Don’t get Twitterjacked – get involved
The various speakers at the brand building session of yesterday’s Social Networking World Forum, were of course at pains to point out that social media is a vital tool for modern brands. Given that the conference coincided with the release of Nielsen’s latest research into the popularity of social media, who can blame them?
Coca Cola’s director of global interactive marketing, Michael Donnelly, explained how the company’s attitude to consumer interaction with the brand has changed over the years. Back in 1962 for example, the brand slapped a cease and desist order on Andy Warhol after he produced a series of studies of Coca Cola bottles. It seems highly unlikely that any modern brand would seek to discourage this kind of activity – especially in these socially networked times. “My how times have changed”, acknowledged Donnelly.
As an example of this shift in culture, Donnelly outlined how Coca-Cola’s Facebook page has grown to be the second most popular in the world – with very little involvement from the brand itself. The page – second only to Barack Obama in terms of popularity – was initially set up by two fans of the drink (see the video here).
For Connelly, social networking is “a fresh and new space”, and the key to success for Coca-Cola is to avoid being seen as a ‘big’ brand. “We’re a big company, we’re playing in virtually every space – as a participating member,” he argued. “We’re not just some big brand blasting our message at consumers.”
The importance of adding something useful was a theme that was echoed in the session’s panel discussion. For Frances Dovey, interactive and emerging media manager at Cadburys, providing a useful contribution to the community is vital. “Make sure that you bring something to the party and that you’re not just taking from the community,” argued Dovey. Another crucial factor for Dovey is longevity. “If you’re going to do this, you’re in it for the long haul. It’s not about switching off and dumping your friends. Once you switch it on you’re always on”.
But what happens if you don’t switch on? This was one of the issues addressed by Dirk Singer, co-founder of PR agency Cow, during his presentation that sought to explain how to justify social media in a recession (Dirk has kindly agreed to share his presentation slides with us).
Singer highlighted some of the dangers of refusing to engage with customers on social networks. Singling out Twitter, he pointed to the example of Southwest Trains who had failed to register a Twitter feed. As a result the company has been ‘Twitterjacked’ by someone who freely admits that the southwesttrains feed is “not actually anything to do with SWT – just a spitefull (sic) comuter (sic) playing around”. Sample posts include: “Hope ya’ll enjoyed not making it to work this week. No need to thank us!” and “hey suckers! we’ve been away for a bit – we were busy jacking up the price and making shit up about “temporary signal failure”.” The potential for brand damage should be a warning to all.
Singer went on to explain how it is now possible to buy high profile Twitter domains for as little as £20 - an echo of the URL squatting that went on in the late Nineties. According to Singer, a few pounds will buy you @royalmail or @northernrock.
The @experian address is perhaps the best example, containing nothing but a link to a website called Twitternamesparked, inviting people to buy their names back. The same is true of the Bank of Ireland and Bank of Scotland names.
Other brands with parked Tweeter feeds include: Domino’s Pizza, Morrisons, Littlewoods, Dulux, Alton Towers, Confused.com, Morphy Richards, Breville.
Yes there are risks involved in social networking. As Emma Jenkins, head of interactive marketing at Procter & Gamble, pointed out, “some brands won’t like the level of openness offered by social networking.” Putting the point a little more forcefully, Will McInnes, managing director of social media agency NixonMcinnes, argued that those brands that are doing a bad job offline should only get involved in social networking “in a suit of armour”. This is of course true – but surely the risks of not getting involved are far greater?
