After more than a decade of practice, brands are still failing at social
The capacity to conduct two-way communication between a brand and its audience is what differentiates social media from (nearly) all other channels. Despite this, many brands are turning social media into anti-social media, writes Y&R's Matthew Bishop.
It wasn’t long ago that marketers solely relied on surveys and focus groups to get insights into their customers’ needs, wants, and pain points. All that changed with the advent of social media, and with it an open forum for brands to communicate directly with their target audience.
You’d think that collectively, marketers would try to nurture and protect this sacred space from the cannibalisation that every new channel is subjected to. Evidently not.
As I thumb through my social feeds every morning, I can’t help but roll my eyes at all the brands churning out content that makes no effort to interact with the viewer whatsoever. As marketers, we have a plethora of channels to push one-way messages out to our intended audiences; social media shouldn’t be one of them.
This guy gets it, and so does Hootsuite it seems
Not all the blame should be placed on the offending brands or marketers either. I constantly read articles from reputable sources that coax marketers into posting two times per day on Facebook, and scarier still 15 tweets per day on Twitter – that’s over 5,000 tweets per year! In an effort to reach these levels, marketers are resorting to curating and reposting anything that remotely relates to their brand or industry, with little regard to whether it benefits their followers.
Not sure if this constitutes as business news…
But posting frequently is being “social” isn’t it? It depends on your definition of “social” but posting for the sake of posting actually hurts brands on two fronts: (1) subconsciously, followers are less likely to take notice of a brand’s future posts if they find they’re not getting any value; and (2) the algorithms that govern what is displayed in our feeds are becoming less and less likely to deliver unengaging content, even to a brand’s followers.
It’s a bit like how society handles loud narcissistic personalities: after a while people stop paying attention to them.
Renowned social psychology author Kathleen Stassen Berger defines anti-social behaviour as “actions that harm or lack consideration for the well-being of others”.
By applying this definition to a brand’s social media actions, deciding what content to post (and more importantly what not to post) should be a pretty straight-forward task: always consider the audience’s interests and well-being. In other words, don’t post outdated or unrelated content, don’t post content that is boring and doesn’t merit interaction, and definitely don’t post potentially offensive content.
Even if you think something is funny, maybe some of your audience won’t
Brands should attempt to respond to as many DMs, mentions, and comments as possible (and in a timely manner). If someone goes to the trouble of asking a question or providing feedback, there is an expectation that they will receive a response.
If a brand doesn’t respond or responds poorly (and therefore doesn’t consider the interests and well-being of the individual), they risk losing an existing or potential customer.
On the flipside, a considered response could turn a brand detractor into a brand promoter, as well as encouraging further communication. After all, DMs, mentions, and comments are indeed customer touchpoints and should be treated as such.
Three days to respond and then failing to provide a suitable solution is definitely not social best practice
Don’t be anti-social; make sure your social posts consider your followers first and foremost.
Matthew Bishop is social media manager at Y&R ANZ.
I think the Old Spice example at the bottom says it all. It doesn’t matter how much lipstick you put on it, if the brand doesn’t care about its customers then its on a hiding to nothing no matter how good its social team is. Good marketing can make the best of something, but if there is nothing to work with…(like customer service that doesn’t do what it says on the tin), then there’s nothing to work with.
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While social media provides a great opportunity for brands across both customer service and marketing (as well as much more), it’s important they’re considered separately. Agree completely that any brand would be foolish not to swiftly and effectively respond to all questions, problems or feedback.
I would challenge that two-way communication is what differentiates social for marketers. People are there to be social with their friends and family, however the majority never ‘engage’ with a brand. It’s a nice idea that social could allow brands to engage their whole customer-base in dialogue, but this was unfortunately a dream and not a reality. When you build your social marketing activity around eliciting interaction from your customers, you actively disregard the 99% that will never take the bait. The opportunity that social brings for brands is a lot of eyeballs, and the ability to reach the right ones at the right time with the right (and relevant) content.
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If a brand has a complaints hotline, or an area on their website directed and catering to complaints – they are rife for disruption. (Unless of course they lobby the government and have 1 of a few licenses, so to speak…) 😉
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