PR 101

So my son just got married and my daughter is getting married soon. For both big events, I decided to buy suits. We are not a tuxedo kind of family, but for such major events, I didn’t think my normal summer uniform of a t-shirt, cargo shorts and sandals would cut it.

For my son’s wedding, I went to my local Kohl’s Department Store. Kohl’s is a Wisconsin-based company and I like to support the locals. I was pleasantly surprised by helpful the people at Kohl’s were. I could not find pants in my size. A helpful sales woman I flagged down was able to help me. Remember, Kohl’s touts itself as low cost store that sells quality merchandise. Usually that means fewer employees on the floor. Not at Kohl’s though.

Sadly, finding a sales person who was both helpful and knew what she was talking about is getting to be a rare experience. That’s why I shop on line more and more. My experience with customer service at online retailers such as Amazon, Performance Bike and REI has been pretty extraordinary – extraordinarily good.

I cannot say the same thing for many of the experiences I have when I shop. When it came time to buy a suit for my daughter’s upcoming nuptials, my wife and I watched the sales. The lowest price was at a Milwaukee-based traditional department store. So, we drove over to look at suits.

In the hour we were there, we were completely ignored by the sales people. One walked by my wife and asked how she was doing. Now, what he should have asked is if we needed help. A salesman stationed the register seemed to be half asleep. I had the feeling we woke him up when we went to check out.

Yes, we did a buy a suit. The salesman screwed up there too. The suit was unfinished and needed to be altered. He should have asked if we wanted department store’s tailors to do it. I have to believe that’s a profit center. The guy cost his company an extra $60 or so.

It gets even more interesting. I also bought a pair of dress shoes at the same store to go with the suit. When I got them home, I discovered a flaw. So, I trundled back to exchange them. What should have taken 10 minutes took 45 minutes. There was no one staffing men’s shoes. I eventually had to go the store’s offices to get a manager to help me.

Sadly, that experience is becoming all too common. I rarely go to most large stores anymore because there is no one there to provide help. I don’t mind paying a bit more if I am getting exactly what I want and need.

For instance, I do most of my shopping for tools and other hardware at my local Ace Hardware. It is a much smaller store than the three big box hardware stores that operate in Milwaukee. But, I can always find someone to help me who knows what they are talking about. I don’t have to wander through plumbing if I need an electrical part.

That’s why I like online shopping. Every time I have a question, I can reach someone. So far, everyone I have talked to seems to be knowledgeable. It is just a much more pleasant experience. Yes, I sometimes pay a bit more that I would if I bought it from a physical location. But, I will do that for the service and selection.

Which brings me to another point. It is easy to find what I want when I shop on line. Google is very helpful in finding just the right item. I don’t have to ask some know-nothing-doesn’t care clerk if something is in stock.

It seems odd to me that on-line retailers have solved the customer service conundrum at the same time retailers have forgotten it. But, that’s way it goes.

There has been a debate raging over the future of the Internet for the last year or so. However, I don’t most people have even heard the term net neutrality, let alone had the time to delve into the subject. Yet in my opinion, if the debate goes one way, it will change the way all of us use the Internet. It will divide the web into groups of haves and have-nots.

Some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) want to create a two-tiered web. According to Wikipedia “neutrality proponents claim that telecom companies seek to impose a tiered service model in order to control the pipeline and thereby remove competition, create artificial scarcity, and oblige subscribers to buy their otherwise uncompetitive services. Many believe net neutrality to be primarily important as a preservation of current freedoms. Vinton Cerf, considered a ‘father of the Internet’ and co-inventor of the Internet Protocol, Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the Web, and many others have spoken out in favor of network neutrality.”

Wikipedia goes on to define net neutrality as follows: “Network neutrality (also net neutrality, Internet neutrality) is a principle proposed for user access networks participating in the Internet that advocates no restrictions by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and governments on content, sites, platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and no restrictions on the modes of communication allowed.” Ian Paul wrote in the online edition of PC World that “Network neutrality is the principle that broadband providers should not be allowed to discriminate or restrict Web traffic based on its content.”

The bottom of those advocating net neutrality is that the Internet should remain like it is currently. Open access and no restrictions whether you are paying $10 a month for your access or $100 a month.

Paul goes on to note that what ISPs are asking for is the right to maintain a so-called private Internet to provide new services. Some examples of what private broadband services could be include health care monitoring, educational services, gaming and other forms of entertainment. This private service would be separate from the regular Internet.

What that means in practice, at least to me, is that some people are going to find that they cannot afford the new services. And that ain’t right.

Think about this from a social media point-of-view. A lot of social media involves video. What happens to a small company who finds that video is the best way to get out their message? Videos take a lot of bandwidth. A lot of ISPS don’t like video because its bandwidth demands. There are discussions about charging more for sending large files. Could a new company afford to market itself with a higher priced web?

One of the great things about the Internet is how it has given people who have never had a voice before a chance to say something. Think of all the governments that have been overthrown because people had ways outside of official channels to communicate. Look how people in this country has used the ‘Net to make themselves heard.

Or it could be as simple as finding out it will cost you more to download music because of the amount of bandwidth it takes. Online gamers might find themselves paying more to access such things as World of Warcraft.

What is particularly scary to me is how wireless access is being left out of the discussion. Earlier this month Google and Verizon released a proposal to maintain an open Internet while creating room for a broadband network of premium services. (my emphasis.) It left wireless out of the verbiage.

Doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. Morgan Stanley analysts predict that in five years more people will be going line via wireless access (smart phones) than computers. As the New York Times reported, as ISPs earn more revenue from private services, “they might have less incentive to invest in Internet capacity, pushing more content providers to these special services and creating alternative networks that look similar to cable TV.” And cutting many people out of the best parts of the Internet.

This scares me. It should scare you too.

It surprised me to find out our institutions of a higher learning are just now diving into the social media pool. It’s true that social media as a separate marketing method is only about five-years-old. However, I always look to college campuses as the earliest of adopters. I find it odd that universities are currently almost last to climb into the cutting edge.

Still, although they are late to board, the institutions of higher learning haven’t missed the social media train,  a recent study found.

The study, “Marketing Spending at Colleges and Universities” found that higher education institutions’ interactive and social media budgets are increasing. Between fiscal year 2008 and fiscal year 2009, 55 percent of the institutions allocated more of their budgets to interactive media and 52 percent allocated more to social media.

The study was conducted by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and Lipman Hearne, a marketing communications firm with offices in Chicago and Washington, D.C.

“People really want to know what kids are reading and how they spend their free time – what is capturing their attention,” Lipman Hearne’s COO and director of research, Donna Van De Water is quoted in the report. “They’re trying to figure out what kinds of communications should move from print to the web. And they’re wondering what kind of language to use. They’re asking, “Should we use a student voice or our own voice?”

It is important to remember almost college students first used every social media application I know of. Student, for goodness sakes, developed Facebook at Harvard for use by other students.

Yet, colleges and universities are just now catching onto the fact that they need to be recruiting using social media?

Of course, people who demand facts and figures run most universities. They want definite empirical proof that something is working. The study does bear that out. It found that institutions that use social media report positive incomes in website hits, search engine positioning and, most importantly, rates of alumni donations.

The study also found something that should be music to a university comptroller’s ears: moderate-to-heavy users of social media spend less per student on marketing. The moderate-to-heavy users spent an average of $83 per student as opposed to the $121 per student that light-to-non-users of social media spent. In addition, 71 percent of those institutions who invested in market research and strategy reported those efforts have a positive effect on the quality of their applicants.

“Students tend to say that they want to hear the university’s voice,” Van De Water said.  “Students know if they’re being talked down to, or if their own voices are being mimicked. That said they still do want to hear a student’s perspective. So an institution needs to know what its own voice is, yet also allow students to represent the authentic student voice. Alumni want to hear a range of voices: faculty, students, other alumni, and the university’s. They understand and appreciate the complexity of the institution and welcome the various perspectives.”

In addition, the increasing use of social media has allowed colleges and universities to cut the amount of money they spend on traditional advertising. Of those institutions that are moderate-to-heavy users of social media, 42 percent spent less on traditional advertising in fiscal year 2009 than in the previous year. Of the overall survey group, approximately one-third spent less on traditional advertising than in the previous year.

So as I long as I am continuing in cliché mode, I guess it is better late than never.

I had an amazing response to the two-part guest blog on why executives hate social media. My weekly readership more than doubled. I did have a few complaints that it was too long or needed better editing. Both are good points.

Nonetheless, it raised a lot of provocative points about the C Suite and social media. I appreciate that all of you took time to read through it. Plus, I had a lot of comments. It was a good debate. Thank you all.