For brands, social media presents the useful opportunity to have a conversation with your customers. These conversations can be good ways of getting feedback, doing research, and promoting new products. They can also be incredibly useful in times of brand crisis. Actually talking to your customers whilst your brand is alternatively setting fire to the cat / killing babies live on TV / declaring itself bankrupt due to a problem with Norweigan dwarf hookers / admitting that, yes, the new line of t-shirts is in fact poisonous at any speed / etc. etc. is often an effective method of mitigating some of the anger / distress / homicidal feelings aimed in your direction.
Few brands these days are in worse repute that the once and former Kings of Wall Street, the US’s financial institutions who, through an innovative combination of entitlement, venality, avarice, and purest stupidity have brought the global economy to something of a full-stop. And then had to be bailed out with a gajillion dollar loan from the charmingly inept Bush administration. Perhaps most emblematic of these institutions is AIG who, having received their slice of the taxpayers’ cash, promptly spent some of it on an ill-advised corporate jolly to a top-flight Cornish hotel. ‘Tin ear’ does not even begin to describe it, my dears.
Anyway, your average American taxpayer (of whom, gentle reader, I am one) are – to put it charitably – a mote pissed off with brands like AIG. Sound thrashings have been mentioned (or, in the venacular, ‘cans of whoop-ass’, though I have no clue as to what that may mean) and AIG’s name is very much mud. Now, short of paying back the bailout (with interest) there’s not much AIG can do to salvage its reputation using traditional media (any sort of happy-clappy ad campaign, for example, would look hopelessly out of tune). And recommendations to ‘talk with your customers’ may fall flat when AIG are now the customers and the entire US body politic is the loan lender. However, social media presented AIG with some options, notably the opportunity to talk directly to some of their harshest critics – the progressive blogging community at the Daily Kos who, if your average American was ill-disposed to AIG, were positively bilious. Read on…
It began with a very angry post by Susan G (one of the Daily Kos’ chief writers – and one of their more reasoned, IMHO) upon the sordid occasion of AIG receiving another twelvty zillion dollars. In response to this, AIG’s Media Relations bod, Peter Tulpman sent Susan G what she described as a ‘boilerplate’ press release, saying how AIG were committed to oversight, paying back the money etc etc… So far, so old media. But then, this being the Daily Kos, to whose community the term ‘tenacious’ does not do justice, Susan G wrote this:
Now given Mr. Tulupman’s apparent willingness to engage with Daily Kos readers, I’d like to suggest we ask him some questions in comments about AIG, the bailout and the company’s operating expenses.
And, lo and behold, miracle of miracles this holiday season, Mr Tulpman decided to engage in the conversation and answer some of the (many hundreds of) questions posted on the Daily Kos. In his initial response, he wrote:
Again, thank you very much for the opportunity allowing AIG to interact directly with the Daily Kos community. We are not surprised by the overwhelming response from Daily Kos readers and hope to address as many of their questions as possible.
The questions were hard nosed and pulled no punches – and Tulpman answered most of them as clearly as he was able. Many questions are still waiting to be answered (man-hours ever being a problem with social media activities!) but it’s worth noting some of the responses from the Daily Kos community about the conversation itself. In this thread, we read this exchange:
I love it (1+ / 0-)
Sure, it’s being done by the PR folks, but the PR folks always do this. Whether they are being straightforward or just trying to spin us, this is the job of the PR department.
We will see soon enough if this is a serious attempt to keep people informed or an attempt to justify the bad bets and irresponsible behavior of AIG executives over the past few years.
Single payer universal healthcare coverage saves money and saves lives.
by freelunch on Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 10:23:04 AM PST
Is there a corporation that ever did in this way? (33+ / 0-)
This is groundbreaking journalism of the 21st century.
by The Hindsight Times on Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 09:22:09 AM PST
[ Parent ]
Concur. It is an important step all around. (12+ / 0-)by abarefootboy on Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 09:37:33 AM PST
Others were less convinced. “No offense to Susan G”, wrote ‘bibble’, “but this is a waste waste of dkos space and energy. Why on earth are we spending one minute listening to public relations spin from AIG? Like a hen having a little conversation with the fox at the chicken coop door. Silly.” But in response to that, ‘ksingh’ wrote:
“True bibble, it’s likely to involve all the spin
but dialogue has been known to produce notably positive resultsno guarantee
two: there’s a potentially interesting new model here of Kosian direct involvement
And ’3goldens’ averred that;
“It’s worthwhile at least to have a conversation. We’ll learn to read between the lines, if nothing else, and we can always end it if we think it’s not being done in good faith.”
And then, as though directed by the dictates of an R*M case study, ‘Shift Happens’ wrote:
“(You’re) missing the point. This is how blogging is changing how corporations do business. No longer is it enough to use the one-way communication forms of traditional advertising or even rely on articles in the “independent” MSM to get make their case and earn the trust and respect of Americans.
Since when have they even cared about what people think? Old school is content to tell us what to think. It won’t work anymore.
Corporations of all sizes see how they must be in actual dialog with regular people through blogs, tweets, etc. to manage their brand identity. This is not “just a new way to manipulate.”
We get to set the agenda.
We get hold their feet to the fire.
Well, we shall see, I suppose. The conversation is ongoing (and, in places, getting a little heated) but, for the moment, let’s treat it as an emerging example of how brand conversations can be a fruitful way of managing public opinion. In conclusion, perhaps blogger ‘HEAT’ said it best:
KUDOS, indeed.
I agree with the Shift Happens comment – to expect an under fire corporation like AIG to not have a level of PR involvement in any dialogue is a step change too far. What is important is that there is a dialogue at all. While information flowed one way, ‘public relations’ was a lie: it was all media relations. By cutting out the middle man (media) and engaging directly with real people, AIG are moving towards genuine ‘public’ relations. The next hurdle is to start doing it in a human voice rather than a PR voice, which these answers clearly are….
And “an innovative combination of entitlement, venality, avarice, and purest stupidity” is the best summary of the causes of recession that i’ve heard!
The ‘human voice’ is ever an issue in social media. On one level, some subjects just don’t lend themselves to the easy breezy style we’d likely advocate in an ideal social media landscape – and potentially the credit crunch is one of those subjects. On another level – and this might sound a touch weird – it’s really hard to sound human online. Most people are not actually terribly good writers and are often unable to catch that tone which tells of real human experience (call it the inverted Turing test, I guess). This is why we have various linguistic forms and structures to help people express themselves with reasonable clarity in writing. Over-used, these forms inevitably sound like PR or business-speak. It’s possible that sounding human online may require a rethink of the way people write generally, and not just a regression to the WTFOMGBBQ LOLZ! school of instant intimacy.
And thanks for the compliment.