Time for brands to be more social
While my neighbor who has little interest in Twitter, comes back once in a while to abuse his broadband service provided, I can’t help but notice the fragmented culture of our favorite brands presence on Social Media. I once said that a company should be the same for its customers online and offline. So to say that they should stop seeing social media as a PR exercise but an extension to their customer service.
Setting up special treatment for customers on social media only showcases a brands ingenuity and every time I see a customer abusing a brand on Twitter, just because their official channels, dealership and after sales mechanism has failed him, I feel sad.
Like phone, post and email, the new age social media channels are forms of communications. Surprisingly, not many brands have taken it that way. What we have seen from brands is at best a good PR attempt or a latency layer that connects social media to the CS. Both of them in our opinion fails for the end user. For example, look at this tweet from a leading consumer electronics company, Samsung! A consumer complains about a Fridge and he is pointed to another Twitter handle for his complaints. Takes no genius to point separate agencies handling different verticals. Agencies following mean online reputation protocol costs the company dearly.
The consumer connects with a brand and the only way a brand can expect to win the social media journey is by having real feelings for the ones who are interacting with them on Twitter. By creating solutions for helping their customers on social media and not handling it as a reputation issue.
Forget RTs, contests and all the drama to get followers, lets first fix the problem your paying customers have in accessing you?
The Dollar Shave Club uses social media to effectively communicate with its consumers – and has done a great job of maintaining a consistent voice and experience in offline communications. If you haven’t seen the video check it out. CoreBrand wrote a nice piece about how this brand is taking on Big Shave by building a strong and consistent brand experience. Read the CoreBrand story here: http://corebrand.com/views/599-dollar-shave-club-does-it-by-the-book