Thurs. Signal: You Say Debacle, I Say Debatable
Happy Thursday! Today I think I’ll open Signal with a response to this post: Why Social Media May Not Be for You… (Yet), from Joshua-Michéle Ross of Opposable Planets. I like the thinking in this post, but disagree with the final thought. Musing on the recent Nestle Facebook “debacle” (which I do not believe is, or needs to be proclaimed a debacle), Joshua-Michéle concludes: If Nestle neither wishes to change or defend itself on the merits – then they shouldn’t be operating in social media.
Well, yes and no. Yes, in that the sheer beauty of social media is that it forces questions to the fore, and thus forces companies to respond to those questions. But no, it’s not OK, as a strategy, to “not be operating in social media.” I sense, perhaps, that Joshua-Michéle was making the same point in a roundabout way.
My reasoning? Because all of our customers are already operating in social media. You can’t pretend otherwise. And it’s better to engage, make mistakes, admit those mistakes, and move on, than to not engage at all. I call this “conversational judo,” and suggest we all practice it, daily. Twice on Sunday, perhaps. I’ll make it the focus of a Signal soon, I promise. For now, here’s my crazy voice post on the idea three years ago.
Perhaps the most considered coverage I’ve seen of the Nestle story is from longtime media commentator Andrew Leonard, in Salon. In his piece, titled “Nestle’s Brave Facebook Flop,” Leonard notes: “But what I find most confounding about this whole sorry display is that the real error here was for the moderator to act like an actual human being. …. if we are going to use social media to its fullest capacity, it should be to help us make real connections between people — not to attack them when they reveal their own humanity.”
To summarize: I don’t think any major brand can operate in the conversation economy (IE, the one we all live in now) absent a presence in social media. You can’t pretend the conversation doesn’t exist. You just can’t. Your competition will kill you, and so will your customers. So join the conversation, screw up, and then keep going. If you act human, you’ll figure it out in the end, and given all your customers are human, you and your relationships to them will be the better for it.
Meanwhile, the day’s linkage:
Display advertising: towards creativity without limits (Google Blog) The second post in a series on how Google thinks about display. I am reminded of the stuff Microsoft used to roll out in an endless parade: “Imagine if you will, how cool it will be when your computer does (X, Y, and Z) for you!” Remember the Microsoft paper clip? Alright, perhaps that’s a cheap shot, because the post goes on to make a very important point: That you need a technology platform that allows you to scale creativity across the entire social web. For Google, of course, that means across the Google Content Network. Watch this space, because more is coming, and not necessarily from Google. Key to creativity is the participation of those whose creativity got consumers to pay attention in the first place. Those folks are known as publishers….and I’ll have more to say on that in another Signal. (Wow, that’s two new Signal ideas already!)
Advertisers Show Interest in iPad (NYT) I am sorry. This is a story? Guys, the iPad is a shiny new object, but it’s a CLOSED environment. Good luck spending dollars there that actually drive an ecosystem of conversation, or scale in any way that matters (other than to Apple’s bottom line). Maybe once the iPad supports multitasking, cut and paste, and Flash…
Get Ready For Twitter to Start Animating Machines (AdAge) Yes, the Internet of Things is getting very real. See my post yesterday for more.
GoDaddy.com plans to stop registering domain names in China (WashPo) This is exactly what I expected – Google’s move may well give other companies the courage – or air cover in public markets and with boards – to make a decision like this.
Google v. China? No, It’s Bigger Than That (Searchblog) Yeah, that’s my site. And yeah, I care enough about this issue to point you to it!
Meet Buzzzy – The Buzz Search Engine (NextWeb) Google Buzz gets a third party search engine. If you don’t see the irony in that, well, pinch yourself, you’re nearly asleep.
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I think advertisers are right to be interested in the iPad – nobody in the world outside of tech cares about Flash or anything else it won’t do- they care about what it does do and how well it does it!
People with money to spend on a great new product – in addition to their usual computer – is a great market for advertisers.
John,
Thanks for citing my post. We are essentially in agreement but I think we are lobbying from a fundamentally different perspective. In my opinion the difference lies between theory and practice. In theory every company SHOULD get engaged for the reasons you state above. In practice many organizations aren’t yet prepared (culturally and structurally) for what is involved. If you are counseling a company that will get criticism but has no internal mechanism to either respond or change – then as their counselor should you really be advising they take the dive? The result in many organizations will be personally harmful to those who you are advising (most company punish “mistakes”).
Case in point: I recently counseled a client similar in size and controversial status over their FB presence. They also had very debatable policies (on social rather than environmental merits as was the case with Nestle). I advised them to develop a risk mitigation plan – essentially that that they needed to be prepared ahead of time to either defend, ignore or change in response to the potential criticism. They decided that (1) they had no influence over corporate policy (2) the policy was hard to debate on the merits, and (3) that their remit was still quite traditional marketing (brand awareness). Weighing these together they concluded that the risk outweighed the reward. I think they actually made the right decision given all the factors above.
Do I think that they should be more fully engaged? Yes. Do I think that they are ready to be fully engaged? No. So while on a theoretical level I agree that all organizations SHOULD be engaged, they need to lay the groundwork first. I hope the distinction makes sense. Reading through your post helped me get clearer myself…
Best – J
Good post. But I don’t feel you made the case this situation isn’t a black mark for Nestle (as the title of the post implies). It seems what you’re saying is that this actually IS a debacle (rather, a “screw up”), but a necessary one. Hm. Maybe what you’re saying in the title is that the term “debacle” is a little extreme for this case. I’d agree with that. Along the spectrum of social media mistakes, I’d say this is a ways from, say, setting up a fake blog.
Yes Joshua, your distinction does makes sense. Of course, FM is in the business of helping brands who are not otherwise ready, get ready, so that bias is presumed!