We’ve collated our top tips to help your business overcome issues that may arise on social media, so you can manage a crisis effectively.

1. Immediate response and active communication

Try to respond as quickly as you can, and whenever possible, respond to individual posts. Also, remain honest and factual – keeping your consumers in the dark or lying to them will only aggravate the situation and enhance their frustration. Make sure you assure your customers you are doing all you can to help.

No matter what the comment is, keep your response personable, professional and informative. Being respectful is key, exercising a friendly tone without using swear words, political slurs or other upsetting forms of communication. Responding with a defensive comment only exacerbates an already negative situation, and will not appear helpful.

2. Listen and engage

Engage directly with the negative post and offer how you can help resolve the situation. If the consumer has come to an incorrect conclusion, make sure you provide as much relevant information as possible, using the above three word approach, so it may be addressed. If it is a problem you cannot solve, often a note of regret can diffuse the situation.

Encourage and thank your customers for their feedback – this may create a better route to engagement.  If people know they are being listened to and their grievances are willingly addressed they may even become an evangelist for your brand!

If the problem is repetitive or you need more information to deal with it effectively, invite them to converse directly (through a phone call or email) so you can resolve their issues offline. You do not want to get into an argument or debate on a public forum.

3. Apology and solution

The best way to handle any problem someone might have with your brand is through giving a sincere apology and offering a solution.

If someone has had a bad experience with your company and informs you, the likelihood is they’ll already have a sense of loyalty to the brand (by following you on Twitter/liking your Facebook page), so apologising and offering a solution is often more than sufficient to maintain their faith.

Additionally, if a brand resolves their issues/complaints and publically asks whether the customer is happy with the resolution online, the initial complainer is more likely to remove or address their initial comment (perhaps by posting again that the situation has been corrected efficiently), so negative comments are shown as resolved.

4. Addressing your own mistakes

If you have made a mistake, such as posting something inappropriate that has provoked a negative reaction, make sure you immediately address the situation and remove the offending post. Often diffusing the situation with humour is effective, but don’t forget to apologise so you can move on!

5. Abusive comments

Dealing with an abusive comment requires a slightly different approach. If comments are abusive, violent, rude, discriminatory, or have inflammatory language you should delete the post and explain your code of conduct (if you don’t have one already, you should implement one). Your community would be understanding and want/expect the removal. It is also worth putting a policy in place where a user gets three strikes before they are removed.

6. What to avoid

This is equally important, if not more important than knowing how to approach the crisis. On any social media network, whatever you do, don’t IGNORE the problem, switch off your phones or deactivate the account.

The two worst things a brand can do:

1. Not respond to a negative comment
2. Delete negative comments (unless they are abusive)

Doing either of the above things says to the world that the brand does not care about what the consumer has to say.

If you want to avoid social media mistakes, need help with implementing an effective strategy, or would like some bespoke training, get in touch by contacting 01344 667 410 or hello@3seven9.com.

Mountain Lion: The next big cat from Apple

On Thursday, Apple released a preview of its next operating system. The first difference being Apple are no longer calling it “Mac OS X”; it’s now just “OS X” and many have been pointing out that this concludes the era of Macintosh-dominated Apple thinking. The influence this time? The iPad.

With Mountain Lion, Apple is consolidating its vision of app-focused UX for all its devices and blurring the lines between OS X and iOS. You may soon feel a little bit like carrying your Mac is like carrying a really big phone.

Most of the following Mountain Lion features are already part of the iPhone:

• iMessages Mountain Lion is set to replace iChat with iMessages, a feature globally distributed for iPhones & iPads in iOS 5.0. It’s available right now in Beta form if you’d like to try it out before it’s restricted only to Mountain Lion.
• iCloud Changes you make to documents across any of your iDevices will now be synced
• Twitter integration The ability to tweet photos and links from iPhoto & Safari
• Airplay Mirroring Streaming from your Mac to your HDTV via Apple TV. Been waiting for this.
• Notification Center You’ll have a drop-down menu just like on your iPhone
• Reminders, Notes, Game Center All the apps we’re familiar with on the iPhone will be coming to Mac

More details here. It arrives this Summer.

Sorry, but Graphic Designers are not ruining the web

In yesterday’s Observer, John Naughton wrote an article complaining about web designers. It’s here if you missed it.

His argument seems to have been that webpages that used to be focused on content are now at the whim of web designers and that in giving webpages any level of style at all they are ruining the web, sacrificing content & causing web bloat.

He essentially outlines that he would prefer it if the web was entirely unstyled and presented in lists.

His example of how webpages should be:

“Take for example, the home page of Peter Norvig, who is Google’s director of research. In design terms it would make any graphic designer reach for the sickbag. And yet it’s highly functional, loads in a flash and contains tons of wonderful stuff”

Here is the website he refers to:

There is so much wrong with this article it’s difficult to comprehend. What’s key to point out is that Naughton does not understand web design. If he did, he would realise that web bloat is more due to poor optimisation of web content than it is to do with design at all.

It doesn’t even need to be said that graphic design has become an integral part of our web experience, giving us a host of opportunities and ways to connect with the user far beyond what written lists can offer.

We have made progress in the last 20 years after all.

There has been a considerable backlash against the article and Naughton’s old school misinformed views – even from the Guardian’s Lead UX Designer in his personal blog here who bemoans Naughton’s decision not to talk through his article with a specialist on the subject and highlights the best critical comments from the Guardian’s comment feed. Certainly worth a read.

If you DON’T think web designers are killing the web and DO want some style on your webpage , feel free to get in touch.

At the end of last year, we predicted that mobile payment technology will be a major feature in the digital world this year with Near Field Communication technology being around for a good few years now and 2012 set to be the year of mobile. But yesterday Barclays Pingit brings the concept to the UK market and into the mainstream.

The amount of online buzz ‘Pingit’ has generated in the past day is pretty staggering, with over 5,000 online mentions in 24 hours:

We were impressed with the clear, efficient UI and the overall design of the app and it’s obvious from examining a snapshot of the Twitter reaction that we’re not the only ones:

There were also some users who expressed their reservations – some about security or whether the need exists for mobile payment technology:

However, we want to point out that even though Barclays Pingit is big news for the UK market and we admit we love it, this is actually an example of the UK trailing the developing world.  Countries such as Tanzania and Kenya have been part of the mobile wallet revolution from as early as 2007.

An award-winning mobile money transfer service called ‘M-Pesa’ allows registered users in Kenya, Afghanistan and Tanzania to load money onto their phones which they can transfer to others by text. The recipient can then use the code in the message to pick up cash from a vendor.  They’re able to transfer money to relatives, pay for shopping or even a taxi ride.  All without even having a bank account. It represents an entirely new innovative way of thinking about money and payment systems.

So perhaps Pingit is the start of an advancing mobile payment system for the UK, but there is still room for potential growth, and it is clearly miles behind M-Pesa.

The future isn’t quite here yet, but we can hear it coming.

If you’d like to know more about digital trends, contact us at 01344 667 410 or say hello@3seven9.com

In this modern 24/7 world, your website is a key part of your marketing – and for many of our clients, is also their main product. This calls for a website that’s always available, day or night – during the good times and the bad. You need to know you can depend on your hosting provider to not simply take down your website once traffic reaches a certain level – often the moment that you need it most!

As part of my role as Technical Manager, I often find myself inspecting hosting configurations – be it for potential or existing clients, or even pure curiosity, and am always shocked by the number of people willing to invest vast amounts of time into their website’s design and functionality, only to forget to invest in the platform and infrastructure behind it.

So … how can you be sure your hosting provider won’t abandon you when you need them most?

Determine your hosting package/type

Are you on a shared hosting package, in the cloud, a virtual machine or do you have your own dedicated server?

Shared hosting – The basic option, suitable for very small companies with a minimal online presence. Similar to cloud hosting in that you share space on a server with other companies – but often not expandable if you go over your “quota”.

Cloud hosting – Still the ‘new’ boy in town. Your website shares part of a web server with other websites – sometimes as your own virtual server, or sometimes it’s as simple as sharing file space. Depending on your package/provider, this can be similar to any of the options listed here.

Virtual machine – Often a physical web server, split into several parts. Each user gets their own part of the server with which they can do what they like.

Shared hosting

Shared hosting has the most restrictions, in as far as you can only install what your web hosting provider will allow you to install, with set limits.

This is fine for most typical web applications, however you may find you have trouble when trying to install anything custom – or require more advanced configuration options outside of their standard scope of support. You will often also have bandwidth and space limits with strict quotas, and your website will normally be taken offline if you go outside these limits. This is the budget/cheap option you find with most providers – who can cram hundreds of websites on a single server.

Cloud hosting

The various types of cloud hosting are outside of the scope of this article, however the provider will take a similar approach, sharing a single server between various clients, to give you a common service. The levels of customisation/expandability vary depending upon the service used.

Virtual machine

Virtual machine acts like your own web server, customisable in anyway, however in reality is often just a slice of an actual physical machine. Great if you require the customisation options of a dedicated server, without the budget.

Dedicated server

Your own server, yours to do with as you wish. Customisable in anyway, these devices also have the benefit of improved security as they’re exclusively yours. Often a requirement if you’re looking to become PCI compliant.

So which is correct for you?

For business users, we tend to steer well clear of shared hosting at all costs – the strict quotas, uncustomisable options, and unreliability of placing hundreds of websites on a single server make this a platform to avoid – unless you can really trust your provider. Look around online for reviews, and feel free to ask them challenging questions – any good provider will be more than happy to answer them.

For the majority of our clients we recommend either a cloud hosting solution that is based loosely around classic virtual machines, with expandability – or a dedicated server, or even a hybrid of both, depending on requirements. Any good hosting provider should be able to give you advice/guidance on this, and is dependent on your websites requirements / expected traffic.

We also recommend you test out your providers support procedures before committing to a contract. Telephone their support line and ask them a testing question, or see how long you’re on hold. Do they offer 24/7 telephone support? In an emergency do you contact them, or do they contact you? Are they monitoring your website/server for you? What are their SLAs if it does all go wrong – how quickly do they promise to get it back up and running again?

How 3seven9 can help

We have firsthand experience of helping clients who’ve been stung by previous hosting providers – having had a story go viral, only to not have their website there to sell/push their product when they need it most – with unresponsive support teams, unwilling to assist in getting your website back online, and SLA’s that allow for days of downtime before issuing any refund.

The moral of the story is – don’t be afraid to ask. If you’re not sure what your web hosting provider will do when your website gets busy, ask, and make the provisions now – before it’s too late.

Here at 3seven9 we highly recommend Rackspace as a hosting provider, and their “Fanatical Support” policy to all of our clients, for both cloud and dedicated solutions, and as a Rackspace partner can offer discounts and advice in choosing the correct solutions.

Please feel free to contact us on 01344 667 410 or hello@3seven9.com with any hosting questions you may have and myself or one of the team will do our best to help in any way possible.

Address Book -gate – Why you should keep your customers informed

Last week, drama erupted after a blogger using the Path API discovered that the social network Path (that we’ve talked about a few times! ) uploads its iPhone users’ address books to its servers without asking.

Since the launch of Path version 2.0, there has been universal praise for Path’s User Experience, its overall design and to some extent, its concept – centred on privacy: the idea of a social network restricted to your close friends and family. To some, it was the direct contradiction between this unique USP and the company’s sneaky data exposing actions that provoked such outrage.

One of Path’s Company Values from their website

But this practice is nothing new.

If you do some research, you’ll see that many other apps will be collecting data about you, including your address book (see this investigation undertaken by the Wall Street Journal) and this is demonstrated by the fact that Dave Morin, the Co-Founder and CEO of Path came out soon after the news broke to say that it was simply “industry best practice.”

We think the issue here was more to do with transparency.

When the Wall Street Journal surveyed its readers asking “Do you think apps should tell you when they collect and send information about the mobile device?” 67.9% answered “Yes, everytime” and 23.2% answered “Yes, but only when I first install the app.”
Wall Street Journal Survey – What They Know: Mobile

If Path had simply asked its users for permission to do this – in order to give them the added feature of being able to invite their address book friends (as they have now done with an update released the day the controversy broke – then all would be fine.

And herein lies the lesson. Make sure if your business is gathering data, you let your users know. In fact, if you’re a social customer-facing business, it’s a good idea to make sure your users are aware of everything you’re doing and why you’re doing it where you can. You’ll be pre-emptively laying the groundwork for avoiding dramatic PR disasters such as this.

It’s worth noting that over the weekend, other apps took heed from this incident. Popular photo-filter app social network Instagram released an update with a host of new features and quietly made sure to include their own address book access prompt update.

Google is reading our email to improve its targeting

We should all know by now that Google is a data hoarder (in fact, you should read our guide to Google’s Privacy Policy changes to see how suspicious you should feel of their use of your data). Yet last week the online world reacted to the fact that Google analyses our email algorithmically – that’s using its algorithm! – to (amongst other things) increase the targeting of its advertising.

But as Max Masnick pointed out in his blog – “Stop the Paranoia“, this should not be as shocking as it seems to have been.

His chief points:

• Email is not secure anyway: it could be intercepted by a third party, could be hacked, could be accidentally forwarded to the person you sent it to
• It’s in Google’s interests to keep your data safe in order to retain essential trust

Facebook Mobile Ads

Last week saw Facebook finally join the mobile bandwagon and take notice of the rise and importance of mobile advertising.

Although unclear at the moment as to where the ads will be located – on the app, mobile site or both – at least this means that soon your business could take advantage of Facebook’s social dominance in the mobile sphere.

If you’ve not tried mobile advertising, a few choice tips we’d suggest to prepare for the moment when Facebook mobile ads become available:

• Assess your current Facebook presence & optimize it before approaching Facebook Ads at all – Your page will be the first point-of-call for viewers of your Ad
• Optimize your website for mobile. When your customers see your ad, you want to make sure the site that they see in search impresses them
• Think about how your ad will appear on a small screen. Focus on maximising the small space with short, catchy copy that will grab the attention of your viewer

If you’d like to find out how to make mobile advertising or Facebook ads work for you, we’d love to talk through what would suit your business. Say hello on 01344 667 410 or email hello@3seven9.com

width + padding + border = actual rendered width of box
height + padding + border = actual rendered height of box

Even if you have been writing CSS for a while, it still feels counterintuitive and I’m not the only person that thinks so:

I would love a different box model! I find it bizarre that padding and border add the width of an object, and would love to be able to give something like a text area 100% width and 3px padding without worrying what it’s going to do the layout. Perhaps something like padding-inside as a new selector?

John Hicks—CSS Wishlist

Until recently however, there hasn’t been a way to do this.

Enter the CSS3 property box-sizing:

border-box

* {
-webkit-box-sizing: border-box; /* Safari/Chrome, other WebKit */
-moz-box-sizing: border-box; /* Firefox, other Gecko */
box-sizing: border-box; /* Opera/IE 8+ */
}


The border-box value (as opposed to the default content-box) renders the declared width as the final element width, with any padding or border widths inside the box instead of around it. If you are using a fluid layout, you can now safely declare your element to have a width of 100% and not have to worry about padding or borders messing with your layout.

It should be noted this can only be used in projects that require support for IE8 and up.

If you’d like to find out more tips about CSS, we’d love to talk to you. Say hello on 01344 667 410 or email hello@3seven9.com

One of the most talked about features is that it’ll integrate users’ information across all Google services, essentially meaning that Google will treat a user by their interaction across all of their platforms.  Google claim that this will improve the quality of its services, and provide a more intuitive Google experience for the user.

This is something you will not be able to avoid unless you close your account with Google.

So how will this affect you? Will you find it convenient or is there something more sinister about the changes?

1. Integration & collaboration

Google will soon be able to ‘track’ you across its services, from location data to favoured contacts, collecting and combining data from almost any service it offers. There is also no compartmentalisation between applications.

If you are signed into your Google account on an open browser, using Google search for example, then open new tab to YouTube, the information will be integrated. The only way to avoid this is to open the latter in an entirely different browser, which is hugely irritating and inconvenient.

For example, if you search for ‘cats’, then go onto YouTube, you might find cat videos randomly appearing. Little bit keen huh?

Google give their own example of what they are able to do: “We can provide reminders that you’re going to be late for a meeting based on your location, your calendar and an understanding of what the traffic is like that day“.

There’s a fine line between what feels unsettling compared to helpful. But, some may argue that if you’re already trusting Google with your data across Gmail, Google docs, calendar,(and more) then really Google is only as invasive as you allow it to be.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Google will make informed discernments based on your personal habits. For example, it will be able to make a judgement on whether your spelling is accurate based on what you’ve typed before, and remembers contact information of people you are likely to share in order to provide a service with minimal clicks and errors. Useful? – yes, but not very passive.

Google may be able to collect data, such as potentially finding out our political opinions, financial concerns etc to gain access to an alarming level of information e.g. if Google are able to tell so much about you, they may know about your health and that of people around you, so might even be able to predict the next flu outbreak!

2. Mobile

Similarly to Google combining information on the web, most things may be tracked on android phones as you have to sign onto Google services to do almost anything, including associating your device identifiers or phone numbers with your Google Account. On other smartphones this is not entirely the case, but if you do sign into Google services, it will be able to collect information about device and usage.

Cookies may also “uniquely identify your browser or your Google Account” – this is not new as it can already collect this data, but Google is being more explicit that it can marry the mobile data with other information so they can find out things like the location you were in when you ran a particular search query.

3. User control

Another concern is that things you may wish to search for or do in relative anonymity will now be directly associated to you.

Frank X Shaw, Corporate Vice President of Corporate Communications at Microsoft, claims Google “make it harder, not easier” for users to control their data.

If this does not benefit the user in any way, it can come across as very intrusive and against your privacy rights. This ties in with Google’s customised search results.

4. Tailored search results

Google will suggest search queries and tailor your search results based on your interests on Google+, Gmail, YouTube, or previous searches. It claims that it will have a better understanding of particularities you may be searching, thus making it both faster and more relevant.

There are also issues with the ‘Search Plus Your World’ feature as it allows Google+ results to remain higher than regular ones. Google claims this is to understand not only content but “people and relationships”.

BUT this is biased – Facebook, Myspace and Twitter produced an add-on which negates the effect of promoting the Google+ social network known as “don’t be evil”, comparing how it used to look using pure version and how it looks now. This is to allow other social networks to come up above Google+ if they are more relevant.

However, one thing to remember here is that you are able to hide Google+ results between searches or even permanently save settings on your Google account for them not to appear.

Still, the idea that Google may be manipulating what we view and potentially have an idea of what we choose to search for, is definitely a bit disconcerting.

5. Personalised Ads

Tailored search also means tailored personal ads – but from a larger pool of data about you. Is this too targeted? Google can now track your every move AND choose advertisements specifically for you, on a fairly in depth level. But don’t worry (!)– you can turn it off – by changing settings under ‘Ads Preferences Manager’ (though if you’re going to get adverts anyway, perhaps you might like them to be more relevant to your interests?).

What do you think? Is this level of knowledge creepy, or are you pleased with how convenient the changes are? The question we have now is whether this is another step towards data liberation/transparency? We have seen recent activity moving in this direction, such as the Facebook Timeline and privacy issues with SOPA/PIPA.

We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please get in touch by contacting hello@3seven9.com.

A warning light to brands as Toyota fails to understand Twitter

The car manufacturer Toyota effectively set up a spam campaign this week: sending messages from various similarly named accounts to Twitter users who mentioned The Super Bowl.

The campaign – called ‘Camry Effect a Friend’ – was part of a national effort on Toyota’s part to “unite the nearly seven million Camry owners…through an interactive online experience.” Well, unfortunately the only online experience was universal condemnation amongst Twitter users of Toyota’s failed campaign.

What went wrong?

Now, you might (possibly) be forgiven for thinking Toyota’s efforts weren’t wholly bad – you could argue that:

• They made some effort to target their market through use of keywords – the superbowl, patriots, giants, etc

• They were thinking about engagement – with “one-on-one” messages rather than simply tweeting advertising broadcasts

BUT there were major flaws in their strategy and execution:

• Engagement is not as simple as one-to-one communication, there has to be a level of “engagement” on the brand’s behalf

In this case, Toyota was sending out generic automated content, with no effort to tailor their message in response to the user’s comment:

• They were not thinking about the user. What was the user getting out of their “viral” campaign? Mainly a sense of being turned off as a result of spam. If you’re going to directly communicate with your consumers, first things first, you don’t want to annoy them!
• Entire self-indulgence. It’s essential to remember that you have to have something worth sharing & figure out a way that what you want to share has meaning to your user – that is the secret to promoting without being promotional.

Ultimately, it’s clear that Toyota had no idea what they were doing and their Twitter strategy was woefully inadequate. As we’ve pointed out here, the line between doing the right thing and doing the wrong thing can be confusing to tread as an inexperienced brand, with glaring pitfalls waiting to befall you – especially as the market you’re trying to please is just waiting for you to trip up.

If you’re a brand looking to engage with your followers but are unsure of how to do this, make sure you don’t do a Toyota and just ‘go with it’! It’s a subtle art; make sure you consider it in depth to avoid ever getting it so wrong.

If you’re worried about getting it right on social media, we’d love to talk it through with you so get in touch on 01344 667 410 or say hello@3seven9.com

Over the past year we have done a lot of work with them, helping them present their programmes to apprentices & are very pleased to see the work be recognised.

It’s a well-deserved award for the quality of work that they do, working with employers to help get young people started in their careers in IT.

Here’s a pic of their London Team with the award… Congratulations QA!

This week, we were excited to hear that Twitter was rolling out more enhanced brand pages, thus expanding the capability of its platform for advertising. We saw enhanced brand pages for the first time in December with the launch of new Twitter when 21 high-profile brands such as @americanexpress & @mcdonalds got them.

Now, this week Twitter has begun to roll out more pages to companies & charities such as @vw, @nbcnews & @huffingtonpost as well as UK businesses such as @CadburyUK, @EASportsFIFA, @asda, @skyhd.

Why these companies?

Well, it emerges that Twitter offered this opportunity to companies that are already part of its advertising ecosystem. In fact, you have to have $25,000 in Twitter’s advertising ecosystem – ie for Promoted Tweets or Promoted Trending Topics – to be eligible.

But is it worth it?

The benefits of these pages:

• Customisable banner header – A way to introduce customers/followers to the brand, highlight an important campaign eg VW has used their banner to draw attention to their #DogStrikesBack hashtag

• Promoted tweets can be featured at the top of your page and videos/photos/maps/interactive features of any kind are by default, expanded for visitors to your page
• A step beyond a “verified account” – There can be no question that this is your brands page, it is distinguished from normal accounts

Feature Rumours

Rumours were up and down this week as to the additional features that these pages offer. An insider source claimed that Twitter were considering allowing brands to build platforms or iFrame environments into their page so their users could view and buy products or even play a game within the Twitter environment of their page.

Yet in reality, the roll-out has been much simpler. Here described on Twitter’s official ‘Enhanced profile page’ blog, the reference to guiding users to a “richer brand experience” is the only hint of truth in the rumours. Ultimately, it’s clear that free rein to develop brand pages in the way that was rumoured remains in the far horizon for most brands – even those with one of these enhanced pages.

If however you’re a brand who already pay to advertise Promoted Tweets or trending topic, then perhaps you could be persuaded that these developments are simply the natural extension of your Promoted Advertising package on Twitter and worth looking into.

We think that whereas the changes that were rumoured meant a wealth of opportunites for a brand to creatively develop their page as an experience for the user – giving them something back such as easy access to a fun game or ability to browse and buy items – the actual implemented changes do not offer much and benefit noone but Twitter.

If you want to pay $25,000 to display advertising on your page, to give prominence to your promoted tweets in front of your followers, then this is your opportunity. But what are you giving your users? Have you considered that such an emphasis on advertising – on a social network where for the user the relationship with a brand is mainly about your experience and what you can get out of it – may even be turning them away?

If you would like help in seeing how Twitter can work for your brand, give us a call on 01344 667 410 or contact hello@3seven9.com.