Events Drive your business

Events drive your business from cxg0923

Monitoring Megabus PartII: conclustions and recommendations

Continuous Observation

In the initial two weeks of monitoring Magebus, I found out that campaigns and events had great effect on people's attention to a brand or a company. The question is, however,  how can change these temporary attention into a long term interest and relationship. Finding out the answer to this question is my goal of my next two weeks observation.

In last two weeks, I  contiued monitoring the social media use of Megabus, including FaceBook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube, by using the social media monitoring resoures online, such as social mention, icerocket, google insights, edc. Nothing changed, low passion, low reach ,low strength until the assulting of Hurricane Sandy, the people's attention of Megabus extremly increased. However, the attention went away with the leaving of the hurricane.

   Oct.16th                                                Oct.29th                                                  Nov.6th

Clearly, Hurricane Sandy was a big chance to Megabus to talk to its customers when many trips had been canceled in east coast. Here is a question: how can keep the passion of customers?
Let's go back to look at Megabus's Facebook.
Undeniable, Megabus took some actions to talk with its customers Facebook about cancellation of trips and updated very quickly during Oct.28th to Nov.2th, setting the links to its official webpage which let people check the cancellation information. However, the same problems coming again. It was just an announcement, without any respond to people's feedback, no matter complaints or appreciation.  



I made a statistic, Megabus uploaded 23 posts informing people to check cancellations during Oct.28th to Nov.2th until all the routines were recovered to operate. And there were 103 comments, 233 likes and 6shares about those posts. The majortiy of people said "thanks" for their annoucement, while very rare people argued about cancellations. No feedbacks and no conversation. In my opinion, big event is chance to a company to draw people's attention. Also, it is a good opportunity to communicate with your customers, helping them solve their peoblems or fix your problems. Nevertheless, Megabus missed it, which casued the extremely decrease of people's attention after the hurricane.

Next, we take a look at Twitter of Megabus. Last time, I said Megabus has two Twitter accounts, @Megabus and @Megabushelp. The former one is used for post events and topics online, while the latter one is to help customers who meet problems and answer their questions.

Oct.24th

Nov.8th

We can see that the followers' number of Megabushelp is very small, only 1,574 people until today, and increasing speed is so slow that only added 83 people in half a month, which means that the reach of @Megabushelp is very low. The same situation occurs to @Megabus. There are only more 373 people following @Megabus in entire one month.

Oct.9th

Nov.8th

Obviously, there is something wrong with Megabus's Twitter acounts. Seldom people participate in it. From my points of view, it is unnecessay to open an independent help account, which makes followers of Megabus seperately and makes people's attention seperately.What' more, Megabus's Tumblr, which associate with Twitter, seems much more useless than other social media Megabus use.

Conclusion

Monitoring can help us understand the impact and effect of social media to a brand, a company, or a campaign in their development process. During the nearly two month observation and monitoring of Megabus, by tracking its performance on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTuBe, I find some problems which brings the results that people are losing their interest of talking about Megabus. There are the following problems. First, Megabus is so inactively engaged in participating the conversation with people online. Megabus almost never response to people's comments and feedbacks about its events, which causes the declining number of people talking about it. Second, it is likely that Twitter has not been utilized well so that people have no enough attention on it. Third, some useless or inappropriate social media tools, such as Tumblr, inhibits and prevents Megabus from approaching its customers well.

Recommendation

In order to solve the problems in Megabus's utility of social media I mentioned below, I consider some recommendations described in following paragraphs.

First, I believe that it will be better to Megabus if it takes part in the conversation with people on Facebook and Twitter more frequently, actively and energetically, talking about people's feelings, discussing their suggestions, sharing their experiences. Megabus should make good use of feedbacks from people and customers no matter positive or negative, to find their problems, try to fix it and let people know, rather than just listen to people' s voice without any reaction. If this situation keeps going for a longer time, there will be less and less people talking about Megabus so that those shortages and problems of Megabus cannot be fully exposed and services provided by Megaus will not be improved which causes its decrease of customers.

Second, I highly recommend that Megabus combine its two Twitter accounts, @Megabus and @Megabushelp, into an integral one, which can catch people's focus on all the information provided by Megabus., including news, campaigns, discussion, and problem solving. As we can see from the website, the number of @Megabushelp's follower is very small so that impact of communicating with people is limited. Meanwhile, the small group of people are separated from the people who follow @Megabus, which means that people who just want to get help will miss the information and campaign posted on @Megabus, also the @Megabus followers will have no idea about how Megabus helping people solve their problems. It's totally necessary to let people know Megabus are fixing problems and improving their services.

Third, it comes to Tumblr. In my opinion, it is a wise decision to cancel Megabus's expenses on its Tumblr account, for the reason that rare people are noticing it, and which will waste a lot of time, energy and money with no that meaningful result by running the account. Tumblr has the same function as Facebook, posting blogs and photos, while apparently, Tumblr's impact is much weaker than Facebook. Therefore, there is no need to sustain a Tumblr account due to its uselessness to energize people. Instead, Megabus should put much more attention to flourish and active its Facebook and Twitter accounts which are much popular in groundswell than Tumblr.

Fourth, self-made videos from customers are beneficial resources for Megabus to improve its reputation and impact. As we all know, people are used to highly trust what other people say rather than believe in the words or advertisement from the company or brand. In the two-months monitoring process, there were only 6 videos produced by Megabus before and no anything new. It probably is a wise choice to review those self-made videos from customers uploaded onto YouTuBe, choose something interesting and post them on Facebook, or link them on Twitter. In this way, Megabus not only can enrich its content on Facebook, but also can attract people's attention without spending a lot of money on producing videos by its own.

Finally, Megabus should improve the transparency of its tickets' prices by telling people when and which route's ticket just cost one dollar,which is Megabus famous for. It is clearly that a large number of Megabus's target audiences is college students who want to save money when they travel. Megabus had better to upload a board with information about price of tickets more frequently on Facebook or Twitter, and help them achieve their goals. Maybe some people will have a question here, like is it harmful to the company making money. I think the answer is no. On the other side, the action I recommend will help Megabus increase its credit and humility. Undoubtedly, everyday seats and buses are limited so that the number of people who get cheapest tickets is limited. All the people know this. However, if Megabus show the price list on Facebook, it will definitely help people make decisions and solidify the trust between Megabus and its customers. What's more, Megabus can do much better than just announce its customers. Megabus can contact with its customers who visit Megabus's website and search for a trip, sending email to the person when the ticket's price drop or increase. This is what Hotwire does, which is very useful to build a trustworthy relationship with customers.

Regard people as your partner

After finished the book, <<Groundswell>>, all of us clearly know that the power of groundswell belongs to people, not companies or any other social groups. Under this common sense, we need to confirm one more question: who are the people we moentioned? In my point of view, the "people" includes two groups: your customers and your employees. If you regard both of two groups of people as your parter, I believe you can thrive in the groundswell and the market much better.

First, let's talk about how to embrace your customers. We call this embracing—making customers an integral part of the way you innovate, with both pruducts and process improvement, to increase the chances of developing something your customers want.(Page183). I like the example of "dog are people, too." If you want to get the trust from your customers, you need to respect what they love. I checked the official website of Del Monte Food, and I can find the deep concern about customers' and their pets' health on it. They provide people with different choices of recipes with healthy meals and suggestion to their nutrition. Meanwhile, people can express their opinion about what they want and what they like. The "people focus" brings the company a big chance to approach their customers and embrace them as an important part of innovation.
                      
Companies always struggle with deciding what products to sell. What sellers afraid of is that the products they produce cannot be able to carter to customers' tastes. Why not let your customers help you with it?(Page181). Just like what Del Monte Foods dose.
                     
In addition to Del Monte Foods, Loblaw, the Canadian supermarket, is also a perfect example of embracing customers.  After checking the exquisite website of Loblaw, I am so impressed by their transparency and sincerity. They highly concentrate on customers' health and care about what customers' want. There is a kind of atmosphere expressed from the website that Loblaw stands behind you and gets ready for listening to you.
                       

The writers of the book tell us we can see reviews everywhere when we shop at Loblaw. What's more, the announcements on the webpage help customers find out their stuff whether in the form. If in it, Loblaw will recall it and take responsibility for it; if not, they can released and enjoy those food. Everyone who shops knows products have problems, but it's the rare retailer or manufacturer that actually fixs them. Loblaw has that reputation now, which means a lot to its customers.(Page191). This reputation let people trust in Loblaw. The key is, you need to more than just ask for feedback. You need to show that feedback online, good and bad, where people can see that you are ready to act on it.(Page194). At the same time, those reviews from customers are perfect suggestions to help you with improving things better. Regarding your customers as your partner, instead of regarding them just as the people who give you money, will  increases the possibility that makes you much better and more reliable.

                                         
Second, let's talk about the groundswell inside your company, which is I called the second group, your employees. Your employees are another essential part of your partners who can be benefit to you to stimulate your business. What about your employees? They're a natural consituency for social connection. They obviously have something in common: they work for you. And they ought to have a common goal: your company's success.(Page216).

Best Buy's Blue Shirt Nation(BSN) is the best practice in social networking, which allows employees of Best Buy to share knowledge, best practices, frustrations, aspirations and a few jokes. "BSN members form groups, make friends, stay in touch and prop each other up; they swap ideas and problem-solve together,'' explains Bendt, one of the creator of BSN. Each member of Best Buy is able to create his account on BSN, join the group he likes, post a blog about his feelings during a whole day work, upload a piece of video or music he interested in, and share everything with his colleagues. The online forum on Blue Shirt Nation is a natural extension of that mentoring culture, where employees can find the support they need from around the company, not just from within their store or district.(Page220)
                            
                           
                           
That's the Best Buy's culture shared by all the members of this company, no matter a senior managment in a department, or a primary seller in the store. This culture links all the stores in whole United States and leads the company, also the brand to achieve the same goal, the company's success. No matter what you're after, in the internal groundswell, the secret to thriving is culture. This is not about technology implementation but about managing and changing the way oganizations work, a change that needs the blessing—or, even better, the active participation.(Page230).

When I surfed the official website of Loblaw, the Canadian supermarket I just mentioned, I found that they also paid much attention to their employees' skills and passion toward their work. Listening first, then supporting your employees as your partners. The biggest benefit is being able to listen in on what people are working on, what they are concerned about, and where they ar focused. It's the virtual equivalent to management by walking around.(Page222). I believe that it is a necessary and important way to build up company's culture and accumulate company's energy. You need to respect your employees and help them enjoy their work in your company.
                  
In the future of groundswell, it is about to get embedded within every activity, not just on computers, but on mobile devices and in the real world. This is the ubiquitous groundswell. What dose that mean? It means social networks will connect people with the groups they care about.(Page235). From my perspective, groundswell will penetrate into every corner of social market, which links all the people in the market, no matter consumers, producers, sellers and management. The conversation  between buyers and sellers in groundswell is playing a more and more important role of deciding what products and services are going to be produced and provided. By getting information from the feedbacks of people, companies can realize what is right and what is wrong in this face-to-face game. Whey they make the wrong moves, they'll lean quickly and correct those mistakes just as quickly. They will be so secure in their relationship with customers that they know they can make a mistake—and not only survive, but thrive.(Page238).

 

Monitoring the utilize of Megabus in social media

Introuduction: 

Two years ago, it was the time I took Megabus first time, from Philadelphia to DC when I travelled in US. This September. 21th, I went to Philadelphia to visit my cousin there, and took a Megabus from Philly to DC to visit my friend. That was my second time Megabus experience. Surprisingly, nothing have changed during more than two years, with same bus, same seat, same terrible restroom, same  poor wi-fi signal, even same delay for nearly one hour. I am so curious about why everything still the same and no one want to fix the problem.

 

Megabus, a low-cost bus service in Great Britain, United states and Canada owned by Stagecoach Group, famous for its safe, convenient, and low cost starting from 1$ travel, with diverse featrues, like free wi-fi, restroom, accessible for mobility impaired, edc. On its official website, you can choose the place you're going to in nearly 80 cities where Megabus provides service, and buy the tickets.  

Megabus provides customers from several different taking off times with different price to choose. Normally, depending on arrival times, you arrive much later, the price of ticket much cheaper. If you are lucky, you can get the 1$ ticket!

                 

 

Target audience:

                     

What we can find from the chart is that most audience of Megabus is aged from 18-24, most of whom are college students. Undoubtedly, this group of people want to save money when they travel by taking Megabus. Obviously, saving money is the biggest benefit Megabus can bring to its customers, especially to young people. From my own experience, I always meet many students on bus, such as some girls with a large Forever 21 bags just for shopping to a near city. However, there is one problem of Megabus. I can never find any news, information or annoucement which tell me that when the tickets are 1 dollar or at low price, so that I never see $1 tickets ever.  If the goal of Megabus is to help people saving money, it should let people know.

Social media use:

Apparently, we have seen that we can contact with Megabus by three ways: Facebook, Twitter, and Tumlr. After the one-month monitoring, I find some problems showed in Megabus's social media utilize. It seems that social media dosen't work with helping Megabus energize its customers and thrive in the market.

1. Facebook. 

 

(Screenshot on Oct.24th)

(Screenshot on Sept.30th)

(Screenshot on Oct.12th)

We can find out that the number of people who like Megabus is increasing, however, the number of people who are talking about Megabus is reducing. What's the reason for this phenomena? I checked the Facebook webpage of Megabus, and found the reason: Megabus hardly response and talk with people who participate in the communication on Facebook. Megabus always just post some topics, inquires, champions on Facebook, and leave. People who are engaged in those, writing opinions and reviews never got response and reflection from Megabus. Gradually, people lack interest.

There was a campaign hold on Oct.5th. There were 324 of comments showed people took part in this campaign, all the people got the right answer. However, Megabus had no response to anybody to inform they and other spectators the results. It was so disappointing.

There is no doubt that the campaign will be helpful to Megabus letting people know more about the bus and energizing them to be with Megabus. The chart on Icerocket shows that the campaign draw an increasing number of people' s attention. Nevertheless, people were losing interest in talking about Megabus due to the silence of Megabus.

If I were the executive who mastered the Facebook of Megabus, I would open the result of the campaign which showed that people who won the tickets, especially those who got tickets by answering the question on Facebook. I believe this action will energize people's enthusiasm and trust leading them to take part in next campaign.

Let's see another campaign hold by Megabus showed on Facebook, which tells us the impact of social media to increase people's attention and interest. This was a campaign happened on Oct.17th, Nascar Nationwide Series Sponsorship, a football game as well, Megabus uploaded a great number of materials to Facebook, including some pictures and posts. There were 100 people who like those post in total and also some comments.

On the day, the chart on Icerocket shows that the highest peak of blogs referring to Megabus. The point I circled in green round.

 

Many people on Facebook express their affinity to Megabus, and most of those comments and posts uploaded by people are positive. However, Megabus hardly response to those appreciation. Customer will feel disppointed when they are ignored by what they like.

What's more, to those who are anger with Megabus due to its services, Megabus lose the opportunity to fix its mistake and lose its customers.

In conclusion, the more you engaged in groundswell, the more attention you get from people. The conversation between you and your customers cannot be stopped when it began. Therefore, taking part in the conversation with passion and humble is necessary to build a healty and long-term relationship with your customers.

2.Twitter.

(Screenshot on Oct.24th)

(Screenshot on Oct.9th)

(Screenshot on Oct.16th)

Obviously, we can find out that the number of tweets posted by Megabus on Twitter is increasing so slow. So dose the number of followers of Megabus.

let me tell you what happened to Megabus's twitter.

From Sept.27th to Oct.24, there are 98 tweets in total posted on to Internet, and there are only 27 original posts composed by Megabus. The others are the response to people who @ Megabus. A serious small number of people participate in the conversation and topic hold by Megabus. You can see from the following picture showing that nobody join the topics.

 

During one month observation of monitoring Megabus, I find a interesting phenomena, which is that the sentiment of netural to Megabus showed on Social mention always take big part of the whole. And the passion is very low.

(Screenshot on Oct.24th)

           (Screenshot on Oct.9th)                      (Screenshot on Oct.16th)

During one month, nothing have been changed of people's attitude toward Megabus. I believe there is something wrong with the social media use of Megabus.

Let's take a look of Megabushelp on Twitter. This is associated with Megabus, in order to provide customers with help and convenience when they meet problems and troubles.

After reivewing many tweets on Megabushelp, I find that it always use three answers to response customers:

1. My apologize for the delay. Can you please DM your contact info&we will reach out to you?

2.We're sorry to hear about this. Can you please follow and DM your contact number?

3. We apologize for the inconvenience you have experienced with you services.

Megabus always use same answer to respond different people.People must have be bored with those answers,and begin to dislike Megabus. Many people will meet same problems in a day. What Megabus do is just waiting people tell them that they are in trouble and solve the problem after it happened.In my opinion, Megabushelp on Twitter is a good solution to talking to customers, however, what's more, Megabus should carefully consider to fix the same problem before it happened next time, which will give customers more concidence to take it. 

Besides, there was no any response to show that whether those problems have been solved successfully. Lacking of these response, Megabus will lose customer's trust gradually. You can help people by Internet to express your humble, what also you need to do is show your customers and others you have the capacity to solve the problems in fastest way.

3. Tumblr.

Tumblr is a social network I never heard before. It is a website associated with Twitter, where you can post blogs and pictures.   

Megabus will post all the campaign with pictures and detials and Tumblr, and post its link on Twitter.Also, people can enter the webpage of Megabus's Twitter through Tumblr.

During the last one month, there were only 29 blogs posted by Megabus onto Tumblr, and there were only 14 notes showed people view those blogs. The attention is too low!

In my opinion, there is no need to use Tumblr at all. Seldom people knows Tumblr, and seldom use it. Those blogs posted on to Tumblr, are posted on to Facebook as well. What Megabus should do is posting the link of Facebook onto Twitter, because there are much more information, materials, conversation, and participation on Facebook, which can help Megabus activate the popularity of its Twitter.

4. YouTube

Depending on one month observation, I find out that YouTube is a social media being less focused on, even ignored. Until Oct.24th, there are only 6 videos uploaded by Megabue and shared on Facebook.

However, after checking the website of YouTube, and typing into the key word "Megabus", there are nealy 2000 videos by people who have ever took the bus before.

From my point of view, those videos are great resourese to Megabus which can be used to energize its customers. The company can uploaed thoe video onto Facebook and post the link the Twitter, which will attract people's  attention and interest. In addition, those videos are taken by customers and passengers, which seems much realer and more compelling.

 

Conclusion:

 

Megabus uses several social media to energize in the groundswell. However, there are some problems that need to be solved. Otherwise, those social media strategies will be useless to the company. In the next few weeks, I will contiune to observe the Megabus's utilize of social media, and check the problems whether have been noticed by their executives.

 

I love Megabus! Good luck to him!

Make yourself special

 

Last weekend, I went to DC to visit my cousin who works for VOA as a photographer. One 

of his colleague told us there was a famous cupcake store located in Georgetown University 

named Georgetown Cupcake, with a great number of people waiting for buying cakes 

everyday. To be curious about the taste of the cake, we drove to the store on Saturday

afternoon. As I said, there was a lot of people standing in the rain waiting for the cake so 

that we waited for nearly 40 minutes in our turns getting into the small store. There are

some pictures I took in the store.

 

I began to think about that why the cupcakes are 

so special and popular around the whole area and 

the city. When I checked the official website of

Georgetown Cupcake, I was impressed by the rich

information and considerate services provided by

the online shop. The
menu showed
online is so implicit
including diverse
tastes in different
season and different
periods. By clicking
the name of the
cupcake, you can
see its beautiful
picture and decide
whether you want.
 

 

When you finish your election, you can order cakes online by several simple steps. As long as you stay in US, you can get whatever you like no matter where you are.

 

I have checked several othe cakes' online shop, such as Mrs. Mack's Bakery, Sweet Bakery, Bean Counter Bakery, and find out that no one else provides the service of online order, delivery and shipping. Only this service makes Georgetown Cupcake so special and outstanding in its field.

 

 

Also, customers can get every piece of news about Georgetown Cupcake on its website. There is a lot of links to other pages uploaded with videos to show you how to make a particular cupcake. Some stories of the sisters, Katherine Kallinis Berman and Sophie Kallinis LaMontagne, the co-founders of Georgetown Cupcake, are changed into a cupcake culture, which brings a strong emotion behind cakes. That is the tight bond between the cake and customers. It is not only about the cake and delicious food, but also about the family and happiness.

 

 

What's more, every customer who walk into its small shop, can watch the process of cake making through the lucid windows. In my point of view, it is a kind of transparency. When you know well about making ways by which the food you eat, you will feel much more relieved.

Besides the store located in DC, Georgetown Cupcake also open the store in other five cities, including Bethesda, New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Atlanta. As other companies do, Georgetown Cupcake also provides the profile on Twitter and Facebook. What makes it so special and popular in US, the delicious taste definitely, however, more important is that the culture and emotion behind the cake make it much richer than the others. It builds up communities around soldiers, women, children and so on, which helps all the people become a big family with same emotion.



All of these elements stimulate your eager to try the cake. The specialization of a brand depends on the services provided by the company, how to define your brand and products, and what you want to express to your customers by using social media.