Use the very thing that bit them. Social Media. Let me explain.
So they totally screw-ed up. Motrin ran this ad on their site and moms around the world were offended (check out this blog from Sarah Evans) and struck back. Motrin brand managers quickly pulled the ad campaign and threw up an apology on the front page of the website. Check out the offending ad below. more
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So here’s the secret. You can’t.
You knew that was coming, didn’t you? But there are ways to push the complaint farther away from your site and out of your search results.
The first thing I would do. Go after that customer, face to face, and see if you can correct what happened. Now some people would say that there are people who are never going to be happy, no matter what you do.
I would disagree and say, “You really don’t know that until you are face-to-face with that person.”
Too many times I’ve seen emails and comments start flaming because when it comes to digital communication it is easy to forget there is another human being on the other end of that discussion. It’s almost like we are flipping mad at our computer and just letting them have it. But once they are in person or on the phone, the anger settles and people can talk in the right TONE to one another.
The other thing to do is to go to those sites that have your complaint and explain your side of things. Tell them how you’ve tried to work this situation out.
But if you can’t fix it, you can out-content them on search results.
If you have only one website on the internet (your singular web presense) on the internet, this is going to be very hard. Because you essentially have only one link or two links that will come up when there is a search for your company.
But if you have multiple web presences…say a YouTube Channel, a Flickr account, a Twitter account, an outside blog or multiple blogs, a facebook page, a myspace page, then you have a chance.
Now what I would do is start pushing lots and lots of content out on the web through these different channels – and there are a heck of a lot of more of them than I mentioned.
Also, don’t do it all at once. Space it out. Get stuff up there at least once a week.
Other things you can do is change your static site frequently. I don’t care if it costs you money because you built a site without a CMS. By not changing your content, it just sits there and Google has no reason to re-index your site.
Get involved in other people’s conversations on their sites. If you are scared of the internet, then talk to someone who understands it and can help you.
The bottom line is get more active on the internet and you can drive them down on the search results.
This is also not a great idea in theory – I’ve done this before with companies. It does work. But make sure you understand this. The same rules that apply to you, also apply to the consumer and that’s why when you step it up – they can as well. So it’s better to just work it out together and not go through this mess.
Good luck. And if anyone else has some ideas on how to do it, let me know. I would love to hear them.
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Thank you to everyone who attended the August 5 “The Power of User-Generated Content” event we held in Indianapolis. We had over 90 people come together to learn about and experience how social media is changing the landscape for all types of businesses and organizations.
Do you want to experience the event for yourself, even if you didn’t attend? Great, you’re in luck.
We encouraged everyone who attended to use social media to help us create a digital mosaic of the morning. By using cameras, cell phones, and laptops with wifi, anyone could upload photos, blog, Twitter (microblog), and add their thoughts directly to the event’s Google site. See it for yourself:
The best thing about all these tools is that they’re easy-to-use and available to anyone. Just what every revolutionary and evangelist loves to know.
So how do you make sure these powers are used for good, not evil? The key is having a solid strategy for how your organization is empowering your customers, clients, employees, friends, allies, etc. to use them to help share your story. Without a strategy, you’ll be at the mercy of more organized, more passionate, and more driven people.
What advice and experiences do you have to share on how UGC can be harnessed to grow your organizations?
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So they got you…one of your customers had a bad experience and now they are online telling the world about it.
In fact, they are so upset that they started a website or blog up and are actively denouncing your company. You went out and did a Google search and they are popping up on the same page as your website.
There’s your company and then right below it, bam. It’s that customer…the one that is really, really mad.
Well, how do you fix it so this guy isn’t second on the list behind your good name?
Unfortunately, most of the business people I talk to think that the customer is in the wrong. That it isn’t their fault and that they did the right thing. But it isn’t really about right or wrong when it comes to the damage a customer can cause to your online presence.
It’s about turning that customer into someone who loves you no matter the initial cost.
That’s crazy talk. No, not for a small business or even a large one.
I believe all you have is customer service. Today almost anyone can do what you do for your customers. The biggest difference between you and your competitors is how you treat them before, during and after they do business with you.
Everyone knows it’s 5x, 7x, 10x more expensive to get a new customer than it is to keep an old one.
And you believe that then you’ll do what it is to keep that customer happy no matter how insane you may think they are. But believe me, they aren’t insane in their own head. Make it right.
I’ll give you two examples that happened to me this weekend. One was at a sushi restaurant. I won’t mention the name because I didn’t feel that slighted but my wife sure did.
We had never been there before and had a coupon from a mailer. We walk in and there was no hostess. We waited and waited and waited. At least three or four minutes.
A large crowd of five or six came in behind us. They passed us, went to the bar. The hostess then came out from around the bar, greeted those people then came up to the hostess stand, grabbed some menus, gave us an apologizing look and said, “I’ll be right with you.”
She sat those people and then came back to us.
She greeted us. My wife said, “Did you know those people? Do they own the restaurant?”
The young girl said no. My wife said, “We were here before them. Why did they get seated before us?”
She didn’t have an answer. My wife likes things to be fair. This tainted the entire experience. We left and the people behind us who had just walked in left as well. So the very young hostess (who is your first impression for a new restaurant) just cost the owner $100 from us and probably $200 from the four top behind us.
Plus we’ll never go back. You only get one chance with my wife.
The next place we went to was brand new. A burger place with brew. I was excited. We walked in to a mop bucket unattended next to the front door. Yeah, we didn’t even look at the menu.
Two small businesses. Lost revenue. And we’ll never go back. And my wife who is at WOM machine will be very happy to pass her complaints along any time anyone mentions those two new restaurants.
So the fact that you have a customer that is unhappy and willing to talk about it online is both a very good thing and a very dangerous thing. Good because at least they are talking in an environment where you could deal with it. Like those restaurants will probably never know that my wife is hurting their business.
But onine is more dangerous than you can imagine because there are plenty places to talk (social media) outside of your site – especially if your site doesn’t even allow for that type of interaction. You know because you don’t want people talking bad about you on your site.
Here’s what one of our creative directors said about people talking negatively on your company’s site. Leigh Marino (awesome smart creative) likened those upset customers to her new puppy. This puppy liked to dig. Every time they were outside in the yard, the puppy tore up her flowers and her garden. After a couple of times at this, Leigh decided to make a space in the yard for the puppy to go to town on. A spot to rip her yard to shreds. Now the puppy was happy because he was going to rip something to shreds anyway and Leigh was happy because it wasn’t her flowers.
The idea behind this is that you are not going to make every customer completely happy. But when they do have a complaint, let them come to you and tell you about it. Let it be on your website for others to see. Then do what you can to contact this customer and make them happy. When you finally do, they will retract or if they don’t, you can let others see how you responded to the complaint and how you made amends.
But if you don’t do anything and you let that person have a voice out there on the internet without any response, the damage can be desvastating to a business.
Consumers are starting to understand this more and more. They know that their opinion of you counts more than just who they can reach in their small network of face to face friends. They can reach every single one of your customers searching for you on the net if they are smart enough about it.
Here’s some places they can do it.
If it were me, I would start a free blog on blogger or wordpress to talk about what happened. I would use a URL that had their name in it. I would use the company’s name over and over to make sure the keywords were there. I would link my blog to all the sites above and anything else I could find. I would contact the local media and pitch my story to them. This stuff would probably take me a week but I’ll bet you I’d be showing up really close to their direct searches in Google. Heck, I might even buy a few adwords to make sure I did.
Sending me a cease and desist or taking me to court would be the wrong thing to do here. That would cause me to flame even louder on the net. Then my fellow bloggers would get wind of “the man” coming down on someone who is just trying to right a wrong. Then it would spread like wild fire.
Hopefully, you are seeing my point about how effective this type of consumer complaint can be and how you should be prepared to deal with it. I’m going to say it again. Make it right. And make sure everyone they talked to knows you made it right.
Next time, I’m going to write about how you can get that consumer complaint website off certain search results for your company. It takes some time and some effort but you can do it.
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In the past week, I have had meetings with prospective and current clients about the need to engage with the self-organized swarms. Fortunately, we’re holding a special event today entitled “The Power of User-Generated Content”. If you’re unable to attend, come visit the Google site we’ve created to showcase different collaboration and social media tools that your clients/members/employees are using to talk about you: http://sites.google.com/site/ugcevent/.
More to follow.
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So I got this email…
Don Schindler It is my pleasure to inform you that you are being considered for inclusion into the 2008-2009 Princeton Premier Business Leaders and Professionals Honors Edition section of the registry. The 2008-2009 edition of the registry will include biographies of the world’s most accomplished individuals. Recognition of this kind is an honor shared by thousands of executives and professionals throughout the world each year. Inclusion is considered by many as the single highest mark of achievement. You may access our application form using the following link: http://princetonpremierbios.addr2.com/url/416876/2fa84429/ Upon final confirmation, you will be listed among other accomplished individuals in the Princeton Premier Registry. For accuracy and publication deadlines, please complete your application form and return it to us within five business days. There is no cost to be included in the registry. If you’ve already received this email from us, there is no need to respond again. This email serves as our final invitation to potential members who have not yet responded. On behalf of the Executive Publisher, we wish you continued success. Sincerely, Jason Harris Managing Director Princeton Premier
_______________________________________________________
Click the following link to update your information
or stop future mailings.
http://princetonpremierbios.addr2.com/mailprefs/f920fa/2fa84429/
Princeton Premier
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I’ve been on the net working professionally for almost ten years now so this just screams BS. But you never know, so I spent a couple of minutes just to make sure.
Google search…ouch. The first entry isn’t even them. It’s a Yahoo Answers questioning who they are. But the answer isn’t that good so I go back to Google and check out the other links.
The official site is the second link. You never, ever want that to happen. I go to the site. It’s not that professional and looks like a scam.
Then I go back to Google and start checking out the blog entries. There are plenty of them and finally I get to one where they actually dive deep into the site and find out it costs $100 to join and you don’t get the money back if you are unsatisfied with the results. I really appreciate the time I saved by reading instead of filling in the blanks.
Now, this example is easy to show how consumers like myself can find out what is legitimate online pretty easily.
But what if this happened to your small company? What if an upset customer blogged about you and their entry was showing up before yours in a Google search? It’s like your worst customer sitting outside your doorstep telling everyone that you suck and they should not do business with you.
That’s the number one thing I hear about social media and opening your company up to it? What if a customer complains? What if they write bad things about me on the site?
Well, next blog I’ll explain why I see it as a good thing and how to try and drive a bad entry off a Google search.
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One thing I have come to understand with technology and media is that everything new is nothing new at all; they’re just new ways of looking at things. How we communicate and connect today can be traced back to how people have always communicated and connected. Digital and social media are not that much different in their nature than to what we’re already accustomed.
This point was made clear to me on a recent trip San Francisco when I visited the epicurean delight called the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. Held every Tuesday and Saturday mornings at the historic Ferry Plaza building, amazing selections of produce, meats, cheeses, chocolates, and other food stuff abound. (I recommend making it your whole Saturday morning.) The site is a beautifully restored public building with cafes and food shops open every day of the week, but they are joined on Farmers Market days by perhaps a hundred vendor stalls that ring the building.
As I walked around the market enjoying the different aromas and flavors, I captured the scenes with my iPhone’s camera and began to realize how similar it was to the world of digital and social media.
(View a hi-res version here at Animoto.com)
The Farmers Market is a space where large corporate entities intermingle with small Mom & Pop operations on equal footing. While the large entities had shiny, polished stalls inside the main building and were doing steady business, the real action was outside in the modest tent stalls.
Unlike the sterile supermarket (broadcast media), the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market (social and digital media) was alive. There was a noticeable sense of excitement and buzz caused by the higher level of interaction between consumer and producer. People brought empty tote bags and roller carts and were leaving with bounties of goods to take home.
Most of the produce and food stalls had a plethora of samples that enticed you to experience the flavors for yourself. At one booth, a sign read, “Sampling Is Mandatory! (we are watching)”. Most people running a booth had a certain range of produce or food stuffs they offered and were eager to tell you lots about it.
For those who wanted more than just the raw materials, you could choose from a variety of prepared meals cooked fresh and made to order for. There were even non-profit organizations who had their own stalls to promote their causes – one in particular, La Cocina, provides commercial kitchens and business advice for low income micro entrepreneurs who want help taking their food product to market.
Inserted in this bountiful selection was an unassuming stall that was an enclosed shipping truck. Inside was one of the most coveted service at the market – knife sharpening. By 10am, this guy had already taken on all his orders for the day.
As I sat down with an amazing melange of sourdough, smoked fish, capers, and fresh cream cheese, I came across one of the best musicians not on the Internet – Flat Cut F. He was a nice guy who was sitting on a chair near some tables with his hat out. Like the handful of musicians around the market, he just showed up and started playing. I’m glad he did.
Inside the permanent structure, I met Karim and Polly with CleanFish and visited with them at length. Their company has created a sustainable approach to commercial fishing that stretches from the fisherman to the distributors to the restaurants to the consumers themselves. Everything they do is focused on making sure we have enough seafood to eat without harming the ecosystems they come from.
As I was making one final pass of the market, I noticed one stall had a line of about 45 people long. It was the Blue Bottle Coffee Co. I figured if that many people were waiting in line for their coffee (with a Starbucks across the street), it had to be worth the wait in line. When it came time for my order, I asked for their best drink and got the Gibraltar, a short cappuccino served in a glass tumbler.
Enjoying my Gibraltar, I couldn’t resist starting a conversation with Jack Gold who was wearing a t-shirt that implored, “Protect Me From What I Want“, which it turns out was a saying that he came across at an art installation while he was executive director of the Providence Preservation Society. He is now the executive director of the San Francisco Architectural Heritage.
Before I left, I noticed there was a cooking demonstration being held encouraging the use of various produce at the peak of their season. Right next to it were political supporters of the Democratic Party voicing their support for Obama and one who was collecting signatures to name the sewage plant after our current president. Not too far away was a nice man from Oklahoma with a show cat and a sign asking for money to help enter a cat competition. How often do you see those three side-by-side at the supermarket?
In reflecting on my experience, here are a few of similarities of social media and the farmers market:
What are your thoughts? What similarities and differences do you see?
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So the kids and I went to check out Eagle Creek Reservoir Beach on Sunday afternoon.
I’m very proud of my oldest daughter. She has finally learned to swim (after this summer of swimming lessons). But she’s very particular about her nose. She has to have nose plugs on or she can’t go underwater. So be it. Nose plugs it is. No matter how silly she looks.
After being in the water for an hour or so, I decided to start pitching the kids in the air. They love it and it’s some exercise for me. They swim over, I count 1-2-3 then heave them in the air. There’s a big splash and a lot of laughter.
We did this for fifteen minutes or so and I was about done. So the last one is always a doozie. I threw my daughter up as far as I could and she came down with a huge splash. When she came up, her nose plugs were gone.
Aw, man. Now I’m pretty sure you all know lake water. It’s definitely not swimming pool or Hawaiian Island clear. Visibility is like six inches. And even that is questionable.
She was really upset. Now how was she going to swim?
I started feeling the rocky bottom as best as I could in the 36 inches of water. Nothing just a lot of little rocks.
After ten minutes, my brain was telling me this was a lost cause.
You are not going to find them. Just tell her you’ll buy her some more. What are they? 5 bucks or so. Is it worth it?
Maybe not? But I didn’t stop. I prayed a bit and I kept searching with my hands on the surface of the bottom.
Because of the depth of the water, it was a stretch and I couldn’t really go over a big area of the bottom. I was by inching myself along.
Finally, I thought, just go under and do a quick large scan of the immediate area.
I went under, forced myself to the bottom and reached out.
It only took three tries and I had them. I couldn’t believe how fast I found them. It was same area that I had gone across a couple of times but here they were.
My daughter was smiling and swimming again – funny-looking nose plugs and all.
So what’s the moral of this story – what did I learn?
That once I changed how I was searching, once I dove deep into that dark water – the thing I was looking for came right away.
I believe consumer insights are like those nose plugs. Often insights are hard to come by but they are extremely important.
There’s a good book by Phil Dunsenberry, “One Great Insight is Worth A Thousand Ideas” in which he goes into why an insight is much more powerful than an idea.
To find an insight in the past, we did surveys, focus groups, product testing, and/or relied on the engineers or service people to come up ways to make things better. Sometimes this works – sometimes it doesn’t. And it’s amazing how many companies bet the farm on a good idea but not an insight.
But with Social Media, you can find consumer insights. They are right there waiting to be picked like ripe fruit
If you are new to Social Media (blogs, forums, community networks), I’ll bet it looks a lot like dark lake water. There’s too much noise. You can’t spreadsheet the answers as easily as you can with organized and self-generated research.
But here’s the deal. If you dive in, dive deep and put your hands out, you going to find the answers you are looking for.
People (and this system is entirely made up of real people) will give you honest feedback if you act like a person and not a marketer.
It takes some time – but all good things do take time.
The good thing is that you can start now and catch up pretty quick. We are at the foundation level of this digital social media thing. You can cut your social teeth along with everyone else.
For all of you that think social media is Facebook and Facebook is fad, you are sort of right. Facebook is a fad but it is a pretty darn popular fad right now. Some other network might overtake it but it’s not going to be overnight. And it’s going to do a lot of the same things that Facebook is going right now.
BTW, Social Media is not Facebook. If you want a list of what Social Media is not, click here.
If you are still timid about social media, stop by MediaSauce or give us a call at 317.218.0500. We would be happy to help you. We have presentations and clinics you can attend. Most are free.
I believe after you’ve been swimming in social media for a while, consumer insights won’t be lost under lake water anymore. They will be floating in the clear blue.
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In yesterday’s Online Spin, there was an article Agencies: Reinvented or Replaced by Joe Marchese.
Joe’s jist was that ad agencies need to change – that they aren’t prepared for the future of advertising within social media. Here’s what he says,
“In the end, social media is nothing more than a mirror of people’s real-world behavior (albeit amplified and with extreme ADD). If you’re taking steps to make your brand relevant to people in the real world (which I sure hope you are), then it’s not that big of a leap to figuring out how to make your brand relevant to people in a social media context. Social media should be a valuable tool for helping you answer that billion-dollar question of what will make your brand relevant to people, as well as the platform spreading your brand’s message as you achieve greater relevance. It’s listening and talking, instead of just talking.
Agencies certainly have the talent to listen. Some of the best and brightest are hungry to take on the challenge of building the iconic brands that shape our lives, and would love the opportunity to feed back the voice of the people they are talking to. But the current brand-agency relationship isn’t set up for this task – and, more importantly, isn’t compensated for it. Are agencies set up to have a conversation for your brand, or has a mandate to only be the brand’s mouthpiece crippled agencies from truly activating your brand in social media?
It’s this question that has led many to wonder if brands should be handling the activation of social media in-house. It is a valid point. If it’s true that brands’ participation in social media means much more than simply buying media and blasting the “big idea,” can agencies fill this role?
I believe not only that agencies can, but that they must. Because unless agencies participate in social media, their role as stewards of brands will eventually end — and their greatest fear, a future where their services are nothing more than a commoditized function performed by Google and Microsoft, (http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/22/business/ad23.php), will come true. If your function can be performed by a computer, it will be. Fighting this, rather than focusing on the areas that cannot be done even by the mighty Google’s algorithms, is a losing battle. The future of agencies lies in more than knowing how to get in front of the right people, but also in knowing how to talk and listen to those people to shape a brand and its message.”
While I’m an advocate of what Joe is saying about social media and the commitment to it by companies, I’m confused about how an agency would change to deal with this. This is a fundamental shift in thinking.
Is an agency really set up to change from push to pull? From messaging to conversating? Why must an agency deal with this at all? It’s not like advertising is going to go away. To add a social media department within the agency (essentially buying your way into social media) isn’t the answer because then you’ve got competing factions within the agency. One that pushes messages out and one that participates in the message.
On the outside, it may seem like a good idea but as soon as one of them starts making more money than the other, agencies tend to be biased in that direction so neither the message nor the conversation works.
So then it must go in house? I don’t believe that is the right call either. What I’ve found with in-house marketing is that it isn’t strong enough or large enough to participate in the conversation. There’s too much going on for a one or two person marketing department. Even larger companies are cutting the head count.
Then what is the answer? I believe social media is an entity to itself and must be treated as such. The new kind of connection agency will emerge that will consult and participate with the brand’s messaging in mind – but they can’t be held to the same standards as a traditional agency.
In other words, you can’t punish them for finding out people think your product suck. You should reward them with finding out the insights on why the product sucks and their ideas on how you can make it better. They will keep you in the loop and connect you with your consumers and your partners.
You may think these guys and gals are just research then but research is and should be at arm’s length just observing what is happening and reporting on that. Connection agencies are knee-deep with the consumer. Consumers should know that they are part of the company – transparent and authentic – and that they can help get them an answer that maybe customer service couldn’t understand or deal with.
You are also in the long haul with this kind of company. This isn’t an RFP type of arrangement. This isn’t somebody you can throw to the curb after a couple of years – or just because you want to jump to the hottest connection company of the year. They are just as essential as your operations department.
Maybe I’m wrong about this but I think agencies aren’t the right place to put this type of communication. Let them do what they are really good at…clearly communicating your message. Let the connection agency find out if it’s working and if your products are delivering the goods.
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This week, I’ve been traveling throughout the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. The freeway system and I are on first-name basis with all the driving I have been doing. I’ve spent time in Irvine, Newport Beach, Los Angeles, Pasadena, San Fernando, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Compton, Watts, and Beverly Hills.
Visiting these towns and cities, I realized that there is not much difference between how cities and the Internet work. Both are communities of people. And anytime you have a community of people, you also have commerce, philanthropy, learning, vice, and social interaction.
It’s easy to get lost and confused with all the technology, but think about it for a moment. When you strip away all the zeros and ones, the Internet, websites, social networks, blogs, wikis, etc. are just extensions of how we’ve interacted with each other since the dawn of civilization. Now, we don’t have to be located physically together. Nor do we have to be interacting with each other at the same time.
As I drove down Sunset Boulevard from Beverly Hills on my way to Pasadena, we saw all parts of the social spectrum. I began to realize that I was seeing the same thing, but with different skins. I saw places where people shopped. I saw places where people lived. I saw places where government decisions were made. I saw where people got together and had a good time together. I saw places where people gossiped and shared news stories. I saw where people conducted business.
Isn’t that what it’s like on the Internet? And aren’t all the Web 2.0 tools, just easier ways to do all those things?
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