Clark University Final Presentation from Arielle Ganem Rosen

Exxon Mobil Part II

The competition- Website analysis... 

As you remember, 

According to Alexa.com, the website is not the most popular in the World, or even the US. Since it is not fair to compare one website to all the websites in the world, to judge the effectives or reach of their website, we compare it to one of their like-minded competitions, Chevron and British Petroleum. We chose these two companies since they are both international, multi-million dollars companies in the same economic sector.  

Graph 1: How popular is ExxonMobil’s website?

How popular is Chevron? 

Engagement metrics helps us understand how interested a site’s visitors are with the sites content. Since the bounce rate is the percentage of visits that consists of a single page view, the fact that this percentage is decreasing in the last three months is a good sign. At the same time, the fact that this percentage is so high (almost 1::2) demonstrates that the website has a low retention rate and needs to improve its ability to retain its visitors, past the first page. The other two statistics reemphasizes that Exxon website is doing better. It is a positive thing that their daily page view and time spend on the site have been increasing, however, again, the fact that these are so long are problem enatic and worrisome- since Exxon, to really be a leader in petroleum sectors should seek to be the website  of reference, and not an afterthought. 

Youtube 

You remember the videos from last time, now let's evaluate the effectivness. 

To analyze the outreach of their YouTube website, again, we utilize Alexa.

Since the bounce rate is so low that it does not even appear on the website, this is worrisome. The other two statistics reemphasizes the belief that Exxon’s YouTube page is not doing well. It is a negative thing that their daily page view is decreasing. On the other hand, it is positive that the time spend on the site has been increasing, however, again, the fact that these numbers are so low to begin with is problematic.  

Twitter @exxonmobil

Even though Exxon does not utilize their Twitter page to engage with their consumers, it is important to realize that the number of Exxon followers has been steadily increasing. This has been concluded thanks to the tool, Social Baker. Thus, there is a great possibility for Exxon to increase its reach- since its Tweets are being followed by more and more people as demonstrated in the graph below.

Addictomatics

 At http://addictomatic.com/topic/exxonmobil, we see the wide variety of ways that people are talking about Exxon Mobil.

ExxonValdez Accident 

Twenty-five years ago on March 24, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez slammed into Bligh Reef and spilled more than 11 million gallons of crude oil into the cold, clear waters of Alaska's Prince William Sound -- one of the "last best places" on Earth. The oil charged through Prince William Sound and out into the Gulf of Alaska, damaging more than 1,300 miles of the remote, wild shoreline. 25 years later, the Sound’s coastal ecosystem is permanently damaged. Thousands of gallons of Exxon Valdez oil still pollute the beaches. This oil is still toxic and hurting the ecosystem near the shore. The government considers, as of 2010, only 13 of the 32 monitored wildlife populations, habitats and resource services that were injured in the spill as fully "recovered" or "very likely recovered." Some are still listed today as "not recovering." This includes a pod of orcas, which lost 15 of its 22 members after the spill, and has not produced a calf since. Given only one older female is left, scientists appear certain that this unique pod of orcas will go extinct -- it's just a matter of time. The government conclusion is that "there appears to be no hope for recovery."

Addictomatic 

According to http://addictomatic.com/topic/ExxonMobil+valdez, you also can find information on Exxon Valdez on Bing News, Google Blog, Truveo Video, Flickr, Twingly Blog, Wordpress.com, and Yahoo Web etc.

Ice Rocket/Meltwater 

Ice Rocket/Meltwater is an internet based search engine that tranks the daily blog citations of any company entered into the search bar. For our project, we entered both exxon mobil exxon valdez, valdez and valdez spill.

Although not very high, during the anniversary, there was a spike in blog posts mentioning those terms. This is not surprising, since there was a high media presence as well Greenpeace action during this week.

Twitter from IceRocket 

With the Twitter results from Ice Rocket, we see that there was a high rate social engagement on the Twitter feeds of various people regarding the Exxon Valdez spill. Although most was a retweeting of the Sierra Club tweet, the fact that this was retweeted is significant. The Sierra Club has over 106,106 followers and when they tweeted “What has the oil industry learned in the 25 yrs. since #Exxon Valdez? Not much”, some of those followers decided to retweets it.

 Even if this exact tweet was not retweeted many times, a larger number of Tweets were original and addressed the Exxon Valdez incident directly. The mix of individual and institutional tweets demonstrates the variety of US interest in this anniversary.

Valdez spill and Online petition 

After I “signed”, I discovered this window:

This picture demonstrates the attempts by Sum of Us, to utilize all the tools available to extend their virtual reach- such as Facebook, and Twitter. 

Exxon and Social Mention

Social Mention was used to evaluate the trend of the power of the company over time. We see that Exxon Mobil mostly has a neutral tone, however its strength did substantially decline around the anniversary of the Exxon Valdez incident .

With these tables, we numerically identify the sentiment, passion and reach of the website and the website visitors. We see a strong dip in strength, passion and reach around the time of the anniversary of the accident. Indeed, the numbers dip from 23% strength to 7% around the anniversary date. 

The power of the terms "Exxon Valdez" reached its peak during the anniversary period. Between the Greenpeace activity, the social media flurry from environmental conscience groups such as Sierra Club and the online activity from the petition, it seems like the activity about the spill  come from the consumer and environmentally activities, virtually engage side. there was no responsse from the compagny-again demonstrating Exxon's unwillingness to engage with the virtual community. 

Today's temperature: 

Keywords: 

Strength: Likely hood that the brand is being discussed. 

Sentiment: Ratio of positive to negative emotions 
Passion: Measure of likely hood that those talking about  your brand, will do it again. 

Reach: Number of unique authors mentioning your brand.

Google Trends 

Another tool used to analyze the interest over time into the company and its website is Google insights/trends. With this tool, we were able to enter various terms and see the interest over time.  

According to Google Insights, worldwide searches for Exxon Mobil Exxon Valdez spill Exxon Valdez ship peaked in April 2006 and May 2010 last year. For ExxonMobil, most of the searches have come from international countries, such as Nigeria, Singapore, Qatar and Cameron- the USA only comes in 5. For Exxon Valdez, the most searches come from USA and more specifically Anchorage and Washington DC. For the last search terms, the highest country of interest is the USA. The origin of these searches makes sense, since the Exxon Valdez spill directly affected Alaska.

Google Blog Search

We also analyzed the content of the blogs that mentioned the keywords of Exxon and Exxon mobile in order to understand what people were saying about the company on their blogs.  If you only type in the terms of Exxon Mobil, as the following screenshot demonstrates, we only see corporate – driven profit focus oriented.  However, there is a large number of blogs that are active and pertaining to the Valdez accident. 

      Recommendations for Exxon

 Before giving recommendations on how to increase the social media, it is important to understand the identities of the website visitors. Knowing who is in your customer base dis essential to forming a concrete and thoughtful groundswell engagement plan.

To establish the identity of their virtual base, we use Alexa Insights to determine the characteristics.

Thanks to these analysis, and the insight from the original article, we can establish three types of visitors to the Exxon Mobil corporate website; investors, journalist and prospective employers. There are generally well educated people, who are browsing from their work location (Source; Alexa)

With the background of this research, we establish a three pronged approach to improve the groundswell engagement from Exxon Mobile

a.       Advertise the CSR actions via the web

ExxonMobil is extremely generous in their CSR actions and donations. This positive action could be enhanced and contribute to the positive feeling surrounding their brand. By associating their brand to a positive image ( helping fight malaria in Africa or teaching low- income American children math and science), the company can slowly peel themselves away from the negative image that the term ‘multinational corporations’ brings to mind. Again, the companies already have, by default, a tremendous potential influence since they are located in over 40 different countries around the worlds. If they used this reach for social media engaging, it would have an amazing, dramatic and visible effect.

b.      Career page

According to the Career platform page of ExxonMobil, the company is « ExxonMobil is a dynamic, exciting place to work. We hire exceptional people, and every one of them is empowered to think independently, take initiative and be innovative.” Among further investigation of the board of directors we see a staff is on the older side of spectrum. It is always important to recruit the newest talent- especially since our generation is the one that is the most intouch with the social media tools, those tools which Exxon Public Relations department is clearly lacking. By having a Facebook page for recruitment purposes, where there would be constant two-way communication, Exxon would have a higher chance of really recruiting a talented and ethnically diverse workforce.

c.       Exxon Valdez Response

Finally, the lack of groundswell engagement is problematic and should be remedied. The lack of consumer engagement and response is perhaps explained with the fact that the company is so old and is currently being run by an older generation.  The fact is that the company’s only response was a flurry of « No comment » and a generic, undated, corporate statement on the website. The statement can be seen at; http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/environment/emergency-preparedness/spill-prevention-and-response/valdez-oil-spill

Alternatively, the corporation can utilize their current social media tools (twitter and YouTube) to launch a coordinated response to the accusations that Exxon did nothing about the Exxon Valdez spill. On YouTube, they could make a before and after video highlighting the Exxon restoration of the coast.  They can also put in place a virtual yearbook documenting all the progress there have done on upgrading the safety of the oil rigs since the catastrophic. By responding in an indirect way to the accusation that Exxon is not doing anything, the company is able to respond in an austere but effective way, while at the same keeping their brand clean and reinforcing the message that their company is worthy of investment and customer confidence

 Conclusion

This project sought to analyze the current online presence for the Exxon Mobil cooperation, headquarter in Irving, Texas. Through the use of various social media analytical tools such as but not limited to Social Mention, Google Trends and Social Baker, we have concluded that despite having physical location in over 40 different countries globally, the companies has very little desire to engage in the virtual world. Even if these reasons are rational, continuing the current path, especially since the competition is more virtually engaging, is not recommended. More and more researchers demonstrate the value of engaging with the customers who sit behind the other side of the computer and instead of receiving orders are the ones writing options, tweeting, and publishing their uncensored thoughts. It is imperative that Exxon reshapes their attitude towards social media and the Groundswell development. To do so, the author has put forward three different recommendation and policy actions that would, if implemented permit a slight rebranding of the company while controlling what is being said and maintain a very corporate profit driven focus.

The importance of creating an internal community: the groundswell inside your company

In chapter 11, Bernoff and Li discuss the many benefits of creating an internal community for your company. Through the cases of Best Buy and Intel, they demonstrate the many positive of such an action. Best buy was able to listen, talk, energize, support and embrace all of their community- especially the active ones. This chapter makes me think of Clark University attempts to engage the ground well- and especially the fact that Clark is not doing such a great job. 

At Clark, one of the major ways that an internal community is created is with all the Facebook groups – from class specific ones “Class of 2013”, “Class of 2014” to major specific “Clark Political Science major”, to student clubs on “Clark Hillel”. In these Facebook groups, Clarkies connect with other Clarkias on a wide variety of topics, publish their events, and even post announcements for housing opportunities r off jobs. However, despite the well-meaning aspect of these Facebook groups, these Facebook group are exclusively catered to students, by students- there is no administration or executive outpost. So, even if the students are appreciative of these different Facebook groups and enjoy being able to talk to each other in a virtual manner, the administration is not getting any feedback or demonstrating any response. 

An example of the variety of Clark Facebook groups

There are so many opportunities that Clark is faced with that the administration could utilize this already exciting network. Most recently, Clark changed its policy from a need blind to a need aware. This resonated sharply with the Clarkes, who sharply responded in the way that Clarkies know how – a online petition, a Facebook group and a protest in front of the administration building. In response to this energy, Clark did not respond in an innovate way or even virtual way. Instead of posting straight to Facebook, they held a meeting. This meeting, held in the middle of the day, was mostly attended by administration and furious parents- but Clarkies presence was scant. This demonstrates the difference in how the administration and the Clarkies communicate. Even today, Clarkies are still mad; which highlights Bernoff belief that “without management active participation, your efforts will fail”. 

Clarkies wrote about it in the Scarlet

However, some staff are willing to participate in this groundswell. Most recently for international happy day, a Clark student produced a video entitled “Clark University “”happy. In this video you see a variety of Clark student dancing and lip-syncing to the popular song, Happy Day by Pharell. This video is cute, it is fun. It is also staffed with a couple of staff members that are willing to “let loose” for the benefit of the community. The participation of the staff and administration serves to humane them in the eyes of other Clark students. However, there is only so much good this video can do.

Clark should really push for an administration that  will engage with the internal community of the school. Students need to feel like their administration is listening to them. 

Social Media Monitoring Project- Part I: Exxon Mobile

Exxon Mobil and Social Media

I.                   History of Exxon Mobile

ExxonMobil began in 1859, when Colonel Edwin Drake drilled an oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania.

The Drake Well was the first in the world to be drilled for the sole purpose of finding oil, needed to satisfy a growing demand as a consequence of the industrial revolution.

Since then, Exxon Mobil grew from a regional marketer of kerosene into a flourishing corporation

With 37 oil refineries in 21 countries constituting combined daily refining capacities of 6.3 million barrels, ExxonMobil is the largest publicly traded petroleum and petrochemical enterprise in the world. 

ExxonMobil is one of the largest and most profitable companies in the world. In May, ExxonMobil was first  in the Fortune 500, vastly outdoing its competitions and other sizable corporations such as Ford, Chevron , Microsoft and Apple.

ExxonMobil’s has a vast amount and great variety of share and stakeholders. Their website identifies 5 categories of stakeholders: the governments of the 47 countries in which they have operations, its estimated 2.5 million individuals and more than 2,000 institutions shareholders (including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ), its estimated 160,000 suppliers of goods and services, and its nearly 77, 000 employees in 67 countries around the world.  

II.                Current Online Presence

When I first goggled « Exxon mobile and social media », the first result was a Forbes article called “Exxon Mobil has apathetic website. Why?” The authors go on to examine the different social media tools that the corporations have and has not tapped into. The authors conclude by saying that the corporate websites are tricky since the audience of these website are generally job searchers, analysts and journals which are three different types of people, with different level of social media and virtual engagement.

Before accepting this article at face value, it is important to independently analyzes qualitatively the reality of Exxon Mobile social media.

Website

The cooperation has a website accessible at http://corporate.exxonmobil.com. The website interface is smooth, and contains information on the company for journalists and investors, as well as a career plateform 

Youtube

Since April 2006, Exxon Mobil has been active on YouTube and the channel has 7000 subscribers and over 1236130 views. In addition to their offical page, they have also partnered with three subsidiary YouTube pages –OfficialMobil1, Official Mobil and mobile industries that have 5K, 74 and 128 subscribers respecting

They have 54 videos on their page. Some of them are 30 second clips that seek to demonstrate how cutting edge and advance the company is. 

 

For example, this video explains how ExxonMobil is providing natural gas security to Western Europe.

The latest video, posted 2 months ago, is another 30 second clips that highlights Exxon investment in energy efficient. This clip has over 3,000,000 views. 

Finally, Exxon has also posted clips that highlight their charitable work in the world, such as the national you teach programs. This is a longer clip (2:00) and highlights the incredible financial contributes that Exxon partakes in giving nonprofits and SETM initiatives. 

Since ExxonMobil is an international cooperation with over 100 years of experience in the Middle East and North African region, it is understandable that some of the YouTube videos are not going to be in the English language, such as the video below; 

Thus, Exxon knows how to use their YouTube page. However, what is common about all of these videos and clips is that line at the bottom of the screen:

The official channel of the company has videos highlighting the real time updates of the company, employee videos, advertisement campaigns, and videos from the top management and leadership discussing various issues regarding the company and its products, environment issues, challenges and the company efforts.

Blog

Another major effort of Exxon Mobil is its Perspectives blog which is run by Ken Cohen, ExxonMobil's vice president of public and government affairs. The blog talks about company's views on the issues, policies, technologies and trends that are shaping the energy industry and Ken Cohen talks about ideas and actions from industry, governments, researchers and many others that affect the world of energy. The blog was started in November 2011 and it is widely followed and read by many people online

Again though, Ken Cohen is the only contributor to the blog. There is no place for contributors or comments. It is just his view and his contribution.

Twitter:

Exxon Mobil has an official twitter account with about 26,000 followers and more than 1000 tweets. However, when looking over the various tweets one sees that they are only focused on  providing news about the company and direction towards the Perspectives blogs.

Instagram

Their Instagram page is abysmal. With only 34 followers and one posts, it looks like the attempt to have an Instagram page was abandoned.

You care about yourself, right?

How to reach today's teenager

 

              Who did not have to sit through the school assembly and listen to the adults tell you about the dangers of smoking? “Do not smoke” they say in a monotone voice and you twitch and turn, hiding your yawn under your sweatshirt.

 

 



With cellphones and tablets galore, it is almost impossible to get teenagers attention anymore...



Let's be honest...


We are all Calvin sometimes...

 
Teenagers are a difficult audience to successfully market to. They do not want to hear adults tell them what to do. They do not want to be spoken down to. They do not react or respond to the traditional public service announcement. To reach teenagers, you need to think like a teenager and talk "straight to them”.

The Food and Drug Administration understand that, and their latest PSA campaign effectively ties directly into what our class is all about--effectively taping into the Groundswell by speaking directly to the consumers.

They most recent campaign is called “The Real Cost” and was launched nationally on February 11, 2014 across multiple media platforms including TV, radio, print, and online.  The campaign will continue to air in more than 200 markets across the country for at least one year


This ad series directly target teenagers by addressing their desire to ;

-          Take care of their physical appearances

 

In these ad, the teenagers need to give up their teeth and nice skin in order to smoke.

-          Be independent and not bullied

o   In this ad, we have the personification of the cigarette as a bully. When you put the cigarette as a bully (taking your money, telling you to go outside), you make the teenager look like the victim of a bully- a position that no teenager wants to be in.

 

 

In this example, the FDA is using the viral videos to “punch through the noise (p.124)”. Traditional advertising, or the typical parental speech of “just say no”, is not cutting it anymore. By reaching out and touching the teenager on what they care about, the  ad is a lot more effective.


However, this add is not only unique because of the content, but also because of the way it was distributed. Instead of pamphlets or brochures, these ads can be found on Youtube and on Hulu- websites that generate a lot of traffic (by mostly teenagers).On YouTube, these ads have been seen by over 500,000 times, which is impressive. On hulu, these ads can be found

FDA's goal is to keep “The Real Cost” campaign authentic through a peer-to-peer approach. Thus, “The Real Cost” campaign website (www.therealcost.gov⁸) and social channels are intended for teens.

They are going viral with this content. As can be seen with

 

 

This ad campaign is fascinating and hopefully will bear fruits since teenage smoking is a great public health issue.