Mal Chia – Southern Soapbox

As the proverbial shiny new toy, its easy to look at social media as a panacea, what with the cheap and easy access to platforms and the ability to reach customers directly (thus bypassing previously expensive communication channels).

The truth however, is that social media won’t help you sell anymore units if your product stinks.

In fact, if your product does stink then it’s probably going to be exposed faster than ever before and the effects can be devastating. Just take a look at Vodafone’s recent woes and the accompanying Vodafail website and hashtag, if you want to know what I mean.

So with that in mind, here are my golden rules for avoiding social media disaster:

1. Make products that people want and work as advertised.
2. If something goes wrong, keep the lines of communication open. Don’t go dark. Use all the platforms at your disposable, especially the ones where your customers are talking about the problem to acknowledge it exists and let them know what you’re going to do to fix it. Then do it. The key here is sincerity and compassion.

That’s it. It’s not rocket science. Be a good citizen, respect your customers and help them solve problems.

If you spend much time on social media, you know how easy it is to connect and share with people you identify with.

It has unmistakably revolutionised how we interact and ultimately build relationships with each other.

One of the most significant changes is that we now have the ability to filter the content we are exposed whether by carefuly curating who we are following or searching for a hashtag (or topic, prefixed by a # such as #ausvotes) on Twitter.

While this increases the relevance of the news that we see, it is often the case that the views expressed in our Twitter feeds, blogs and podcasts echo our own, which is the reason we follow them in the first place.

Take for example the recent Federal election. My Twitter stream was filled with tweets supporting the National Broadband Network and decrying the Internet filter – two views I passionately support. If I wanted to know the other side of the argument, I wasn’t going to get it without stepping outside my circle on Twitter.

If you want to truly understand, you need the complete picture. You need to consciously get outside your personal social media echo chamber and follow someone whose views challenge our own and force us to answer the tough questions.