Social media marketing is like home renovation: everyone thinks that he is an expert until he passes a thorny path.
Even companies that work with social networks all day are wrong. Many influential marketing agencies, which should be strategists in the field of main content, are fixated on self-interested and boring content. Yes, boring content makes users stop using it. However, poorly thoughtful content that attracts attention presents a great danger.
Here are three examples from which SMM experts can learn useful lessons:
1. Ryanair and British Airways
In March of this year, a British Airways plane landed by chance in Edinburgh instead of Düsseldorf. Ryanair, feeling an opportunity to have some fun, tweeted a picture of Geography for Dummies and noted British Airways. A friendly banter was supposed to make the public have fun with Ryanair, but instead the Twitter community laughed at Ryanair. How did this happen?
Users began to mock Ryanair with their posts. One user suggested Ryanair read the book Customer Service for Dummies. Another noted in his tweet that he would prefer to fly with BA from the wrong city than with Ryanair to the right one.
What is the root of the Ryanair error? Short-sightedness SMM experts could not foresee the fact that the budget airline audience may have accumulated their claims, which it threw out, taking advantage of the occasion. Being a younger, less well-established carrier, Ryanair simply had no influence like British Airways.
2. Elon Musk
Personal brand Ilona Mask is so closely connected with Tesla and SpaceX that his random tweets are a reason to touch on these companies in new articles. Brand managers Tesla and SpaceX should live in a state of constant anxiety, wondering what Musk will say next.
Frankly, their fears are justified. So in March, the US Securities and Exchange Commission said it was “amazingly” that Elon Musk did not request prior approval of any of his tweets about Tesla Inc. for several months, while a federal court ordered him to do so. Musk instead, he defended his use of social networks, calling the SEC request a "radical reinterpretation" of the judge's orders.
Tweets Tesla's CEO has already cost him the title of chairman and $ 20 million. Although his social media accounts helped the growth of the Tesla brand, these same accounts are detrimental to the company when Musk does not filter his statements.
Brands (and leaders who may also be brands) must combine personality and caution on the Internet. Improvised messages can do a lot of harm in minutes.
We advise brands to create a guide for quick response on social networks. With clear boundaries of what is acceptable, brands can create attractive content without worrying about crossing the border.
3. Fail Senator
Social media and politics are mixed like fire and gasoline. The smallest messages often become the biggest stories. President Trump’s Twitter account may be the world's most notorious social networking channel, but Senator Marco Rubio recently raised his own online fame in a negative way.
Last month, Venezuela suffered a serious power outage. Rubio tweeted it: “Today, another explosion of a transformer on a German dam in the state of Bolivar caused another massive outage.” Unfortunately, Bolivar does not have a German dam.
What did Rubio mean? The man who first wrote about the power outage in Venezuela, was a journalist Herman Dame, that literally can be read as "German dam". Thus, the senator misinterpreted the news in his tweet. He received a lot of tweeting from Twitter, including from this journalist.
Politicians, like brands, live in the public eye. Everything that they do in social networks is open for study. If they want to be taken seriously, they cannot afford to make mistakes for a beginner. Brands and social network managers must exercise due diligence before reporting any events or people that appear in the news. Usually, a five second Google search is enough to expose the story as fake news or to check the names of the people involved.
Brands need to care more about social networks. And here's a good old advice: pause, think and google a little before publishing.
Futureinapps company is engaged in SMM business promotion on the Internet. Turn to the professionals!
