On August 30, 2007, YouTube user Levinator poked a little fun at game-maker EA for their “glitch” in PGA Tour ‘08:
One year later, in preparation for the launch of PGA Tour ‘09, EA responded:
EA just took a HUGE step up in my book. (Now someone prove me wrong and show me that EA was behind both videos.)
“Word of Mouth” is one of those popular catch phrases these day. Everyone wants to know how to make it work for them. There’s not really a secret key to make it “work for you”. There is, however, a really, really easy way to make it work against you: piss off your customers. The notion that people will be vocal when they’re upset, but don’t say a word when they’re happy is pretty standard. You’ll always have a disproportionate number of complainers willing to bash you your product compared to the silent masses who happily go about their daily lives with your product in tow.
Case in point…
Sean Howard of CrapHammer fame tweeted this the other day:
The tweet links to this post on Bikeforums.net, a popular cycling message board. (As far as I know, Sean isn’t a cyclist, so how he stumbled into this post, I’m not sure, but it probably got passed to him by someone.) The post, by Bikeforums user ReachHigher, outlines her story of a recent visit to Wal-Mart via bicycle. Due to the lack of bike racks outside the store, she opted to walk her bike into the establishment (a practice that she’s apparently done before), only to be turned away by the “greeter”. The arguement that ensued involved a removal of clothing in protest to a policy that the store manager seemed too flustered to back up. We’ll let you read the rest here, since the story itself isn’t the prime purpose of this discussion…
The main purpose here is to point out just how quickly certain stories will spread across the web. The day that Sean tweeted this, I believe the discussion on Bikeforums was at about 2 pages. It now sits at 15 (at the time of this posting). A quick search reveals a number of other sites that have picked up on the story:
Bikeforums.net
The Consumerist
Fark
Digg
BNet Industries
Liberty Forum
The Outskirts
The Nerd
Unfortunately, the stories that spread like this are far more prevalent than the positive ones (which do happen though, check out the Zappos Story if you’re not familiar with it yet). Regardless of whether your story is positive or negative, though, this is a perfect demonstration of the power of the spoken word. Whether someone is touting your new business to their friends at work, or venting their frustrations about a major retailer, the word will spread.
Certain things can help that will help your word along. Here’s a few quick thoughts…
Finding the right people: who is going to “get” what you’re doing and who you are? Who’s going to enjoy and appreciate your efforts and be willing to spread the word? Those are you Brand Evangelists. Cater to them.
Tackle everything that comes at you, good or bad: What would you do right now if you were Wal-Mart? Ignore the situation? How about taking part in the conversation? Don’t make excuses, don’t throw money at the problem, but take an active role. Maybe install a bike rack?
Be honest: This is probably one of the most important things ANYONE can do. As soon as companies try to hide something or change the rules, people are quick to call BS. Honesty is always the best policy. Most people understand that businesses are around to make money. Do so in a responsible manner, and they’ll be more likely to work with you rather than against you.
Have some other ideas? Do share? What do you look for in a company that you find yourself telling friends about? What are you quick to bash someone for?
Last night, as a friend and I sat in my apartment, we found ourselves discussing the benefits and drawbacks of Flickr vs. Facebook as a photo sharing platform. Her feeling was that Facebook is a far more prevalent sharing system across the general public of 18-30 somethings. Despite being a purpose-built photo sharing site (and subsequently social network), her experience with Flickr is limited - primarily because she’s had no reason to use it.
Alternatively, I use Flickr all the time and have relatively few pictures on Facebook. Of course, this was a moment of two worlds colliding. Neither of us was necessarily wrong, but rather we have different interests in how our photos are used and shared. What bothered me was that I really couldn’t decide which platform would better serve the needs of the situation we were thinking through (I’m supposed to know these things, right?).
Though I hadn’t given up on the thought, I had moved on for the time being until I noticed this article this morning. Dean over at the PhotoPreneur blog wrote an interesting discussion on the finer points of Facebook’s privacy policy - you know, that thing you never actually read and just click accept every time you sign up for something new online these days. It was this statement that really caught his attention:
By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.
Yes, there’s a lot of legalese to get through in there, but the gist of the statement is this: by uploading a photo to Facebook, you’re granting them the right to take, change, use, and even resell your image in whatever manner they see fit. Concerned by this revelation, Dean turned to photographer/lawyer Bert Krages for clarification. Krages explained that this statement essentially gives Facebook the right to take all of those images of you and your friends and turn them into a giant stock image library to which you will have no rights or recompense even if they use your mugshot.
While that’s probably not the end of the world for all of those shots from random 21st birthday parties or bachelor party antics, it does create reason to pause for photographers considering using Facebook as a means of attracting new clients to their work. It should also raise a red flag for branded group pages: be careful what you’re throwing out there for your group members to drool over unless you don’t mind the work wandering elsewhere.
As a counterpoint, it appears that Flickr’s use of member photos is limited to promotional purposes, a practice that’s pretty much par for the course when it comes to online hosting/sharing sites.
My reaction overall? Shame on you Facebook. Seriously. Isn’t it enough that you’ve slapped more advertising in front of your millions of members? Or that your shameless issuing of branded “gifts” is getting worse? Or that you got a multi-billion dollar offer to buy part of your…whatever it is you think of as your assets. You start running around making money off member photos, I think you just might begin to see a backlash. Maybe.
