Friday, 14 September 2012

Social Media Marketing: Lessons for Success Part 2



3. Understand everything you market and post on line.  How could Coca-Cola have allowed anyone working for them to post a reference to a disgusting pornographic movie on a fourteen year-old girl’s wall – a movie that girl later searched for on the internet to find out what the obscure status update meant.

So where did Coca-Cola go wrong, and what can you do to avoid something like this happening to your own brand? The answer is quite simple.  Never, never allow any “social marketing agency”, no matter how edgy they seem and no matter how often they tell you that they’re “experts,” post or publish anything in your company or brand’s name without checking it first. 

4. You do not control the voting process.  Trying to control the outcome of a contest by disqualifying a charity you do not like (e.g., JPMorgan Chase & Company rejected Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the Marijuana Policy Project) or violating your own rules by giving preference to another (see Pepsi) will backfire.  The Pepsi Refresh Contest made a mistake by not following its own rules, but moving swiftly to acknowledge it, fix it, and moved on. This was failing informatively.

In fact, it might wipe out more than whatever was gained by organizing the contest in the first place.  In turn, the damage to your brand and reputation can be huge.

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