This week, Social Media Club asks the question: In the era of social media, what do you do to control your brand? Striving to have complete control over your brand will do nothing but give you a nervous breakdown because it’s simply not possible. What is possible, however, is to manage your brand in smart, effective ways. Here are three of them:
1. Don’t be a jerk. Many social media disasters have more to do with how the brand is being run offline than what the brand is doing online. Maintaining dishonest practices, treating employees badly, and having an internal culture that doesn’t reflect the image you’re portraying to the public are all things that can land your company in social media hell. Those are things you CAN control. Be honest, treat your employees well, be consistent in your culture, and don’t say stupid things.
Ryanair CEO. Nuff said.
Example: Ryanair is the very definition of how NOT to behave. I don’t even know where to start. The company issued the following statement, “It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers. Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves… Ryanair can confirm that it won’t be happening again.” Nevermind its CEO’s “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” mindset: threatening to charge for bathrooms, to impose a “fat tax,” and letting people know that only slum dwellers are affected by swine flu. Its problems obviously extend beyond the “blog sphere.”
2. Understand and accept that anything you (or any of your army of employees) say can and will be held against you, and remember that in general, good news spreads slowly and bad news spreads like swine flu in a crowded elevator. It takes years to build a brand and only minutes to damage it. Religious or not, you’ve got to admit the Serenity Prayer makes a good point when it asks to be granted the serenity to accept the things you cannot change and the courage to change the things you can.
Domino's employee...make that former employee
Example: A couple of weeks ago, two employees who filmed themselves doing disgusting things with Domino’s ingredients. The video was viewed more than a million times before it was pulled. The corporate response was viewed only about half as many times as the original offending video. What? No one ever accused the Internet of being high-brow. Domino’s spokesman Tim McIntyre put it bluntly: “We got blindsided by two idiots with a video camera and an awful idea.”
3. Make use of review sites and social media feedback and adjust accordingly. Sites such as getsatisfaction.com, kudzu.com (for certain areas of the country…a favorite of mine for Atlanta services), tripadvisor.com (for travel-related companies), yelp.com, epinions.com, and dozens of others are like free focus groups. Watch what customers are saying there and keep an eye on the blogosphere and Twitter by using Google alerts and search.twitter.com to monitor conversations. Take advantage of this honest feedback to make changes to policies, services, or products that receive consistently low reviews.
Orange + Straw 4eva <3
Example: When PepsiCo redesigned Tropicana orange juice containers, consumers went nuts, expressing their frustration via social media. (My question is: Who has the time to get that riled up over an orange juice container? But that’s neither here nor there.) Two months later, Tropicana bowed to consumer demand and brought back the old straw-in-orange packaging. They didn’t need to pay a focus group–although it sounds like they should have–they only needed to monitor their reputation online.
4. Take part in the conversation. You can’t prevent people from discussing your brand (and why whould you want to?) but you can use social media to become part of that discussion. Having a strategy to address negatives and engage fans is really a must these days. The conversation is going to happen whether you’re part of it or not, so jump in.
When people take the time to put up a website entitled comcastmustdie.com, your PR needs help
Example: Comcast isn’t the most popular company in the world…particularly not at my house, where I’ve had more than my share of frustrations with the cable company, but it is smart enough to know that disgruntled customers are going to bitch about it, so they might as well have someone there to respond. Enter Frank Eliason (aka @comcastcares on Twitter), whose job it is to monitor discussions about the company and get involved. A task he accomplishes so well, I feel it’s a bit of a shame that Comcast’s less tech-savvy customers can’t get the same treatment via phone.
What about you? What’s your strategy? Throw in your two cents at Social Media Club’s blog post on the topic. A wrap-up post is already up as well.
{ 0 comments… add one now }