In my last post, I examined how Netflix’s communication style contributed to the problems they’ve been struggling with since July. In this post, I’ll cover a few of the social media blunders Netflix committed throughout this communication spiral.

I firmly believe rules are meant to be broken. But there are some rules—even in the ever-changing social media world—that you’re better off following or being really sure you understand the repercussions if you don’t.

In Netflix’s case, they committed two ginormous no-nos after announcing their new pricing on July 12: saying nothing and deleting posts.

No-No # 1: Saying NOTHING When the Doo-Doo Hits the Fan

Forty-eight hours after announcing the pricing changes on Facebook, Netflix had yet to respond to the 65,000+ people who commented on their wall in the first two days. And followers noticed as well, and were still voicing their opinion seven days later.

Netflix’s silence was equally deafening on their blog.

No-No # 2: Deleting Wall Posts

There have been many blog posts since the pricing announcement that Netflix was removing followers’ comments from their Facebook wall. And there were even more comments on their wall complaining about earlier comments being removed. According to a post on MSNBC’s Technolog, Steve Swasey, vice president of corporate communications at Netflix, says the company wasn’t deleting comments.

If they were, shame on them—unless the ones they deleted had profanity, etc. If they weren’t, then why not speak up? Address the accusation. Say something. And while at it, address the entire pricing situation (see no-no # 1 above).

An Extra No-No: Not Allowing Commenting on Blog Posts

While doing research for this post, I was spending time on Netflix’s blog and noticed an odd occurrence. There are no comments for any of the posts between July 27 and October 30 (except one on October 4); nor does there appear to be anyway to comment on them either. If you access the July 27 post or any others before then, an abundance of comments display, with a “Post a Comment” link at the bottom—same for the September 27 post. However, no such link is included on any other posts since July 27, including the September 18 apology and the post on DVDs staying at Netflix.com.

The removal of commenting on the blog could be a technical glitch, but it’s an odd one if it is. I explored a few of the recent posts that had comments in more depth. And the one on October 4 (“Power, Deception and Lies Plus Other Good Stuff”) shows that comments have been disabled for this post by a blog administrator.

So, it looks like Netflix has decided not to allow commenting. As Julia Roberts said in Pretty Woman, “Big mistake. Big. Huge.”

Social media is two-way communication. If you don’t want a dialogue and only want to push information out to the masses, stay away from social media. Period. If you don’t, you’ll likely find yourself in a Netflix-like situation at some point.

Better Choices to Make If You Find Yourself in Netflix’s Position

1. Have a plan. Before announcing anything big, have a plan for handling possible negative comments, so you can respond.
2. Respond immediately. Even if you don’t have a plan, be prepared to respond quickly with something—even if it’s just to say, “We hear you, and we’re working on a solution.” Your top priority for the next however many hours it takes should then be writing an apology and explanation, developing a plan for monitoring and managing the communication, and working out alternatives to what you announced, if that’s an option.
3. Don’t act as if the backlash isn’t happening. The ostrich approach never works.
4. Don’t delete. Don’t delete. Don’t delete. Did I mention you shouldn’t delete negative comments, unless inappropriate, like fowl language. In that instance, make sure you’re clear about why—that it’s not the negative comment, it’s the choice of words used that resulted in the removal.
5. Avoid any additional big changes/announcements until you address the current problem.
6. Keep commenting enabled even when the comments are unpleasant.
7. Monitor all the time and have staff on hand to respond. If you’re as well known as Netflix with 2,000,000+ people (roughly 1.5M in July) liking your Facebook page, you can’t afford to not monitor the social media conversation constantly—and respond regularly.
8. Use your social media channels to capture the pulse of your customers before making big changes. Poll people. Find people with whom you can test the waters. Employ crowdsourcing.

Before closing this post, I should note that not all the comments on Netflix’s Facebook page are disparaging. There are some who would say the complainers are just loud but not the majority.

But with social media, it doesn’t really matter if the naysayers are in the minority. It can still tarnish your image and damage your relationship with customers—both of which take time to rebuild.

Will Netflix come out of this? I think they will, but they have a long road ahead of them to repair the damage that’s been done.

Whenever I hear “social media should be real, transparent, and audience focused,” I find myself nodding and wondering at the same time. I agree. It should. But why stop there? All communication should be that way. If it were, it would be way more successful.

Fresh from graduate school, where all I studied was communication—how we humans communicated, what worked, what didn’t—I approached every marcom project as a communication vehicle. My view: it didn’t matter how snappy the writing was or how cool the design looked, if it didn’t resonate with audience—if it didn’t communicate—the chances of success were slim.

Fast forward 15 years, and the mantra of “real, transparent, and audience focused” is heard everywhere—but only for social media. It’s a start, and I love it. But let’s make it the mantra for all communication.

Know Thy Audience

It’s not enough to focus on your audience based on your best guess. You need to know your audience:

• Who are they (customers/prospects, peers, influencers, mentors, others)?
• What do/don’t they like?
• Where are they?
• Why should they care?
• How do they like to interact with you and how can you help them?

I know, “Duh, obvious.” Yet, we don’t’ always communicate this way. Why? Because we’re most comfortable talking about what we know. And what do we know best? Ourselves. And, of course, there are those who think the best way to sell is to just talk about how great the product or service is, but that’s a topic for another post.

Pick a Tool for Gathering Knowledge About Your Audience

There is a multitude of ways for learning more about your audience, from traditional to social:

• Query existing and past clients/customers/patients
• Ask your social media followers what they think
• Be a “lurker”:
  • Find discussion groups and communities in your focus area by doing keyword searches and investigating different sites
  • Follow the same process to find other blogs in your focus area
  • Conduct similar searches on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook, etc.
  • Keep up on your audience’s interests using social media monitoring tools like Facebook Insights, YouTube Insights, Google Insights for Search, Google Trends, Quantcast, etc
  • Conduct old-fashioned market research

Once you’ve done your research, be adaptable and open to feedback and changing any approach that isn’t working. Most importantly, focus on helping your customers. No one wants to be “sold” to or pressured or bombarded with marketing messages. They want information. They want assistance. They want to laugh.

While preparing course materials for the new social media campaign class that I’m teaching at SFSU College of Extended Learning, I had the pleasure of revisiting several great campaigns from the past year or so: Old Spice Guy and Old Spice Guy Responses, Live Off Groupon, DEWmocracy, and MTV/Foursquare’s GYT to name a few.

What do these campaigns have in common? They’re:

• Unique
• Human
• Interactive
• True to brand
• Multichannel (social and traditional)

Imitation May Be the Sincerest Form of Flattery—But Going Viral Isn’t Likely

It’s good to study and learn from great campaigns, but use them for inspiration vs. a blueprint for designing your own. Remember, these campaigns succeeded because they were unique and the organization stayed true to their brand.

Think about your audience, your brand, your goals—and let your creativity flow. Old Spice is a great example. Personally, dare I say, I thought the first video silly when I saw it at the movies (good decision on Old Spice’s part to show it there, too). BUT, I no longer thought of Old Spice as just for my grandpa. And because it was different and entertaining, it got people talking about Old Spice.

Can we learn from Old Spice? Definitely. Are there best practices to take away from this and employ in your own campaigns? Sure. Mashable does a nice job of outlining the lessons learned and best practices employed by Old Spice imitators:

• Interact with consumers
• Leverage influencers
• Revitalize brand image
• Make your brand shareable

Five Sure Ways to Strikeout with Your Social Media Campaign

Audi’s 2011 Super Bowl campaign had all the makings of a home run. It was unique, interactive, true to brand (but looking to change things up), multichannel, and human. But—and that’s a big BUT—they mucked up the follow-through.

We should be thankful for campaigns that do this occasionally, because the lessons learned are often more beneficial than the ones garnered from home runs.

So what did Audi’s campaign teach us?

• It ain’t over ‘til it’s over—don’t forget the follow-through
• Be transparent—always
• Respond
• Be fluid not rigid in your implementation
• Own up to your mistakes

Ryan Kawailani Ozawa on Hawaii Blog analyzes Audi’s campaign in detail in “Audi’s Social Media Fail.”

What do you think? Did Audi tank? Did Old Spice kick butt? What defines success? As Jeremy Scott writes, “viral success does not equal money.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Avery Horzewski Named Program Advisor and Instructor for First College-Level Social Media Certificate in Bay Area

San Jose, CA – March 14, 2011 – AVE Consulting (AVE) today announced its participation in a new Social Media Marketing (SMM) Certificate Program at San Francisco State University’s College of Extended Learning. AVE President Avery Horzewski was named program advisor, along with Susan Barnes, and will teach the program’s course on social media campaigns.

“Social media is no longer a fad, but rather a bona fide communication tool,” said Horzewski. “Whether you like social media or not, if your audience does, you need to consider it —seriously. This program gives marketers the information and tools necessary to manage this communication channel effectively and integrate it into their overall marketing strategy.”

The groundbreaking SMM program, which kicked off in January 2011, is the first college-level certificate in social media offered in the Bay Area. The six-course program provides a solid foundation in the ever-morphing world of social media and gives students an array of skills and tools that they can immediately apply in the workplace. Courses in the program include:

• The Power of Community: An Introduction to Social Media
• Mastering Social Media: 3 Essential Tools for the Business Professional
• Engaging Your Community: Creating an Effective Social Media Campaign
• Social Media in the Real World: Successful Applications of Social Media Strategies
• Social on the Go: Trends in Mobile Technology
• Integrating Social Media into the Overall Marketing Strategy

“A lot of courses show participants the successes of others, but offer no opportunity to apply that knowledge,” continued Horzewski. “All of the courses in San Francisco State’s SMM program are highly interactive with plenty of opportunities to put into practice what’s being learned—and receive feedback on the plans, tools, and ideas developed during each course.”

Added SMM Program Director, Lauren Vanett, “We’re excited to be at the forefront of executive education for marketing professionals with this new program here in the Bay Area, where such key social media players as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter were launched and many media luminaries are located.”

About AVE Consulting

Based in San Jose, California, AVE Consulting (AVE) is a marketing and customer communication company that helps businesses communicate with their customers. Whether assessing existing approaches, developing strategies, or executing strategies, AVE brings an audience-focused perspective to the process that results in authentic interactions that truly engage customers. Clients have included such companies as Adobe Systems, ACT Medical, Borland, CareFusion, Cooley Godward LLC, E*TRADE, Exordium Group, Hitachi Data Systems, Logitech, TD Ameritrade, SAP, and Xerox DocuShare.

About San Francisco State’s Social Media Marketing Program

The Social Media Marketing (SMM) program, an offering of San Francisco State’s College of Extended Learning, is designed to provide participants with a solid foundation in the basics of social media marketing, as well as skills that can be applied immediately on the job. The program is designed for working professionals and offers a Certificate in Social Media Marketing, as well as the opportunity to earn continuing education units (CEU) for courses taken on an individual basis. For more information on the program, contact San Francisco State at 415.817.4247; to register, call 414.405.7700, press 5, or go to www.cel.sfsu.edu.

Press Contact:
Renee Maler
PhilosophyPR + Marketing
For AVE Consulting
925.968.9495
renee@philosophypr.com

This post originally appeared on the Women in Consulting (WIC) blog. I thought it worthwhile to share with others contemplating social media that at the outset I didn’t embrace it. I was skeptical. I entered into it solely because it was necessary in my role as a communication consultant to understand all ways in which companies can engage their customers. How else could I guide them through the assessment process and help them make the best decision.

Without a doubt, every company should explore the various social media tools in light of their audience(s) and what’s important to them — just like you would any other communication tool. In fact, while speaking at a meeting for the International Association of Professional Administrators, a participant said she didn’t get Facebook pages and asked why she or her company should care. We were looking at DirecTV’s page at the time.

My response: It doesn’t matter if DirecTV (or your company) “gets” social media. What matters is 14,000+ fans do. If customers and prospects want to interact with you via social media, then it’s a mistake to ignore this channel because you don’t like it or “get” it. It really isn’t about you. It’s about them.

That doesn’t mean you should ignore all other channels in favor of social media. It just means you should explore social media as another channel that helps you communicate with your customers and prospects (more on this in another post).

On a side note: that presentation was a week ago, and DirecTV had 14,035. Today, DirecTV has 16,234 — more than a 15% increase in 1 week.

Original “Skeptic’s View of Social Media” Post

I must confess that I grudgingly signed up for many of the social media tools. They simply aren’t the way I prefer to communicate. At the same time, the entire phenomenon intrigues me. The reason for my simultaneous disinterest and intrigue in relation to social media can be traced back to my education and that which I love and love to study: communication.

I much prefer to speak to someone face to face and over the phone, or watch/hear someone express their views on TV or over the radio. I like the richness that those modes of communication provide, both in the nonverbal cues that accompany the words as well as the depth of information that they provide because they’re not limited to 140 characters or a screen page.

However, so much about social media gets my nerdy side operating in hyper drive. What is it about Facebook that has people spending endless time sharing brief snippets of their lives, taking quizzes, writing notes, and the like—and why should businesses care? Why is everyone chomping at the bit to express their thoughts in 140 characters or less on Twitter? And why have these become almost the standard for hooking up with friends—and now colleagues?

I am on Facebook. I do Tweet. I blog. And I am active on LinkedIn. However, as I mentioned, I went on Facebook and Twitter reluctantly. I needed to; I didn’t want to. As a consultant who helps companies develop and implement effective customer communication strategies, it’s my job to understand the various mechanisms by which users want to interact—and more and more users want to interact using social media.

Bottom line: it doesn’t matter if you like social media or not, if your audience does, you need to consider it — seriously.

You CANNOT Not Communicate — this is one of my favorite phrases. I even use it as my company tagline. It’s also a good reminder that everything you do — and don’t do — sends a message. If you write off social media because you’re not interested in it, then you likely risk alienating at least a portion of your audience. More importantly, you risk losing a pretty amazing opportunity to get to know your audience in a way that you might not otherwise be able to do.

And it’s this latter component that has this skeptic convinced that there’s value in exploring social media. In addition to giving your customers something they want and expect, you have the potential to gain incredible customer insight and see a side of them that might otherwise remain hidden. I didn’t think I would, but I did.