Stand and deliver
By Molly FlattWord of mouth is not kind. It can be inspiring and engaging and insightful, but it is not kind. As Chris Anderson so famously described, we are living in a long tail economy, and huge choice allows us to be keenly discriminating. To succeed in social media with any sort of longevity, a product quite simply needs to be good.
Over at Social Media Today, Beth Harte relates how the great advertising for the Franklin Museum was let down by a lack of integration across marketing teams, and Conversation Agent Valeria Maltoni has some challenging questions about execution for brands. It may all sound very obvious, but amidst all the excitement about getting people talking about your product in new ways, prioritising the actual experience of that product can get lost. In the past, we may have thought our bad experience was a one-off; or have been beguiled by another bit of great advertising; or not have had high expectations in the first place; but the importance of brands delivering on their promises has been intensified by word of mouth.
If you are going to build a groundswell of anticipation for your product based on hands-on experiences and personal opinions of that product, you have to step up to the mark. People owe loyalty to their own communities - who are looking for trustworthy advice - not to you. Even the greatest advocates know their influence depends on their independence, and will absolutely be critical if the offering isn’t up to scratch. And if you claim to be listening to consumers, you have to act on their feedback, not just fob them off with platitudes; it’s part of fulfilling your bargain for a genuinely two-way dialogue. Once you’ve engaged in conversation, you can’t back out when people don’t like what you do. Apologising is fine. Changing is fine. But if you aren’t visibly taking action to improve, all your ‘engagement’ will be revealed as empty rhetoric.
This shouldn’t be scary for brands, it should be inspiring. What you do will be noticed. Rise to the challenge, do good things well, and WOM karma will endure.
