“You have to be on social,” they said.
“Social media is the future,” they said.
As more and more big brands enter the social space, it’s important to remember that social media success isn’t guaranteed.
Social media is an amplification tool in which everyone has a voice. Whereas talking trash to a TV commercial will get you nowhere, expressing negative sentiment towards a company on social media can quickly gain traction.
Pizza Hut is a good example of this. While I respect the company’s efforts (and actually enjoy their pizza), they have a clear problem. Pizza Hut’s Facebook page is littered with negative feedback.
It didn’t take much work at all to find that most of the top comments on their recent posts were negative.
It doesn’t help that Pizza Hut responds with a templated response to every complaint. As a social media manager, I understand the importance of maintaining standards and protecting a company from legal repercussions. That said, if you’re going to just tell everyone to go to a contact form link whenever they voice a concern, what’s the point of social media? It does no more than a simple website.
The Takeaways
- Understand how people feel about your product before getting too active on social. If there is a negative sentiment surrounding your product, you may want to address the root of the issue first (i.e. fix the product). At the very least, you want a strategy for dealing with the inevitable storm of negative comments.
- If your company makes the conscious decisions to pursue social media marketing initiatives, do it RIGHT. Understand the resources you are going to need to create an effective social media strategy. Any company can pass social media management to an unpaid intern who responds with the same cookie cutter response, but is that really serving your company well?