Ignore it and it will go away... right?

A friend of mine works in a place where the understanding by big organisations and brands of social media and digital communications are not as developed as those of say the USA and Western Europe. He’s facing the problem where his potential clients simply don’t see the benefit of communicating with digital audiences, especially on negative issues.

This is something that I thought had bee addressed on a global scale a few years back. So I was a little surprised to hear that the large organisations he is talking to still have an “ignore it and it will go away” attitude.
So what should he say to those he is pitching to who believe they can ignore negative sentiment and that online comments cannot affect a brand?

So let's take each part separately:

 
1. Ignoring negative sentiment

• Remember that any comment (negative or positive) stays on the Internet for as long as it is hosted. This means that content posted to popular blogs and social platforms could stay there indefinitely. You can no longer bury bad news on the web!
• Search engines love popular, relevant & regularly-updated content, therefore its possible that a popular negative article or blog posting could affect a brand’s organic rankings (meaning they could even get deposed from the top of Google for their own brand terms or more realistically that more SEO budget is needed to keep them there).
• Those people who post negative comments don't go away, they pop up at any time and continue their comments (especially if there is new activity around the subject)
  As an example of this, I once had a prospect who had the same negative TV clips uploaded to YouTube about them. They wanted to send a lawyers letter, I wanted them to film a response. (They eventually did what they wanted and the same clip then appeared in several other places online).
  These have been called Badvocates (Bad advocates), the opposite of brand ambassadors, and I even blogged about this in 2009:
  http://press20.blogspot.com/2009/10/are-you-brand-bashing-badvocate.html
  So you should expect the same sort of passion that your most prized followers and fans have... but in reverse. 

2. It's impossible to impact the information about the company or brand

Ha ha ha.... that's both arrogant and ignorant in this modern world

For a really good example of this from several years back (but that is still relevant today) check out the case about "Dell Hell" that I have blogged about a few years back:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2005/aug/29/mondaymediasection.blogging
http://www.customerthink.com/article/you_can_learn_dell_hell_dell_did

In short, Jeff Jarvis wrote about bad service from the PC manufacturer and it snowballed into a huge customer service & reputation issue for Dell. In the end Dell decided to address this and eventually set up a focused social media team to monitor, address and grow engagement across the web.

Now why would Dell do this? Because it was creating a negative effect on its brand and its revenues.....

A few years on from Dell Hell there are now loads of examples about how brands have had to spend lots of money to counter negative publicity that either started or grew online.

For example:
http://www.bulletproofblog.com/2008/11/19/motrin-moms-show-their-social-media-savvy/
http://www.bulletproofblog.com/2009/07/28/youtube-video-targeted-at-united-airlines-strikes-a-chord/
http://www.directorship.com/dominos-discovers-social-media/

Sure, you can spend your way out of trouble each time to try and bury/block/buy strategies. But that can be both expensive and reactionary, neither of which are approaches that the shareholders of large companies appreciate.

Taking the 20th century view that these issue will just go away over time is no longer the way to communicate, engage and grown your business.

The customer now has a voice

It used to be the phrase that happy customers told 2 people, but unhappy customers told 10.  Now, the lone customer with an opinion has all the channels they need to combine their opinions with other like-minded individuals across the globe.... and in new and exciting ways. Complaining 2.0 has arrived.

Furthermore, with blogs and other commenting sites now providing a free and perpetual record of actions and thoughts, the negative actions of companies don’t just fade away overnight….they linger around for anyone to subsequently find (just type “Dell Hell” into Google to see how a groundswell of opinion changed one PC makers approach to Social Media several years back).

So what do you do when your customer has a voice? Listen.

Tuning in to what your audience is saying isn't that difficult. There are even a number of free tools to help you listen , from basic notifications such as Google Alerts through to tools such as Social Mention http://www.socialmention.com and Google Realtime Search http://www.google.co.uk/realtime

There really is no excuse now for listening to the online customer voice.

SNCR announces 2008 winners

Those forward-thinking Fellows of the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) have announced their choices for their awards this year.

Visionary of the Year:
Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, whose book Groundswell sits on many of my peers' bookshelves (and mine included, when I get it back from a client I lent it to)

Innovator of the Year:
Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams the founders of Twitter.
(Which I mist admit to using, but less-so recently)

Brand of the Year:
Dell, for making the most in-roads to using new communications technologies, etc.
(E.g. For Dell Idea Storm, PR Blog, etc.)

Note: I'll obviously take credit for mentioning all of these winners in this blog and therefore expect my honorary membership to be in the post tomorrow [grin].

Crowdsourcing

Crowd sourcing is a technique many companies are now using to trial different ideas, with increasing success:

http://www.ideastorm.com/
Dell's site has been running since early 2007 and has implemented a lot of suggestions already (the idea to offer Windows XP when there was a backlash against Windows Vista last year being an example)

http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/home/home.jsp
The coffee giant has created a place for dialogue between company & customer. Both these idea have been sponsored at the most senior level.

And now it seems the UK High Street fashion retailer New Look have created an engaging community space to crowdsource new ideas and get important feedback from their most important customers. Its early days yet to see if this is just a publicity stunt and a way to get cheap R&D; or if it creates better products and improves the bottom line for them whilst rewarding their Brand Evangelists.

Investor Relations 2.0

Its possible now to use modern digital communications to have a dialogue with:

• Customers
• Influencers
• Press/Journalists
• Students
• Potential Employees
  and so on....

But how about using social media as an Investor Relationship tool?

Well, this is what Dell have done when they set up their Investor Relations Blog at:
http://dellshares.dell.com/

Set up after a drive by Michael Dell to understand opportunity better and winning back investor confidence, this was seen as a good way of engaging with shareholders and the wider financial marketplace.

When launched on 1 Novemeber 2007 (and even now) IR blogs were few & far between. However, leaning on the success of Direct2Dell (where Dell has really learnt about the power of blogging) and observing the general increase in the blogosphere, the aim was to evolve & learn, providing "Ubiquity and Democracy of information", meaning delivering equal and accessible information to as many people as possible.

Now, there are regulation issues for any large company. Fair disclosure using social media is a tricky area - all the same regulations apply. But it doesn't change what you say, you obviosuly have to understand that you're having a dialogue. You can obviosuly cover general issues and not just financial ones and provide what Lynn Tyson, VP of Investor Relations at Dell calls:

"something beyond just the balance sheet"

So, is it successful?

Yes! To date the site has consistently grown and from the topics covered is obviously providing a better understanding of Dell. Its also getting a quality dialogue from the comments it recieves.
To quote Lynn Tyson, creator of thier IR strategy called "21st Century IR"

"There is little downside to the conversation"