Rules of social media engagement

 

Sam Decker (former board member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association) recommends that brands steer clear of paying for recommendations and endorsements. "There are rules that forbid companies from writing their own reviews or fraudulent reviews, but regardless of regulation, brands should look at it from the consumer’s standpoint. When you read something, you assume that it is a real person, that they are not falsely representing themselves or the product, that there is no bias, and that it is true authentic voice of the customer."

 

"As a marketer, anything you do to taint that, whether it is regulated or not, should be taken very seriously because you could take a major brand hit. For instance, there is a story at present about a company whose agency has been paying bloggers to post stories about the company – they are not reviews but you would read the blog and assume that they are just random people who like the brand. But people didn’t know that they were paid. And whether the FTC regulates that or not, as a consumer we feel that is dishonest – and that could come back to bite the brand."

 

 

Facebook implemented new rules for contests last November , which prohibit brands running any promotions that require users to become a fan, interact with a story, or do anything else outside an application tab or canvas page in order to enter. While this may have closed a loophole on Facebook, as yet there are no similar regulations on other social platforms, leaving the door open for brands to take advantage. Nonetheless, Decker believes this could backfire.  "If I visit a Facebook page for a brand and see they have 10,000 fans, my reaction is that they must be a very popular brand or product. However, if several bloggers pick up on the fact that you are doing a sweepstake and say that all of your Facebook fans are false, then you have just ruined your whole Facebook strategy. We are living in an age where authenticity rules, so it is not a good idea."

 

One unfortunate episode occured when Habitat was recently caught spamming on Twitter, and was subsequently forced into an apology. The brand damage caused by inappropriate social activity such as spamming will almost always outweigh any benefit that the brand may have been driving for.

Social media is based on two-way dialogue - so you can't just push marketing messages

 

Last year Eurostar got itself into a twist over its Twitter profile, which was good at pushing out marketing messages about ticket offers, but not so good at fielding queries about the train service – something that was cruelly exposed when its trains became stuck in the channel tunnel last winter. As it transpired, Eurostar had hired a marketing agency to run its Twitter account which had no direct channel into the firm, leaving it unable to respond to customer service queries.  "People expect two-way dialogue and if you don’t have it, if you are just trying to use it as a broadcast mechanism, then you are going to be found out – you are not really using social media the way it is supposed to be used," Decker suggests. "Marketers need to be less like broadcasters and more like facilitators of conversations, all the way up from building the product to downstream marketing."

 

 

When Honda unveiled its new Crosstour car on a dedicated Facebook page, it was stunned by the negative response from posters. While the new model was panned by all and sundry, a lone voice – Eddie Okubo - vehemently defended the vehicle on the page and expressed his approval. Unfortunately, Okubo turned out to be Honda’s product manager, and the auto manufacturer was forced to remove his comments.
 

 

Last year, a Belkin employee was found soliciting people to write positive reviews for one of their products on Amazon. The story rapidly became national news leading to huge criticism from the online community. The company president was forced to respond to the backlash, emphasising that Belkin would not engage in unethical practices, but admitting that "one of our employees" may have been responsible. 

 

"If word of mouth rules, then social media is amplifying the voice of the customer, and your equity is built on the authenticity of what customers are saying about your product and brand," suggests Decker. "Belkin should have been more proactive with its employee policy and stressed that staff will be terminated for any marketing that is not authentic and could break trust with the customer. Marketers now need to have social media guidelines with the employee base."

 

 

As Honda demonstrated, not all products and services are well received by the customer community. And social platforms provide customers with the opportunity to make themselves better heard than ever before. As such, if your marketing message is completely at odds with the prevailing opinions of the public, the community will be quick to jump all over it and the campaign will collapse. Conversely, brands can use marketing to respond to community opinions and drive success.

 

One example of this is Domino’s Pizza, which reacted to ongoing criticism of the quality of its pizzas by launching a campaign admitting that its products had been poor. The campaign demonstrated how it had listened to its customers, acknowledged that its pizzas were terrible, and had therefore totally reinvented their products, inviting customers to give its pizzas another try. By dealing with this in such a forward thinking manner there was a positive reaction and Domino’s stock went up 50%.