how did vodafone fail the social media governance test?

7/31/2019 How Did Vodafone Fail the Social Media Governance Test?

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How did Vodafone fail the Social MediaGovernance Test?

After seeing 700,000 customers desert it dueto network failures and being the subject ofa popular #vodafail social media campaign

Vodafone Australia certainly didnt need an em-ployee-induced social media crisis. When ArthurKotsopoulos (@GrathiusXR) tweeted disparagingremarks from the oor of a Vodafone shop whichridiculed customers and vendors Vodafone had yetanother PR mess to clean up. Kotsopoulos was sus-pended, and an investigation started.

To top it off Im serving mentally retarded peoplewho buy phones and have no clue how to use them.Asking me to message people for them..

Arthur Kotsopoulos (@GrathiusXR)July 31, 2012

What could have been better done to minimise therisk of this type of event in terms of social gover-nance? I dont want to add to the social media knee-

jerk, however it is important to understand a little

about Arthur Kotsopoulos because that adds valueto the discussion of governance. Hes certainly ho-ping that this event will blow-over, and life get backto normal, and he seems quite logical and able topromote his own view to the traditional media inasking for interviews to tell his side of the story.

@carleenfrost @dailytelegraph Hi Carleen Imopenly available to talk and give my views on thematter. Want to clear things up. Arthur Kotso-poulos (@GrathiusXR) August 2, 2012

He offers a rational answer as to why he descri-bed himself as a social media expert becauseVodafone apparently described him as that in anemail about his role as a TNT Ambassador (laterapparently revoked).

Whats the point of all that?

It tells you that Kotsopoulos appears to be a reaso-nablycoherentperson, and this lapse of judgementon his part might equally befall any other employeein the absence of a proper system ofsocial gover-nance. (Conversely, as one commentator pointedout, a bit of social media research shows that Kos-topoulos is actually a high-risk candidate to be aVodafone Ambassador.)

07/08/2012 06:50

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edia-governance-test/

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How did Vodafone fail the Social Media Governance Test?

The urry of articles already posted about this, andhow to manage it, have all focused on having an

effective social media policy, and training. Whilethey are important, but not the whole story of socialgovernance and risk. The key is how governancetswithin the overall social strategy, and howthat links with business strategy.

Social Business Framework

Phase 4 of our 8 Phase Social Business Frameworkis Protect, which followsAssess, Strategies andCreate.

The Protect Phase sets up the basis for governance,which is capped off by Phase 8 which is Monitoring.

The points we cover in Phase 4 Protect include arange of social governance steps on the journey tosocial business: Social media policy and guidelines in place andconsistent Regulatory compliance considered Data collection, retention and archiving determi-ned

Employee protections in place, including the socialmedia policy and training Company protections in place, including legal Social architecture assessed in context of risk andmonitoring Crisis management plan developed and integrated Risk assessment and risk management in place and practice is conducted Executive and Board reporting in place critical

items in relation to business strategy and risk

So from that list of points we can see that the socialmedia policy per se is onlyone part of an overall setof protection activities. Were familiar with manyexcellent guidelines on social media policies, andwhen it comes to social media employee trainingcompanies like Dell lead the way. Executive andBoard reporting relates to oversight, audit and riskmanagement. For Protect to be effective it requiresactive social media monitoring to be in place, andthats covered in our Phase 8.

So we know all the pieces, and there are manygood examples.

The missing link the coherent whole

Whats usually missing is how all this hangs togetheras a coherent whole and aligned with businessstrategy and business outcomes. Its by taking astrategic approach that risk is minimised, becauseits far more likely that all the pieces will re-enforceand support each other.

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How did Vodafone fail the Social Media Governance Test?

Take social architecture for example. A structuredand strategic approach takes into account the needfor a coherent and effective social architecture inour case this is an output of Phase 2 Strategy. If thatis not done then it isdifcult to properly undertakethe other phases of our approach to developing asocial business. For example it is not possible to doPhase 4 Protect or Phase 8 Monitor properly unlessyou know the complete and accurate social archi-

tecture. The risk assessment and risk managementaspects of our Phase 4 would highlight this expo-sure where the social architecture was missingor inadequate.

Jay Pring gives a great insight into the problemscaused by a lack ofsocial architecture when hetalked about helping Microsoft to establish theirsocial media practices:

But not before more than 280 employees had

taken it on their own back to set up Facebookaccounts and Twitter profles. The result wasa huge brand mess that saw hundreds of em-

ployees talking to an audience of around 2 mil-lion people, with almost no management ormarketing involvement or oversight. Microsoftspent more than a year closing these accountsand transitioning their fans and followers toocial company profles.

As you can also imagine, having an ill-dened socialarchitecture makes the use of social during a PR orother crisis far less ecient and effective as weveseen recently in theBrumbys PR problems. In termsof risk management you are already batting againstyourself unless you get the social architecture right.The type of brand mess referred to by Pring issomething we see very often in clients, and we seeit emerging around us everyday as we observeorganisations continuing to approach social mediaas a brand or marketing exercise, and not as anintegral consideration in their business strategy.

Where was the point of failure for

Vodafone?

The simple answer is that we dont know. But pe-rhaps a clue lies in the question. Vodafone no doubthas invested considerable resources into counteringthe #vodafail campaign and also in the PR aspectsof managing their customer defection and networkproblems over the last 18 months. They no doubt

have a well-exercised social media policy. Butperhaps all that investment and those processesare point solutions?

Perhaps they had no time, in the face of events, toproperly work through a coherent methodologywhich would have built the most effective socialstrategy and risk management processes? Thatsquite likely.

So in that case where Vodafone failed the social

media governance test was not in nothaving a socialmedia policy but in not developing governanceas part of an strategic, holistic approach to socialbusiness and business strategy. And a key point toemphasis is that social governance is far more thanjust a social media policy and social media training.

Do you have an Arthur Kotsopoulos lurking in yourorganisation and about to spring a leak in your social

governance practices?

WalterA Follow @adamsonhttp://xeeme.com/walterTweet to @igo2

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http://joliprint.com/maghttp://igo2group.com/http://igo2group.com/blog/social-business-10-commandments-before-you-start/http://twitter.com/jaypringhttp://jaypring.com/2012/08/01/social-media-rogues-what-to-do-when-staff-lose-it-online/http://igo2group.com/blog/brumbys-brand-risk-crisis-lacks-resilience/http://igo2group.com/blog/brumbys-brand-risk-crisis-lacks-resilience/http://igo2group.com/blog/fools-gold-5-ways-social-business-strategy-beats-social-media-strategy/https://twitter.com/adamsonhttp://xeeme.com/walterhttps://twitter.com/intent/tweet?screen_name=igo2&text=Re%20Vodafone%20PR%20crisis%3A%20http%3A%2F%2Fwp.me%2Fp1VXmY-1wk%20http://getinboundwriter.com/wordpress/https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?screen_name=igo2&text=Re%20Vodafone%20PR%20crisis%3A%20http%3A%2F%2Fwp.me%2Fp1VXmY-1wk%20http://xeeme.com/walterhttps://twitter.com/adamsonhttp://igo2group.com/blog/fools-gold-5-ways-social-business-strategy-beats-social-media-strategy/http://igo2group.com/blog/brumbys-brand-risk-crisis-lacks-resilience/http://jaypring.com/2012/08/01/social-media-rogues-what-to-do-when-staff-lose-it-online/http://twitter.com/jaypringhttp://igo2group.com/blog/social-business-10-commandments-before-you-start/http://igo2group.com/http://joliprint.com/http://joliprint.com/mag

how did vodafone fail the social media governance test?

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