Chipotle the company that cried Wolf!

Hello there fellow bloggers. Today will be my last blog post in regards to the topic of Enterprise 2.0 and social technologies.

For this week, I have been tasked with researching into how organizations misuse social media and social technologies. I have found a very compelling case which involves Chipotle and their attempt to gain attention by using social media.

The Company 

To begin I will explain who Chipotle is and what it is they do. Chipotle is a Mexican Fast food Restaurant mainly stationed in America. They have around 1, 600 stores around America and are currently looking for new ways to innovate the way they create, present and manufacture their products and foods.

The situation is as follows. Chipotle recently introduced some new products and stores into their organization and they needed a way to increase the amount of attention they were receiving so that customers would be aware of the situation. Someone from Chipotle's Marketing department thought that the best way to increase awareness of their brand would be to mimic a Twitter hack scenario. This scenario refers to a large company or organisation's Twitter account being hacked and they would have no control over what goes onto their Twitter page.

The Issue

on July 21st 2013 the following posts were posted onto Chipotle Twitter page.

Image credit to Arc

The Tweets made it appear as if Chipotle's Twitter account had been hacked. The company later admitted it was a publicity stunt and was part of their 20 day campaign treasure hunt called "Adventurito". 

Chipotle Communications Director Chris Arnold told Mashable,

“We thought that people would pay attention, that it would cut through people’s attention and make them talk, and it did that.”

He then admitted

“It was definitely thought out: We didn’t want it to be harmful or hateful or controversial…We thought that it really fit well within the context of our 20th anniversary promotion where we were putting clues in all sorts of things. We had clues pop up in a lot of places and thought that incorporating something into our social media presence would fit well into that promotion.”

The Reaction  

During the short lived hoax an array of Chipotle's Twitter followers began replying to these messages most of them assuming that an employee of Chipotle who was posting these tweets was intoxicated or hung over. Compared to the standard reaction to most of Chipotle's usual tweets, the level of engagement for these "fake hack" tweets were high. The company also added 4000 more followers to their Twitter page added onto their already high 200,000 followers, a much fast growth than their usual 250 followers per day. However in contrast they did not gain any followers on their Facebook page, so overall the response from fans and customers was tepid to say the least.

Was it worth it? 

Chipotle did add 4000 followers onto their already 200,000 however can this really be considered a success? More importantly will these new, ban wagon followers stay with Chipotle and most crucial will they be motivated to purchase anything. In the end, This entire event was to increase Chipotle sales, however what was the goal of this stunt? Marketers should understand by now that simply increasing followers does not gain you sales or brand advocates.

The most important issue from this is, do Chipotle's followers still trust Chipotle? Transparency is one of the main reasons for social media and social tool's alike, succeed. Consumers were sick to death of being marketed to, and social technology allowed them to cut out all of the middlemen and communicate directly with a brand. Building a social media following is supposed to be about building and maintaining trust between the the company and its customers. By tricking your followers to pay more attention to the company does that make the followers feel secure, feel as if they can trust this company. Furthermore was this act of publicity ethical? This act fulfills some of the main concerns and and risks regarding Enterprise 2.0 in general, such as Reputation and Reliability. This could seriously stain Chipotle's Reputation as a company and could force customers to move away from them, to add to this the Reliability of the company has also been tainted. By lying to the customers and misleading them, customers may want to follow a company that they can trust and rely on for truthful information and updates. 

This also goes against a number of ethical principles described by Rogerson. These principles include Honesty, Professional adequate and effective and efficient action. These principles go hand in hand with each other and Chipotle broke all of them. The company was not honest with its customers, key example the fake hacking situation, was there a more efficient and effective way to get attention from their customers? yes of course there is, they could have done a Youtube video or handed out flyers, put up billboards and posters, there are many alternatives. Finally was the act professional or rather withing the limits of capability, This hoax was the easiest thing Chipotle could think of limiting their imagination and thinking capacity, and rather going with whatever pops into their minds first. 

Conclusion 

If Chipotle's goal with this stunt was to draw attention to the brand by any means necessary then they have completed their goal. However if the goal was to bring positive, long lasting attention and to encourage customers to buy, then it was a meaningless soon to be forgotten gimmick. How can Chipotle avoid this kind of incident in the future? To start off, according to the Social Media Policy Database Chipotle does not have a policy in place to hand online actions, this must be done immediately and training to all employee's must be provided. This misuse of social technology mainly occurred because they did not think about this course of action well enough, so to counteract this, take more time to think about your strategies and try to interact more with customers, This should improve overall effectiveness of future campaigns and will eventually gain the trust of the customers back.


This weeks question is, has a company that you follow regularly, done something like this? 

Cisco looks to IBM

This week we looked at a case study analyzing the ROI and the approach that Newman & Ebrary took in completing their goals and objectives from the enterprise 2.0 project. I have been tasked with finding another case study which can be analysed and discussed.

First off what is an ROI? According to Entrepreneur ROI is defined as Return on Investment or the most common profitable ratio, or can be defined as as a means to measure a companies performance. ROI's are crucial in a business because they can be used to justify the investment on a specific project such as an enterprise project. The formula used to calculate ROI is as follows 

credits to Jenders

However ROI or Return on Investment is not necessarily always the same as profit. ROI deals with the money you invest in the company and the return you realize on that money based on the net profit of the business. Profit, on the other hand, measures the performance of the business. It is crucial not to confuse ROI with return on owner's equity. 

I have chosen the ROI case study provided by Nucleus Research. This case study is about Cisco and how they created a project to convert their current website software systems to IBM's software application systems and their client support program. 

Who are they? 
So who is Cisco as a company? they design, manufacture, and sells internet-protocol (IP) based networking products and other products and services related to the communications and information technology industry worldwide.This case study focuses on the experience of Cisco’s consumer business division, largely based on Cisco’s Linksys division in 2003.

The Project
As a globally recognized leader in networking solutions, Cisco’s technical superiority and high performance are key to its brand and reputation. Cisco’s business has historically been focused on the enterprise market; however, the acquisition of Linksys moved it to the leading position in consumer networking technologies as well. This presented new market opportunities and challenges for Cisco. Some of these challenges are, that many consumers are less technically-savvy than Cisco’s enterprise customers, meaning support and service are a critical part of customer satisfaction and loyalty. Because most customers’ main interaction with Cisco is through its Web site and all support is through the site, the ability to access information when they need it and get a high level of responsiveness from Web based interactions has a clear impact on Cisco’s brand image and reputation.Cisco first implemented a Fatwire  content management system running on BEA WebLogic  in 2005. In 2008, the company was planning a major re-branding effort and, at that point, the company decided to recreate the existing consumer-facing site to reflect the new branding as well as to support the evolving needs of the business. That opportunity led Cisco to also reconsider technology platforms for two reasons: first, because the division had experienced support problems with its existing platform and second, because other divisions’ experience with WebSphere had shown it could provide the level of support and performance Cisco needed. The division determined that moving to WebSphere would support its performance needs while aligning more closely with Cisco’s enterprise architecture strategy. Basically Cisco needed a Web application server and support system that could keep up with the needs of Cisco and Weblogic and Fatwire was not good enough anymore. 

Why switch systems?
A large factor in the decision that Cisco made to change systems from Weblogic to IBM's WebSphere was due to the enterprise team recommending it over all other vendors. They coupled the integration of WebSphere with Accelerated Value Program which is a help center or a service which provides technical support to clients. There were also a few benefits, most being soft or intangible, that came with the completion of this project such as: Improved customer experience.( Taking advantage of the IBM program team's expertise and proactive performance-tuning efforts enabled Cisco to ensure its consumer customers can rapidly access the information and services they need, reinforcing Cisco's brand image as a high-end experience-focused vendor), Increased support staff productivity.(Because Cisco personnel have to spend less time explaining support issues and doing research and troubleshooting to understand the interrelated WebSphere and content management platform, they can devote more time to other activities), Accelerated time to issue resolution( The program extends beyond WebSphere support to understand the overall platform environment, and the IBM program team can leverage that history and knowledge each time Cisco has an issue, speeding the time to resolution). Another soft benefit would be that because of the Accelerated Value Program's efficiency and quick resolutions it has allowed Cisco to turn their attention to other areas of thier company such as continuously delivering innovation and improving the customer experience through their website. These benefits are some of the more intangible ones, some tangible or hard benefits would be that this transition will require no training or extra personnel costs therefore saving the company money. Increasing customer satisfaction and communication with customers could lead to a rise retention and possibly in sales.

The Accelerated Value Program was put to the test during the holiday season of 2011, a lot of customers call in during this time to ask questions about gifts they may have received. The day after Christmas, Cisco recognized that it had a potential issue with the Web site. The combination of the IBM Accelerated Value Program team’s tuning efforts and rapid problem resolution enabled Cisco to resolve issues, ensure site stability, and support customer demand without a brand-damaging impact on customer experience. The handling of this incident cemented Cisco''s choice and they chose to stick with the accelerated value program and WebSphere. 


ROI results 

As you can see from the image above taken from directly from the case study, the project worked very well for Cisco and in the end their figures were, 
ROI(based off of indirect benefits and costs): 

ROI = $318,260 - $130,000 / $130,000 * 100

      =$188,260 / $130,000 * 100

      =  1.448 * 100 

      = 144.9 % rounded up to 145%


This proves that their approach towards this ROI project was well thought out and the decisions to switch to IBM was a good one. An added result is that the acceleration program increased staff motivation which ultimately lead to a 40% increase in productivity. In summary Cisco's approach to their issue was very well thought out and rolled out. They knew that their current web application software and support service wasn't keeping up with their needs or their customers needs so they chose to change to IBM's products and services, The only weakness i can think off is that they did not integrate further social technologies into their ROI plan such as a Blog or Application for the customers phones, although the app may have cost the company a fair amount of money to produce it would've been a quicker, easier way for customers to find out about products ask questions, however in general Cisco has maximized their profit and also have increased staff productivity and are continuously improving customer satisfaction through the means of their web site.

Because this was a fairly longer post than usual I don't think a question is necessary however comment on your thoughts on this matter and if there is anything I could improve on.

Is Myer your store?

Hello! fellow bloggers and readers, This week I have been tasked with looking at a retail store of my choice and analyzing how my chosen store/organisation has used social technologies to better their store and their interactions with customers. I have chosen Myer as my retail organisation and I will be looking into two specific functions from Mckinsy's Report, These being Marketing and Sales and Customer Service.

To Begin lets take a look at who Myer is as an organisation and what it is they do. Myer is a mid-range to upscale Australian department store chain, one of if not the largest Australian Retailer, merchandising a broad range of products including women's, men's and children's clothing, footwear and accessories; cosmetics and fragrance; home wares; electrical; furniture and bedding; toys; books and stationery; food and confectionery; and travel goods. So in terms of diversity and range Myer's definitely has an advantage. Myer have also integrated some of the biggest social media applications into their organisation such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook even Instagram. 

Myer's main online identity and source of sales is their website. They have a very polished website with easy to use UI(user interfaces), and simple layouts so that anyone can access and use the website. However in saying this, nearly every major retail store or organisation has a website by now so, what makes Myers different. Myer have integrated multiple forms of social technologies which have significantly increased customer satisfaction, connectivity and sales. Myer has on their website a link to their corporate blog. This blog is similar to many other corporate blogs however the twist is Myer has found a way to promote products as well as help customers choose what they want and give helpful tips on what it is they want. For example, for every category of products they sell they have a separate blog section e.g men's clothing will have a separate blog and home ware will have a separate blog. Whats so clever about it is, the way Myer have set up the blog makes it look like they are simply having a conversation with their readers saying "oh look, here is the newest item of clothing from Myer" however in reality they are actually marketing and promoting their products while still conversing with the customers in a friendly way. 

For example, In the men's clothing section if I were to click on a specific clothing line post I liked, in that post they would write about the new line of clothing and have many images of models wearing them, but, they would also leave suggestions for readers who are interested in the product as to what to wear with the specific item and where to wear it. This does not only apply for clothing, in the home ware section might put up a post about a new range of pillow overs, so they advertise these and show how they can look and the price and what not, however they also provide tips to customers about how they can redesign or redecorate their homes, what they can use instead of the specific pillow cases they originally promoted, and much more. So basically they are helping themselves by helping their customers, by giving useful and usable tips and guides, and letting the customers ask questions through the blog and communicating with them. This is an obvious sign of two levers from the Mckinsy report, levers 5 and 8, using social technology for marketing communication/interaction and providing customer care via social technologies. 

Myer have gone a step further to give that final push into using and integrating Enterprise 2.0 social technologies and systems. Myer has also developed an app for IOS an Andriod users. This app basically is a mobile version of the store however it has one added feature, there is a membership system integrated into Myer called Myer one. This is a system where if a customer is a Myer one member and they buy something from Myer they get points added onto their Myer one account, and then after a certain number of points have been allocated the customer can use a benefit whether that be a 20 dollar gift card or a free item with a specific product depends on how many point the customer has. This app provides the customer with incentive to become a member by offering special deals and extra point allocations for doing specific things like searching for new items or saving an item to a wish list. This gives the customers some extra interest and an actual reason to join the membership. This is a clear display of levers 4 and again 5, deriving customer insights and marketing communication/interaction. 

To conclude I ask this, What is the best app produced by a retail organisation that you use now or used to use? 

Whats-SAP?

Hey there fellow bloggers and readers, this is my fourth entry into my blog and this week I thought I would talk about why companies have implemented blogs and if it actually enhanced or benefited the company.

There are many reasons as to why a company would start a Blog or Wiki, a few of the major reasons include establishing a two way communication between prospects and influencers IE. Buyers and sellers. Expand the companies reach and strengthen your brand. Or maybe the company simply just wants to extend its network, create relationships.

Blogs's and Wiki's are a mainstream source of news and information in the current day and age. Companies are now finally embracing enterprise 2.0 and integrating these types of tools into their business so that they can enhances their online identity and enhance the company itself. SAP is a company that developed its own Enterprise Resource Planning package or ERP package. The name of this service is, coincidentally, SAP which stands for System Applications and Products. This software service is mainly used in Data processing and has proven to be highly effective and is one of the top selling ERP packages to date.

SAP have their own website which has an abundance of information on it, such as training and courses to study SAP, service and support for SAP and a page about their industry and the strategies they used. Among browsing the website I spotted a community tab which intrigued me so I clicked on it. To my surprise SAP has a vast array of social media tools that they have integrated already into their website and company. For example there is a live twitter feed which constantly updating tweets from the company about updates to the product or just general things they want to mention. They have a Facebook, Youtube, Google+ and various other accounts for users and customers to follow. However the main highlight to their community page is their corporate blog. This blog is internally run within the website itself so users must go through the website to access the blog. The surprising thing is that this blog is very externally/community focused and has topics such as SAP business trends where they talk about IT strategies and business value and give insight on upcoming business trends. Their corporate Blog is a place for all SAP enthusiasts and potential customers and users alike to gather and get all the information they want on SAP and what their doing.

The blogs also have topics about how to improve ones business through financial integrity and decision making, so not only are SAP using their blog and other social media for marketing and sales, they are also connecting with the consumers and helping them achieve their own goals. If SAP did not make the decision to integrate these enterprise 2.0 tools then they would not have this many customers and probably wouldn't even have the title of one of the top selling ERP packages, the reason? they would have no way of connecting with customers or clients and because the Blogs act as a forum as well there would be no potential sharing of information, collaboration, users talking to users and employee's about how to improve SAP or where it should go next. However in saying this, because SAP is a IT service it immediately has the upper hand in the blogosphere because they know what their doing when it comes to technology and marketing, however I believe SAP mains marketing strategy that led to the most success was their Blog.

Relating back to the lecture you can clearly see that SAP has used multiple technology value levers, they have practically satisfied the entire column of marketing and sales which include, using social technologies for marketing, generating and fostering sales lead, and social commerce. Through the use of their Youtube and Facebook page they satisfy the user insights section.

Finally concluding here's today's question: Have any of you heard of or used SAP? if so what do you think of the product and or service? 

IMB's success story using Enterprise 2.0

Following closing with last weeks blog, this week I will attempt to investigate some organisations that have integrated Enterprise 2.0 and used some of the social technology levers to innovate and benefit their company.

I found one specific organisation that has a very interesting history with technology and the use of Enterprise 2.0. This company is IBM. Specifically, I will be examining how they used Enterprise 2.00 and social technology levers to leverage their position in marketing and sales and most importantly how they improved across their entire enterprise. 

To begin lets talk about who IBM is. IBM (International Business Machine) is a multinational technology and consulting corporation. They manufactures and markets computer hardware and software, and offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. With over 420,000 employees in over 10 countries, IBM is one of the largest and most recognized companies in the world today. A company of that size needs to able to coordinate and collaborate, not only with other employees but with customers as well. They must be able to share business processes and respond to market demands. This is where Enterprise 2.0 was implemented and also using a few of the social technology levers this company became successful, however they were not always this successful. In the 90's IBM almost went bankrupt because back then they were one of a few in the industry, luckily though they had time to re-evaluate their processes and how they got things done.

So how exactly did they use Enterprise 2.0? they gave the power to their employees otherwise referred to as the IMBers. IMB does not have a corporate blog or twitter account or any kind of major social media account, corporately. However, their employees have over 80,000 blogs internally and externally, around 50,000 have Facebook and Twitter accounts. This was the companies strategy to let the employee's be the corporate blog or corporate twitter account, because the employee's would post publicly what was going on with the company, sales, answering questions asked by customers.

However IBM did not stop there. They had developed their own social media network within the organisation called SocialBlue which allows employee's to stay connected with one another.They also have a fully crowd sourced wiki which has all the information about the companies products. To top it off IBM holds about every 6 months an event called company"Jams" and in this event a few employees from different branches would come together to have a meeting and discuss how to innovate. Any ideas they had would be shared and talked about, these days IBM has thousands of employees attending, either over technology or in person.

So to wrap up, there are two main social technology value levers that are used here, published by McKinsey. The first is is the use of social technology to improve inter organisational collaboration and communication, the second is using social technologies for marketing communication/interaction.

Finally, the question, What do you think is the best way to improve marketing or sales using social media? 

The adoption of social tools in business (option 2)

In our current day and age a business cannot strive or even think about being successful without integrating some kind of technology or service into their business. There are not many businesses out there without an app for the customer to purchase for their phones or a Facebook page for them to follow. Businesses are realizing that social media and related tools must be incorporated into nearly every aspect of their business for them to achieve maximum results. This adaptation of social media and tools is more commonly known as enterprise 2.0.

In the lecture, there were some great examples of how companies used enterprise 2.0 and its principles to greatly benefit their company and connect with their customers. I got curious so decided to do some research on whether this was actually something companies were taking in and integrating into their business processes. As I surprisingly found out, yes! combining traditional marketing, selling and improvement strategies with social tools was very common withing most companies. To prove that this statement is correct I will provide some examples of companies which were hitting rock bottom but integrated enterprise 2.0 principles and gained significant status, benefits and profit.

Example 1: Martell Home Builders 

Martell Home Builders is a Atlantic Canadian custom home builder. In the past Martell Home Builder relied heavily on real estate agents to keep their business afloat and moving forward, and so because of this business was not very high or frequent. However, once they embraced enterprise 2.0 and social media, they were able to create a direct-to-consumer model where they were no longer reliant on the middle man to bring them business.

Martell started a blog with the focus being on their home buyers needs. With this strategy Martell was able to grab the attention of home buyers, and today about 86% of their leads come from consumers commenting on their blog. On their blog they have multiple icons showing tabs for Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, asking customers to follow them so that they can always stay up to date on what Martell is doing and the latest home designs.

Martell, using social media, has made home building a social experience with two crucial features. 1, Placing GPS tracking devices on the contractors car's so that customers can constantly be updated on where the contractor is when he/she is on the job. 2, creating a photo gallery of clients' homes being built, this is a great strategy for clients can see how their home is progressing through pictures and also share their excitement with friends and family through social media. This case study shows some of the core accordance's of social technology, such as Participation, Collective effort and transparency.

Example 2: Giantnerd 

Giantnerd is a company that sells outdoor equipment for outdoor activities such as biking or hiking. Giantnerd did not have much of a social presence at all before adopting social media and other tools, so their business was not flourishing as much as they would have hoped. However, their decision to integrate enterprise 2.0 into their business was a fine one indeed. Their emphasis has now turned into giving customers the most value while becoming friends with them at the same time.

They have created a social network within their website so that users can find each other talk about products and join groups, however the main incentive they give is that new members and long time members get special discounts that no normal customer has access to. Also they have incorporated a Facebook like button so that customers can like the Facebook page, they promise that anyone who follows the Facebook page will be given exclusive deals and promotions.

A huge aspect of their social media integration is Gaintnerd's Wiki. As you would expect it works very similar to wikipedia or any other wiki site. Users or potential customers can view all the different products they offer, including descriptions and photos and customers can edit the information making the experience interactive. Customers can also leave questions on the wiki page which will be answered by either an employee of Giantnerd or another customer who has the same product, providing reviews and tips for using them. This case study is a great example of Wikinomics business model's points 1 and 3, Peering and prosumers, as this business strategy allows the community to interact with each other and the company itself.

I leave you, my readers, with the following question: What companies have you known which began small and as soon as they embraced social media exploded into a thriving organisation?

Blogging what is it?

Until very recently, I have always thought of blogs as just another type of social media such as Facebook or Instagram, where people just post about what they did today or what they are going to do tomorrow. However, after the first lecture of enterprise 2.0, I decided to do some research into what blogs actually are and who writes them. To my surprise blogs are completely different to what I had thought, Blogs are a legitimate source of news, and although there are still a few blogs which describe an individual's personal life, most are great news outlets.

This is officially my first Blog and my first Blog post and so far its not that bad.The main purpose of this blog, for now anyway, is to report on important incidents in Enterprise 2.0 and other relevant topics to complete this subject for this semester. However, life is unpredictable so who knows, maybe this will become a new found hobby of mine. 

Okay so lets get right to it, How will I make this blog a success, well there are several strategies I have in mind that may give me an upper hand. The most important aspect of blogging is to be passionate about the topic you are posting about. In the case of this blog, because the topics are chosen mainly by the unit coordinator, that aspect isn't exactly in my control, However! that does not mean i cannot add a bit of my own personality to each topic. Another critical aspect is commitment. There's no point in posting once and forgetting about it, I must have a continuing commitment to this blog, replying to comments, posting comments on other people's blogs, adding content on a regular basis etc. If I were to continue this blog I would have to look into aspects such as tailoring my content to a specific target audience and a successful way of promoting my blog.

Since the start of last week I have been looking into blogs, which of them interest me and how well they are written or managed. Two blogs caught my eye Destructiod and /Film. My interest revolve around gaming, movies and sports, and so these two blogs really hit the spot for me. They do a few things quite well. The topics they cover are interesting enough to get a huge fan base for their blog and a great community commenting on their posts turning each post into a sort of forum. Also their content is concise and packed with information, they do not prolong the each post by going on about useless information. They also use add's as a form of revenue however do not interrupt the reader as they inspect the blog. 

So to finish I want to know what you guys think or rather who you are, do you have similar interest to mine? and do you think these blogs are a good depiction of what blogs should be?