This weekend Woolworths can’t wait to give everyone an opportunity to give them a massive kicking
Dr Mumbo is sorry to note that Woolworths has decided to kick off the weekend with a mini social media disaster in the making.
And we’re still in the first hour…
Update, February 12, 2pm (Sunday afternoon):
This will not end well…
Outstanding I can feel the panic from here. Reminscent of the make your own FWD ad from the US a couple of years ago.
I have no idea why business perseveres with Facebook. Disaster waiting to happen at every post. Just because the ‘experts’ tell you, you must be on it doesn’t mean you should.
I think their Social Media Manager might be doing a bit of overtime this weekend?? Ha. Smells of the QANTAS social media fail… when will people learn?
#QantasLuxury
I just hopped onto the page – there’s also a lot of innocuous comments, happy comments, weekend sharing etc.
Yep, he will be working hard looking for a new job. There is a book in what not to say on twitter/Facebook when trying to promote yourself.,
FFS. Does no-one learn?
Dunno – most of the comments on there are fairly benign along the lines of “catch up with my hubby”, “relax and do nothing” etc. Sure there are a few “shop at Coles” and the like thrown in there but nothing too drastic. Yet…
They’ve been deleting comments – follow best practice!
It’s even more painful watching people use they’re when they should have used their.
Tim – an invitation to the social media risk management masterclass may be in order.
Oh noes! Negative comments! It happens, you deal with it. Storm, meet teacup. Mountains, molehills etc etc
Well, this is what happens when you treat social media, particularly FB, simply as a channel for one-to-many brand marketing in the mode of promotions and competitions etc. I suppose at least they are showing some brand love by even bothering to respond…
Debra Beecraft clearly missed the memo that you’re supposed to tee off on them.
I agree it could have been much worse, but why would you leave such an open message on a Friday, but maybe they are ready for some open criticism?
I’m surprised there is not more trolling happening with personal attacks by now… usually you get one or two supporters onboard at this point to still things up a bit more.
So I think it’s not the best but interesting to see how they respond on Monday, my guess is they might just delete the whole post or provide a generic “thanks for your feedback”…. see how well people respond if they do that…
Not all that smart, but it also goes to show how awful some people can be!
Wow – good to see another media beat-up on a well-known brand just for making the effort to engage in social media. Clearly a slow news day as this non-story has now made it into the SMH. The upside will be good fan growth for Woolies, but I’m amazed that yet another non-event becomes a “news” story. On my quick glance through of the 495 comments on the facebook thread, significantly less than 10% were negative, if that. A whole heap of them were seriously positive, and most were just people randomly engaging.
Not everyone loves every brand. That’s just the way it is. And a random selection of people pushing their own agenda isn’t a news story just because it’s on a forum owned by the brand. If you open up a discussion forum, of any sort, you’ll get negative comments.
So I’d be interested to know what all the haters above would have done differently – not engage at all ? Not open the door ? Or accept that some comments will be negative, and hope not to get noticed by a bored journo who’s having a slow day and feels like beating up on a big brand. From my perspective, the only downside of Woolies activity is that they haven’t responded at all to ANY of the comments.
Look on any brand Facebook page – it’s pretty easy to find the disgruntled customers, the brand detractors, the people recently frustrated and annoyed by life. They always existed and always will. Why beat up on the marketers that are giving it a go ? Because it makes for easy copy in blogs / newspapers – easy to find, easy to write. And we wonder why consumers in general distrust marketers.
Same thing happened too Vodafone on Australia Day –
Screenshot here – http://jamesnorquay.com/vodafo.....ial-media/
The problem is you give your users too much power, this is social media messaging 101.