We all know that Britain is a nation of social networkers, even Ofcom say so. What we all want to know is what impact social networking is having on brands.
There are a few 'classic' examples of different types of social media impacting on brands over recent years. Each company has reacted differently to the new challenges they were faced with, highlighting that there is no single way to manage this. For marketers and the PR industry, there are key lessons to learn, namely that each company managed to maintain their reputation by engaging in conversation with their customers through social media and blogs.
AEG
Influential political bloggers Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes spurred a mainstream media story, breaking in the Mail on Sunday, that John Prescott had received gifts from Philip Anshutz, owner of AEG and the Millennium Dome. The buzz came from bloggers, but became a 'traditional' media story and political controversy through the Dale and Fawkes' links to print journalists. The result was damage to AEG’s chances of securing a super casino licence at the Dome.
Cadbury’s
A Facebook group campaigned for the return of the discontinued Wispa chocolate bar, leading to Cadbury’s re-launching the bar.
Dell
Dell closed its customer forums, leading to bloggers conducting a conversation about Dell, without them. Former journalist now blogger Jeff Jarvis encapsulated this, focusing on Dell’s poor customer service. This forced the company to re-engage with its customers, including starting their own blog. Jarvis concludes now that: "They (Dell) reached out to bloggers; they blogged; they found ways to listen to and follow the advice of their customers. They joined the conversation. That’s all we asked."
Kryptonite
In 2004 a customer found that the company’s locks could be opened using a ball point pen and posted this at a forum. The story spread around blogs and forums before being picked up by MSM. Kryptonite eventually responded with a lock exchange programme, replacing 380,000 locks. The commonly held view is that the company only responded after the New York Times picked up the story, though Kryptonite deny this. The company stated that they were working on a response already, but had not yet made it public until their plans were finalised.
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