Interview with Jon Henshaw and Taylor Pratt from Raven SEO
Feb 8, 2010 by Rebecca Kelley | InterviewsWhen I was in Las Vegas for Affiliate Summit West, I managed to wrangle the Raven SEO boys aside for a video interview. They begrudgingly obliged to my pestering and generously gave an overview of their toolset, as well as talked about the recent interest in social media-related tools and data. Jon and Taylor concluded the interview with their announcement of their partnership with Majestic SEO. I sense great things in the future for these two companies, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ve got hidden up their sleeves for the SEO industry. 
Interview with Taylor Pratt and Jon Henshaw from Raven SEO Tools from 10e20 on Vimeo.
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Do You Know What Your Employees Are Saying About You?
Feb 1, 2010 by Rebecca Kelley | Reputation ManagementOn Friday I was researching Twitter accounts for major brands, and I came across an account for Enterprise Rent-a-Car. The profile name is Rent A Car and the URL is @enterpriserent, so upon first glance it seems as if the account is legit. However, when you look at the actual bio and content for the account, you quickly see that it’s operated by an Enterprise employee and isn’t actually the brand’s official Twitter account. Worse yet is that the employee doesn’t have great things to say about the company or its customers.
The bio’s already not off to a great start by calling Enterprise customers “retarded.” While the account has less than 200 followers, people can still come across the profile via search or links and mistakenly assume that it’s the brand’s main account. The tweets make for a bit of a reputation management headache:
Complaining about your job and using profanity from a branded Twitter account doesn’t really ooze professionalism. Thankfully, the account doesn’t seem very active — its last update was from last April, so Enterprise should contact Twitter with a trademark claim to gain control of the account and turn it into a more appropriate company profile.
The main problem here is that Enterprise didn’t register its brand name in the first place. If I were them, I’d have snatched up @enterpriserentand variations of the brand name so nobody else could use them. They don’t even have to use the accounts, although they should probably have some sort of presence on Twitter, seeing as how they could reach a wide audience as well as deal with any reputation management/customer service issues like the one below:
Companies really need to be proactive and make sure that they’re in control of their brand whenever possible, and right now a big part of that is registering their brand names on major social media sites (KnowEm is a great service for helping out with that).
Another problem is that Enterprise wasn’t aware of what its employee was saying about them online. A few months ago I blogged about why companies shouldn’t block social media in the workplace, but I added this part:
Obviously, there are some downsides to letting employees have full reign of social media usage at work. I’ve seen people update their Facebook status complaining about a work task or saying negative things about customers/clients. This sort of behavior is clearly unprofessional and doesn’t reflect well on either the employee or the business. However, I think that a little bit of training and awareness can stifle these sorts of incidents. Clearly state your social media usage policy to new employees and say that while you encourage responsible and occasional usage of social media and networking, be courteous, professional and mindful of the company who’s employing them.
A good company policy upon hiring new employees is to provide a handbook that covers social media guidelines. At the very least, include a “public mentions” policy in their contract — after all, it’s reasonable to expect an employee of your company to refrain from publicly complaining about his employer or customers or painting them in a negative light. From there, keep tabs on your employees. I’m not saying you should spy on them; just be aware of their Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. accounts and see if they have a personal blog. Know what’s reasonable (e.g., “Frustrating day at work today”) and what’s over the line (“I hate my stupid boss so much! Dealt with stupid customers all day because he wasn’t around to help! XYZ Company is the absolute WORST!”), and put out any fires as soon as possible (have a chat with your employee and outline your company policy, issue a warning, escalate the repercussions from there).
What about if you don’t know that your employee registered an anonymous blog or Twitter account? Well, in that case brand mentions and monitoring play a key role. Keep track of brand mentions to see what people are saying about you. If you notice a Twitter account pop up that’s authored by an employee of your company, you can try and file a trademark claim or at least combat any negative content that comes from the account with public statements from your official account. Even if there’s not much you can do, you can at least be aware of the account so you can intercept people who may confuse it for the real deal.
In any case, Enterprise has a lot of opportunities here, and I hope they do something to address the account and are more aware moving forward. Other companies should take notice and realize that as social media grows more and more powerful, they’re going to have to expand their branding as well as adapt how they’re monitoring their brand and their employees.
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As part of my job duties, I help clients brainstorm different content ideas for linkbait and viral spread. Oftentimes I’m brainstorming for the same niche, meaning I have to come up with dozens of ideas for one industry. This process can get tricky, as it’s often hard to come up with fresh ideas for one topic week after week. I thought I’d share some things that I do to try and get the creative juices going.
- Check social media sites for inspiration. Sometimes I’ll check Delicious, Digg, Reddit, etc. to see what sort of similar content has been submitted and how well it fared. I think whether I can come up with an idea that’s similar to or inspired by a successful submission, or whether I can improve upon an idea that was good but somehow failed to go viral.
- Tie in current events. I check a lot of news sites to see what’s going on in the world. It doesn’t have to be any sort of monumental news event like the unveiling of Apple’s latest gadget — even local news stories inspire me.
- See what people are talking about. Check your network of friends and colleagues on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. See what they’re talking about and whether you can leverage the discussion. If something slips through the news crack or isn’t on your radar, there’s a good chance your friends will notice and be talking.
- Ask someone else. When I’m temporarily stumped for ideas, I’ll ping a close friend on IM or turn around and throw something at my boyfriend (who also works from home) and ask for their input. It’s always nice to have a fresh perspective, and oftentimes I’ll receive ideas that are great on their own or that inspire me to go down a new brainstorming path and come up with something good.
- Check the website for inspiration. Oftentimes the client’s website has a good deal of information that can be used as the basis for something great, whether that’s a blog post, an interesting picture, an informative study, etc. See if there’s preexisting content that you can polish up and present in a new and interesting way (via a video, list, infographic, etc).
- Do some “point of origin” research. I’ve often looked up general topics in Google or Wikipedia (yeah, yeah, I know) to get an idea of their history and to see if anything in particular stands out. It’s a great way to learn a little bit about the topic I’m brainstorming for and usually helps me come up with ideas based on its history/origins.
All of the above are usually good starting points for me. If you have any other tips on brainstorming content, feel free to share them!
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This morning I attended a Business.com webinar about B2B Social Media. While much of the information was fairly introductory in nature, there were some interesting tidbits that I thought I’d summarize/share.
Nowadays, social media seems to be about trying to keep your head above water and staying updated with the latest marketing trends in order to help your business and reach a relevant audience. The webinar shared a quote from a small business owner who stated, “At the end of the day, if we have spent a lot of our time tweeting, facebooking, and ‘me’tubing, I’m afraid [individual productivity] is on a rapid decline. What really gets done in a day that helps improve the bottom line?”
Below are the main social media challenges cited by small businesses:
It’s no secret that social networking usage among adults has grown rapidly in the past few years:
If adults are turning to social media and social networking sites, isn’t that a good opportunity for businesses as well? Absolutely — in fact, many businesspeople are using multiple social media sites and resources for business information:
However, there is a difference between B2B direct media and B2B social media.
B2B direct media:
- Tends to evolve slowly
- Is comprised of established best practices
- Is reasonably predictable
- Has a clear optimization path
B2B social media:
- Evolves extremely rapidly
- Can be comprised of temporary best practices
- Can be frustratingly unpredictable
- Has a shifting optimization path
A lot of B2B social media “half-truths” and myths have been floating around:
Myth#1: Nobody Uses Social Media for Business
A lot of business owners feel that Facebook, Twitter, etc. is just for keeping up with friends. The fact of the matter is that social media resources are broadly used. Businesspeople are using multiple resources and investing aggressively in different media channels.
Keep in mind, however, that the perceived importance of using social media for business depends on the industry. This chart illustrates that different sectors regard social media marketing to be more important than others:
Myth #2: Community is the Core of Any Social Media Strategy
The word “community” itself is often misunderstood — it’s the core spirit underlying social media, but there’s a difference between “community ethos” and “community creation.” Social media provides the opportunity, but not the obligation, to interact with others. The webinar shared this Venn diagram to help illustrate the point:
Myth #3: Metrics are Difficult to Measure
Social media is very measurable. Its success is no more difficult to measure than other online marketing, as long as you’re clear about business goals and make measurement a priority. In fact, B2B companies are usually better at measurement.
The important thing is to identify your main focus areas:
- Where is the real opportunity? Make sure your target audience is clear. Use 3rd party sources like Comscore and Nielsen to investigate target audience participation in social media. Survey your customers, look into which social media sites are driving the most traffic to your website, and find out where your best leads come from.
- Immerse yourself in key channels. Each social media channel has its different nuances. Immerse yourself and commit to finding out how these sites work and what matters most for your business.
- Do less with more. You won’t have the resources to execute effectively on everything, but you can do less (social media) with more (resources).
- Stay organized to stay focused. Carefully target your initiatives for specific target audiences and objectives.
- Focus on business metrics, not social media metrics. Business metrics are more important when it comes to benefiting your bottom line.
The webinar concluded with a POST analogy:
People — Understand how your target customers use social media during the business buying process.
Objectives –Align social media and activity with business goals.
Strategy — Determine how your objectives will change your relationships with customers.
Technology — Choose the appropriate tools and tactics to deploy.
Overall, the webinar shared some interesting stats about B2B social media adoption. Hopefully you found the information valuable!
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This week at Affiliate Summit west there was a Women of SEO site clinic. The site clinic was no different than the previous day’s SEO Site Review clinic with Greg Boser, Michael Gray, Michael Streko and Rae Hoffman except for the fact that it had 75% more estrogen (on the high end, anyway — the two Michaels were on the panel, after all ;P). Rae has expressed previous sentiments about the whole “Women of SEO” hoopla and balked at the idea of being asked to be on a female-only panel (via this post at WhoisAndrewWee.com):
“I personally would have been offended to be asked to be on that panel. I’m on a panel because I’m good at what I do and not because I wear a bra. I’m not knocking the skills of any of the ladies appearing on that panel…[but] find the whole idea of the panel a bit gimmicky and a bit of a put down, as if there needs to be a “all female panel” to get smart women on stage.”
I see her point — I mean, it’s not like organizers would go out of their way to have an all-black or an all-Asian panel unless the session specifically marketed their point of view as a selling point (e.g., “How Female-Friendly is Your Website?”). It is a bit gimmicky, and I can see how some females would be offended — it’s hard to be treated equally if you’re singled out for being different.
On the other hand, I understand that conferences need to get butts into seats and take various measures to pique interest, whether that’s by having a “Smackdown,” a “Black Hat vs. White Hat” panel, or an all-female lineup. Plus, it’s not like these women wouldn’t have otherwise spoken or presented if there were no “Women of SEO” panel — conferences usually assemble talented, savvy females instead of just plucking three or four people with the required anatomy (or lack thereof) out of the Expo Hall and shoving them towards the stage.
So is it offensive to have a female-only panel at a conference, or to specifically require X-number of female speakers at at event in order to create more of a balance, or is it not a big deal? I pinged Kristy Bolsinger, Christa Watson and Kate Morris, three of the participants of the Women of SEO site clinic panel (along with Carolyn Shelby and Jane Copland — poor Lyndsay Walker got denied entry into the US), for their input. Check out the brief video interview below:
Kristy, Christa and Kate — Girl Power at Affiliate Summit West from 10e20 on Vimeo.
Personally, I’ve seen an increase of females in Internet marketing in the past four years of my career, and I think it’s great that the industry’s becoming more diverse. I don’t really mind the “female” angle at conferences so long as they’re featuring the best possible people (instead of females for “females’ sake”), whether it’s for a women-only panel or if there’s a mix of men and women speakers. What do you think about the treatment of females in the Internet marketing industry (or other male-dominated industries)? Are we on equal footing, or are we given special treatment?
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Top Tips from the SEO Site Clinic at Affiliate Summit West
Jan 19, 2010 by Rebecca Kelley | Conferences and EventsYesterday at Affiliate Summit West I attended an all-star SEO site clinic featuring some of the top SEOs in our industry. Rae Hoffman, Greg Boser, Michael Gray and Mike Streko were all on the panel and politely eviscerated audience members’ websites, dishing out invaluable information and giving great advice. Below I’ve compiled some of the top tips and tactics every webmaster should keep in mind:
SEO Site Clinic panelists
- Stay on top of those status codes! Make sure you’re checking your status codes so that your site is returning the proper codes for appropriate situations. One man’s site page was returning a 400, and Michael Gray urged him to look into what was causing the 400 and fixing the bad request.
- Move that site off Blogger! Greg Boser said that “serious” sites need to move off Blogger and other hosted service sites. You’ll bring traffic and links to your own domain rather than the parent domain/host, and it’s just more professional and better for business to have a separate set up.
- Make sure your Javascript/CSS is on external files. Greg also said that so much can go wrong when Javascript/CSS is on the page, so keep them external to avoid any issues.
- Linking to unrelated sites can raise red flags. All of the panelists noted that one attendee’s site was linking to a poker ad at the bottom of the page. The site they were analyzing wasn’t poker-related, so this link could potentially be harmful since Google could see it as being unrelated and possibly spammy or a paid link. Indeed, the woman noted that her page’s PR had dropped 2 spots and the panelists said that a good start would be to remove the questionable link.
- Check your site for canonical issues. One man’s site had multiple copies — the www and non-www version of his site was resolving, and he also had his domain with no dashes and the domain with dashes (e.g., 10e20.com vs. 10-e-20.com). Make sure that you’re sticking with a canonical version of your website (e.g., www.nodashurl.com) and 301-redirecting other versions and iterations to this central version.
- Be aware of what your webmaster is doing. During one man’s site review, the panelists found a few one pixel by one pixel links on the homepage — holy 2001 spam, Batman! The site owner had no idea these links existed and said that he has a webmaster/programmer who handles everything. After urging him to fire his webmaster, the panelists all pointed out that you need to make sure you’re aware of what your webmaster is up to and check his work to make sure that he’s not doing anything shady (either intentionally or otherwise).
- Use a theme pyramid for information architecture. Rae suggested a “theme pyramid” approach for your website content (e.g., home page –> main categories –> sub-categories –> content), as it’s the most logical and best layout for users and for crawlers.
- The faster the server, the better. The faster your server responds, the quicker your site can get crawled and the more content will get indexed.
My absolute favorite piece of advice came from Greg Boser, who suggested that you monitor questions that pop up on Yahoo! Answers, and instead of answering them right away, pay attention to which questions seem to pop up over and over again, then author up relevant blog posts that address these questions. That way, you can cite your blog post as a reference which can drive traffic to your site and establish yourself as an expert/relevant resource. Awesome tip!
The site clinic was definitely a success and was one of the best I attended at ASW. I hope you all enjoyed some of the tidbits I shared from the panel!
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This morning I tweeted this question to 10e20’s followers:
A few responses started to trickle in, and most of them followed the same train of thought:
- ChrisBennett: “When you self proclaim that you are a ’social media expert’”
- Amabaie: “A social media d-bag is someone who asks more than he gives. The rest is just details.”
- LoriBourne: “Only promote yourself and no one else; call yourself a social media “expert”; promote yourself anonymously & hope no one notices”
- Audette: “those hateful auto DMs that try to sell you something. FAIL”
- KennyHyder: “when you ask me to be a fan of your lame ass fb fan page just because we’re friends; people that straight up ask me to follow them on twitter”
I’m sensing a bit of a pattern here. It appears that many folks’ definition of a social media d-bag is someone who is too self-promotional. Social media marketing can be a slippery slope; after all, the main point of marketing is to promote yourself or your services. However, once you throw that whole “social” element into the mix, what was once “me me me” has now evolved into “me + you + everyone we know.”
Think about a party you’ve gone to. Everyone’s been in a social situation where they’ve experienced the self-absorbed person or the one-upper. They can’t wait for you to finish your story so they can immediately best it with a “better” one involving them, or they don’t bother asking you how things have been and would instead prefer to drone on about every minute detail of their lives. These types of people are really the hit of the party, aren’t they? You sneak an eye roll to your buddy and wait until the end of the night so you can complain about “that jerk who wouldn’t stop bragging about himself.” Nobody wants to be that guy in real life among a group of twenty or so people, so why would you online across a network of millions?
Constantly tooting your own horn can be detrimental to your business. Even if you’re actually a hard worker and knowledgeable in your field, you can turn off a lot of people who may think the following:
- You’re selfish (and possibly untrustworthy). Who wants to do business with someone who only thinks about himself? How is this person going to help you if he seems to be lacking in the generosity department? Are you always going to have a hidden agenda? Will you only help someone out for personal gain?
- You’re narrow-minded. If you only share content you’ve produced or spread your own advice, people might get the impression that you might not be open-minded enough to consider other points of view or share third party information.
- You’re a possible spammer. Nothing smells spammier than self-serving comments and links that always point back to your website.
Even if the above assumptions aren’t true, a lot of people may think otherwise. Take a look at how you portray yourself socially and see if you can potentially scale back the promotional stuff. Look at the following:
- Your blog. Are you always blogging about your company or your products? Try introducing some non-company related information, such as interesting industry news you’ve heard or some general tips that your readers will find helpful.
- Your tweets. Always tweeting links to your products or services? Never responding to people who tweet at you? Mix up your tweeting style — throw in tweets to your followers, responses, general chitchat and observations, interesting links you’ve come across (that aren’t from your site), etc.
- Your comments. If you’re commenting on someone else’s blog, make the remarks relevant to the post and don’t drop a link to a specific page or blog post on your site unless it’s absolutely relevant.
- Your Facebook profile. Even if you have a fan page, mix up the wall posts once in a while. Show appreciation to your fans by giving them some acknowledgment. Share some cool tips, poll them for their opinion/input, post some pictures and videos, share industry news and information, etc.
You don’t have to be afraid to promote yourself and your business, just be mindful of how often you’re bombarding your followers and peers with self-serving information. If you mix in a healthy array of information along with the self-promotions, your promotions may end up being more beneficial because they’ll stand out more and seem more important and genuine.
Do you have any other tips on how to be self-promotional without being repetitive, selfish or pushy? Share your examples and suggestions in the comments!
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The Passion of the Crust: How Enthusiasm Creates Social Media Success
Jan 7, 2010 by Rebecca Kelley | Social Media MarketingOkay, I know this is my third Domino’s post in about a week, but pushing aside my love of pizza, they’ve actually been quite relevant to social media lately. Last week I posted about how Domino’s was displaying #newpizza Twitter feedback on their microsite and that what they displayed didn’t quite match up with Twitter’s search results. Whatever the reason for the misalignment, Domino’s got a bit of heat from various sites and bloggers (including yours truly). This week, however, a friend of mine sent me a post about how a Domino’s franchise owner in Chicago went above and beyond, and then beyond the beyond, to put out a reputation management fire using social media as the bucket of water.
To make a long story short, a woman ordered a pizza from Domino’s that took over an hour to get delivered to her house, and then turned up being the wrong order. The customer complained about the mishap on Twitter, where it was spotted by Ramon DeLeon, a managing partner from seven Domino’s in the Chicago area. He acted swiftly by doing the following:
- He contacted her and apologized (presumably via Twitter)
- He sent the correct pizza over to her
- He sent her a video apology featuring him and the store manager
- He provided pizza for 350 people at the Chicago Social Media Club, an organization the customer is involved with
You could argue that this is going a bit overboard to appease one angry customer — an apology and correct order on the house would have probably sufficed. However, it’s easier to complain when someone does too little than when he/she does too much, and DeLeon proved that by going out of his way to turn a customer’s negative experience with Domino’s into a positive one.
DeLeon has a good quote about social media:
“The only way to put out a social media fire is with social media water.”
When someone takes a complaint public, it’s best to address it publicly. Even if you have to address the issue behind closed doors, a public acknowledgment of the situation and/or a public apology shows the user and his/her followers/friends that you’re listening and taking action. Silence can be deafening, especially to angry customers.
Ramon DeLeon appears to understand this and has embraced social media with open arms. He has 2,800 followers on Twitter and updates his account regularly, interacting with people and addressing customer concerns. He monitors social media activity using a variety of tools and has created video responses to different customers’ feedback. This isn’t someone who just “gets” social media, this is someone who loves social media.
It’s one thing to assign the young intern or new hire fresh out of college all of your social media tasks because “young people get social media, right?” It’s entirely another, more successful approach to find the person who is truly passionate about your brand and about social media and actually enjoys using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc., and entrust him with your brand’s social presence. When you love what you do, it shines through and people notice. Ramon likes his job, and he likes social media. He’s embraced the latter so that he can continue to grow his business and reach out to his customers, and he’s successful at it because he cares.
You need to make sure the right person is handling your social media marketing, not just whoever’s available. It can mean the difference between failure and success, or even the difference between treading water to stay afloat and blasting across the sea in a speedboat. Users and customers are more savvy than you think, and many of us can pick up on who’s social because they feel they need to be, and who’s there because they really want to be.
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Last week I wrote about the sting of real-time product feedback and how Domino’s appeared to be filtering out some tweets that were being displayed in a feed on their homepage. Some commenters pointed out to me that a few of the tweets might have been removed for having offensive or questionable content. While I don’t necessarily think that “projectile vomiting” is inappropriate to display (hyperbolic, yes, but still valid feedback), I can make the case for filtering out a user named “cyberphucker” for a family-friendly website. Still, other comments that were safe for work appeared to be removed, but I won’t get into that right now. What I do want to talk about is when you can justify removing user-generated content. Below I’ve outlined different exceptions where deleting comments, reviews or feedback is justified.
- Profanity. Depending on the type of site you have and the type of target audience you strive to attract, you may not want your pages littered with F-bombs or other expletives. If you have a blog, a good course of action would be to have a comment policy outlined that’s easily viewable and accessible for your users. You can opt to edit comments along with a small footnote like “edited for profanity” and let first offenders squeak by. Repeat offenders can have their comments deleted altogether or can be banned for not adhering to your guidelines. With tweets, reviews and other content you may not be able to edit, you can remove the content but, as with the blog guidelines, make sure you have a comment policy or participation guidelines clearly outlined somewhere on your page or site (e.g., displaying your Twitter feed in a sidebar and underneath it saying “Profane or vulgar tweets will be removed”).
- Offensive remarks. As with profanity, depending on the nature of your site you may not tolerate comments that are misogynistic, homophobic, racist, etc. Make sure you state that this type of content won’t be allowed and are grounds for removal/deletion.
- Spam. No-brainer here — spam comments, whether they’re obvious (“Hi buy Viagra here cheap online”) or slightly more subtle (“Great post! I totally agree that [insert somewhat post-related comment here]” left by “BuyViagra”), can and should get removed.
- Trolls. If you see the same user come in and flood your blog, forum, Twitter feed, etc. with useless, negative remarks that are in no way constructive (e.g., “Your company sucks and so does your product”), that person’s probably a troll and you’re getting no value out of his contributions (genuine feedback, constructive criticism, etc).
- Threats and personal attacks. Something like “I’m going to eat your babies and make a suit out of your skin” probably isn’t helpful. Regarding personal attacks, there’s a difference between “You’re an idiot” and “Upon reading your post, I think you’re an idiot because [rebuttal #1, #2, #3, etc), so this could be tricky as sometimes you can interpret a harsh critique as a personal attack.
If you have a personal blog or want to run your company however you see fit, you can obviously make up your own rules about what you approve and what you reject or delete. I’ve personally left critical comments on people’s blogs that weren’t offensive and have been disappointed to see that they never made it out of the moderation queue — some people just don’t like to be painted in a negative light and will adjust user feedback accordingly.
However, if you’re a brand who prides yourself on listening to your customers and taking their feedback seriously, you have to be able to stomach the not-so-nice remarks. Comments like “This necklace is cheap and broke when I tried adjusting it,” “The new car design is ugly as can be,” “The new recipe made me gag,” “You don’t know what you’re talking about…”, etc., while unpleasant to receive, can actually make you and your business better if you can push aside the hurt feelings and think about what you can derive from these critiques in order to improve your product, your customer service, your researching skills, whatever it is you’re marketing.
What do you guys think? When do you think it’s okay to remove user-generated content, and when should you leave it be? Share your thoughts below!
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The Sting of Real-Time Product Feedback
Dec 30, 2009 by Rebecca Kelley | Reputation Management, TwitterDomino’s Pizza recently underwent a product overhaul after their pizza was ranked among the worst in a taste test (tied with Chuck E. Cheese — ouch). Their new recipe boasts a new garlic crust, 100% mozzarella cheese with a hint of provolone, and a “sauce that’s boss.” The company even set up a micro-site called PizzaTurnaround.com that showcases a blog about the new pizza, a “documentary,” and a Twitter stream along the right sidebar that displays customer feedback.
Okay, maybe that last part wasn’t such a good idea. Someone took a screenshot of the tweets that filtered in, and they weren’t all sunshiney praises about the great new recipe:
Victor’s written before about porn account avatars showing up in our site’s Twitter stream. It’s the main problem with displaying your mentions in a widget on your site — you can’t control what comes in. The Domino’s Twitter stream showcases this beautifully — some tweets just may be negative. While some of the tweets are positive, others aren’t painting the new pizza recipe in the most favorable light. But hey, that’s the trade-off of social media, right? Once you open up the lines of communication and create a two-way dialog, you lose a bit of control over what’s being said about your brand.
How did Domino’s handle the feedback? Well, see for yourself:
Hmmm, there seems to be a suspiciously high amount of positive comments about the #newpizza. What happened to the negative remarks? Did the feedback turn good on its own? Are people just coming around on the new recipe?
Not really. It seems as if Domino’s is starting to hand-pick the good tweets and weed out the bad ones. Check out search results for the hashtag #newpizza:
If you compare the real-time search results to the Twitter stream displayed on Domino’s micro-site, you’ll notice that a couple tweets are missing. The first one is from a woman who said that her friends started “projectile vomiting” upon trying the new pizza, while the second one calls Domino’s out for their “twitter feed failure” — presumably this user has also noticed the missing negative tweets.
This isn’t the best way to handle negative feedback, especially on the Internet. You can’t just delete a comment, alter a post or remove some tweets and think they’re gone for good and that nobody will notice (especially when, in Domino’s case, you can easily compare their stream to Twitter’s search tool). Encouraging real feedback from your users and then editing out the feedback you don’t like is a pretty strong indication that you’re not taking the feedback seriously.* You can’t run your company on the basis that everyone must love and agree with your product 100% of the time — that’s a recipe for failure (even if the sauce is boss).
In Domino’s case, they tried to have their garlic crusty pizza and eat it too. If you decide to get into social media and market your business and products on social networks, you have to acknowledge and accept the fact that you won’t be able to control what people say about you. If you can’t take the heat, you need to step away from the wood-fired pizza brick oven, so to speak. If Domino’s didn’t want to showcase negative comments about their new recipe, they shouldn’t have displayed the Twitter stream in the first place. You can’t just dive into the next big marketing trend and refuse to play by the trend’s rules. That’s not how social media works, and Domino’s showcased this pretty handily.
Postscript: Upon reading Tamar’s comment below, I agree that it was presumptuous of me to think that Domino’s isn’t taking the negative remarks seriously or considering them as feedback just because they’re filtering them out — that’s a mistake on my part. I also didn’t consider the fact that some content may be removed if it’s profane or offensive to users. However, there are still some tweets which don’t fall into either category that are being removed, and I think that’s a tactic they should reconsider.
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