Ragan Gibson

The last stage of tapping into the groundswell is to completely embrace it. Companies should tap into customers who will help with innovation and in turn increase the chances of developing something that customers actually want. The faster innovation takes place, the better for the company and the customers.

Customers will quickly tell you what they want. They are eager to tell companies how to make things better, faster and more efficient, so companies should take advantage of this. Once you have figured out what customers want, then companies can make continuous innovations and decisions. Through face-to-face communication, customers can effectively and efficiently help companies make decisions about their products and services.

My internship at Saint Thomas Health Services in Nashville began to embrace the groundswell. As part of the communications department, we worked with customers and patients face-to face to ask their suggestions, wants, and comments. The services provided by STHS are crucial to its reputation and existence. Setting up online blogs also helped evaluate customers’ ideas and suggestions. Feedback is immediate and can be organized in a more cohesive way.

Setting up a private community could be something that STHS could consider. This would create a specific area for customers to openly discuss their experiences. Processing the feedback is one thing, but they also need to show the feedback online. Providing the good information along with the bad, shows that the company is not trying to hide anything and is willing to listen, change and respond to ideas and suggestions. This is worth the risk of publicly showing bad feedback because regardless there is probably negative feedback online anyways, so it is better to keep it under surveillance and in a discussion where you can see it.

STHS is recognized at the number one heart disease center in the Nashville area. To uphold this reputation, it needs to combine humility and skill. By recognizing that they are at the top of the spectrum now is great to admit, but it also needs to understand that being at the top means that it can fall that distance. Keeping things in perspective is important, so that egoism doesn’t get in the way of performance. By continuing to practice great skill and ability, the reputation will maintain itself. It is when companies get arrogant that things go badly.

By combining the hard work and skill of the employees and doctors at STHS with the suggestions of customers and patients, the company can grow in ways never imagined. Initiating conversation with customers jump-starts the process to innovation. STHS, especially since it is a healthcare company, needs to exploit the knowledge of its customers and combine it with their internal knowledge. By letting go of any ego, companies can realize that their customers really do have insightful ideas and suggestions. Listening, publicly discussing and making changes will in turn help the company as well as the customers.

The groundswell can be use to save money and energize customers, but it can also serve to support people during times of need, no matter how big or small.

The CarePage at the hospital have helped so many families get through tough times. I had a friend in high school who was in a terrible biking accident. Nobody knew what was going on and rumors began to spread. It is hard wanting to be a good friend, but also respecting the family and not wanting to bother them in such a hard time. That is why CarePage helped my group of friend and family so much. We could be updated on an hourly basis about what was going on with our friend. Each visit with the doctor brought about new updates on his condition and ways that the family could use help. This gave legitimate information to those worried, and lessened the amount of rumors that were circulating.

Will’s accident left him paralyzed from the waist down. I think he would say now, that the online blog-type pages helped him get through this life-altering accident. He was able to read encouraging messages and prayers, without becoming drained by excessive visitors. This supportive type of groundswell helped not only the friends and family, but also the patient. The groundswell can be such an amazing support system, if it is used in the right way.

The encouraging thing is that there are so many people out there who are willing to help without any sort of monetary compensation. In an economy like now, it is important to appreciate this fact. People even more willing to help and support each other inline if they are given the chance. Helping the customers support each other will make them happier, save the company money and generate insights.

Companies should take advantage of those who thrive off of helping others. No matter how big the scale, there are always people in need of support and those willing to give it. It could be in a hospital situation where terms of life and death are at risk, or on a much smaller scale such as trying to fix a technical problem with a product. There will always be experts out there who can easily support customers online. All they need is the opportunity to ask and answer questions on a regular basis, and before you know a deep support system has emerged.

I have personally had problems with my cell phone, computer and camera, and instead of calling and taking to several customer service automated voices; I got online and searched for answers. I have found that there are many people out there who experience the same troubles that I do, and they are willing to share how they fixed these issues. I now need to be better about sharing the knowledge that I have gained so that I can support others when they encounter the same problems. With a little bit of effort, a lot of support can come from the groundswell.

Finding enthusiasts about your company is the first step, then all you have to do is turn them into word of mouth machines. Word of mouth sounds simple, and it is, but it also works. It is successful because it’s believable, it’s self-reinforcing and it’s self-spreading.

This can be the most honest form of marketing. By building on people’s natural desire to share their opinions with others, word of mouth can be a company’s most successful strategy. By encouraging the creators to talk about, write about, and post video about products, more and more people will become involved with word of mouth tactics.

One of the best examples I can think of on the college campus is Nike. Nike has a very solid company and product name, and it shows when I look around. I think every college and probably high school girl own several pairs of Nike workout shorts. Without extreme marketing efforts, Nike has built a line of products that is extremely popular.

Someone must have bought a pair, like them, and told all their roommates about them. When I go to the gym, I rarely see anyone wearing anything but a pair of these Nike shorts. I wondered if it was just an Auburn trend, but my sister at a different colleges as well as my friends from home spread across the nation at different schools, all seem to share the common appreciation for these shorts.

There are several ways in which Nike can inspire more energy among its customers. First it could tap into ratings and reviews. With direct customer contact, they can see first hand testimonials about their product. The positive reviews will inspire talk, and the negative ones can be taken into consideration for changing something about the product to improve it. Like eBags, Nike wouldn’t have to sell anything, the customers would.

Next, Nike could create a community to energize the customers. By creating a community forum where customers could encourage each other, Nike could answers questions, suggest referrals and encourage new sign ups. This is basically a place for enthusiasts of the company to came and make a change and inspire talk. Nike would do well with this community because it is a company centered on business-to-business. Nike would have to think ahead at any conflict that might arise and prepare for it, and closely know the objectives that are going on.

Lastly, Nike could energize an already existing community. Like the Lego Company who energized its most inspired adults customers, Nike could energize the female college market. This demographic is obviously already part of the energized spectrum, and takes no hesitation in recommending the band to their friends and family. Nike would be building a relationship with this demographic as well as learning about what it going on in their world.

Energizing can be risky because now people will be talking about your brand. They will not only be listening and writing, but using word of mouth to discuss the pros and cons of a company or product.

Talking with the groundswell is a common and effective way to help your company. There are a few techniques that make talking with the groundswell understandable and easy to follow. The model says that companies should post a viral video, engage in social networks and user-generated content sites, join the blogosphere and create a community.

Last summer I interned in the communications department in a hospital in Nashville. I was lucky enough to be a part of many interesting and innovative projects while I was there, but I do not feel like the company fully embraced the idea of talking with the groundswell.

The first technique of talking to the groundswell is to post a video. This helped Blendtec turn into such a successful product just by posting its extreme blending videos. The hospital did engage is this technique. I was able to be a part of the entire process of creating a commercial. I was in the meeting for the pitch of the commercial, there for the casting of the commercials, the actual filming and the editing. These commercials aired on television networks, but they also appeared on YouTube, as well as the Titans jumbo-tron in the stadium. This video started out about awareness. There were two commercials, one focused on cardiac health and the other on joint replacement. Jeff Fisher, the head coach for the Tennessee Titans, was the spokesperson for each of the commercials. This brought a familiar and credible face to the audience.

These vides grab people’s attention, but the questions comes when you do not know what to do once you have their attention. I think the commercials could have been more effective if there were links to social networks sites, articles about the issues, blogs or other communities where people can further their relationships and inquires about cardiac health and joint replacement, or other general questions about the hospital.

Going beyond posting videos, engaging in social networks and user-generated content sites would help the hospital with PR.  This would be an easy solution to expanding the reach of the company, and then they need to turn the reach into a conversation. This will first initially verify that its consumers are using social networks as well. Lastly, the hospital would need to make sure they were creating a presence that would encourage interaction and conversation. If the hospital was looking for a more long term commitment then they should explore blogging.

Writing blogs is a way that they hospital could engage with its patients and clients and see their concerns first hand. This is a more personal form of listening and in turn talking to their publics. Blogs create awareness and conversations that they company can use as feedback. The dialogue would be frequent and diverse, and would involve lots of updates and responses.  This allows for questions to be answered on the company side as well as the client side. The hospital would need to follow the tips of blogging such as rehearsing, developing a plan, developing an editorial process, developing a marketing plan, and being honest.

Lastly, the hospital could try creating a community. This is a powerful way to engage with the patients and deliver value to them. This can help with answering questions, and listening as long as the company is careful to talk and not shout. This community for the hospital could deal with sensitive issues that can anonymously be dealt with. Similar to beinggirl.com, this community would help build rapport with patients, and help them understand their medical concerns.

Listening to the groundswell is crucial, and more importantly acting on what you hear will make all the difference. Customers determine what your brand stands for, so in order to have a positive brand name, you have to listen to what is being said.

My campaigns group has been given an opportunity to turn a vision into its on entity. In order for this to happen, several things must occur. Aside from funding and other issues along those lines, we must define our target audience and listen to what they want. In this specific case, our client is the Southern Literary Trail. This began as the idea of one man in 2005, and it has expanded each year. The trail consists of several historical sites that were the homes or towns of popular 20th century authors. Southern Literary Trail is a tri-state effort, including the states of Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. Our job is to figure out how to make this into an actual organization, and have it continue throughout the rest of the year and into the future.

Our first step is essentially market research. We are planning to survey out main focus group of15-25 year olds. By asking high school and college students about their interest levels in reading and traveling, we can get a better idea of how to better market this brand. In addition to our surveys, we would like to conduct a focus group study in which we observe the opinions and ideas of these selected students and see how the Southern Literary Trail could cater to their thoughts. The volume of students would have to be contained, but focusing in on a mix of young students in the South would give us a general understanding on their thoughts and opinions about the Southern Literary Trail.

Additionally, my group created a Facebook and Twitter account for the Southern Literary Trail. This will also target a younger age demographic and allow for discussions, opinions and ideas to form online. We can use this information to enhance our own research and relay the message back to the Southern Literary Trail. They are putting these tasks into our hands because they realize that we have a better understanding on how to negotiate the groundswell and all that it entails.

Once we get the Southern Literary Trail tapped into the groundswell, we can put our listening strategy to work. We will consistently check their newly created accounts, invite new people to join and spread the word of the organization online. We will also begin our efforts on a small scale, while still thinking big. We have large and long-term ideas for this organization, one of them being an appearance on Oprah, but we realize we have to take baby steps at first. By taking small but well- thought-out steps, we will eventually get to a bigger place. Lastly out team has made a commitment to be very dedicated to this organization and its future. We have made a contract and designated roles to each member. We have established a senior person in charge of all contacts with the Southern Literary Trail, and we have established a professional relationship with them.

Ideally, we hope that these listening efforts will provide us with the knowledge and tools we need to make the Southern Literary Trail a long-lasting and successful organization.

The POST method for panning process is something that can be applied to many areas of business. This acronym, standing for people, objectives, strategy, and technology is the foundation of the groundswell thinking. It provides a clear method and framework for creating an affective plan.

For example, I did an internship for a month with Revlon. We launched a new product line while I was working. I was assigned a team, and our job was to research and plan how to make this launch the best that it could be. Before we could start anything, we needed to establish a definite plan for our team. When I look back on this, we were using the POST method without me ever realizing it.

First, we started with people. Our main targeted audience was for women 50 and over. We needed to research what these women were ready for in terms of make-up and beauty products. This age demographic made it a little harder to engage in the groundswell, but there were still many outlets that we could have used. We mainly stuck to surveys and paper handouts, but I think if we had utilized more social networks we could have reached more people. This launch was in 2005, so the concept of Facebook and Twitter were still something skeptical. Once we found our what our targeted customers were ready for and what they wanted, we could establish our objectives.

Our team needed to clearly identify our goals for this launch. We wanted to establish short-term as well as long-term goals in terms of marketing and sales numbers. Also, we needed to determine is we should tap into the groundswell internally as well as externally. Our goals for the website were ambitious, because we wanted the online outlet to be different than ever before. The concepts of product packaging, logos, and color palettes were all extremely important in determining what would make up the best line of products. Putting these goals into affect was more challenging, and therefore we needed a definable strategy.

We needed to answer the question of how we wanted our customer relationships to change by introducing this new line of products. By branching out into an entirely new age demographic, we had the opportunity for a whole new market to expand. We wanted these more mature women to spread the word about this line to their market as well as others. Age-defying make-up is appealing to older women, but also to young women as well. They can use the products as prevention to future areas of trouble they may encounter when they are older. These questions allowed for us to anticipate what was coming, and allow for planning for the desired changes to occur. As part of our strategy, it was also important that we stayed in touch with other areas of the company, to make sure that they were not feeling threatened by the possibility of a new market.

Lastly, there was a need for technology. I personally, was not around for this implication process, but I do know that it was an area that the company engaged in. I know the company utilizes social networks including Facebook. They have taken the plunge into the groundswell and have decided which types of technologies work best for them.

This chapter highlights the different groups that categorize people’s behavior when it comes to the groundswell. There are the creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators and the inactives. I want to look further into the inactives category.

My grandparents, along with many others their age, would fall under this category. The groundswell cannot ignore this demographic of people, because they are still target markets to many companies. The chapter acknowledges that people over fifty are far less involved in the groundswell compared to young consumers, but many of them are there. The older generation may not be as prevalent, but some are still on social networks and are able to be reached through the groundswell.

My grandparents are not online, but they would love to be. They think it is way over their heads, but we frequently find them at our house using our Internet and email. Over the holidays, we chatted online with my cousin, who is living in South Korea. My grandparents were amazed that we could see Heather and talk to her over the computer. It was even a different day there! The initial intimidation is there for them, but they are fully capable of understanding and participating in the groundswell if they are taught. My grandparents frequently ask us to look up telephone numbers, names of their friends, and use our email and pictures. They talk about how wonderful being online is, yet they are afraid to actual try it out for themselves. The groundswell has the power to reach them if they present the idea in simple terms. My grandmother loves for me to look up shopping sales for her, and my grandfather loves for me to contact his group of World War II friends to update them on each other’s lives and upcoming meetings. All of these activities are part of the groundswell, and my grandparents really are participating, they just do not fully know it.

There are probably many individuals over 50 who find themselves in a similar situation. Even my dad falls into the category of not really understanding what the groundswell is and how to use it to his advantages. I know the tools out there would help him, if he were to take the time to learn more about what goes into it. He is a doctor, and I think that blogs where doctors can talk to each other about their experiences would be beneficial and a unique experience for my dad to have. He is just unaware of the tools out there for him to use.

I think that companies should take the statistics offered in chapter three, and help apply more knowledge to the older age demographic. Right now, the majority of older boomers and seniors fall into the inactives category. Roughly 30 percent to 40 percent of this group falls into the spectators category. This means that they are consuming what the rest of the people are producing. This gives older aged people a change to have hands on experience with the groundswell, and eventually they will be comfortable enough to move into the categories of joiners, collectors and creators.

I was excited to read chapter two of Groundswell because I fall under the category of being intimidated by this movement. I am assured that if I master my way of thinking about the groundswell, then I can use it to my advantage.

I am glad this chapter took the time to explain the technologies behind the groundswell. Instead of getting confused by detail, it was helpful for me to first really learn what a blog is and why participation is important. It was not as scary for me to think of blogs as merely a form of expression that encourages commentary about what has been written and posted. Blog reading is one of the most popular activities of the groundswell, so I feel like it is important that I am learning first hand how it works.

Once I understood the basic working of blogs, the chapter explained how they enable relationships. This was the most important part of the chapter to me because it showed how the groundswell really could lead to bigger and greater possibilities. The interlinking between blogs allows for relationships to form.

For example, I am able to read my cousin’s blogs all of the time. She is 22 years old and married to man in the army. He is currently based in South Korea, so my cousin lives there as well. I am able to stay connected to her through her blogs and pictures, and I can comment and ask questions as well.

The daunting part about blogs to me is that they are not regulated, so anything is possible. This creates a sense of vulnerability for me when I do blog, because I know that anyone can read and is free to comment on it. This also creates a red flag when the line between fact and opinion can become blurry. This makes it all the more important for the blogger to pay close attention and follow up on what they have read.

My sister Kathryn is two and a half years younger than me and she is much more comfortable with the online world and the groundswell. The two years do not seem like much, but they have made quite a difference when it comes to embracing the groundswell movement. She said, “ I think it is great to see the opinions of others and create an ongoing commentary.” She seems to understand the advantages and possibilities of this movement without having to read a book, but for some people like myself, it takes a little something more for complete understanding of this movement. Kathryn uses the Internet for shopping, travel and academics all of the time. While I have before, it is not a regular habit of mine. Suddenly my two older years seems more like the difference of a generation.

One social network I am familiar with is Facebook. This is just one of many social networks that people can join to use to their advantage. Although it can create some problems, mostly great opportunities can come from them. This is something that is spreading across all generations as well. What was once a solely college application is now used from people from middle school to middle aged. Social networks can help with finding jobs, getting donations, petitions, fundraisers and campaigning. Used properly and responsibly, they can be the windows to wonderful possibilities.

This chapter gives a good overview of the different types of technologies and how they enhance relationships, how they threaten institutional power and how you can use them. I have now seen all sides of these technologies and can measure the advantages and disadvantages for myself. Now they I have a better understanding of what the groundswell movement actually entails, I am not as overwhelmed by the unfamiliar terms and jargon. This makes applying the groundswell to my everyday life much more tangible.

The first chapter of Groundswell was very interesting for me to read. My generation has grown up with the Internet, so it has become a natural part of my life. At times that makes me forget the impact that the Internet has on corporations and businesses. When I desire something, it is not uncommon for me to turn to Ebay or other sites that are similar. I very rarely consider how this affects the companies that initially provide these products and services.
This chapter taught me that the groundswell is a movement that cannot be stopped, but it can be understood. It is important, as a public relations major, to consider how this movement could affect my field. I hope to work in a full-service public relations and marketing firm where the main focus would be to offer a variety of public relations strategies to its various clients.

It is important to remember that while our job is to create a positive and proactive image for our clients, other publics could be writing anything they want about our firm. Clients can talk to each other online and compare the benefits and disappointments that they found in their PR firms. This is something that will inevitably happen to PR companies.

The book suggests that instead of hurting from this groundswell, that taking a proactive approach is the better alternative. By actively participating in blog posts and learning from the clients’ suggestions and criticisms, the company can turn this groundswell into something positive.
There is a bit of irony in that as a public relations practitioner the ultimate goal is to help others create a public and positive image. The irony comes into play when people on the Internet post hurtful posts about our company, when our job is only to help. This book reiterates taking the proactive approach and applying the suggestions to the PR field.
The groundswell movement is affecting everyone. I have a friend whose dad is the CEO of a major business. His business ethics were questioned and several articles were written about him. There have been blogs everywhere with people’s own opinions on the matter, several of which are very hurtful. As a businessman and father, he had to turn this matter into a positive issue. Instead of letting these comments affect him negatively he needed to respond to the people personally and learn from the things they were saying about him and his company. He did this to some extent, but I think if he more fully immersed himself into the groundswell instead of fighting it, he would see better results in terms of his company’s reputation.
The chapter explained that the three factors of the groundswell were people’s desire to connect, new interactive technologies, and online economics. Knowing this, corporation strategists can have a better understanding on what to expect and how to handle these situation if, or more likely when, they arise. I agree with this, and I think the first step is not to be intimidated by the groundswell.

The initial dive into it might be overwhelming, but it will help corporations to better handle and avoid potentially challenging situations. By participating in blogs and online activity, corporations can see first-hand what the people want and what they don’t want. Learning more about the groundswell is the only way to master the thinking behind it, which can ultimately lead to advantages for the corporations

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