Brands utilising social media as a marketing tool is set in increase massively over the coming years with some 88% of companies utilising Social Media in some form by 2012 (eMarketer 1st Nov 2010 companies with 100+ employees). Overall investment in social media is also set to increase to become a significant part of overall digital marketing budgets.
As brands actively harness the ‘word-of-mouth-through-social-media’ power by encouraging employees to set up social media networks on behalf of the company and engage directly with its consumers, it also throws up a number of potential pitfalls for your brand.
A few questions to ask yourself:
How do the thoughts and actions of employees reflect your brand and are you in control of this? Are you team sufficiently trained to engage socially with your customers? Do you have a set plan of action if things go wrong? Are employers covered contractually to engage in this way?
There have been high profile examples e.g. Vodafone http://conversational-uk.co.uk/2010/02/05/vodafone-twitter-fail/ where brands sentiment has been negative due to their employees being negligent or don’t necessarily represent the views or thoughts and have created negative sentiment around the brand.
While this example was by a somewhat disgruntled employee it illustrates the issue of how empowering employees in social spaces can be dangerous. On the flip side, allowing employees to engage with a certain degree of creativity and without inhibitions is equally important.
Here are four things for employers to have in place:
1) Social Media Guidelines
Have clear social media guidelines put in place that employees are asked to read and also trained on. These guidelines include issues such as transparency in engagement, how to moderate content and what to moderate, how to engage with bloggers, how to add value to your brand etc.
Brands such as IBM and Intel have been early adopters of social media and have developed guidelines that encourage and educate their employees. Other great examples of social policies can be found at EConsultancy.
2) Crisis Management Strategy
Remember negativity can spread very quickly so have a crisis management strategy in place. The simplest way is to devise a flow chart which quickly allows employees to identify the paths to take in the event of a crisis. This should be widely available and shared across all relevant departments including marketing, legal and PR.
3) Brand Guidelines
Ensure your employees understand brand guidelines and how the brand should be represented in social spaces. This includes language, tone of voice, things they can and can’t say etc.
4) Employee Contracts
As social media becomes increasingly included as part of day to day marketing, it’s worth brands considering updating employee contracts to include social aspects. Some employment contracts may not sufficiently cover the rules of social engagement and being a representative of the brand in social spaces.
Social Media has been a huge part of the marketing mix for politicians in recent years. Obama’s election campaign was a shining example of how social media can galvanise support and communicate with voters and supporters in the digital space. However, politics is an extremely passionate arena and views often get polarised, resulting in highly charged online debate.
In reaction to the horrific happenings in Arizona last week, Sarah Palin’s Facebook page was hit very hard with comments. The site http://obamalondon.blogspot.com/ documented the comments that were posted and how they were dealt with by Palin and her team.
Comments that were seen by Palin’s team as derogatory to the Palin brand or Republican Party were deleted with amazing speed and efficiency. In some cases not more then two minutes had gone by before the comment was deleted.
However, a comment about the 9 year old girl victim which suggested it was o.k. for her to be shot because she would only turn into a democrat supporter was left on the page. While this comment was highly insensitive and offensive, it also highlighted an inconsistency in Sarah Palin’s moderation policy. Surely if Palin is deleting all negative or offensive comments this should also be deleted? You’d think so, but then again this is politics.
There are two main learning’s to take from Palin’s
1) In the world of social media deleting unfavourable comments about a person (or product, service, business) only serves to enrage and fuel the fires of the user. If brands think that users are going to keep quiet because they’ve had their comments deleted, think again. In fact they’ll shout louder and longer on another platform, making the issuer bigger than it was to start with.
A more engaged approach would be to provide commentary on the raised issues, helping to contain the debate within your social space and keep it from spreading . In this case:
The Guardian
AOL News
Reputation Online
2) By not deleting or responding to comments that are widely considered as offence or derogatory effectively means that the brand/person is endorsing this comment. If you are going to employ a policy of deleting comments (not recommended) then at least be consistent with all offensive comments and not a policy of one rule for one and one for another. I’m sure we all agree that Sarah Palin doesn’t endorse the murder of a 9 year old girl. But allowing that comment to remain on her Facebook page, while disparaging comments about her are deleted at speed, certainly doesn’t clarify her position, help her reputation and only fuels the vitriol towards her further.
Brands and high profile individuals need to have a consistent and documented approach to dealing with these situations or they can do their brand a great deal of damage, as seen here.
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