This installment of MLoI was inspired by a quote from Joe Rogan’s character on the show Newsradio. Joe’s character said, “You can’t take something off the internet. That’s like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.”
When I heard that I laughed – REALLY hard. Then I stopped laughing – really quickly – because what he said is absolutely true. We cannot control all the content about our clients available to the world via the web. But we can listen. We can try to answer questions. We can promote positive perceptions. We can respond to negative issues in a positive way. And we can work to engage those we we call our clients’ heavy users, as well as our clients.
When negative stories are generated by consumers about a brand it can escalate quickly, think wildfires x10. By listening and monitoring what is going on we have an opportunity to allow for a valid response in a timely fashion and position {account service insert your brand or product here} as a business that cares not only about their brand, but about their consumers. In the early stages of a negative situation questions from your heavy users are still asking ‘Is it true?’ or ‘Does {company X} not know about this?’ or even ‘Is this normal/really happening?’ It is not knee-jerk statements like ‘I hate [Company X] and will never buy their [product] again.’
That’s why as advertisers/marketers need to be vigilant ambassadors of the brands we represent. In addition, we need to have a plan (also known as an escalation procedure) when a product or brand experiences a corporate nightmare like this. By listening, we are giving our clients a fighting chance. In the case of United, by the time this story had gone viral, it was way too late.
What can you do? How can you help clients?
We have a responsibility to our clients to know a lot about their brands; as well as the industry they are a part of. We better position our agency as an invaluable resource if we can tell clients (even potential clients) something important about their company/brand/industry before they hear about it from another source. “How?” you ask? Pretty simple, really. Best yet – it can be free! Using monitoring tools like TweetDeck (which is free) or Radian 6 (which is not free) allows you to monitor certain key phrases or words on the web and respond directly to multiple platforms from one place. Had United been monitoring their brand mentions in 2009, that video could have had far less impact and United could have addressed the problem long before the nearly 9,000,000 views and thousands of response videos against United Airlines on YouTube and other social media channels.
Lesson learned? Ask United, which now has a staff of more than 12 people who monitor and actively participate in social media and act on behalf of the company responding to posts like the one mentioned above, in six different languages.
Want to see this sort of monitoring in action? Look at Bob’s blog post on The Insanity of Web Metrics. The comment at the bottom of the page from Lady Bird is a result of this person monitoring the phrase “web metrics” through a tool like Radian 6. When she gets a hit on her keyword(s) she posted a link to a company who provides web metric services or software.
If you’d like to learn more about ways to monitor web activity of your clients give me a shout.
Have a great week!
jim murphy
Director of Interactive Services
Hoffman | Lewis
314-454-3457
