Question

How do you get one million likes on Facebook?

Answer

• Pick a subject that polarises people such as politics or religion
• Make an inflammatory statement
• Sit back and let it happen

A Facebook post from “Meanwhile in Australia“, was posted on 8 May calling for the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard to resign if they got 1 Million likes. Well they are far from 1 Million, but in less than three weeks they’ve managed to get 91k likes, 3.7K comments and over 4k shares.

I showed this to my wife last night (who leans to the left politically) and she said jokingly, “Well anybody that likes that is an idiot”…Yep as I said polarising!

Well it seems that the Yahoo! Toolbar is still around and through a partnership with Coles Flybuys, might start to get some traction again.

I was interested to receive an eDM from Flybuys today asking me to download the new Flybuys toolbar (a partnership with Yahoo!7) with the incentive that I’ll get up to 100 Flybuys points for searching using the tool.

For most people this would seem like a good way to earn some extra Flybuys points, but think of it from a data point of view.

By asking you to scan your flybuys card with each purchase at Coles owned retailers such as Coles, Liquorland, K-Mart and also Coles partners such as Telstra, AGL, NAB and Webjet; Flybuys is collecting an enormous amount of data on individual customers. Now with Flybuys/Yahoo! browser toolbar, they can collect data on the web browsing habits of these same individual customers.

With this massive amount of data, Coles will be able to target advertising to individuals based on there product preferences, but more importantly they’ll be able to source and create products to meet the needs of their customers.

Details of the Flybuys toolbar can be found here. Details of the Yahoo toolbar can be found here.

Wikipedia describes content strategy as “…the practice of planning the content creation, delivery, and governance. A repeatable system that defines the entire editorial content development process…”

Forbes blogger, Michael Brenner, defines it as “as the mindset, culture and approach to delivering your customer’s information needs in all the places they are searching for it, across each stage of the buying process. It is a strategic approach to managing content as an asset, with a quantifiable ROI.”

UK based content company Content Amp shared this info-graphic showing the extent of the content marketing landscape in 2013.

In simple terms I see it as a subset of an overall digital strategy that considers content creation and content consumption.

Content Creation

Content Creation is about what content to create and how to create it. Often SEO research strategies will give an insight on what content people are searching for, relevant to your brand or product. This will give you the subjects/topics that content should be created around. An understanding of the online persona’s of your market will then let you determine the type of content to be created e.g. video, audio, copy, interactive tools.

The content also needs to be relevant to where it is going to be consumed (e.g mobile content should be more concise and easily consumed quickly on a handset)

The how to create it question needs to be answered by considering a process to produce this content in a manner that is economical and repeatable so that you can get an ROI out of continually producing content.

Content Consumption

Content Consumption is about providing the content you’ve created in the places where your consumers are looking for it and making it compelling enough so that it is shared to amplify the consumption of this content.

In short, your content has to be amazing, relevant and helpful. It cannot be about you. It has to be about your consumers’ needs and wants.

When considering the places to post your content look at Owned, Earned and Paid channels. Where does it fit in the context of your website, blog, and social assets? Can this content be posted by other third parties, business partners. Can you cross share content with synergistic brands / products? Can this content improve paid advertising that you are doing, e.g. video in display ads or using video exchanges to seed your video content to relevant target segments?

Measure & Improve

Once you publish your content, look at what content is being engaged with the most and what content is being shared the most and adjust your content creation plan to produce more of this content.

This infographic from data management company Alteryx was created from research conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit. It lays out some of the key areas where big data analytics can be applied to allow companies to gain true value from it.

The bottom line? It’s not how much data you have it’s what you do with it.

Key takeouts

1. It’s no good your data only sitting with data scientists and analysts. Relevant data in an easy to consumer format should be accessible by all people in the company. Sharing more data across the company leads to more efficient and effective decision making.
2. The immediate opportunities for big data are
   • Make better management and strategic decisions
   • Identify opportunities that you weren’t aware of quicker and exploit them faster
   • Brand wars are being won not by the best product or the best price, but the best ongoing relationship with consumers. Using big data gives a massive competitive advantage in understanding customers and meeting there needs.
3. Big data should consider much wider sources of data.

• year of social
• year of mobile
• year of big data

Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t. I think 2009, 2010 and 2011 were going to be the years of mobile before 2012 finally was. So what will 2013 be the year of?

Well I’m not sure if 2013 with be the year of the mobile wallet and mobile payments, but I’m pretty certain we will move a long way towards it, and surely by the end of 2014 the mobile wallet will be commonplace amongst all smart phone users.

Technologies such as Paypal, Google Wallet and Apple’s iTunes are already replacing traditional forms of payment. With consumers increasingly becoming more comfortable making purchases both big and small on their mobile devices, there is no doubt that this trend will continue.

Mobile commerce took great strides in 2012, with Paypal having better integration into the eBay mobile site and app, Google Wallet becoming more user friendly and Apple launching Passbook in it’s release of iOS6.

“A single repository, as long as it is secure, makes a lot more sense than carrying around the typical mess of loyalty cards, credit cards, gift cards, debit cards and ATM cards,” said Wilson Kerr, vice president of business development and sales at Unbound Commerce, Boston.

“Consumers increasingly trust their smartphones and apps will allow consumers to replace payment and store-specific loyalty cards they carry in their traditional wallet or purse,” he said.

Mobile Wallets / Mobile Payments

According to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday, 64 per cent of Australians own smartphones and mobile analysts are predicting the mobile payment industry will be worth almost $50 billion worldwide by 2014, with PayPal predicted to earn $10 billion in global mobile transactions this year.

Consumers are using their mobile devices to not only price compare while in-store, but to also make purchases.

Some brands such as Starbucks, McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts are seeing the importance of this and have unveiled their own mobile payment apps.

It is because of companies such as Amazon, PayPal, Google and Starbucks that consumers are getting comfortable using their mobile devices to make purchases.

These companies are providing single-click online checkout services that speed the process for consumers for both mobile and standard Web sites.

This is a key piece to the mobile wallet puzzle.

Banks and credit cards are also racing to the frontline and in 2012 we saw the launch of Commonwealth Bank’s (CBA) Commbank Kaching and Mastercard’s PayPass paving the way for mobile payments in retail as a mainstream payment method.

What apps can’t you live without?

The Essential Mac Apps

Alfred -The most awesomeness mac app ever. Launch any program with a simple short cut. Since installing this I never ever use the launchpad or the applications screen.

Caffeine – This simple app allows you to turn the power saving settings on and off with the simple click of a coffee cup. Handy when you’re at your desk and getting up and down but don’t want your computer to go to sleep.

1Password – Store all your passwords securely in one place and use the handy browser plugins to easily log into websites and applications.

Dropbox – Store all your data and files in your dropbox so you can easily access them on your hard drive, your other devices (laptops, desktops, mobiles and tablets) and know they are also safely backed up in the cloud. Create shared folders to collaborate with your colleagues.

Evernote – Where dropbox is great for files and documents that are a work in progress or being accessed often. Evernote is a great place to drop stuff you might want to access later. It’s worth upgrade to the pro subscription so your PDFs text is scanned with OCR for easy finding later. The latest version for Mac, iPhone and iPad is excellent.

Flip Player – Like it or not, you’ll probably have to play a .wmv file at some time in the future. This is the app for that.

Skype – If you don’t know what Skype is, you’ve been hiding under a rock.

Google Drive – Google docs are fantastic way to create spreadsheets, wordprocessor files and other documents. Google Drive makes it easy to access Google docs as well as providing some of the functionality of Dropbox.

Other Cool Mac Apps You might like

Scrivener – If you’re a wannabe writer or a budding novelist, this app does all the heavy lifting for you to help you get to your first draft. At $50, it an excellent piece of software.

OmniGraffle – If you want to draw diagrams, this is the app for you. At $100 for the base version and $200 for the pro version, it’s a bit expensive, but if you need to do flow charts or any of 20 different types of diagrams, then this is the app for you.

If you are switching to Mac and don’t have this kind of help, here an article with all the useful apps to get you started. Some of them are quite obvious and aren’t really Mac specific (like skype and dropbox) but others like 1Password are essential and only for Macs.

http://www.asianefficiency.com/technology/essential-mac-apps/

The 2 that they don’t have on the list that I also find very useful are

- Caffeine (which allows you to overwrite power saving setting – great for presentations)
- Alfred (which give you quick start to all your apps from a simple 1 or 2 letter command line)

Both of these are available in the app store.

Let me know if you have any others that you’d recommend.

Mark, who runs the Social Media team for Qantas Customer Care gave me a call a few minutes later and apologised for the cock up and took me through the reasons why it had happened without trying to make excuses.

The end result was that I have now had my Kindle replaced, but more importantly my issue was addressed and I felt like my voice was heard.

At all times throughout this, the social media team were responsive, but unfortunately it fell down outside of their area. Hopefully this will continue to improve as Mark’s team works closely and educates the rest of customer service area to give a consistent holistic approach across the organisation.

I commend Mark for the way he handled it and my wife wife and I will be happy continue to fly Qantas in the future. I only hope that this experience helps other people and helps Qantas improve the integration of Customer Service over multiple channels.

Source: theage.com.au

I recently had an extremely bad experience with Qantas that illustrates how quick social response is useless unless it’s backed up by the rest of the business. It’s a long story, but stay with me.

On the 7th May I was flying back from Melbourne to Sydney with my wife and 2.5 year old daughter, and had stowed my Kindle in the seat pocket ready to finish a book I was deeply engrossed in during the flight. All was good until I reach for the Qantas magazine and noticed that the bottom of it was all wet and the pages were stuck together. I had a look in the seat pocket and noticed that there was about a centimetre of a thick white liquid (probably baby formulae) in the seat pocket, and there was my kindle sitting in this liquid. I quickly pulled it out and cleaned it off as best as I could, but it was too late. This liquid had gotten into the usb port and the vents in the bottom and I couldn’t switch the kindle on.

I hit the button to call the flight attendant and explained the problem to them and the cabin manager came down and took me to the front of the plane while they cleaned out the seat. He was extremely apologetic and tried his best to clean the kindle and get it working, but to no avail.

He apologised again, gave me his details and the details for customer care and let me know he’d report it as soon as they landed. He said that customer care would call me, but if I didn’t hear from them to give them a call. He came back later in the flight to let me know that he’d reported it and they were going to change out the entire seat when they landed before the next flight.

At this stage whilst annoyed that my Kindle was broken I was pretty happy with service.

It all went downhill from there. Over the next 2 days I heard nothing from Qantas so I endeavoured to give them a call, but couldn’t find a phone number anywhere so had to resort to completing the online form, with the following

1oth May
Reference number: 120510-000181 
Region of Residence: Australia
State: NSW
Phone: {my mobile number here}
E-mail: {my email address here}
Frequent Flyer Number: xxxxx

Category: Your Experience With Qantas
Sub-Category: Inflight
Question:
I was on qantas flight QF446 from melbourne to sydney on the 7 May 2012 and placed my kindle touch model # D01200 in the seat pocket.
When I pulled it out to use it in flight I found that there was a thick liquid (possibly baby formulae) in the bottom of the seat pocket, which covered the bottom 1cm of the kindle.
The kindle couldn’t power on, and after cleaning it and trying to make it work including trying to reset it, it still doesn’t work.
I reported it to the Customer service manager on the flight – Matthew Carlton-Doney who organised to get the seat cleaned out and said he’d report it.
Can you please contact me as soon as possible to organise a replacement kindle for the one that was destroyed.
thanks
Matt Freedman
{my email address here}
{my mobile phone number here}

I promptly got the reply the next day and this is where it started to go downhill.

Ref No: DM/93693772
Dear Mr Freedman
Thank you for getting in touch with us and I’d like to let you know we appreciate how frustrating this must have been.
Unfortunately, under our Conditions of Carriage, we don’t accept liability for costs or losses that result from items that are in your possession on board.
I apologise again for the difficulties and inconvenience this meant for you.
However, if you would like to make a claim on your personal travel insurance, I would be happy to send you a written note about what happened.
Please let me know and I will do everything I can to assist you.
We appreciate your efforts to bring this matter to our attention. I apologise if I have not been able to resolve this matter to your satisfaction and I hope we have an opportunity to welcome you aboard Qantas in the near future.
Yours sincerely
Daniel
Customer Care Executive

I replied on the 14th May with

Hi Daniel,
The seat pocket was filled with a thick liquid substance and was in a disgusting state and had obviously not been checked or cleaned between flights. The customer service manager advised that they would be getting the seat changed completely in Sydney before the next flight, which gives you an indication of the extent of the mess. This goes well beyond wear and tear or accidental damage of personal objects on board a flight. The failure to adequately provide a clean environment led to the destruction of my kindle, and i’m sure that you would agree that is not what you would expect from a premium carrier like Qantas.
I was travelling with my wife, who is a gold frequent flyer and flys internationally with Qantas monthly. Her and I were both shocked and disappointed by this response which we would expect from a discount carrier not Qantas. She currently makes a conscience decision to fly Qantas, when it is actually easier for her to fly Emirates.Can you please let me know how you are going replace my kindle, I would love to be able to share a positive qantasstory with my facebook and twitter followers and peers in the social media industry, rather than a negative one.
Regards
Matt Freedman
{mobile phone number here}

and then waited for 6 days with no reply…….

I then shared my frustration on twitter on the 20 May with

 @qantasairways can’t believe your customer service sux so bad. First you destroy my kindle then tell me too bad so sad. #qantasfail

 

they replied the next day with

@matt_freedman Hi Matt, could you please fill out this form and our Customer Care team will be in touch http://bit.ly/nbgBBT

 

to which I replied on the same day

@QantasAirways that’s the form I filled out last time. Reference DM/93693772. I replied to your response 8 days ago and you’ve ignored me.

 

To which I got the following email which totally astounded me.

Dear Mr Freedman,
Thank you for taking the time to contact us via Facebook.
We did not receive your response to Daniel’s email to you on the 11th of May.
Can you please forward your response to this email address so we can action this.
Kind Regards
Bianca

Well firstly Bianca I contacted you on Twitter, not Facebook (doesn’t Radian6 tell you that) and secondly I know emails do go astray, but seriously I just replied to the message you sent me, so I emailed my reply again to Bianca on the 22 May and now 12 days have gone past without any satisifaction or any confidence that Qantas Customer Care does actually care about the customer.

2 Days later Daniel is back to assure me that all is good.

Dear Mr Freedman
Please be assured we are listening. I am currently waiting for the report to come back to me and will be in contact shortly.
Regards
Daniel
Customer Care Executive

So again I await Qantas to let me know how they are going to resolve my broken Kindle. I hear nothing so resort back to social media where at least they reply to me.

Still waiting….“@QantasAirways: @matt_freedman Hi Matt,we have raised this with @QFcustomercare who will be in touch shortly.”

 

To which they replied

@matt_freedman Due to the nature of your issues, Customer Care are investigating the circumstances. They will be in touch by week’s end.

 

So guess what…..the weeks end comes and goes. So on the 3oth May (20 days since I first lodged the issue), I tweet again..

still waiting!!! A phone call would be nice. “@QFcustomercare: … Customer Care will be in touch by week’s end.”

 

Once again the social media team replied immediately despite getting no correspondance from Qantas Customer Care with

@matt_freedman Hi, our team are currently investigating your file and will be in touch as soon as they have a response. Sorry for the delay.

 

And finally on the 31 May (21 days later), good old Daniel comes emails me with

Ref No: DM/93699741
Apologies
Dear Mr Freedman
Thank you for your further contact.
I am sorry that you are still unhappy with our explanation / response to the issues you raised.
Regrettably, I cannot meet your request as per the Conditions Of Carriage. However, I am able to further assist you with a letter for travel insurance as per the below.
I appreciate you taking the time to pursue this issue and I apologise if I have not been able to resolve this matter to your satisfaction.
Insurance letter (if requested):
Thank you for contacting us.
I can confirm that Mr Freedman has reported that damage has been sustained to his Kindle Touch Model # D01200 whilst placed in the seat pocket. The item was reported as being damaged onboard QF446 on 7th May 2012.
Unfortunately we are unable to offer you any compensation on this occasion.
This information is supplied in order to assist you to make a claim with your insurance company. It should not be considered as an admission of liability by Qantas Airways to you or any person acting on your behalf.
Yours sincerely
Daniel
Customer Care Executive

Well I’m afraid Daniel that you apologies don’t quite cut it, and my final reply over Twitter was

@QFcustomercare after 2 weeks of “investigation” you copy and paste original prewritten reply. Unbelievable. I’ll copy you on my blogpost.

 

So what have we learned from all of this

1. Qantas uses Radian6 effectively to respond to tweets quickly but has no flow through to the actually customer service department. (i.e. left hand and right hand, not working together) which begs the question of why bother with social media at all.
2. I put my mobile number on the initial correspondance and each email that I sent. Why didn’t your ring me? One phone call would have saved multiple emails and tweets and wouldn’t have aired your dirty laundry to the public.
3. The kindle in questions is $139, and I’m sure it’s cost them more than this to handle the complaint.
• I’ve got 2 more Qantas flights booked that I can’t get out of, but after that I won’t fly Qantas again.
• My wife has been flying Qantas to New Zealand weekly for the last 3 months and is flying business class to the US in June. She has just booked her next flight to New Zealand with Air New Zealand and with Emirate for the one after that.
• Do the math. $139 in compensation vs an international flight every week

Is a lousy $139 kindle worth the cost of the bad publicity and the loss of international flights just because of a policy that poor Daniel isn’t empowered to go against. I’m a reasonable person and if I had of dropped or broken the Kindle during the flight I’d have accepted it was my fault, but to have it broken because a seat pocket that I’d expect to be clean was filled with baby formulae, is beyond reason. Companies like Apple and Amex empower their customer service staff to make these decisions because they know that the value of good customer service goes well beyond a couple of hundred bucks.

Clearly Qantas is well behind the curve and destined to head the way of many of the American airlines that are struggling just to survive.

Responsive web design is the term given to the concept of designing and developing a website so that the layout changes depending on the device/viewport on which the website is being viewed. By device, this could be a mobile phone, tablet, laptop, desktop computer, or even a smart TV. The term ‘Responsive Web Design’ was coined by its creator, Ethan Marcotte – his book is highly recommended reading “A Book Apart – Responsive web design”

Example of websites employing responsive design

This blog post has a list of 40 websites that show some really cool implementations of responsive design.

http://www.onextrapixel.com/2011/09/30/40-inspiring-responsive-websites/

Responsive Web Design Resources

• Mobile Web Resources
• CSS3 Media Queries
• Responsive Images: Experimenting with Context-Aware Image Sizing
• Creating Intrinsic Ratios for Video
• Fluid Images
• Beginner’s Guide to Responsive Web Design
• A Better Photoshop Grid for Responsive Web Design

Responsive web design concentrates quite heavily on devices, viewports and how to gracefully degrade the designs we create across these mediums. In all of the “hype” about RWD we shouldn’t forget Progressive enhancement and its relationship with responsive web design.