent survey that was taken by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India. "Companies in India have gauged the might of social networking and are currently spending over Rs 1,200 crore with 30 to 40 per cent of marketing budget on digital media. This figure is likely to swell to about Rs 1.35 lakh crore by 2015. India's share is likely to cross Rs 10,000 crore during the course of the next 3 or 4 years," says D.S. Rawat, secretary general, Assocham.

So, when you look at social media, (talking about Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Orkut and more) all of these have tremendous potential to help you in the work that you are doing. This has taken so many of us by storm. When you're a little older (like me) the reaction is – "I really don't understand this. How do I get acquainted with this? This is more of a Next generation issue. I don't have hands-on experience." Yet, if you and I are to stay in the game, it's important that social media should take front and center stage of the things that we are doing. It is really very important.

Look at posts that come on Facebook or Twitter! 'Your car died while on the road. Call is dropped. Food service on your flight tasted like cardboard. Airlines don't take off on time.' People go ahead and complain on Facebook or Twitter. And increasingly, customers are turning to social media platforms to make companies accountable for lapses in their service.

Rajesh Lalwani, founder of Blogworks, a Delhi based social media consultancy, says, "Social media matters now, thanks to the increasing number of people on Facebook and Twitter and the rising volume of their conversations." It matters. And if it matters, what are we going to do about it? How can we balance what happened to Burger King and HMV with the potential that it really has.

Ryan Holmes in the first article that I quoted says, "there are a couple of things that you can do: have a little common sense, a little training and the right technology." He goes on to give 4 things that we ought to be aware of in social media.

1.    Get serious about passwords. Even today, the most common password is "password" followed closely by "123456". How often that's all that we use to keep our security in check!

2.   Centralize social media channels. A crucial first step in getting social media security under control is to consolidate all of these accounts within a single social media management system, which allows users to publish to multiple profiles from one secure interface.

3.   Control who can post messages. There are many ways that can be done and a social media management system can help in this.

4.   Offer basic social media education. Just a few years ago, social media was a dorm room toy. Today it has the potential to unlock millions and millions of Rs in value. Giving employees access to this kind of power without any basic education is tantamount to handing over the keys to the car without a driver's license.

Facebook, I believe, since 2010 when it opened offices in India, had 8 million users. In October 2012, it had 65 million users. That's 55 million people added.

So how do you handle social media? Are you up with it? Are you savvy? Are you able to ride this new innovative medium that has come in? Or do you say that you really don't understand this and hope that one day this will pass? Well, I don't think it's going to pass and if we put our head in the sand and say, "I'll stay away from this kind of thing and do what I've been doing all these years," when we take our heads out of the sand, we'll find that it is not the social media that has passed by, but that we have been passed by.

Social media is here to stay and it would be a good thing for you and me if we know how to use it to further the things that we can use it for. So a word to the wise. Pay attention to current trends because I think these trends are here to stay. Even if they are going to change in the next 5-10 years, today it has the potential for huge positive values that can be added to companies. So I hope that you will pay attention to social media. Don't be passed over because you have your head in the sand.

Let me pray with you. Almighty God. Show us how to use new trends. Show us even if we feel we are inadequate to the task. Give us the wisdom to be able to see the potential and to use that potential so that we can be excellent in the things that we do. Lord, for all those on this call who may be a little reticent in using social media, I pray that you would give them wisdom and understanding to be able to use this as a tool to be good and great at what they are doing in their office spaces. I pray a blessing on them in Jesus' name, amen. 


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