Marketing Pilgrim Published: “MasterCard Wants All of Their Employees to Be Social Media Brand Advocates” plus 1 more

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MasterCard Wants All of Their Employees to Be Social Media Brand Advocates Posted: 06 Dec 2013 01:23 PM PST Large companies spent millions of dollars a year aligning themselves with social media brand advocates. They figure the average person will be more interested and open to a referral from a non-related third party, then a social media mention from the company itself. But what about your own employees? Should they be brand advocates, too? Earlier today, Frank wrote about the Twitter board members who don’t Tweet. It’s weird, right? You’re high up in a company but you don’t use, let alone evangelize the service? On the other end of the spectrum is MasterCard. They’re spending company money and time to get all 7,500 employees up to social media speed with the hope that they’ll all be brand advocates for their employer. I can’t decide if this is a good idea or bad idea. An article in Digiday explains how MasterCard is relaxing the rules to give employees more freedom to speak online. They’re also running social media classes so everyone has a basic understanding of how Twitter, Facebook and the others work. As Cohen explained, a lot of people across the organization just needed help with the first steps of getting into social media, as simple as how to set up an account. The session was recorded and turned into shorter videos that focus on each platform. MasterCard also created a special section on its intranet site called MC Mashup to house the social media tutorial videos for company-wide use and as a place for people to ask questions and share information. They took it a step further with the implementation of the YoPros program where younger employees mentor older employees one-on-one. As an “older” employee, I think I’m offended. Then again, I did need my son to help me with my Instagram account. Turns out it wasn’t that I didn’t understand how to use it, it was simply that I didn’t understand why people would use it. (Too much input for me!) The article goes on to talk about how these social media classes are enriching the lives of their employees. Grandma can now get on Facebook to see the photos of the grandkids. Sweet. Let’s not miss the point here. MasterCard isn’t training their employees out of the goodness of their heart. They’re expecting to be paid back in good social media wishes. Even if only half their staff mentions MasterCard in a Tweet or Facebook post once a day, that’s a lot of free exposure. But what happens the first time an employee uses social media to air his grievances against the company? I’ll bet that’s covered in the new social media posting handbook. Positive is encouraged – negative will get you fired. (I don’t know that, I’m just guessing. . . ) How do you feel about enlisting your employees to be brand advocates? Are you comfortable with the concept or concerned about the potential risks? It’s not just about individual Tweets. If you have an employee who likes to post wild party pictures do you want their bio to read “Employee of the Month at XYZ, Inc.?” A company social media policy isn’t just for the big boys. If you have employees, you need rules about what they should and shouldn’t say in a public forum.

Study Says Choice Overload Leads to No Sale Posted: 06 Dec 2013 12:47 PM PST Take a run around the internet and you’ll spot the trend right away – images, images, images with very little text. Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, image sites are hot but that doesn’t mean it will work for your ecommerce store. A new study from the University of Miami School of Business Administration shows that, if your goal is selling products online, image overload might actually work against you. The researchers began by studying consumer preference while performing typical online shopping tasks. They then asked the participants whether they’d prefer to have an assortment of products shown as a group of images or as a group of descriptions. They ran the test with a variety of product types and the result was the same; from crackers to mutual funds, everyone preferred the visual presentation. I hear you saying, “well, there you go. I’m just giving customers what they want when I show them ten rows of huge photos.” But I’m going to put on my mother hat and say, “just because they want something doesn’t mean it’s good for them or for you.” I want chocolate for breakfast, lunch and dinner but that’s probably not a good idea. Size Matters In the second half of the study, the researchers played with the numbers. They presented the shoppers with small groupings (4 or 8 options) and large groupings (14 02 24 options) made up of images or text. They were then asked to do several things: a) rate the variety and complexity of product choice sets b) to make a choice from the choice sets c) to perform a surprise recall task where they had to identify the options previously presented. The researchers also used eye-tracking tools to quantify the amount of time individuals spent on each part of the page. The final result? When larger assortments of products (i.e. many options) are displayed with images rather than text, shoppers are less likely to purchase a product.  When it comes to a smaller selection of products displayed (e.g. four types of crackers or eight different nail polishes), it makes no difference in the likelihood of purchase whether or not visuals or text are used to share the information. Why did this happen? Because when they were handed a large set of images, the shoppers spent less time looking at each product. “They also become more haphazard and less systematic in their examination compared to when words are used to describe the choices.” The study calls this “choice overload.” The end result was an empty shopping cart – no purchase. The researchers see this as an even bigger problem on mobile where graphics have almost completely taken over for text. Claudia Townsend, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Miami School of Business Administration says, “Because consumers prefer to see products visually, we suggest that online retailers design a home page that uses visual information upfront, emphasizing ease-of-purchase and variety. They should then make the product offering pages more text based in order to cause the shopper to slow down, review each option more carefully, and buy.” That slow down is the key. We want consumers to spend more time on our pages examining our products. The more time a consumer invests in checking out the details, the more likely they are to buy in the end. I conducted by own, very unscientific study quite accidentally yesterday. I wanted to send Christmas flowers to a family member so I went to one of the major online retailers and was immediately overwhelmed with choice. Not only were there eight rows of flower photos. I was then prompted to look at eight more rows of holiday plants and. . . oh by the way we have holiday gift baskets (more and more and more photos). Each photo had a few lines of text which included a price range, so apparently even my options had options. I left the page without buying anything. Now, here’s a bonus nudge – I still needed the flowers, so I went back to the same online seller later in the day. I was determined not to let the abundance of information scare me off. I picked my bouquet then logged in. (Wrong password) I logged in using Facebook (Nothing.) I logged in with a different password (Wrong). I said I lost my password (It didn’t send me a new one.) I tried registering all over again. (Sorry, there’s already an account with this email.) Guess what I did next. I went and bought the flowers from a competitor where I logged in without an issue. I tried very hard to give that first seller my money. But in my opinion, they did everything they could to keep me from buying. Don’t do that to yourself. When was the last time you bought something from your own store? Do it today. You might be surprised by how difficult you’re making it for your customers who want to buy. Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

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