Social Media Burning Up Over Heat Wave

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The nation’s worst heat wave in years has people virtually sweating it out and trying to cope on social media.

Facebook, Twitter, blogs and other online forums have already racked up more than 4 million references to hot weather this month and that number is increasing rapidly, says Joe Schab, president of Mastermind Marketing, which tracks social media chatter.

Even Justin Bieber can’t compete: On Twitter, usually a stronghold for “Bieber Fever,” the heat is nearly four times as popular a topic as the 17-year-old pop singer, Schab says. Sorry President Obama, but heat updates are outpacing conversations about the debt ceiling 24-to-1, he says.

The heat wave has been linked to 22 deaths and made life miserable for millions of Americans as far north as Minnesota, south as Texas and east as Maine.

While Schab says most posts are complaints, they’re not all hot air. From offering safety tips to broadcasting hot deals, folks are using social media to :

•Warn: Hundreds of American Red Cross local chapters are transforming into online heat wave “cheerleaders” encouraging people to visit cooling centers and stay hydrated, says Wendy Harman, director of social strategy at Red Cross headquarters.

•Experiment: The National Weather Service in Sioux Falls, S.D., set out to test whether it was hot enough to fry an egg on a sidewalk , posting the findings on Facebook. Though the egg wasn’t ready for the breakfast table, meteorologist Jenni Laflin says video experiments like this are attention-grabbing while still underscoring hot weather hazards.

bulletConnect: Maine resident Coleen Daskoski never saw her dream of becoming a weather girl come true. But the Weather Channel’s Facebook page helps her feed her appetite for the latest heat wave news.. “If I can’t be in the weather department, at least I can do something on their websites,” Daskoski says.

•Sell: One New York City food truck, the Cupcake Crew, sold out of several $5 cupcake and iced coffee “heat wave specials” marketed on Twitter and Facebook. “We have to do something to jazz up sales,” says owner Frankie “Cupcakes” Mancini.

•Create: On the heels of “Snowpocalypse,” the Washington Post’s online Capital Weather Gang is holding a contest to nickname this summer’s scorcher. With candidates like “TemperRapture,” “Saunathon” and “Sweat Ceiling” in the running, it’s a heated race, to say the least.

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Why Facebook’s Friends May Fade

This won’t come as welcome news to the folks at Facebook, but its customer-satisfaction ratings aren’t much to boast about.

Among its social-media peers, Facebook landed at the bottom of the keeping customers-happy list, according to the 2011 American Customer Satisfaction Index E-Business Report. With a score of 66 out of 100, only airlines, subscription TV and newspapers fared less favorably with consumers.

If you’re unfamiliar with it, the ACSI E-Business Report enables businesses to track customer satisfaction in three categories: social media, portals and search engines, and online news. And — as in last year’s report — social media sites continue to be the redheaded stepchild when it comes to e-businesses that maintain consumer satisfaction rankings. The category earned a paltry 70 score out of 100.

While Facebook remains at the bottom of the heap, the social-networking utility did actually make a modest 3 percent gain over last year’s score of 64. ACIS surmises that Facebook’s size domination might be a factor in the improved figures. After all, Facebook is approaching one billion users. Wikipedia and YouTube scored 78 and 74 in the latest report, respectively.

So what does this mean for you and your business? 

In my experience, consumer dissatisfaction with e-businesses comes from user concerns about their privacy and security. They also appreciate when businesses understand the difference between social networking and social selling — generally, consumers don’t like hearing a sales pitch when they’re not expecting it. 

Keeping these and other concerns you’re aware of in mind when developing and executing your business-communications strategy is key. And it’s more important now than ever. If you’re old enough to remember when email first emerged and then evolved as a marketing tool, you’ll recall that similar concerns surrounding spam, phishing, viruses and formatting plagued consumers right from the get-go. My thinking is that as email evolved to include certain protections and standards, so too will social media-related platforms, but only you — the business owner — can set the tone surrounding the proper mix of social networking and social selling.

Even though Facebook remains the dominant player in the social-media spectrum, the ACSI study does suggest that they may need to worry, as users have few other choices for social interaction. In particular, the recent launch of Google+, a social networking platform that boasts an enticing video-conferencing feature, among other things, is expected to give Facebook a run for its money.

And, since Google routinely scores at the top of the ACSI report in the search engine and portals category — climbing to an astounding 83 rating in customer satisfaction this year — a continued poor showing by Facebook could give Google the leverage it needs to topple the social-networking giant.

Do you think Google+ will knock Facebook off its perch? Leave a comment and let us know. 

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