It’s not terribly common for brands and businesses to offer public apologies to customers, even when a company makes a very public mistake. And of course, an apology isn’t always the right approach for a company in dealing with unhappy customers, but sometimes it can be. For those companies who do find themselves in the position of needing to consider a public mea culpa, the dilemma of the PR or marketing team has been how to direct the brand’s apology to only those customers affected by the mistake, without drawing unnecessary attention to the negative issue among other categories of customers, most of whom likely haven’t heard anything about it.
That’s where having a well-designed and consistently executed social media strategy in place offers obvious and practical advantages. Through such a strategy, a brand gains readily accessible, nimble opportunities for communicating directly with distinct market segments, whether that’s proactively or responsively.
Let’s say, for example, that Company X manufactures and markets Waterproof Green Widgets. The Waterproof Green Widgets (WGW) sell to several different audiences, including fishermen, competitive swimmers, and underwater photographers. Recognizing this market segmentation, Company X has a social media strategy in place that engages with each of these three different audiences on different platforms, and in different ways.
The fishermen like hearing from Company X via conversations on the message boards at a top fishing magazine, as well as in the comments threads at the most popular fishing blogs. The competitive swimmers, on the other hand, are all about the Company X-branded, swimming-related Twitter feed that offers valuable content on the topics that interest them. And the underwater photographers? Well, they have their own listservs, where Company X is an active and valued participant.
Customer relations and WGW sales are going along swimmingly for Company X until fishermen start reporting that the company’s products are failing during big fishing tournaments, causing financial losses and embarrassment to customers. Company X is immediately aware that the fishermen who buy and use their product are talking about problems with the WGW, because the company actively monitors the specific fishing message boards and blogs where their customers hang out and converse.
After investigating the validity of these online complaints in a timely fashion, Company X determines that yes indeed, their WGW product has a small technical glitch that needs a fix, and yes, it’s the very same technical problem that the company’s fishing enthusiast customers are complaining about in their particular social networking spaces. However, as it happens, this technical problem isn’t relevant at all to Company X’s swimming or photography customers, so those audiences aren’t even aware of it, much less discussing it. Again, Company X can be sure of this because the brand is actively monitoring and engaged in the various and specific online conversations related to its products.
Company X leadership determines that the fishermen deserve an apology, as well as the specific information these customers will need to get their WGW products retrofitted by the company. But how can Company X communicate this information to the fishermen-customers without “stirring the pot” with all their other customers who remain oblivious to the complaints, and who are completely happy with the product? Well, Company X knows where to find each market segment, and knows how to speak each audience’s language. The online platform and identity the company needs to offer an appropriate, targeted, cost effective and timely apology – as well as regain customer trust – were already in place, before the problem arose. Company X’s active listening – otherwise known as a social media monitoring plan – really pays off, as do their preexisting online relationships with their customers. In this way, the company is able to engage with a customer satisfaction issue at the level of civil conversation, before it escalates into an online shouting match, at which point a negative brand issue often generates media coverage and goes aggressively viral.
Company X’s experience offers a single example of how smart social media strategy works – with the emphasis on “strategy.” It’s proactive, consistent, targeted, efficient, and ready to be utilized immediately when the company actually needs it. And this is the kind of thoughtful, meaningful, measurable social media planning we do for our clients at Ackermann PR. It’s our “First Things First” approach to online branding, PR and marketing… and it works.
