This week we discussed and read about the different ways to engage with consumers and prosumers. With the progress of Social Media and the Web 2.0 it is becoming easier for companies to have a quick and direct contact with their loyal and potential customers. Experts heavily argue that it is crucial for companies to use Social Media for their marketing strategies in order to be successful (Giamanco & Gregoire, 2012). Why? Simply because that’s where all the customers are. They use it to ask questions about certain products or even to manifest whether they are satisfied or unsatisfied with what the company offers. However, the use of such a platform is a very slippery slope. A simple mistake may lead to disastrous and unrecoverable consequences which will tarnish the company’s image and reputation. As the use of Social Media is unavoidable nowadays, it is imperative for companies to be aware of what makes a post successful or not.
Giamanco and Gregory (2012) explain that is not the company’s role to initiate the conversations anymore, they should rather monitor what is being said on Social Media, and tap in relevant conversations.
Li and Soonius (2012) meticulously scrutinized various Facebook Campaigns which led to an understanding of the different factors which could influence a campaign’s total reach (e.g. time of the day, day of the week, multimedia and quality over quantity).
Li et al. (2014) also discussed what influences a company’s Corporate Reputation on Twitter. This means whether a company meets social expectations regarding the quality of their products and services, industry leadership and impact on society. Their findings highlighted two factors that positively influence a Corporate Reputation; User Informedness and User Engagement.
Even with such guidelines it is possible to make mistakes which might tarnish a company’s image for the years to come. One of the factors that we mentioned was to try and include humor in a Facebook Campaign as it might increases the total reach. However, some jokes can take it one step too far for some. For example, London Luton Airport’s post on Facebook caused quite a stir. Using a picture of a plane which slid off the runway because of ice and killed a 6-year old on board to say that their airport is “super” as they “prevent” such disasters.
There are also quite a few examples of Social Media done right. Taking the example of Evernote (https://www.facebook.com/evernote?fref=ts), their Facebook page takes into account most of the factors we spoke about from the articles. Their posts are most of the time concise and composed of only a few catchy sentences. Also, a text is always accompanied by an image, link or video which makes it more interesting to look at. Additionally, on every one of their post customers ask questions about why certain features don’t work and Evernote always answers in a rapid and useful manner, often solving the problem in one go.
