Zen and the Art of Social Media Strategy

In 1974, Robert Pirsig wrote a philosophical novel about a 17-day journey on his motorcycle from Minnesota to California. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance explores the meaning of quality and aims toward a perception of reality that embraces both the rational and the romantic sides of the world. This means developing one’s scientific understanding as well as embracing one’s creative and intuitive bursts of wisdom. “The book demonstrates that motorcycle maintenance may be dull and tedious drudgery or an enjoyable and pleasurable pastime; it all depends on attitude.”³

³ Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance.

In much the same way, successful online reputation management entails a similar qualitative approach that includes constant monitoring of activity about your company as well as the finesse to understand how to engage and respond to opportunities and perceived threats in the right manner. We covered several tools for tracking activity in Chapter 10. What you do with that data is really the end result of reputation management.

Most often, the continuous delivery of excellent products and services leads to a passionate community of users who are ready to carry the company’s flag and who are ready to forgive mistakes by the company. If product and service delivery fails too often, however, then the company must take an active approach to improve its processes, accompanied by being transparent in terms of the steps the company is taking.

The alternative to such a qualitative approach to social media is to instead conduct and operate in a “fire-fighting” mode, where the company overreacts to even the slightest negative mention. Furthermore, the company may take too much of a scientific approach, which risks alienating and distancing the online community.

When Marketing Campaigns Go Wrong…

McNeil Consumer Healthcare had a problem: their marketing campaign was received with great hostility by some vocal individuals in their target segment, mothers with young children. Their new advertisement for the pain-reliever Motrin was cleverly worded to help mothers deal with back pain associated from carrying their babies. Instead, some mothers with popular blogs and YouTube channels strongly expressed the opinion that they took offense at the new ads, feeling they were being patronized by the company. In short, they felt Motrin, not their babies, was the new cause of headaches. Motrin quickly responded by contritely removing the ads.

Of course, advertising campaigns are critically important and most companies should not simply switch all their promotional activities to social media. The difference is that it pays to be aware of the presence of a community of users online who are interested in your brands. Not only that, it also pays to engage with the online community, particularly when such engagement occurs through a company’s established social media presence. By establishing a history of rapport with individual consumers online, you can open up new lines of communication and test ideas before committing to them. You can also turn to these individuals, if and when things start going wrong, for authentic advice and public support. This type of engagement will also prevent you from conducting promotions that are perceived as too aggressive, since you’ll already have a pulse on the community’s reaction.

When establishing close rapport with the community, observe the company’s values in all communications by complying with legal regulations, such as HIPPA laws in the healthcare industry, and by observing professional etiquette. Boundaries between customers and the company must be clarified and understood so as not to disappoint passionate community members. While engagement is indeed desirable, people should never feel they are being taken advantage of.

The fields of marketing, advertising, and public relations are becoming increasingly digital and technical. This means the IT department is being consulted more regarding setting up new types of interactive platforms, including promotional games, product blogs, and even branded social networks for consumers. This provides an excellent opportunity for IT to manage security risks while advising on the capabilities and limitations of emerging digital technologies.

Creating Your Own Social Network

Most promotional activity in social media follows predetermined timeframes from beginning to end. Promotions may involve sweepstakes through Facebook pages, mini-sites, or games, or they may occur through regularly communicated discounts, such as on the Dell Outlet account on Twitter (http://twitter.com/delloutlet). A company with a limited budget can set up its own network with a service such as Ning.com or Socialgo.com, which are automated services that ease the pain of creating a social media platform yourself. With such services, you can create your own community with minimal technical knowledge.

The SocialGO administrator interface is shown in Figure 11-3. As you can see, you can pull together functions and widgets for your customized social network, such as blog capability, improve your SEO capabilities, create RSS feeds, customize your layout design, and select profile questions, and have it up and running within a day. Whether you get users is a different issue.

Take control in your Admin Center

Figure 11-3 SocialGO’s customized social network creation platform

A longer-term commitment involves the creation of a branded community, or dedicated social network, for consumers. Launching your social network with a service such as SocialGO does not generate a user base. You have to create awareness. Associations and nonprofits, as well as some large companies in the retail, media, and other industries, are setting up such communities. Examples include RunEasy by Reebok, Nike+, MarthaStewart.com, MyStarbucksIdea, and Think by MTV. As you can see in the Think by MTV example shown in Figure 11-4, the MTV platform connects community activity with the ability to make purchases and generate revenue and it also links to MTV’s Facebook page.

Figure 11-4 Think by MTV’s customized social network

Such websites can be complex to conceive, design, and implement—both technically and creatively. A small or medium business can use Ning or SocialGO for a minimal cost, whereas companies such as Reebok and MTV have the resources for dedicated development. The most successful dedicated social networks are closely aligned to a company’s products and values, giving users a real sense of connection with like-minded people.

The risks are high with customized social networks, however. Examples abound of poorly conceived social networks that users have abandoned. Google Buzz is a very public example of a social network that did not take off, even with the backing of the behemoth Google—although Google+ launched in July 2011 as the newest iteration of Google’s foray into social media and has over 20 million users thus far. Let’s check back in a year and see how it’s doing. Friendster.com is another example of a social network that didn’t make it even though it was a precursor to Facebook. The reasons for failure are various: either the platform did not provide creative value, since there was no real facility or reason to connect with others, or the website made it difficult to connect and communicate with others because of poor user interface decisions, too few or too many features, or slow page loads. Before creating your own social network, consider any legal implications regarding eligibility to participate; user privacy; posting and moderating content; storing, delivering, and archiving content; and storing user details, especially with users from other countries with strict database laws. Finally, security considerations are paramount when dealing with consumers and the content they create, and leaks and other breaches can deal a serious blow to any company’s reputation.