Social Media - Letting Your Customers on Facebook (Case Study)

Isn't it funny how one thing leads to another? Here's a story that brought me face to face with the way Facebook is being used in practice by businesses.

Some of you will know my nephew plays in a band called "The Theory of Six Degrees" (T6D). This summer they were the youngest ever band to play at Glastonbury, at the personal invitation of the founder Michael Eavis. Not bad when you're only 13 !

Being from Surrey, they then played at Guilfest, followed by RedFest. At Guilfest were a great band from Bournemouth called Rapids! Typing that into YouTube, I discovered "Dnieper Rapids" by a Finnish band called Turisas. (If you haven't come across "folk metal" before, check them out.) It just so happened that they were playing Knebworth a couple of days later at Sonisphere (see picture above).

Getting there only just in time, I met a great group of people. Small world. One of them had worked for one of my PWC colleagues, before he became CFO at the London Stock Exchange. Two others work for a company that sounds ideal for my son, if a suitable job becomes available.

But I digress. The internet had helped me find a whole new musical genre (folk metal), and back in the real world, a whole new set of contacts who share my love of music. What else?

A couple of weeks ago I used T6D's websites as a case study for how the various social media tools could be used in the music business and beyond. These tools included MySpace, Facebook. YouTube and Twitter. I'd also looked previously at how British Airways are now using Facebook, and how they used to use it to allow customer comments.

Music festivals combine music and customer service, and therefore provide an intriguing insight into how Facebook can be used to interact with customers. So let's take a look at how they use the internet, focusing principally on their use of Facebook. In chronological order this summer:

Glastonbury

Celebrating their 40th birthday, the main Glastonbury website has been honed across many years. Clear, straightforward, and with all the necessary information. (T6D opened the BBC Introducing Stage on the Sunday.)

Admittedly it's some weeks after the festival, but there's no obvious links to social media sites until clicking the "Links" menu, where they have used Facebook and Twitter.

Finding the Facebook site, one of the first things to discover is that since the festival they have switched off new postings from the public, and switched off their original Discussion Board, neither of which are now visible.

The second thing is that they have continued to make posts on Twitter and their Facebook wall after the festival. By still allowing comments from the public against their Facebook posts, a dialogue with their customers is still being maintained.

Virtually no complaints about the festival (or the posts have been monitored and removed). As one commentator said about the festival "That's what you call setting the standard!!!"

Quite possibly also the case for using the internet. They've certainly set the bar high So how do the other festivals compare?

Guilfest

This festival in Guildford is also well established. Aimed at families, with headliners Status Quo, there were plenty of representatives from each generation. The Rocksound tent was packed for T6D, and you should have seen the queues of fans at their merch and signing tent afterwards!

The Guilfest website is again clear and comprehensive. Tucked out of sight at the bottom of each page are links to Facebook and Twitter, and also MySpace.

On Facebook, they are still accepting public posts onto the wall and new topics on the discussion board. Unlike Glastonbury, they don't appear to make official posts, as there are no separate tabs for "Official" and "Others". However it looks like various people involved in the festival have made posts in their own names, including comments to helpfully answer customer's questions.

As one commentator has said "I have to say bravo for a great festival, I have been attending different festivals for the last 5 years and Guilfest 2010 was the best festival I have ever attended."

Nonetheless there were plenty of gripes, including litter and picnic chairs. The gripes have now been mostly removed. The most disturbing posts (all removed) were about the near-disaster in the narrow gangway leading to the tent where Tinie Tempah was playing (I wondered what the rush was!). Oh so nearly as bad as the tragedy at the Duisburg Love Parade music festival in Germany just a week later. Thankfully not at Guilfest!

Nonetheless a great event and website, and great customer feedback at the time via Facebook.

RedFest

Redfest is a very different animal, being in only its 4th year and run by a small private team. This festival is much smaller. aimed at teens and younger adults, and this time T6D opened the main stage.

I'm sure everyone had a great time, as witness many Facebook comments. But the event itself and the website need a lot of attention. As an example, the website suggests 3 venues plus the beer tent. In fact the acoustic stage was in the dance tent, so dance only started there when acoustic acts finished. The beer tent also had a disco, and it was better than the dance tent judging by the number of people dancing (but then you could only get a drink by going to the beer tent, so people stayed there). The printed programme had a main stage timetable an hour out, with most acts supposed to be starting after they had actually finished. The list of issues goes on. Don't get me talking about that water fight in the unmanned arena entrance! Thankfully I had tucked a valuable paper into a plastic folder.

Getting back to social media, Redfest decided to use Facebook and MySpace. The Facebook site is at least as big as the other festivals above, partly because of people asking questions in the Discussion section because the information wasn't on the website. To be fair, someone from Redfest did answer each question. But that just left important information scattered all over the place. Much of it only made sense afterwards, having been there.

Again, like Guilfest, the Facebook wall doesn't have official comments separate from "Others". Unlike Guilfest it doesn't look like they've reviewed postings. There is a still a post and many comments about unpleasant experiences, notably with the security staff supervising the moshpit at the main stage. Security were much more laid back in the Rocksound tent at Guilfest, even helping the crowd surfers down once they reached the stage.

So a lot of work to do for next year!

Sonisphere at Knebworth

Sonisphere is massive. It's actually a big "circus" touring many venues around Europe with basically the same acts, finishing the season this weekend in Sweden and Finland. It was therefore a surprise that the website and some aspects of the event fell way short of Glastonbury and Guilfest. I sent some complaints and suggestions about the event and the website via their feedback page (when I eventually found it) a few days ago, just to see what sort of reply I might get. Nothing! Not even an automated reply. Just about sums up their approach to customer service, even though many people clearly enjoyed themselves there.

It's interesting going back to the Sonisphere website after reviewing the others above. It's easier now I know how to navigate it, but it shouldn't be that difficult and there's still important information missing. There's links to MySpace and Facebook, plus a separate discussion forum.

On Facebook they have a Discussion Forum and a wall that clearly separates Festival and Others posts, defaulting to the Festival ones when the wall loads.

On the Discussion tab plenty of complaints, mostly about the inability to see due to the site layout and flags. Unlike Redfest, no obvious comments from the organisers for answers to questions, or to show they had taken note.

The wall provides a fantastic way for fans (customers) to get involved. Whilst mainly positive, there was the odd complaint. My posting "Wot, a rock festival with no beer?" has long since been lost as other postings have piled in. (There was plenty of cider and lager, but beer was apparently available from just one of the bars on site, and then so obvious I didn't see it!). Again no obvious reaction from the organisers. As I write they seem more interested in getting punters out to Finland.

Will I go again next year? Unlikely unless there is a band I simply can't miss.

Conclusion

There's a hell of a lot involved in running a festival, and congratulations to all four for a generally fun and rewarding experience.

In using Facebook there are several key lessons that all forms of B2C and B2B businesses can learn from:

1. Facebook should only be an extention of the main website, not a substitute for it. Key information needs to be clearly on the main web site.
   
2. Facebook is an excellent way to build a dialogue with customers, and for them to interact with each other. But that only works if you are monitoring postings, and answering questions and other feedback. Otherwise it just becomes frustrating for those customers who have bothered to comment.
   
3. It's clearer to have an official company persona to add posts and comments, even if individual staff also comment
   
4. You can switch off the ability for customers to submit posts, whilst still allowing them to comment about yours
5. You can remove posts that are critical or otherwise unwelcome. But worth discussing genuine complaints directly, and make posts to show you have noted and are addressing common complaints. In my experience a customer who has their complaint dealt with swiftly to their satisfaction becomes a far more loyal customer than a customer who has never had a complaint. Conversely a complaint ignored is a lost customer.
   
6. Likewise you can encourage, acknowledge and answer feedback made through another direct non-public mechanism.
   

How else should Facebook be used?


P.S. Written entirely to the accompaniment of Bill Bruford on his SDX electronic drumkit. Somehow the clip has got onto auto-repeat, and I haven't bothered to stop it. Aural fireworks. How does he change rhythms so quickly and easily? Awesome!

[I have subsequently discovered that the iPad app for YouTube has a "feature" that automatically plays a video repeatedly - when a video finishes touch the triangular play button at the bottom left of picture to play again. It will never stop, but it's unclear if every play counts towards the video's number of views as I'm getting different views numbers on iPad and PC!]