Negative word-of-mouth happens to everyone. No industry, brand or product is immune to it. When it happens in social media, it can feel extra painful — because it’s out there in the open for everyone to see.
But true word-of-mouth marketers know that these experiences — while sometimes frustrating and disappointing — are opportunities in disguise. They take advantage of these moments to show customers that they’re listening, that they’re human and sometimes make mistakes, and that they care enough to fix the problem.
The next time it happens to you, think of these inspiring strategies others have used to win over upset customers.
- Make them laugh: There’s obviously a time and a place for jokes when it comes to fielding customer complaints, but a good sense of humor can be disarming and personal enough to defuse a negative comment while showing you’re human. Bodyform famously did it with a hilarious (and viral) video response to a husband’s rant on the brand’s Facebook page about the company’s misleading, euphemistic TV commercials.
No one likes a showoff.
But you’re doing all of these great things — delivering great service, selling great products and earning new fans. Wouldn’t those make for great stories to share?
Absolutely. And as a word-of-mouth and social media marketer, it’s your job to help those stories get shared. But before you e-mail everyone that news release or tweet that #humblebrag, consider how these beloved companies show off without annoying their fans and followers.
- Show off your employees: If you want to humanize your brand with social media, you’re in luck — humans work for you and run your social media presence, too. So make them the focus of your content. For example, during an ongoing contest, Threadless fans were rewarded with videos of employees performing weird skits, such as a one-person pillow fight or a sandwich-making contest. The brand’s fans loved it and shared it, and the brand got tons of new fans to participate, too.
Like most great word-of-mouth topics, Movember started out as a fun idea: Thirty guys decided to bring back the mustache for the month of November, and people loved it. But by the next year, they decided to turn this fun idea into a cause, which would become the biggest nongovernment funder of men’s cancer research.
In his presentation at our word-of-mouth marketing conference in Austin, Texas, Kory Klem explained how the Movember movement literally and figuratively “changed the face of men’s health” by asking men to raise money and awareness by growing a mustache and getting donations from their friends and family. He also shared ways they used social media to support their advocates (and earn more than 3.3 million donations).
Some key points from his presentation:
- Give them a place to form smaller communities. Klem says brotherhood and competition were at the core of the Movember movement. To reflect those attributes online, they created Mo Space, a place where participants could challenge one another on leaderboards, earn badges and create a network with people around them.
Jason Duty, Dell’s director of global social outreach services, says that social media for brands is no longer the Wild West: an ungoverned, new frontier. Instead, he says, it’s more like the Blob: all encompassing, slowly taking over the world and sort of sticky when you get into it.
In his presentation at our word-of-mouth marketing conference in Austin, Texas, Duty explains that at Dell, the company finds ways to turn the Blob into a proactive customer-service tool by joining conversations people are already having about Dell. And because engaging can be intimidating for anyone, Duty shares how companies can do it the right way — the way that earns fans and wins over critics.
Some important tips Duty shares in his presentation:
- First, understand the rules of the road. Before you jump in, know how the community feels about your company. Read the threads in a discussion group, study their guidelines and learn as much as you can about the culture and context.
Throwing in a hashtag doesn’t count as incorporating social into your traditional marketing. Incorporating social is about making content more engaging by letting it do what traditional ads can’t. Derek Schoen, MGM Resorts International’s social media and marketing manager for Aria, says you can do this even with a print ad that has already run.
In his presentation at SocialMedia.org‘s BlogWell conference in Los Angeles, Schoen shares how he made social media part of two traditional advertising campaigns: one that had already run and one that was made to be social.
Some key points from his presentation:
- Keep it consistent. It’s important to have a clear tie between traditional ads and social media marketing. Schoen says details make the difference between your audience being engaged or confused.
- Social can tell stories ads can’t. Schoen says social media allows fans to dig as deep into a story as they want.
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