Janet Lee Johnson | The Art of Marketing

When I found this on Rhohit Bhargava’s Influential Marketing Blog, I was absolutely delighted. Because they’re dead on.

Personally, I’m at Stage 4 with Twitter most of the time, and fight to stay in Stage 5… I have ushered clients through Stages 1, 2 and 3 regularly, and hope they’ll figure out how to hit Stage 4 and 5 when they’re meaningful to them.

When you hit (or follow someone who’s hit) Stage 5, you will experience the true power of the Twitter experience.

To check your Stage, here’s what you should do… check your own personal Twitter profile every time you login. Ask yourself:

• What does your most recent page of Tweets say about you?
• Are you having meaningful conversations and publishing information of interest for others to read?
• Are you Re-Tweeting (RT) other people’s posts and replying to posts as much as you’re telling others what’s up with you?

As I’ve said before, with Twitter (and with any other social media tool) you’ve got to give to get. Seriously. The conversation economy is thriving because (as my friend Marsha noted in her comments here):

“Our brains are wired via 350,000 generations of community cooperation - looking out for one another.”

Let’s go online and help each other out. Keep me honest, folks… is my profile screaming Stage 5 to you?

In a recent report, the Pew Internet Trust has given us a look at generational habits online, and they’re not strikingly different from each other. I’m not particularly surprised at the similarities, but was surprised at the sheer number of us looking for health information online.

From the report, written by Sydney Jones and Susannah Fox:

Generation X is the most likely group to bank, shop, and look for health information online. Boomers are just as likely as Generation Y to make travel reservations online. And even Silent Generation internet users are competitive when it comes to email (although teens might point out that this is proof that email is for old people).

First, today’s labels for your convenience:

(I’m happy to be a “younger boomer” and fascinated that they’ve finally split the boomers in two, noting there are enough differences between us “younger” and “older” boomers that it made sense to do so).

The report notes:

“Compared with teens and Generation Y, older generations use the internet less for socializing and entertainment and more as a tool for information searches, emailing, and buying products. In particular, older internet users are significantly more likely than younger generations to look online for health information.

Health questions drive internet users age 73 and older to the internet just as frequently as they drive Generation Y users, outpacing teens by a significant margin. Researching health information is the third most popular online activity with the most senior age group, after email and online search.”

Here’s how the breakout looks by generation where Gen X and older are more active than Gen Y:

Look at the correlation of % who go online with the % who look for health information. That’s pretty stunning. In the Gen X generation, it’s a 1:1 correlation. As I’ve said over and over again… the need for accurate, dependable health information online has never been more important.

And now, thanks again to the Pew Internet Trust, we can really see the demand is there.

A second peanut plant (this one in Texas) run by the Peanut Corporation of America has just shut down operations as a result of government pressure over the salmonella scare.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported today that the number of cases linked to the current peanut product outbreak has reached 600, and said that as many as eight people may have died as a result.

At the same time, sales of jars of peanut butter- which are not affected in this recall - have slid 22% in four weeks. As I mentioned on Sunday in my Stopping Spreading Fear… post, food producers - in the face of consumer hysteria - are relegated to buying print and PPC ads to fight the hype and hyperbole that have surrounded the lack of information in this case. They just aren’t ready to move fast enough - this time.

I can only take heart in the hope that this (lack of) response to a major food / health issue will never happen again. With government coordination, and soon-to-come business participation, we’ll have the facts (FACTS! Not conjecture… or silence…) available as they unfold next time.

The systems are available. People are using them. Businesses and the associations who represent them are just going to have to get them implemented NOW, in preparation for next time.

Sign me up for some of that.

In her blog yesterday, pharma marketer Ellen Hoenig-Carlson elaborated on my peanut butter post and said:

“Yet…what I also find interesting is that the US GOVERNMENT seized the moment during this crisis to launch a social media collaboration…”

Food and pharma are highly regulated, especially around health claims. Few companies (Johnson & Johnson is a notable exception) have leveraged social media to interact with consumers.

I find it rather ironic that the very government entities who regulate business communications are providing the majority of peanut recall information in the social media realm.

The CDC has a little site up complete with blog links, video links, e-health cards you can send to friends (!?!), RSS feeds, podcasts and even a link to their mobile web site. And, to fly the flag for safety, you can even put little badges (code provided) on your site.

I love the garbage can - proud to have thrown away products! But hey… if it gets people motivated, so be it!

As Ellen noted:

“WOW! Government actively using and exploring social media, twitter and the like, before private business…

Who would have thunk…

Attention industry and marketers alike…are you ready?”

Perhaps with the government leading the way, they will be able to speak more freely, especially when and where we need them to the most.

In early January the CDC and FDA warned of salmonella in peanut products from the Peanut Corporation of America, a peanut plant located in GA. One of my clients, the Academic Network, jumped into action once early indicators began to surface.

(They’re a Stericycle company, whose job it is to help manage recalled peanut and peanut paste products by getting them out of stores and destroying them.)

The Academic Network’s role is to provide health care professionals to help answer questions about product recalls, and provide the social media “listening” services necessary to help companies anticipate product recall issues.

I set up the listening systems for them, and help monitor them during crises like this, the largest food recall in history.

Anticipating Risks to Mitigate Them

We started monitoring the web (Twitter, Facebook, other social media sites) for conversations about peanuts, and the experience was quite amazing.

Some highlights:

• We were able to predict the spread of the recall from people to pet food - days before any announcement
• We predicted the spread of fear from peanut products to peanut butter in jars weeks before peanut butter jar sales dropped off by 25%
• We reached out to associations (like the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association and the American Peanut Council) to help them handle the huge job of getting the right information out to people online. No one listened.
• People talk about peanut butter online a lot (probably second only to bacon) and we watched the hysteria grow exponentially the day after the inauguration, when Tweets and posts like this appeared:

…and it really hasn’t stopped. Victims of the peanut recall are not only the poor unfortunate souls, families and pets who ate the tainted stuff; but the businesses who are losing millions in sales of perfectly good products.

Traditional Response Fell on Deaf Ears - While Hysteria Grew

As the fear of peanuts, peanut paste and peanut butter spread in that first few weeks, no one from the food industry proactively reached out to consumers online. If they did, I didn’t see it.

Oh, sure, there were press releases announcing that products were safe, but unless you were subscribing via RSS to certain key phrases, they were falling on relatively deaf ears - as evidenced by the falling sales of peanut butter products of all kinds.

Apparently the food industry (and those who represent them) are glacially slow in their platforms and processes; and were unable to react to the needs of consumers and deliver information in the right channels of communication.

Meanwhile, Online…  People Reached Out to Help

From the beginning, the confusion was mitigated slightly when news reporters, bloggers, Tweeters and others shared links to the FDA site where, (weeks later) they’ve finally added search capability to help navigate the growing list of tainted products.

In a highly unusual - and I’ll bet expensive - move, today you’ll see ads and coupons in papers across the country from companies like ConAgra and Smuckers attempting to tell consumers their products are safe. That’s one way to try to recoup confidence in products.

And I’m finally seeing Google ads from providers - not just trial lawyers - on peanut butter searches:

Learning Our Lessons - Stopping the Spread of Fear

What should we do next time? (And there will be a next time, just change the food source and product…)

• Association sponsorship of a social web site dedicated to quelling the myths around recalled products, staffed by nutritionists, nurses and doctors - why not? It takes no time to put one up - if you know what you’re doing. And you can answer questions in near-real time. Imagine the resource that would be to consumers.
• Point searchers to it using PPC advertisements - engage search behavior to spread the word
• Mobilize the millions of social media connectors to get the word out - give us good information, and we’re delighted to help out

One of the pictures (and I love pictures) I’m most proud of during this mess is this one, from Google Insights:

See the regional interest in the recall? The Portland-based team supporting the Academic Network’s efforts has been highly engaged - and it shows.

I just hope next time we’ll have some industry partners interested in hearing how they might leverage the knowledge we’ve gained from this terrible scare much earlier in the process.

I’m sure there would have been millions of dollars in savings, much less hysteria, and (perhaps even) lives saved as a result.