Social Media Marketing Failure

Recently I posted on this blog site about i you bother to solicit response from your customers, you should at least respond to it. And I noted the positive response from the manager of the hotel my family stayed at in Lancaster, Pa.

The key word here is “positive.” There is a story, which I saw posted on the Mashable.com website, about a National Football League team executive who responded to some criticism on Twitter in a not so positive fashion.

We can subtitle this one as a social media marketing failure. Even though the team did not solicit the fan’s input, it should have treated the tweet in the same fashion as if did.

The story goes as follows: The Kansas City Chiefs lost their first game of the season to Atlanta by a score of 40 to 24. A fan made a tweet with a not-so-complimentary reference to the team’s owner.

Not only did someone from the team send a note to the poster’s inbox saying “your choice to be a fan” and “get a clue,” somehow the team managed to have the poster’s Twitter account blocked.

Bad move; this poster, who according to Mashable manages the social media function at a Silicon Valley company, went to another social media site and posted all about the dust-up. That kept the whole issue alive and opened the poster up to other outlets.

The author of the Mashable article correctly says let your fans (or for mortgage businesses, your customers) vent and if you do respond be aware of whom you might offend.

I would go further. You should respond to the negative tweet, but in a positive manner; ask what could have been done to make your client’s experience better. Make yourself open for further direct contact.

Word of mouth marketing goes both ways. It is the most cost effective way of getting the message out about your company, but if customer has a negative experience, they could hurt your business tremendously.