My son asked me the apparent perennial favorite of eleven-year-olds “If a tree falls in the forest, will it make a sound?” I answer matter of factually, “Well, of course,” because it seems logical that it would make a sound. “But if no one is there, how can you be sure?” I think that I seem to have already had this conversation once with my other son and yet, this time I decide maybe this time I need to think about it a little more. “If no one is there, does the crashing tree make a sound?”
Twitter now exceeds 6 million users. Friendfeed exceeds 1 million users. Facebook, MySpace and all the rest command an even larger social following. As marketers and public relations firms scramble to lock into the realm, social media has grabbed much attention. Motrin Moms illustrates the power a group of vocal, nee militant, social media users wield to change what appears to them to be an offensive ad campaign. Tropicana orange juice went through the juicer when the consumers in the social wilderness, and apparently everywhere else, rejected it’s new brand identity. As these brands learned, irritate the social media Illuminati at your own peril. Or is this more of a “If a tree falls in the wilderness” scenario?
Ad Age looked at this on March 30, 2009 in an article titled “Using Social Media to Listen to Consumers.” Guess what? Just because an A-lister Twitters disdain for a product, service, another A-lister, or the meal they just ate, doesn’t mean anybody actually hears their scream. Outrage is the name of the game for much of social media. Marketers should take this into consideration before pulling up stakes and rushing home.
“The data is a really compelling reminder that a lot of our target consumers are not the people who are sitting on Twitter freaking out over a packaging design that they don’t like,” said Diane Hessan, CEO of Communispace, in the Ad Age article.
In regards to the Motrin Moms social forest fire, a survey by Lightspeed Research found that almost 90% of women had never seen the ad. This means a small group of people changed the brand identity of Motrin. Futher, of the moms that hadn’t seen the ad, and presumably didn’t Twitter about it, 45% liked the ad, 41% couldn’t care one way or the other, and only 15% said they disliked it. This means that scream all you want on Twitter but the reality is only a few, select, interested group of individuals will care. In fact, according to Nicholas Carlson you’d have a better chance being a slice of Pizza before many would notice you tweeted your like or dislike for something (100 Things More Popular Than Twitter).
Ignore Twitter then? Give up our new Facebook Fan page?
No.
Think of the social media universe as a large and active canary in the mine. The song bird sounds an alarm and you listen and look to find out what might be wrong. Test, sample and test again. Look for irregularities and test again. If the results point to a looming problem, then throw out the rotten juice box. If the tree is about to fall on you get out of the way, but don’t panic unnecessarily if the tree is not in danger of toppling. Go out of your way to listen to what is being said about your product online, but take care not to over react to the conversation. Engage in the conversation and continue testing. Find out if the offense is to be taken with a grain of salt or requires swift action.
