Social Media Marketing is Great on One Condition.

Have you heard enough about using Social Media to showcase your business?

Well, it’s true that using Social sites like Facebook, Twitter and Blogging can help your business but there’s one caveat.  You better be damn good. You better plan on treating your customers right.  If you’re not prepared to play by the rules you’ll find your business blacklisted and your marketing efforts will do more harm than good.

We’ve all heard of customers being treated poorly by companies and consumers are fed up. Years ago, America Online suffered major embarrassment when someone trying to cancel their account recorded the conversation and later posted it on YouTube. If that same event happen today, it would have taken a tenth of the time to generate ten times the audience. The popularity and real-time content generation of Twitter may help get your good news out quickly but if you have bad news it will make your head spin.

Recently, I found that one of my newest WinPatrol users had a dispute with Symantec via one of their phone support representatives. In the process WinPatrol was maligned and the user was billed $99 USD.
See “Symantec Support says WinPatrol is a virus”.

In an effort to blow off some stream my first reaction was to Twitter my story. Within an hour my message was Re-tweeted by others including a couple above who directed their RT toward a Symantec rep they knew via Twitter.

The next time I signed on Twitter I had two new followers who worked for Symantec. In less than 24 hours I was contacted by Noah from Symantec PR for more information and an offer to help.

“Symantec Security Response does not classify WinPatrol as a threat.  We’re actively investigating this customer’s experience to learn more about why the support agent provided incorrect information to ensure it doesn’t happen again.” 
In later communications he added,  “The head of worldwide support has been made aware of this and we’re taking it seriously. “

I asked for no apology and none was given but by the end of the week a credit was provided for $99 to our mutual customer. I’m happy to acknowledge Symantec listened and did what they had to do to make things right.

I’m still not a big fan of Symantec software or support but I give their PR folks five stars. It’s obvious they recognize how important it is for their people to monitor social networks and prevent any bad news from spreading.

So, if you’re looking at using Social Media to help your image, you better be ready to back it up.

Additional References to prove my point…

8 Tips to Help Companies Image Fiascoes on Twitter

Twitter Proves its Worth as Killer App for Local Businesses

Will P. R. pros take the baton of investigative journalism?