Square Payment System Analysis Part 2

The first part of my social media monitoring of the Square Mobile Credit Payment system was interesting, but not particularly illuminating. One of the difficulties was the volume of information that was not particularly relevant to the one aspect of the company I was studying.

In addition, I suspect that given the founder's role in social media, the marketing department is monitoring these areas, and are certainly privy to more information and data than I am. Still, that makes it interesting, to see how an organization in the midst of the tech world uses social media.

So, given the time and resource constraints for this assignment, I decided to narrow some parameters. Therefore, I am concentrating on only one small market segment, for one Square product. In addition, I am focusing only the competitor which are most similar to Square in this product space: PayPal. Both of these are non-traditional money-movement businesses that are not divisions or outgrowths of traditional financial institutions.

In order to make some more concise comparisons, after experimenting with various search keywords and combinations, for the purpose of the project I decided on "Square Card Reader" and "PayPal Card Reader" as exact phrase search terms. While this certainly will not provide comprehensive information, it seems to give a good sense of what is happening, and, as long as use is consistent, searches can be repeated with other variations.


Overall Social Media Involvement

I looked at some of the overall statistics in the first blog post. Since then, I have compared Google Trends and IceRocket searches.

Google trends show that both seem to peak and drop off. I attribute both of these to both business reporting and ancillary product announcements.

Square Card Reader Google Trends 12 month

PayPal Card Reader Google Trends 12 month

IceRocket"Big Buzz" results for Square and PayPal; Square clearly had more presence (approximately a factor of 4).



You can see the full IceRocket searches for Square here and for Paypal here

Addictomatic seemed to show the same differential, however, I also noted that Addictomatic results in some areas (such as YouTube) did not match well when searching elsewhere, so their results are suspect (and frankly, I think there is a lot of snake oil in all of this).

Addictomatic Results for "Square Card Reader"

Looking again at a consistent comparison between Square Card Reader and Paypal Card Reader:

Social Mention results for Square (left) and PayPal (right)

Here square is clearly doing better, but hard to say why. My guess is that there is a positive aspect to the "cool factor" of Square, in addition to a great deal of consumer antipathy towards PayPal in general. Clearly, intensive reading of comment/blog content is required here.

You can see full Social Mention searches for Square here and Paypal  here.

 YouTube

A number of demo videos provided by Square are on Youtube. Since this information is readily available on the company website, I suspect these are provided for use by bloggers and news outlets, as they seem to appear under numerous guises. There are also official and unofficial review videos, including a number of "unboxing" videos by amateur video bloggers. Square does have its own channel, which includes the following:

 



Facebook

There are interesting stories on the Facebook page, as well as product-related feedback from users. These include complaints and service issues, but there are also posts of praise and suggestions for improvements and product features:

Carlos Guerra I love avoiding those lovely AMEX fees with square. I don't dread taking AMEX anymore!

Rebecca Scott Anywhere I sell my jewelry- various different craft show locations and even on public transportation once in a random while! Thanks as always for a great service. Truly appreciated by this small business owner :)

And as we have seen with other firms, it can also be used as a support channel. To me, this can be problematic as you are now dealing with information about private business transactions in a public forum.

An example:

Square Hello John J. Powers, we've taken a look at your account and see that we reached out to you on October 28th with an application to increase your manual entry payout limit. Please fill out the application so that we can move forward with your account. You can read more on the application here: https://squareup.com/help/en-us/article/3809-square-s-deposit-limitsDiann Benefiel The only thing I don't like is the tipping option that they can't choose an exact amount. Some of my clients tip more, some less. I think it's tacky to have to ask before. I don't want to miss that part of my income! Please change this option. Otherwise I love it.

 

This issue raised on Facebook is interesting, in that it demonstrates what can happen when a customer isn't even clear as to where the problem lies - is it with Square or the vendor?

John J. Powers I'VE BEEN WAITING TO HEAR FROM SOMEONE FOR 3 WEEKS!!! worst customer service EVER. GO TO COSTCO FOR YOUR MERCHENT SERVICES!!!! LOW % RATES!!! AND THEY DON'T HOLD YOUR MONEY FOR 30 DAYS LIKE SQUARE DOES!!!!!!

In general, they do not seem to be responding on Facebook. If they are responding to customers off-Facebook, they should indicate so.

Rami Qatami Please just respond to our emails , or we have each time to go to Facebook and ask for that , square is a big company you should have better customer service or a phone number to reach your customer service !

Spooks and Legends Haunted Tours Do you mean Square or us? I had no idea that you posted this. I got no notification. If you'd like to call us directly, call 757-784-6213. Thank you.....

Ron Menor @rami - i feel you on this. i went on the square page to try and voice my complaint. i can't believe a company like this, doesn't have any direct contact.

In the following exchanges, it is interesting that the responses to a Square post linking to an article elsewhere about using smartphone card swiping, Responses were both positive and negative; Square did not reply to any.

Daniel Dorsey I use my square all the time to raise money for my non-profit.

Rich Erb I use my square every day to take credit cards for "Class Act Sedan Service" to give my customers a choice of "cash or charge".

Jomo Drew I use my square at craft shows. It absolutely increases sales. At the last show, I only took two cash sales, every other sale was on credit cards.

Cheryl Taylor as a small business owner who has first hand experienced Square"s lack of customer service i would caution all users. they are awesome until you need help or want to speak to an actual person!!! BEWARE!!!!!!

The Wedge Mobile Phone Holder Just received our square - looking forward to making those "sales that should and could have been, into the sales that are and will continue to be" - https://squareup.com/directory/the-wedge-phone-cradle

Business Investor Funding Just makes sense...

Mike Newman Swipe or manually do $6k and listen to all the BS reasons they dont pay....then tell me its. Great product.

John J. Powers I'VE BEEN WAITING TO HEAR FROM SOMEONE FOR 3 WEEKS!!! worst customer service EVER. GO TO COSTCO FOR YOUR MERCHENT SERVICES!!!! LOW % RATES!!! AND THEY DON'T HOLD YOUR MONEY FOR 30 DAYS LIKE SQUARE DOES!!!!!!

 

This underscores the need to be responsive when you open yourself to the groundswell.

 

Facebook Conclusion:

Over 25,000 likes, and while that number may not seem large, if you do not have the card reader, you are probably not that interested in following this company .

It is crucial that they begin to address negative posts as soon as they appear, and engage more, in general with the posters.

 
Blog Posts

Aside from tech and news blogs, I did find Square's card reader mentioned in other blogs written by small business owners. Icerocket searches on "Square Card Reader" gave good results as how both vendors and customers were using it (including people using the reader for personal rather than business reasons). Comprehensive reading of the Twitter and Facebook results might give some insights to Square's marketing team.

I Have a Square Card Reader! ...32 days ago by Nicole

A few days back, my friend Chris and I were talking about credit card readers that were available in Canada. He is a graphic designer, and a musician, and wanted another way for people to be able to pay him, other than cash. Makes sense, right? Getting paid is always a good thing. Anyway, Square ...Knit, Nicole, Knit! - blog.knitnicoleknit.ca · Rank: 128,695 · 12 references My Experience With The Square Card Reader ...30 days ago by MonaMajorowicz... name with your finger seems to be particularly interesting. So overall I rate the square card reader a really good item for artfair events and unbelievably easy to use. No complicated techie skills required at all. All you need is an android or a iphone, pad or tablet. set up an account, download ...Fur In The Paint - mona.myartbliss.com ·

 

Twitter

There is an official Twitter feed. It consists primarily of corporate news, promotions, and re-Tweets of  industry news and vendor Tweets. Given the nature of the company and product, it is not likely that you would even be aware of this feed if you were not already using or at least interested in the card reader. Square appears to be using twitter more as corporate/industry level information dispersal.

The best opportunity for groundswell engagement her is if the Twitter accounts interacting with Square also have followers in the small/micro retailer target market.

Suggestions for Promoting in Social Media:

I need to repeat that it is essential that Square work on its customer support response time as it appears in social media that the company is lax in this area. After that, focus on some themes for promoting in social media:

• Focus on the "cool factor" - superior to Paypal and Intuit - (perhaps a reason for the alliance with Starbucks for their "digital wallet" product. This is also what appeared to have caused the spike in social media buzz during this past year.
• Tell stories that are likely to go viral. As there is little differentiation among the three services, the goal is to get vendors to select Square as their payment system. The stories must be interesting enough to go viral (even if this is done with the assistance of traditional media).
• The focus will not be on card holders - the retailer's choice of merchant service is mostly irrelevant to them, it is simply a utility. Their stories, however, may be useful in groundswell efforts to promote acceptance, if vendors see this as a real consumer-driven need.
• Focus on how the service is helping drive their business. There were blog, Facebook and YouTube contributions from the groundswell that were talking about how it fit the specific needs of their business for mobility - Artists, food truck vendors, etc.

Just from my work on this project, I have seen that Square (and others) are using targeted web advertising and SEO. This may be a case where good old-fashioned application of cash may spur more market penetration.

A promotion Suggestion:

While I won't presume to second-guess Square's marketing team, I do  have one suggestion for a groundswell-driven promotion:

"What is the most unusual transaction/business that you have used a card at?" Encourage the vendors and public to submit, and allow voting for "best swipe of the week" , with that person's purchase is paid for by Square, and something for the vendor - publicity on the Square social media program.

A last minute update from The Picture Framers Grumble, where a discussion of Square arose with some perspectives from business owners.