Comments on: Is It Time To Stop Listening to Social Media?

By: ElissaFreeman

ElissaFreeman — Sun, 06 May 2012 14:00:32 +0000

@Andrea H. | The Hypnotism Weekly
I love your last line about the Justin Bieber fans – mainly because it underlines one of my main concerns: we need to discern WHO is making the noise before we consider a major change in strategic direction! Tho’ my daughter would tell you the Justin Bieber fans are a pretty smart bunch…!

By: Andrea H. | The Hypnotism Weekly

Andrea H. | The Hypnotism Weekly — Sat, 05 May 2012 06:06:57 +0000

Very interesting post with a lot to ponder. On one side social media can be useful to hit businesses who deserve it like in the examples above. And now I wish social media will nuke Google for their Penguin update. Not that Google is going to care what internet users think anyway.

On the other side social media can be a kind of modern witch-hunt.

Now let’s think about what social media can do when added to search results. Relevancy and quality RIP maybe? Or Justin Bieber fans will tell everyone what is good and what is not?

By: Blacklau

Blacklau — Sat, 05 May 2012 05:12:59 +0000

That’s the consequence of social media it is either make or break the business. Social media is such a powerful means of advertising and if you don’t know how to play the game then you’ll be sorry. Heard what happened in some mining company, if not you can see the news on http://blackhawk-mining.com/
“>Black Hawk Mines Bulletin

By: ginidietrich

ginidietrich — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:55:41 +0000

@jeffespo @KenMueller It’s like what happened with Gap, too. They gave in and changed their logo back. But when everything was analyzed, they realized the people complaining about it represented LESS than one percent of their customer base.

By: ginidietrich

ginidietrich — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:54:55 +0000

@KenMueller @ElissaFreeman I’ve been thinking about this particular instance, from the perspective of this blog post. I feel badly the guy can’t fly and is nearing the end of his life. I feel badly Spirit couldn’t refund his money. But there is a reason they have that policy. NO airlines refund money. Can you imagine what would happen if they made an exception for this?

That said, saying their customer complaints are an irrelevant statistic is really bad communications and there is more here, but on the surface, giving in because people are mad a veteran won’t get a refund is not necessary.

By: DavidZandueta

DavidZandueta — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:45:55 +0000

@ElissaFreeman – You’re welcome. I got that from my previous travel agent days. I came across those in the midst of checking out anything travel-related that potentially involves customer service issues.

Goes to show that, as someone said, things aren’t necessarily black and white. Personally, one take-away I got from that is to respond if/when someone is materially and directly affected. (e.g. someone getting hurt, money being charged.)

By: ElissaFreeman

ElissaFreeman — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:25:43 +0000

@Hip2Housewife
Awww, I love the last sentence best! But you make a good point – maybe we should be calling this phenomenon ‘corporate cyberbullying’…??

By: ElissaFreeman

ElissaFreeman — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:24:34 +0000

@jenzings
Yes! Thank you! I forgot about that one. In fact, my POV on that whole brouhaha was that it was a ‘manufactured’ PR campaign…

By: jenzings

jenzings — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:15:55 +0000

I just scanned the comments, and I don’t think I saw anyone reference the Gap logo example. Blogosphere/Twittersphere blew up totally bashing the new logo (which, IMHO was pretty lame, I thought it was an attempt at an Onion-like joke). Gap responded by pulling the logo–but, most of their frequent customers weren’t even aware of the dust-up. An example of social media causing an “over-response” to a situation that would have most likely quickly passed.

By: Hip2Housewife

Hip2Housewife — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:13:48 +0000

I think like anything new, the social media-sphere is going to take some getting used to – both for consumers and for brands. While no one – SM professional or otherwise – would argue that companies should do anything other than engage with consumers online, the real debate is when, how much, and to what end. I think users are heady with their social media power. Never before have we had to ability to call out a brand — and have them answer. So at the moment, brands seem almost too quick to respond to every Tweet, every complaint.
At some point, brands will get sick of being bullied by bloggers, tweeters and the like. But until they figure out how to deal with it when it happens, the whole thing is just a PR nightmare.

That’s why they need people like you.