Let me clear up front: If you are going to use social media, you absetively should have a strategy driving your efforts. Totally.
But simply creating a social media strategy and executing it doesn’t mean you are using social media correctly. I can create a blogging strategy for your company and tell you exactly what to do, but that still doesn’t mean you’ll have a successful blog. You still have to follow-through.
Having a strategy isn’t enough, you still have to BE social. You still have to WANT to connect with your customers.
So many companies today are resistant to communicating with their customers. I think in most cases, it’s simply because they never have, and really don’t know how to get started.
But many companies fear blogs and social media because they fear that their customers will say bad things about them. Or worse, that there will be a social media backlash against their brand.
Folks, social media backlashes don’t just happen, they are created. Let’s look at a few examples:
Dell Hell – This is the original social media backlash story. This centered around Jeff Jarvis endlessly blogging his problems with his Dell laptop and the in-home service he paid for, right? It did, but the spark that lit the fuse of this episode was probably when Dell was contacted about its stance toward bloggers. The company clarified that it had a ‘look, don’t touch’ policy toward bloggers, and added that if a blogger wanted to get their attention, they needed to contact them directly, cause Dell wouldn’t respond to their blog. You can imagine that bloggers didn’t cotton to that stance, and that’s when this story started to spread like wildfire throughout the infant blogosphere. If Dell had been proactive about reaching out to Jarvis via his blog from the get-go, this episode would have likely never happened.
Motrin Moms – Motrin put an ad on its website on a Saturday in late 2008 and some moms found offensive, and they took to Twitter to voice their displeasure. Throughout the day, the discussion got more heated, and by the end of the day, it was the most popular topic on Twitter. There was no response whatsoever from Motrin on Twitter, which played a BIG role in the backlash escalating.
The next day, a few bloggers figured out who the agency was that created the ad, and got them on the phone to ask what their response was to the growing backlash on Twitter about the new Motrin ad on their site. The agency’s response? “What’s Twitter?”. Apparently, the agency hadn’t been monitoring any of the online feedback to the new ad going up, and neither they nor Motrin had any idea what was happening. As with Dell Hell, this episode didn’t just happen, it was created by a lack of response from Motrin.
Nestle’s Clash with Greenpeace – This was two-pronged. First, Greenpeace put up a few videos on YouTube that claimed that the candy company was killing orangutans by harvesting forests for the palm oil that went into their Kit-Kat candy bars. The videos DID make Nestle look very bad, but really weren’t getting many views on YouTube until…..Nestle stepped in and tried to get them taken down from YouTube. Now that CONTROVERSY entered into the equation, the videos suddenly became a LOT more popular.
Then Greenpeace and its supporters started going to Nestle’s Facebook page and posting derrogatory comments and images, including those ripping off the company’s logo. Again, Nestle didn’t handle this as well as it could, first threatening to remove such comments, and then their reps started arguing with commenters on their page! Of course, these actions simply drew more negative attention to the unfolding episode.
In all three cases, the social media backlash could have very easily been avoided if the company in question had reacted differently. But this goes to show that companies should understand that their customers aren’t just waiting to use social media to attack them. These type of episodes don’t happen by accident, they are created by the company not responding correctly to a developing issue.
So how do you avoid a social media backlash and better connect with your customers?
1 – Monitor what is being said online about your company. I’ve got an entire page set up just for articles on how to get started monitoring what’s being said online about your company.
2 – Start responding to bloggers. Target ones that are critical of your company, and the ones that are praising your company. You should leave a comment on their blog, but if you don’t feel completely comfortable doing this, email them directly. Most bloggers have their contact information on their blog. Or for extra-credit, do both.
If you can do those two things, you’ll be on your way. Note that in all three examples at the top, that the company in question waited too long to respond, and when they DID respond, they said the wrong thing. If you are proactively monitoring your online reputation, and proactively reaching out to customers that have issues, you’ll all but remove any chance of a backlash.
Plus you’ll be on your way to being social, via social media. Awesome, I was able to tie it back to the post’s title 😉
“But many companies fear blogs and social media because they fear that their customers will say bad things about them. ”
As a company, this is what Bazaarvoice is trying to change in the corporate world. Every single one of our findings indicates that negative feedback, when appropriately addressed and funneled into the right places (like the product cycle, for instance) actually benefits a company or has no negative impact.
One factoid along these lines: Negative reviews lead to reduced returns. Why? Because people know what to expect. Intuitive, huh? And yet…most companies still don’t get it. But that’s changing, thank God.
“Every single one of our findings indicates that negative feedback, when appropriately addressed and funneled into the right places (like the product cycle, for instance) actually benefits a company or has no negative impact.”
Great point Ian, I might have to steal this for a future post or deck, with credit, of course 😉
As for your point about negative reviews leading to reduced returns, that does make sense. However, do you have any research on at what point the # of negative reviews leads to fewer sales? I believe I saw a study several months ago that said that product reviews with at least ONE negative review actually increased sales, as the one negative review made all the reviews seem more credible. Does Bazaarvoice have any research that supports this?
Thanks again for the insights, Ian!
Glad you liked the statement; now I have to back it up ;). Putting something together for you.
Mack, the company examples were all certainly wake up calls. For medium to large size brands, people *are* talking about you on the Social web. Monitoring conversations about your brand and being prepared to respond are key.
Jesse you’re right. Small businesses often have little to no online mentions, so there’s nothing to track. The GOOD news for these small businesses is that by utilizing social media correctly, they can CREATE the online conversation around their business, whereas many mid and large companies have to respond to an EXISTING online conversation that their customers have already created. And a blog is a great way to create that online visibility.
Exactly, small companies get to be more proactive and help shape the conversation around their brands, especially via blogs.
Indeed, though being social about much more than monitoring what people say about you. Listening is crucial — but communicating is just as important.
YES! You are so right–having a social media policy does not mean that your company is automatically social. I’m sure there are hundreds of companies who, as I type this, are having their in-house counsel or a consultant craft a social media strategy/policy because they keep reading they need to do it and want to check it off the list. I’ll bet you a million dollars that the majority of them end up filing it with the rest of their policies or strategy documents and reporting to their boards or whatever that they’ve successfully completed that task and now it’s back to business as usual.
Maggie I agree with the ‘check it off the list’ mentality that many companies have toward many aspects of social media.
Blog? Check.
Facebook? Check.
Twitter? Check.
After 3 months of product promotion, they want to know where the sales are?
Unfortunately, ‘Be open, be human’ is often never on that list of items they check off for social, is it?
Hi Mack,
I’ve been lurking here awhile and follow your posts at MarketingProfs as well.
Richard Thompson wrote an important post at the Richtext blog that touches on many of the same points.
He discusses how the culture of communications makes such a big difference, in whether a client is really ready for content strategy. (He makes a strong distinction between being open and being ready.)
It’s much harder for introverted cultures (populated by mostly introverted Web workers & CEOS) to make the shift to social, but I think it is gradually happening, as enterprise-level companies adopt the open principles of the Internet, in their own internal communications.(Here, I’m thinking of the latest implementation of SharePoint, with homepages for employee profiles, status updates, linking, and Like features.)
I keep going back to an An O’Reilley broadcast on social business, moderated by Joshua-Michele Ross, which explores the idea that
companies can’t fully make the transition to social business, until they first transform their own internal communication and collaboration practices.
I like the point of the O’Reilley broadcast, that a good way to prepare companies for a true commitment to social principles is to practice awhile internally, with similar approaches and tools.
On a more personal note, I’ve been tuning in awhile to your blog chats, and mean to take some of my own good advice, and start to engage more. As always, great stuff here. Nice to say “Hello”…
Peg
Hi Peg, and thanks for reading here and at #blogchat 😉
I agree with you that culture is such a driver of effective social media use. If a company doesn’t have a culture that naturally encourages interaction and collaboration between its employees first AND places an emphasis on customer service and connecting with customers, then their social media efforts will be far less effective. As effective as I was in avoiding a run-on sentence there 😉
Social media strategy and policies are two different things. Defining control on HOW you act is important to control brand image, but developing a strategy defines what will you do what the conversation your engagement What is the goal and how will you measure it?
I find that scheduling a campaign is another way that companies try and save time in their strategies. This is a bit amusing to me if someone is planning their social media posts for a month ahead. How do you know what your readers or customers will want from you? I see the value of a strategy that rolls out a new promotion or product, but you still have to be actively engaged in the conversation that is happening the other 99% of the time.
Social Media cannot be run on auto pilot.
Great stuff!
Great post Mack.
It’s very true that just being in social media does not make your company social. Being social with your customers is what does it.
In a lot of those cases you presented the companies just didn’t act with common sense. Instead they acted with business sense. People in social media don’t look for business sense (in that form anyways), they want to actually be social with these companies.
If you’re watching what people are saying and responding in a common sense way as a real person people tend to be more receptive to your efforts.
Cheers,
Sheldon, community manager for Sysomos
You bring up such great points in the article, but perhaps the greatest point is that companies need to use social media as a CONVERSATION medium — not a broadcast medium. I lost count of how many companies use Twitter and Facebook to just broadcast their own promotional messages or link to their news release pages. Sad. Fortunately, more and more companies seem to be at least open to the idea of starting a conversation with customers, but it’s a slow process at many.
Hi Vicki! You are right, but this goes back to the question of ‘How do you monetize the conversation?’ The ‘conversation’ usually creates INdirect value for companies (more links, more visitors, more online mentions, all as a BYPRODUCT of the ‘conversation’). Since these results are coming INdirectly, it’s much harder to quantify and measure them, and thus it is harder for many companies to see the benefits.
This is another reason why I keep harping on the need for companies to track EVERYTHING associated with their social media efforts. If they are, then they can SEE how the metrics that relate to ‘the conversation’ are changing. They can see links going up, traffic going up, online mentions going up, POSITIVE online mentions going up. Then they can track those back to the source.
The conversation. Then the value being created is more clearer.
Remember scale and relevance are huge issues.
Relevance: I don’t care how social Glad Trash Bags wants to be, I am not engaging them via social media. So not every brand or business is worth my time. In fact 98% are not. I want to talk with friends, family, maybe colleagues, and possibly things of great importance to me. The rest can bribe me into being social but that devalues their product. I am still buying Glad Trash Bags.
Scale: There is only so many people you can connect with and not automate it and still sound genuine. Normally I say – Nestle has 3 billion customers, they can talk to them all every day, even with all their phone banks and sales people. I would never of recommended to Nestle to have a Facebook page. But I will simplify. What if you had 4,000 people commenting on your blog Mack every time you post. How would you react without form letters or form tweets. Its really complicated. So being social and wanting to be social is hard.
In my humble opinion, Social is really a P2P space that brands can utilize when done correctly, but there are significant limitations. Which goes to the heart of your post. The reverse also holds true. With only 3-7million people in the US using Twitter each day your backlash is limited. Be worried when it reaches TV! Or major news outlets. Great reason to monitor and plan. I also don’t think major brands should announce stuff on Social Networks as their primary response mediums. Its a complimentary medium. Respond via normal communication channels, but do not forget Twitter, Facebook etc.
I love the talk about scale. It’s the main thing when thinking about social that companies don’t seem to realize. It takes time and effort to actually do social right. And once people start interacting via these channels they seem to spend less time interacting and more time trying to find strategy.
Let us not forget that social media for those in business is marketing or the first two steps of the sales process. Agree that negative comments need to be investigated provided those comments are from actual customers who have purchased your products and services. Also, being social is with your target market. I am not social with everyone, but I am authentic with those (target market) I do interact with.
The interesting thing is that companies don’t socialize – people do. Fast Company had a really fascinating article last month about the rise of online social managers – similar to community managers, but also focused on off-site properties like Facebook and Twitter. These are highly-visible members of organizations whose only job is to interact with the public and be that listening, concerned voice.
These specialists are worth their weight in gold and will become more common as more companies figure out how valuable they are. In Dell’s case, hiring a team of people to do this was incredibly beneficial. I’m not sure that Motrin or Nestle have engaged that kind of in-house specialist just yet – nor have many other companies that have suffered social media backlashes.
Mack, I believe that part of deploying a social media strategy is having a clear monitoring, and escalation policy. Every company, large or small should be prepared in advance for crisis communication. There are companies that should not yet participate in social media because they don’t have the internal readiness to manage every aspect of it. When the comprehensive view is overlooked it can lead to disaster. I also advocate for responsibility from those that plan to share their displeasure publicly. One of the issues with everyone having free access to become a publisher is a lack of accountability. Before we out people on our blogs we owe them the opportunity to clear up the problem. One recent example is the blogger who launched the post that falsely labeled Shirley Sherrod as a racist. In order to deliver value we must all exercise responsibility.
I am currently working for a small company that is worried about promoting open and honest discussion within their client community because their competitors might try and poach them. How do I convince them that we need to implement open feedback and content management systems on the website and within social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter?
Hey Saxby, that’s a bit of a tough sale, for obvious reasons. The big advantage that this approach would have is that:
1 – The community would have real value for the clients, which improves their perception of your company for hosting it.
2 – They will then ask ‘ok why aren’t their competitors willing to do this?’ Which means they are more likely to trust the host company, over competitors.
I can understand the concerns, but I believe the clients will see and appreciate the chance to have those discussions, and it will reflect positively on the host company. Especially if that host company can ADDRESS those issues.
Great discussion here!
Totally agree that simply being on a social network doesn’t make you social. For example, a major conservation group, Rainforest Action Network (RAN), has banned a user from commenting on their Facebook page because the user is calling them out on their support for logging in primary rainforests, the exact thing that the group is supposed be stopping! The point here is that RAN is on Facebook, but by simply banning a user, it is showing that it’s not interested in conversation.
@Saxby — An interesting conundrum. First I would do a competitive analysis. Are the competitors in social media? If not, right away your company has a differentiator, and unlikely that competitors are looking to social media to “poach” customers. If so, what are the competitors doing, and are they doing it right? If not, then again it is an opportunity for your company to set itself apart. If so, what lessons can you learn, what are best practices that work, and what doesn’t work? Fear is the biggest reason companies don’t adopt social media. If competitors are already in social media, chances are your company is already falling behind. And if it is afraid of customers being poached, how can they change to make them the number one choice for customers to avoid being poached in the first place. And a smart competitor will find other ways besides social media to find who your company’s clients are in any case.
@Mark Collier The benefit IMO of pointing out social media snafus is to show how not to do things. The examples you cite show us how to advise companies on how not to respond when the going gets tough.