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Using Social Media to Listen to ConsumersA Vocal Few Don’t Represent the Majority but Could Signify a Larger Issue NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- If the social-media sphere Twitter freaking out over a packaging design that they attacks your brand, do “real people” hear the screams? don’t like,” said Diane Hessan, CEO of Communispace. Not likely, according to surveys that indicate marketers She added, “These are people online, having shouldn’t rush to quiet every micro-outrage that sweeps conversations, and yet they are total y out of the loop on stuff us marketing junkies love to obsess over.” Last fall, Johnson & Johnson’s Motrin broke creative of a Out of the loop
mom complaining that wearing your baby “in fashion,” For example, in the past month, the Twitter community via a sling, can cause back and neck pain. It offended has been titil ated by South by Southwest, AT&T, some in the social-media sphere, and an army of “Lost” and the redesign of Skittles.com. Missing from Twittering moms got the brand to yank the ad and issue the list are things the Communispace and Lightspeed a mea culpa on its site. But, according to a Lightspeed surveys, both separately commissioned on Ad Age’s Research survey, almost 90% of women had never seen behalf, found that the general population is fired up the ad. Once they saw it, about 45% liked the video, about, such as the AIG bonuses and the bank-bailout 41% had no feelings about it, and 15% didn’t like it. Even fewer, 8%, said it negatively affected their feelings of the brand, compared with the 32% who said it made There’s also the straight numbers game: While 64% of them like the brand more. Was Motrin’s decision to yank Communispace respondents had heard of Twitter, only the ad and apologize the right one -- even if it made the 6% used it. The Lightspeed responses indicated even fewer users had heard of it (3%), and most of the 58% who had knew of it from someone they know or Skittles recently redesigned its website and adopted a sort of “anti-site.” Instead of building a destination, it built an overlay that sat atop several social-media At the time of the Motrin move, Ad Age, per Alexa, communities: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia. reported that only about 0.15% of the world’s It launched debate -- and mischief -- in the Twitterverse internet users were on the site, meaning, by the as users started posting sometimes-naughty comments most generous estimate, about 1.1 million Americans. about the candy to the social-media sites. But when Communispace found that the more emotional private online community Communispace asked more responses were about the firestorm and how Johnson than 300 people if they’d heard of the endeavor, only 6% & Johnson had responded, not about the actual ad. Of course, it’s never a good idea to tick off even a The internet has made it easier than ever for consumers smal group of vocal consumers. But the recent data to get their opinions heard -- and for marketers to listen. just reinforce that marketers are “downright jittery,” But it also creates real challenges: Do marketers know Ms. Hessan said. “To some extent they have lost who they’re listening to? And at what point does the echo confidence in the thoughtful decisions they’ve made chamber of social media drown out the real opinions of because an anonymous person can get on some new social-media tool and raise questions about quality of decisions.” “The data is a real y compel ing reminder that a lot of our target consumers are not the people who are sitting on It’s not that marketers shouldn’t listen and respond to what people are saying about them on the web. Many a company has been improved by responding to vocal online pundits. Look who’s talking
But the surveys do suggest that companies should make
sure they know who they’re listening to. “Marketers
need to know how active their customers are on social
technologies,” said Josh Bernoff, VP-principal analyst at
Forrester Research.
Ed Kel er, CEO of Kel er Fay Group, said his research suggests as much as half of online word-of-mouth impressions are generated by teenagers; that means an online uproar might mean more for Facebook than it does for Motrin. While online criticism may not be cause to act, it can provide companies insight into passionate bases they didn’t know they had. “Listening doesn’t mean getting one smal piece of data and taking action,” Ms. Hessan said. “Sometimes it means getting a piece of data and probing further.”
How to listen and respond more effectively
KNOW YOUR CONSUMERS’ SOCIAL-MEDIA HABITS.
“What you see is not necessarily representative of people
using the social technologies, but the people using those
social technologies and like to talk,” said Forrester’s Josh
Bernoff.
HAVE A RESPONSE MECHANISM IN PLACE. Don’t
wait until you have vocal critics to design a response plan.
Rather than pul ing its ad and issuing an apology on its site
that confused the 90% of people who weren’t aware of the
criticism, Motrin could have engaged the angry mob.
LOOK FOR CHANGES IN CHATTER. If suddenly the
conversation doubles, or if people start talking about your
brand in a way they weren’t the day before, something
important is happening. “Changes in attitudes are more
significant about attitudes themselves,” Mr. Bernoff said.
PINPOINT PASSION. Your critics can provide you with
insight into a base you didn’t know existed. Who, for
example, were these “attachment parenting” moms so
outraged by Motrin? Not al criticism is cause for action,
Communispace’s Diane Hessan said. But it is cause to
dig deeper.

Source: http://adclub.org/resources/Documents/AdAge_SocialMedia_33009.pdf