100% of marketers plan to use social media; 50% will get it wrong
It was only a matter of time, so it’s not surprising that we are now starting to hear stories of social media disasters. The latest is by the National Australia Bank who set-up myfuturebank.org (now removed) to encourage customers to design their ideal bank.
Now that’s an interesting challenge; but where do you start? Since it’s back to the drawing board for most banks these days, maybe asking your customers to design the bank they want is the right approach - it’s definitely one I’d advocate. But if you are going to do this you have to listen to what they have to say, even if it’s negative.
It seems customer input was only valued by NAB if it was positive. They soon realised this was not guaranteed and quickly took the site down, motivated no doubt by the suggestion that comments were being ‘managed’.
NAB claimed they only intended to run the site for “long enough to gather feedback” and “now had sufficient data”; which may well be true but that’s not how it appears. If you’re going to run short term ‘feedback campaigns’ it’s best to tell the users as much at the outset, this way no-one can complain when you pull out early.
I suppose this lesson had to be learned by someone the hard way; but let’s face it, if you engage in an open discussion you can’t dictate the terms and should be mature enough to handle criticism. If you don’t like what you might hear DON’T ASK for comments.
If you’re thinking of using social media to engage customers, and let’s face aren’t we all; then the following commandments for how to act in a Social Community might be useful:
Before you join
1. Know Your Specific Target Audience
2. Know Where that Audience Socializes On the Web
3. Understand the Actual Rules of the Community
4. Factor In a Media Budget
5. Know Your Goals
When you’re there
6. Get to Know That Online Community
7. Give to the Community- Don’t Spam
8. Be Transparent
9. Don’t Leave the Community
10. Start with One Community and Then Add Communities
For more information on these rules of acceptable social media behaviour, check out Kailee Brown’s blog or talk to several PR & marketing professionals - half of them will know what to do.
So what have we learnt?
If we threat customers as our most valuable asset and show them due respect, social media is a very powerful management aid and one that if correctly used will help every organisation improve what they do.
Is your organisation ready for the social media challenge?
Tags: social media, social media behaviour, social media disasters
October 20th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
This is such a great point. So many companies think they are ready for social media because they hear the results are awesome. What they seem to miss is that the results are only awesome if you’re actually doing it right. And that means listening and engaging with your consumers. This is brand building, not advertising. It’s so different, and it will probably take a very long time for people to understand that.
Thanks for pointing this out and including me in your post