Next week we'll be tuning in for our free webinar "Driving Best-In-Class Customer Experience: Beyond Social Media Listening" and this week we've been eagerly reading all of the iPhone 5 rumors, so we figured it was time for a mobile and social news check-in.

On the social media listening front: this Forbes piece questions whether companies are listening at all on social channels saying "As the social channels become more of an ‘accepted’ method of communications between customers and Companies it seems that the latter is falling some way short (in general) when it comes to responses." Business2Community warns against this, citing the fact that "It’s important to monitor conversation about your brand so that if there is ever a problem, you can tackle it head-on." Similarly, eCommerce times suggests a possible positive outcome, saying "handling customer complaints well, in other words, can actually transform complaining customers into loyal ones."

But there is hope! Our TMMC featured company L'Oreal has announced that they are pursuing "real time monitoring of the buzz about the 27 brands in L'Oréal's portfolio from social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, as well as blogs and user or professional reviews."
Perhaps the biggest social media news lately? Olympics fans have been tweeting complaints about coverage of the London Games under the hashtag #NBCFail. The situation is discussed in this PBS News Hour piece:


One takeaway quote:

"And for people to get angry that there's Twitter, spoilers on Twitter, well, for heaven's sakes, of course there are. These events are live. And they're news. And they're important. And I think NBC is doing a great disservice to itself and frankly embarrassing itself. Because it should come into the 21st century and show them live and then, if they want to package them beautifully for people for prime time, do that."

Meanwhile, we have seen some fun mobile developments surrounding the 2012 games, as part of their official Olympics sponsorship, Samsung has worked with the Holiday Inn in Stratford Westfield to provide special services to those on site. According to this post on Android Authority: "Samsung makes sure that your Galaxy S3 can be used as a hotel keycard during the Olympics. More than just unlocking door, guests who own the phone can also use their Galaxy S3 to control the room’s lighting, and as a hotel room phone extension."1to1media rounded up 5 mobile marketing best practices for the Olympics, writing

"As audiences turn to these emerging mediums to watch their favorite Olympics events, advertisers and marketers shouldn't miss out on this valuable opportunity to effectively leverage the mobile platforms to deliver targeted messaging and to drive consumers to their companies' websites." 

In related news, Mashable added to the pile of iPhone 5 rumors, asking "Is an iPhone 5 at the Olympics?"(Spoiler alert: The answer is no. But they do have some potential images of what it may look like.)

Elsewhere, in the mobile marketing world, our Mobile Marketing Conference partners at 3Seventy are presenting an upcoming webinar: The Rise of Mobile Marketing: An Expert Panel of Best Practices, Trends, Do's and Dont's, for those of you who missed the expert panel at the event, we highly suggest you join.

What mobile and social news have you come across lately?  Follow The Mobile Marketing conference on Twitter and Facebook for more mobile advertising news from us. 


Michelle LeBlanc is a Social Media Strategist at IIR USA with a specialization in marketing. She may be reached at mleblanc@iirusa.com