Advice for Clueless Brands on Social Media

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Bob Garfield2013-02-27 15:29:16 -0300

Bob Garfield and Doug Levy are authors of Can’t Buy Me Like: How Authentic Customer Connections Drive Superior Results. The book is an "owner’s manual" for business in the emerging Relationship Era. You'll have a chance to meet Garfield at SXSW 2013, where he'll be hanging out with the Mashable staff. Stay tuned for a further announcement.

Dear Bob and Doug: We don’t understand. Our colleagues in the frozen north (Canadia) made a huge social media splash offering “eau de dough,” a pizza-scented cologne.

We here in civilization are also trying to tune in to contemporary culture, but our Oscars-night tweet fell flat: "Don't forget the #BigPizzaSliders for awards show night! At 9 for just $10, everyone wins. Enjoy @ http://www.pizzahut.com." Pretty tempting, right? Yet out of 164,000 followers, only 7 retweets.

As the young kids say, WTH?

— Puzzled in Plano

Dear Puzzled: We believe you’ve located the problem: You have no idea what you are doing. Do you walk into an Oscar viewing party handing out business cards or coupons? No. So why use a social channel to advertise a crappy promotion?

Twitter is not an advertising channel, or, anyway, it shouldn’t be. It’s a place to exchange ideas, information, punch lines and content. Ever have some guy force a handbill on you at a street corner? Right, what did you do with the handbill? Our best guess is you didn’t go make copies and hand those out yourself.

Dear Bob and Doug: We publish a satirical newspaper named after a popular root vegetable. We are phenomenally funny — an astonishing percentage of the time as we hone in on human and institutional foibles with neither fear nor favor.

But one of our editors lost the thread during the Oscar telecast and called 9-year-old actress Quvenzhane Wallis the c-word. It was supposed to be funny because it was so obviously out of left field and inappropriate (the child is transcendently adorable), but instead, it was just, well, out of left field and inappropriate. On Twitter, the word “vile” kept coming up.

— Mortified in Madison

Dear Mortified: One of us laughed hard at the tweet in question, on the grounds that the kid’s so cute nobody would ever think of trashing her. It’s almost the apotheosis of irony, and we could mount a spirited defense of it in court.

But it also represents the apotheosis of why C-suites fear social media. Priceless brands are entrusting their good names to low-level employees who can wreak untold havoc in an instant. The trick is to be real, authentic, human, personal – not scripted, stilted, corporate and phony – without crossing any lines.

Over time, those lines will move, but for now it’s wise to advise your organization’s tweeters as follows: “In speaking for the brand, don’t be afraid to be yourself — but not that part of yourself that makes people want to punch you in the face.”

Dear Bob and Doug: We are a global chain of home furnishings super stores/delicatessens. We have built trust over the decades by fulfilling our purpose “to create a better everyday life for the many.” But now it turns out in some European countries — too many — we’ve been selling Swedish meatballs containing hästkött (horse meat.) How do we restore our image?

— Helpless in Helsingborg

Dear Helpless: Don’t make your meatballs out of horse.