If you work for Ford, PepsiCo, or SouthWest Airlines you were likely proud to see a recent article in WSJ about how well these companies are using Social Media. It shows how forward thinking these companies are to have staffed teams dedicated to Social Media, monitoring social sites to identify and quickly resolve issues in the social sphere. The article targets three potentially toxic public relations issues that, after being identified through Social Media, were quickly resolved. It goes into further detail about how many staff are on the Social Media teams and how they are empowered to communicate directly with customers without having corporate PR review and approve their messages in advance of sending.
All sounds great and shows measurable benefit to these large corporations.
So, why does this frustrate me as a lost opportunity?
I believe in Social Media as an opportunity for companies to embark on a paradigm shift in the way they interact and communicate with their employees and their customers. Call me hokey, yet I see lots of commercial success in open, transparent, and authentic dialog with employees and customers. Using Social Media as another tool primarily to mitigate crisis is, quite frankly, short sighted.
Hopefully I am wrong and the press is painting the picture that these companies are focused on crisis management as their Social Media success metric. I suspect I am not wrong and indeed, a key measure of the Social Media success at many corporations today is mitigating potential PR fires.
Yes, I’ve worked in large corporations and understand the interdepartmental challenges, especially as they relate to business process redefinition. Not easy, although, well worth it.
Corporate Executives should think hard about their goals and potential impact with an effective Social Media strategy.
- Take the time to learn about how you can open a dialog with your employees and customers.
- Speak with customers when there is not a crisis.
- Forget the marketing department hiring a research agency to survey customers on a new product. Open a dialog and continuously stay in communication with customers and employees.
- Give some of your products away for free and listen to what your customer likes and dislikes in advance of a full market launch. People, by nature, love to be heard and share their opinions.
- Train your customers to come to you first when they have issues. Solve their issues fast while making them feel special to be using your products and services.
- Train, empower, and provide financial incentives to your employees for reaching out to customers proactively.
- Watch employees tell all their friends what a great company you have. It helps to retain great employees and acquire new customers.
- Yes, implement rules of conduct, moderation, and safeguards as there is no need for your company’s Social Media strategy to be like the wild west.
- And the list can go on and on…
Net net – Social Media is vastly broader than crisis management and needs to be embraced from the top in that way.
Is your company only using Social media for crisis management?
