Social Media Smack Talk: When Having a Bad Day Goes Wrong
Oh brother. Here we go again. Another social media caveman unearthed. And this time the offending brand was Nestle. If it wasn’t such a disturbing incident that damaged corporate trust in social media and harpooned a heritage brand, it might have actually been hilarious.
So picture this. Short-fused Facebook moderator (let’s guess, having a bad day?) gets into testy debate with FANS. Yes, you read that right. A Nestle social media representative gave attitude to fans on their 90,000+ Facebook page when commenters disagreed with a logo policy.
Commence hellstorm.
Okay, I know this sounds trivial. But you see, that’s the thing. Nothing in social media is trivial. Anyone participating in social media on behalf of a brand or company does not have the luxury of copping an attitude, engaging keyboard before brain, or attempting to put fans or followers in their place.
And they certainly don’t have the luxury of back-pedaling or ignoring the scene of the crime while things cool down. Oh no. If you’re in social media, you must be brave. Very very brave.
Because fans will not stand for attitude. They won’t tolerate smugness. And they won’t go away quietly.
Are we surprised that Nestle was the next big brand to experience epic brand fail whale?
Not after I came across this press release issued by Nestle looking for “FUNterns” to promote one of their product lines in social media. Seriously. They were looking for “digitally-skilled marketing mavens” for internships. The only real qualifications for these skilled mavens were that the applicants be at least 18 years old and feel equally comfortable on Facebook as they are having a night out on the town.
Oh, and love Butterfinger…
Yes, these are the elite qualifications necessary for “dudes” and “divas” to participate in a global brand’s social media.
I’m not sure who’s the real cavemen. The FUNterns or the ones hiring them.
Okay okay. To be fair, we don’t know if the FUNterns were researching, observing, and advising the seasoned marketing team or if they were given authority to represent the brand on a large scale. But after reading the back-and-forth on the Nestle Facebook Fan Page my guess is they’ll let pretty much anyone have a whack at it.
When employees without experience are allowed to research, create, advise, and converse in social media on a learning or supervised one-to-one level this is a GREAT thing. But if people with very little experience are given the responsibility and authority to engage 90,000+ people at their personal discretion, this is a not-so-good thing. Just ask Nestle.
Here’s why.
First, it hurts social media aspirants who want the chance to learn social media and turn it into a career. When big brands don’t take social media seriously enough to make sure an experienced marketer is (closely) supervising interactions and leading conversations with Facebook groups and Twitter followings, it creates an opportunity for inexperienced persons to inadvertently SCREW UP BIG TIME. Which means other brands paying attention become afraid to hire inexperienced persons. And then no one can get into social media at a big brand unless they have a master’s degree and ten years experience. And that’s not what needs to happen.
Companies need interns and other inexperienced learners. And those learners need the opportunity to gain experience and grow. But they don’t need to be thrown on stage. And that’s what social media is for a brand. It’s a world stage.
With all due respect, I know there are plenty of inexperienced people working in social media and doing a really good job. There will always be talented, discerning people of all ages who have an innate ability to do a job fabulously without a lot of experience. But these are the exceptions, and not the rule. As we’re seeing.
The biggest reason why letting inexperienced people have a high-profile role in social media is a bad idea is that the brand could get seriously damaged by what may seem like minor transgressions. I realize that to a busy marketing manager, an intern or a “social media heavy user” may seem to have the magic knowledge to engage in the space. But most interns and marketing trainees have never witnessed a public relations meltdown from the inside out; they’ve never sat in on a serious strategy session; they’ve never faced the fallout from a quarterly; they’ve never seen the results of a brand violation; and they don’t have any idea how expensive it is to acquire a single loyal customer (very). They just haven’t developed the respect for the brand and consumer that comes with exposure to a variety of marketing situations.
Without experiences like these, it’s hard to give social media the deference it deserves. Because social media can impact each of those scenarios in a big, big way.
That’s why company leadership can’t afford to allow marketing directors and brand managers to dismiss social media as “something the interns do.”
Brands and companies must pressure marketing management into allocating time to learn and engage in social media personally, and make it a larger part of their daily responsibility. A key part of their responsibility.
Not pawning it off on whoever’s billable time is cheapest.
Only then will they realize that social media is not an entry-level role. It’s quickly becoming a company’s most powerful connection to the consumer, and can be filled with tricks, traps, and land mines. For reasons of sheer safety, it should be conducted by members of the team who have a high level of marketing knowledge and a deep respect for the brand.
I mean seriously. If you bring in a spanking new employee or marketing trainee and their first responsibility is talking directly with consumers on Facebook or Twitter, the role can’t possibly be seen as all that critical. Not by the employee and not by management. But if that same role is something that an employee has to work up to over the course of time, one where they have to demonstrate their investment to the brand before they can be promoted into it, all of the sudden that’s a job people will take seriously. It becomes a position that more qualified people want, one they’ll have to work a lot harder to acquire.
And they’ll take it a lot more seriously once they get it.
To the uninitiated, social media is a casual conversation. One where you can let it all hang out, say whatever’s on your mind, and even occasionally engage in smack talk. But to the experienced, it is the holy grail.
Sacred, precious, and easily broken.
A common mistake I see large companies making when it comes to their various social networking channels is hiring young, inexperienced people to run their accounts. I feel like the assumption is their new employees are young so they must be tapped into social media, because, like, all the kids are on it.
Internal guides and standards should be set up so it’s crystal clear what will be said, who will be saying it, how frequently it will be said, and how to deal with negative comments or, in this case, the fan’s altered logo which started this whole debacle. If handled properly, they tools are an excellent way to retain customers by showing them you are listening and you care. Recently for one of my clients, I turned a negative comment on Twitter into a satisfied and returning customer.
It’s a shame Nestle wasn’t monitoring their own Facebook account more closely. If they did, this rogue rep and his snarky comments never would have happened.
You're so right and you've hit the nail on the head. We're seeing these huge PR crises with global brands because inexperienced people are being handed a lot of responsibility before they have the experience to deal with it.
I'm sure there are many different reasons why this is happening… but you're probably right in that there is a general assumption that "young" employees know social media and belong in social media. Yes, young people need to be learning social media, but unless they have a solid marketing background they're not ready to take on the responsibility of representing a brand on a world stage.
Just because social media is "easy" to perform on a technical level doesn't mean it's an uncomplicated job on a branding or strategic level.
Oh dear, once again you Social Media Evangelists are missing the point …… Social Media Marketing is not for “winning friends, engaging and having conversations about your brand” …. No, that is what YOU exist for, to earn money peddling those concepts to small and medium sized businesses from your littel creative boutiques ….. it’s about CONTROL …. its about CENSORSHIP …… it’s about PROPAGANDA and you DELETE your critics etc
Now THAT is the real world and really, you shouldn’t all be all migrating from the pseudo-industry of SEO to be selling your boondoggle to real Business in Social. Stay real people – stop selling the BS.
Please get a real job, one that produces something instead of BS boondoggle peddled to small businesses who can do without it or the expense.
Looking at the initial conversation though, Nestle isn’t being super-sarcastic or mean, but that Mr Paul Griffin is being a bit of a prick, and has no concept of derivative work: “If I alter it, it’s no longer yours”.
*groan* when did the collective knowledge of Ip/copyrights and trademarks become so bad?
If Nestle doesn’t guard their trademark (logo!), they will lose it, and the Nestle person is simply saying that if people are running around with a logo-photo on their page, they’ll delete that. It’s neither mean, nor snarky, and it’s quite likely legally required of them to do that (or they have no defense when someone is REALLY messing with their trademarks) – a policy set in the boring law-department of Nestlé that the social media guy has to follow. The Nestle person is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Or a stupid law and a guy from the self-entitled generation. These people are not on the same page.
And THAT is an interesting aspect of social media, especially when it spreads around the world wide web, where real laws, etiquette and unwritten rules are all different. What is a regular reply from an Englishman is read as a curt reply by an American. What is a freindly joke by an Australian is seen as crossing the line by a Swede. We might all speak the same language, but we don’t really.
Thanks for your thoughts, John. It may surprise you that many of us who use social media as part of the marketing mix believe social media actually diminishes an advertiser’s ability to control, censor, put out propaganda, or delete critics.
Before social media emerged, convincing a client to connect with the consumer and listen to them was a difficult task. In many cases, consumers were still viewed as a number and didn’t have influence other than being able to call customer service or hold signs in the street in front of the building. Agencies that were strong consumer advocates could sometimes have a hard time getting through to the client. Now, customers must be listened to because they have a voice in social media. Advertisers who do what you accuse everyone in social media of doing, (eg. censoring, controlling, putting out propaganda, and deleting critics) are the ones that lose. Just like Nestle, who apparently wasn’t taking social media seriously and hoped their detractors would just go away.
Social media is not the problem. Marketers that sell social media without business strategy are the problem. I agree that anyone who tries to convince a company of any size to do social media (or any other service!) before undergoing strategic analysis and problem-solving is, yes, selling a boondoggle. Thanks for contributing to the conversation, John.
Hi! Åsk, I agree with Nestle on the logo issue. And they were within their right to let the readers know that anyone who used it would have their comment deleted. How they approached it was where the train ran off the track. It might have been better if Nestle had said something like “We don’t want to censor out followers, but any comments that use our logo will be deleted. (Hey, our attorneys are making us!) We encourage you to repost with your own photo, and we continue to welcome your thoughts on the topic, even if we don’t agree. If you want to get into a deeper discussion, here’s a link to a blog post where we go into detail on the issue.”
In doing that, Nestle could have made it clear in a non-confrontational way, while winning respect by being polite and friendly. Writing a special blog post about the issue (like Jet Blue did) could have also been used to gently lead the conversation to a more appropriate venue.
I still can’t believe the tone and language used by the Nestle Facebook page administrator, though. It was very reactive, and seemingly without much thought. It’s like they were taking it personally, and making it personal. Seriously, on a global brand’s Facebook page, who would do that??
Great point on the varying tones and etiquette used by people from different countries BTW!