What Telstra learned from our HTC Desire social media experiment
Six months ago Telstra tried the brave experiment of inviting 25 consumers to review the new HTC Desire. Six months on, head of online communications and social media Kristen Boschma reveals what the brand learned.
When Mike Hickinbotham came to me with the idea of a consumer-led product review via social media, I had one of those rare moments as a marketer when everything tingles. The “tingle moment” has only happened to me a couple of times in my career and it usually happens when an idea is powerful, experimental and can change the status quo permanently. That or I’ve moved to a new multivitamin.
On May 3 this year, Telstra embarked on a social media experiment. We decided to see what would happen if we gave 25 HTC Desire handsets to 25 people and asked them to review their experience via social media channels. You would be forgiven for thinking that Telstra would respond to this with raised eyebrows and clenched cheeks and yet, apart from some logistical challenges, we met no opposition from within Telstra.The various layers of decision makers here at Telstra seem to understand social media and want me and my team to experiment.
Here’s what we learned:
“200 blogs were generated” – 25 people launched 200 websites to review your product? Or does Kristen “get” social media so well that their representative uses the term “blog” when she means “blog post” or “blog entry”?
Ahh a typo is the whole justification you have that a great idea is poorly executed?
Obviously the fact that they had 200 blog posts and ‘other pieces of content,’ not to mention 19 million twitter impressions is always going to be a good sign.
I think it is a great idea, but would prefer to see a larger focus group than 25.
Did meeting the 25 at the beginning introduce (even more) bias to the results/reviews?
Georgie your comment is unhelpful, immature and mean-spirited. Why did you make it?
Hi Geordie
You’re right I meant blog posts. Thanks for the correction – it’s important to be factually correct. BTW we did have some people create blogs – but nowhere near 200!
Hi Emma
I think a bigger group is a good idea for future reviews. Thanks for the feedback.
Hi Hadley
All we did at the get together was talk about our expectations (be honest and transparent), intro ourselves and talk go through some legal considerations like copyright etc. We tried really hard to steer clear of influencing the conversation or outcome. I’d be interested in hearing from the reviewers to see if they thought we influenced the outcome. Interesting thought – thanks.
Is it possible to talk through the results some more? They seem a little underwhelming as presented here.
For example, 400 people joining in on the conversation equates to 16 people per social media reviewer. Which to me seems really, really low. Similarly 2,500 entries to essentially get a free phone seems pretty pedestrian.
I bet this is a really great activity and would love to get behind it, I would just like to hear more on the ROI side.
I was one of the first HTC Desire reviewers and I can tell you 100% that I was not biased. I was a iPhone lover and had owned one ever since their australian release. I decided to give it a go as I was approaching the end of my iPhone contract and was immediately converted. The phone absolutely earned my love. So did the network – the review exposed how much better the reception was in areas I frequently visited in comparison with my old Optus network. I went into the review with an open mind and it was the good phone and good network that changed my opinion.
Also, I have had problems with MMS since moving over from Optus but besides that, they’ve done a good job.
I’m glad the social review was such a success and happy to see that Telstra is staying on board with this type of marketing with the HTC Mozard review. It’s great that the bigger, more “traditional” seeming (my nice way of saying “old-fashioned”) companies are jumping on board with social media and thinking outside the box.
(By “HTC Mozard” I mean “HTC Mozart”. See, everyone makes typos :P)
As one of the reviewers I’m glad to see some of the conclusions being released.
As for being biased, I certainly was not, and nor were the reviews I read from others in the group… some of which were close personal friends.
Many of the reviews were critical of a number of aspects of the phone and more importantly to the way that Telstra set up the devices.
In no way shape or form was I told my Telstra in anyway what to say or not what to say. I’d Telstra deserve credit for allowing such free reign.
One of my reviews: http://www.wolfcat.com.au/rand.....stid-1118/
Hi Parala
I can see where you’re coming from. The thing is that this was a social media experiment and as far as we know a first for Australia. We had no idea what to expect. So I’d ask you – what are you comparing your expectations of the results to?
In terms of the conversation, I’d say that 19 million twitter impressions was pretty remarkable. So we have to draw a distinction between the number of people talking and the number of people listening. I was pretty impressed that 400 people wanted to join in the conversation even though they didn’t get a phone.
Also, the phone wasn’t free. The reviewers had to give the phone a work out and put their opinions out there for 2 weeks. That’s pretty daunting if you’re not used to reviewing tech devices (and not all of our reviewers were tech savvy).
Having said all that, we’re always looking to improve and so you can see the list of things we’re doing differently this time to try and generate more conversation and ultimately give online readers more information about Windows Phone 7, the HTC Mozart 7 and the Next G network. Let’s see what happens (again!)
As an avid industry watcher I really enjoyed the experiment and was one of the 400 that ‘joined the conversation’. Knowing Telstra rather well, I am surprised that it seems to have met with such little initial resistance. I suppose it helped that the HTC Desire was one of the very best devices in the market and a much awaited one. They could be fairly confident of a positive outcome.
A very well executed campaign. Good job.
I wasn’t a reviewer but participated in the conversations. Some reviewers were fans of the device but that is the how social works, lots of diverse opinions.
Mike Hickinbotham is da man !
What does 19m twitter impressions mean?
Does 19m Twitter impressions mean that; if the hashtag is posted by somebody with 1000 followers then thats 1000 twitter impressions?
@Suzy-Bruisy .. (edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons)
I share Parala’s thoughts on wanting more results, I appreciate its a new type of campaign but surely there must of been objectives set out from the off set and what were these and were they achieved? If i was given a post campaign analysis report with ‘the words ‘the results were stellar’ with no substantiation I would be asking for a my money back
This reads like a 1st year uni assignment in terms of analysis. Is the Social Media experiment at Telstra just one big vanity project?
@sven:
My comment isn’t mean spirited, it’s out of frustration. Telstra did a great thing with this idea, and I was one of the people publicly applauding them in social media for it. To then be so dissapointed by the release of results that in some places makes amateurish mistakes with terminology, is ambiguous or confusing, is a real let down. Mind you, they’re under no obligation to even release their post game analysis so credit where it’s due for actually engaging in the first place.
More disappointing than the terminology mangling or the use of terms like “twitter impressions” is to hear this was an experiment. I’d love to see Telstra be more bold than this, surely rather than declaring this a toe-dip they can extend their already helpful use of social media such as the bigpond help Twitter acounts and really make this part of their ongoing strategy.
Good on Telstra for venturing out there with this plan.
Given all of the internal approvals I’m sure they had to go through for this kind of exercise to take place this bodes well for more of this experimentation in the future – which will be helpful to all of us in the communications space.
Firstly, congrats to Telstra on this initiative. Now, can we please have a social media ‘experiment’ (discussion) on why certain brand/model phones are only available on certain networks; the behind the scenes ‘deals’ and agreements etc between manufacturers and telcos? To have a new model handset eg HTC Desire release on a single network (via contract/pan) is not an ideal result for consumers in a free economy, where competition is supposed to be in the best interests of consumers. Why does this ‘arrangement’ only exist for the mobile / telco industry? ps will we see electric cars offered by energy companies on ‘contract’ if we commit to a ‘re-charge’ plan? 😛
As someone who partcipated while not being an offical reviewer, I found the exercise very benefical. Beyond the marketing positives Telstra gained from the exercise, it provided a community of users which is not common in the mobile market. This community, not the free phone or hype, was what resonated with the social media audience
On the flip side it was clear that Telstra were not taking feedback on the product, in particular the much critised Telstra Firmware apps.
It should mentioned that some reviewers had severe trouble with the attention received during the exercise, and almost withdrew for fear that the reputation damage to themsleves (inspite of honest and transparent approaches) would be too costly.
That said, good on Telstra for giving it a go and trusting their users to provide honest and thoughtful reviews on their product. There needs to be more of it.