Cleaning Up vs Starting Over

A continuing theme on this blog, as well as in our service offerings, is that social media is no longer new. In fact, many companies are on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th CMO's since someone launched the first social page for the brand.

As a matter of due process, we encourage our clients to do a comprehensive listening and monitoring exercise before getting started on a social program. We like to find out where the brand already has influence, fans or at least a presence. Once those presences are identified, the people who are now "officially" in charge of the social program need to determine what to do with them. You can embrace these rogue presences, blow them up, or figure out how to make them an extended part of an overall campaign.

Consider a few case studies from the past.

1) The flagship product of a huge technology company decided to start a Facebook page. Lo and behold, a young man in Europe had already started a page, and had more than 7,000 fans. The brand could have shut him down. They could have called Facebook directly. But instead, we did the smart thing, and worked with the young man. He was thrilled that he had been noticed. He didn't want money or product. He just wanted access - and to be "part" of the program.

Starting a 2nd page to compete with him would have been a time intensive effort. Shutting him down could have been a PR debacle. But honestly communicating with him allowed us to partner together, and use his 7,000 Fans as a starting point for a Page that will soon eclipse 100,000 Fans. Over time, the original Fan lost interest, and the Page is now cared for by a host of other agencies and community managers.

2) Chex Mix is not and has never been a client. But a while back, I wrote about a very clever Twitter account, in which @Chex_Mix had become prolific in his/her tweeting about what is basically a very boring brand. Later that week, I received an email from @Chex_Mix who confessed he/she did not work for General Mills or Chex. He/she just liked the snack and wanted to be part of the extended team. Soon, General Mills reached out to him/her. He/she was willing and ready to work with their team. But then communication stopped. It appears General Mills will go out and hire some social media coordinator to try to replicate the role that they already have someone volunteering to do. Why not bring @Chex_Mix to the payroll, provide some guidance and coaching, and leverage this opportunity? Seems to me that Gen Mills is being pretty silly.

Rogue presences:

Now what about the less successful presences? Suppose somewhat has hijacked a url and has 14 people and 23 bots following you. I don't think it's brain surgery to suggest rounding up all of those presences and trying to blow them up. You might start by asking the owner for log-in credentials, sweetening the offer with a gift card or something just to be respectful. If they refuse to reply, you might try to go directly to the channels. You'll need to show you are an official representative of the brand. In most cases, the channel has no reason to allow a dead profile to take up valuable real estate on a url that you want to drive traffic to. A side door in these situations is the ad sales team. Few people in the world are more motivated to help a marketing person than an ad sales rep who is one favor away from a deal. Sure, it stinks that you need to sink some money into it, but consider it your "slow tax." If your company was on the ball 3 years ago, you'd have locked down the profile. Sometimes it's good to save the brain damage and lawyers fees and just buy an ad.

We'll add more case studies to this post in the future. Let us know if you have any stories of you own.