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Last week the nominations for this year’s Academy Awards were released, and they certainly got people talking. While they were some obvious choices, based on previous reviews and earlier season award wins, it seems the Academy still had the power to surprise.
If social media buzz could select the winners, then certain stars, such as Gary Oldman and Meryl Streep, would already be polishing the “Best Actor/Actress” Oscar-sized space on the mantelpiece in anticipation.
However, there is less unity and more frustration apparent when the Supporting categories are discussed. The biggest negative sentiment surrounding Best Supporting Actor appears to be the fact that Alan Rickman was bypassed for a nomination for the last Harry Potter installment. In fact there is clear annoyance across most demongraphics that the magical film didn’t get more nods, apart from in categories such as Art Direction and Make-Up.
In terms of the Supporting Actress, there is a lot of positive sentiment for Melissa McCarthy, for her role in the feisty female comedy Bridesmaids. A lot of the positive sentiment appears to hang on the fact that it’s a shake up in the usual Oscar nods. However a vocal section of commenters also see this as a poor choice from the Academy, especially when placed against what they perceive as more dramatic performances from the other nominees.
So, who’s your Oscar favourite this year? And do you think the current buzz in social media about these awards will have any impact on the results themselves?
Cricket might be a more international sport than many people realize. In the past four days, the Australia-India Test match in Sydney has attracted a barrage of social media interest across Australia, India, the UK and to a lesser extent, Pakistan. However, the largest proportion of mentions come from the US, at close to 30 percent, compared with 23 percent from India and 21 percent from Australia. It’s not surprising then that Microsoft’s US headquarters boosts its own cricket tournament teamed up by very passionate Indian expats.
Notice also how a strong, self-interested and highly mobile fan base pushes Twitter traffic to the largest component of overall mentions, vis a vis news or blogging coverage. In the UK, for example, news mentions hit 42 percent (in Australia it was 65 percent), while Twitter mentions were 39 percent of the total chatter. By comparison, the Indian market, with its 600m mobile hand sets, pushed Twitter chatter a very high benchmark of 62 percent.
So, 2012 is nearly here and the digital community has been predicting what will be hot in social next year. One of the most repeated predictions is f-commerce will take centre stage as brands continue to innovate on shopping experiences.
Figures from the recent IMRG / eDigitalResearch eCSI study show there has been an 8.8% growth in f-commerce in just four months. And, engagement remains key – 61% of the 2,000 consumers polled have recently been influenced by a negative product or customer review online. IMRG chief marketing & communications officer David J Smith explained: “Facebook and other social media sites play a crucial role for retailers in terms of engagement with consumers. Although these results reveal that 12% have been encouraged to make a purchase through Facebook, the channel is about far more than recording sales“.
Some companies are still hesitant on setting the pace in social, so it’s always useful to highlight how some of the latest innovators are using f-commerce in the marketing mix.
A quick look at the topic cloud for the UK conversation in the past month shows there has been a real buzz around ODEON Cinemas’ ODEON Event Organiser – a Facebook app that enables users to plan cinema trips.
Marketing and sales director, Luke Vetere, explained the cinema’s strategy: “With a Facebook community in excess of 50,000, we wanted to create a simple mechanic which celebrates the social interactivity of the site and allows users and their friends to plan a trip to their cinema in 3 easy steps“.
BMW has also recently set up a trial pop-up fan store on Facebook to sell a limited edition, personalised, ‘Key2Joy’ car key cover. Social Commerce Today views the move as ’smart’ because it’s a cost-effective way to ‘test the potential of f-commerce in driving customer retention (by boosting brand loyalty) and customer acquisition (via the referral effect of brand advocacy)’. For BMW a simple campaign is the springboard to test f-commerce.
These are just a couple of the latest examples. Many brands have increasingly looked to Facebook to drive sales, brand loyalty and advocacy in the past year.
So, back to the future. The prediction for 2012 is people will increasingly want to shop where they connect. Do you agree that Facebook will revolutionize the shopping experience? It would be great to hear your thoughts.
Last week, Virgin Money agreed to buy Northern Rock for £747m. It will take over the non-toxic banking and mortgage lending arm of the nationalised bank, which was bailed out by the Government in 2008. Virgin will rebrand Northern Rock’s 75 branches and the move finally gives Richard Branson’s financial arm a bricks and mortar presence on the highly-prized High Street, and one million customers to boot.
But, what impact will the deal have on Northern’s customers and what’s the reaction been like in the social conversation? In the past week, almost 40 percent of the customer conversation has been positive and almost 10 percent negative.
A quick analysis of most influential tweets from a customer perspective, ranked by our partners Peer Index, shows the stability of the Virgin brand and its strong track record on customer service were the stand-out positives as the news of the deal broke.
‘If I were a Northern Rock customer I would be delighted that safe hands Virgin has bought my bank’. (Gary Bainbridge, 17/11)
‘Branson to apply customer service magic to banking? RT @SkyNewsBreak: Northern Rock to be sold to Virgin Money for £747m’ (Peter Hall, 17/11)
‘Northern Rock a steal for Virgin Money but anything that boosts the customer service offering in the sector must be good – Metro Bank aside!’ (StevieBoy 6, 18/11)
On the day of the announcement, Virgin Money was quick to start engaging on Twitter:
RT @VirginMoney: “Bringing together Northern Rock and @VirginMoney will create a strong and stable bank with 4m customers” said @RichardBranson’
(leeasummers, 17/11)
However, negative comments included the following:
‘And don’t forget Branson colluded with @British_Airways to ripoff customers. I’m closing my Northern Rock account today’ (LDNCalling, 17/11)
‘Selling Northern Rock to @richardbranson won’t mean a better deal for customers http://t.co/N6zk9Eq5’ (Mike Ashworth, 21/11)
‘Dominic Lawson: If I were a Northern Rock customer, I would not welcome the arrival of Richard Branson http://t.co/jxkCvsiE’ (bryansj3, 17/11)
Richard Branson has promised to bring “fresh ideas and an injection of new competition” to UK banking, an industry which for some has been just about as popular as a tooth extraction without anaesthetic. It will be interesting to come back to the conversation and run a social media analysis on the completed merger.
In the meantime, the wider spat over the sale of Northern Rock continues. CPSThinktank yesterday summed it up in under 140 characters.
‘Malcolm Wicks says Northern Rock modern day morality pla; Cameron: Northern Rock sale saves taxpayer money & gets another bank lending.’
What are your thoughts?
For the second year running, Santander has been voted the worst for customer service in the Moneywise Great British Customer Services survey. Moneywise editor, Johanna Gornitzki, explained that long queues in branches, unhelpful call centres and untrained staff were three of the most common complaints about Santander. 12,000 people took part in the survey and 40% of comments on poor service were linked to the bank.
But, what’s the UK conversation behind the headlines? Not all Santander customers use social media to express an opinion but it’s a good barometer of consumer sentiment.
First up, what was everyone talking about in the past month?
As you can see, Santander’s ranking as the worst bank was one of the leading topics, driven tweets of the survey and broader customer complaints about service.
There were over 4,000 mentions of Santander and 13.7% were negative.
And, the most active channels in the critical conversation were microblogs (47.3%) and forum replies (39.6%).
Here’s a quick sample:
On Twitter:
‘#savings Santander is STILL the worst for service.’
‘@JensonButton Ah Santander, the worst bank in the UK. Tried them for three months, they were dire. Now moved to First Direct. HAPPY!!’
‘Santander loses potential customers due to poor customer service’.
On the forum MoneySavingExpert:
‘Well I’m about to close a Santander account because internet banking with them is impossible because of this ‘feature’. Even to logon to view the account I have to start the process of registering my non-existent mobile and then decline its T&C’s’.
One the biggest discussions on the site asked whether it’s ‘time to end Santander bashing’. There were a couple of positives including the number of UK jobs the bank had created and interest rates from its savings account. But the comment thread just opened the doors to more criticism of its customer service record. Common themes were long queues in branch, call centre response times and delayed responses to enquiries.
‘One more thing I hate about Santander – you go to the branch to speak to someone, and they tell you to phone head office instead! How unhelpful and unwilling is that?’
The conversation on the forum influenced others:
‘Read just some of the Santander threads on here – they are by far the worst bank for customer services and that is saying something’.
This comment was posted on the forum as part of a wider discussion with NAF, who was rumbled as a Santander employee.
‘I had my suspicions Naf worked for Santander, having looked over their previous posts (seemed knowledgable about Santander business accounts on one thread), when I posted last night’.
But there were positive comments, which accounted for 24% of the buzz, driven by the Santander Spanish Grand Prix, and some favourable comments on customer service.
On MoneySavingExpert:
‘I can honestly say that Santander are well aware of the bashing they receive and I can honestly say that they are working damn hard “on the other side of the fence” to improve their systems, training and processes and provide a better customer experience’.
‘My husband and I have always been very happy with Santander. They sort out card fraud instantly (and after having dealt with Lloyds TSB when it came to card fraud, it made me realise how good Santander are …’
‘While people are more likely to post about bad service, there is nothing to stop somebody posting about good Santander experiences.’
Reporting on the Moneywise survey provides the story but an analysis of social media content gives an insight into actual consumer conversations, and actionable intelligence to help the brand repair relationships, and improve areas of customer service that its customers just aren’t happy with.
