Social media marketing can be extremely effective in multiple ways. It creates two-way conversation between the brand and its customers in which roles of “broadcasters” and “receivers” are continuously changed back and forth. It easily facilitates community building, allowing marketers to form a strong trusted community around their brand. Moreover, all the events are normally available and easily accessible; retrieval of information is available for anyone who has interest in looking at them at a later date.
I came across a great article by Vijayananthan who discusses three corporate missteps in social media. The lessons learned from their failures are what all digital marketers should be aware of when using social media platforms as a part of their integrated marketing communications.
Molson Canadian
On November 23, 2007, Molson brewing company pulled its promotion on Facebook after numerous complaints that it promoted binge drinking. Molson’s promotion involved a photo contest targeting 19-24 year old college and university students. Participants were encouraged to upload outlandish drinking and partying pictures for a chance to win a trip to Mexico. The company was immediately criticized for encouraging (although not intended) irresponsible behaviour and under-age drinking.
Lesson #1: News travels fast, Social media mistakes travel even faster
Because every online content is easily available and accessible, once something goes wrong, you can’t undo it – people have already seen it and had access to the wrong /or negative information and it leaves a record online forever.
Moreover, nobody has complete control over any content. It can be problematic for Molson because the content created online may be different from what the company intended it to be. Even if the content being created conveys negative meanings and negative associations, the company did not have control over them.
To be continued in Part 2