I dare to state that we are living in a revolutionary era when traditional media advertisements and campaigns are slowly replaced by new social media tools. Nevertheless there are still a lot of misunderstandings in the business world that usually lead to not much pleasant pitfalls. If a brand manager or a marketer wants to avoid some of the fatal mistakes he should realize several basic things:
- Social media environment is controlled by customers not by managers. We have to turn all the traditional B2C relationship on its head. It is a customer’s activity and his investment what creates SM platforms. Customers invest their time and efforts when searching for or engaging with your brand.
- Previous note sounds very tempting, one can think: “Wow, that is awesome, customers do all the job, we will just take the cream.” The true is that you can leave SM live its own life, but then you will just cry over spilled milk. Uncontrolled SM activity and conversation related to the brand is usually more harmful than not using SM at all. Molson already knows very well…
- On the other hand too much control harms as well. Once SM users find out that you filtered and deleted their posts or cheated on them like for example Dr Pepper/7UP did in 2003, you will recognize their hell anger. Remember, there are millions of users on the other side of Facebook wall. They can destroy you very easily.
- Social Media and user generated content (UGC) are not for free nor cheap! Before you run your online campaign, it is very important to realize that SM monitoring and management in fact cost a lot of time and a lot of money. Once your brand enters the online world you will need qualified online advertisers and e-marketers who are in charge and keep the right track towards the dreamy objective.
… to be continued…