Controlling your brand in a social world

You may or may not have heard about the epic fail Habitat had with their twitter account last year. Throughout the troubles in Iran last summer, Habitat tried to ride the trending wave of twitter with strange hash tags followed by completely unrelated things about their furniture or their email subscription list. As those trying to find and read the trends coming out of Iran became aware of it, Habitat were immediately vilified across a variety of social media. Trying to ride the wave in this instance spectacularly failed. It appears in a social world, you can’t unsing a song. The damage was done and Habitat retreated from twitter quick smart.

Social Media is like a wave. You ride it well, you are riding high. You crash it, you can be engulfed. A traditional marketer’s nightmare was a brand that could not be controlled. Nowadays, where social is the central plank of most effective marketing strategies, marketers have had to face and embrace the fact that their brand may spin out of control. There is very little Habitat could have done once the damage was done but to put their hands up, apologise and try to rebuild their damaged credibility. They took three months to come back onto twitter and in September last year, under the watchful eye of a twitter expert, they decided to stick their toe back in the social water.

For B2B brands learning to swim in the self same waters, how can they prevent this disaster happening in the first place? Despite the new mediums and technology evident in campaign plans, marketing still revolves around a core set of principles. It all starts with brand values. If you align all your activity and outward interaction to your brand, even if the toe dip in the social world is not a spectacular success, it can hardly be said to a spectacular failure. Couple your brand with clear social media engagement policies and you create a framework from which you can interact – for that, dear reader, is what social media is about.

B2B marketers need to accept that there are parts of the online debate that they will never be able to control, but if the opportunity to explain the company position on controversial issues presents itself then it should be taken. For example, recently O2 announced the end of unlimited Wi-Fi with their iphone tariffs and there was a certain amount of geeky outrage. However, for every question, query and point of annoyance that was raised on their blog about it, they duly came in officially and answered the criticism. Although it may make uncomfortable reading in some places, it is a great example of how a debate and point of annoyance can be turned to a point of advantage for the company.

Social media is about interaction – the good and the bad. If you do not join the debate then you cannot influence the conversation. Social outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, give you an opportunity to meet with critics on your ground. As long as your responses remain brand congruent and depersonalised, then while you may not be able to turn the conversation round, you certainly may have stopped others believing the other side of the story.