How is Your Brand's Social Life?
They say any publicity is good publicity. Well, what about if someone makes a negative comment on a site about your product? That's not so bad, you may think. But, what if there are multiple negative comments, maybe even hundreds spread out across myriad of sites. This is a new world where disgruntled costumers and malicious competitors can change the life of your brand online through social websites. With social shopping, blogs, videos, message boards, and many other examples of social sites, marketers have lost control over how their brands are viewed. Some may argue that they never had control. In the past, it was all based on word-of-mouth (WOM). One influential person could only affect their physical social network. Today, that network has grown exponentially due to social networks. This has given far too many methods for negative messaging to spread. So how do companies prepare to defend their brand's social life online? The answer is Social Web Relations.
In a study by Forrester research, they revealed that 77 percent of online shoppers seek out ratings and reviews when making a purchase. That is a telling statistic. Your prospective customers can now easily find other customers to gain valuable information that is not spun through your marketing messages. This trend has seen big business accept this change. A number of major brands are now putting ratings and reviews on their sites, similar to those found on Amazon.com. A recent study by shop.org found that 43 percent of major US online retailers now boast ratings/reviews, compared to less than 25 percent only a year ago.
Sam Decker, a VP board member on the WOM Association, says "The fact that these large brands have accepted this and decided to make this part of their strategy underscores the importance of the evolution of corporations' marketing strategies," Decker adds. This is true, but is it effective? If you are 3rd best in your market, do you want to openly invite negative messaging on your site? What if the reviews are bad? What if they are REALLY bad? Even without them being on your site, how do you handle negative messages on other sites? One of Annodyne's services is Social Web Relations, where we can help you make sense of when to act and when not to act. Some call it Online PR, but it's more focused than that. It has truly become a combination of PR, Interactive, and WOM marketing. It involves searching through sites such as YouTube, MySpace, Amazon, Answers.com, and NexTag.
Sometimes, bad publicity does work. The Ford fiasco from last year actually increased sales after their user-generated campaign sure looked to back fire. Take a look at some of these videos and think for yourself how something like this could affect your brand.
0 Comments