Comments on: Will Social Media Make Businesses More Ethical?

By: Neicole

Neicole — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:35:35 +0000

I don’t think of clients as friends, for the most part, either. And I totally agree with you that most consumers (including me) don’t want to be friends with businesses or brands. All the research indicates that, and it isn’t really a surprise, is it?

That said, the research also shows that a lot of consumers are willing to have “relationships” with businesses, when they get things like coupons, discounts, freebies, etc.

The point of the post wasn’t that consumers want to be our friends. It was the other way around. If you are following your customers and reading their tweets or posts, they become more real to you. I’m thinking that if businesses are engaging in social media in the “traditional” way of conversing and building relationships, or at least following and monitoring people, then they are forced to encounter customers as regular people every day, rather than just reading reports about sentiment, etc. And these encounters have a psychological impact.

That said, if you’ve read my blog, you’ll know I’m not a big adherent of the traditional approach

By: Urs E. Gattiker

Urs E. Gattiker — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:27:41 +0000

Neicole

Your blog post leaves me a bit puzzled or at least wondering. For instance, personalising the customer relationship as a global brand is difficult. I am not sure if social media does help here very much. But maybe we see things a bit different across the pond here in Europe. Most consumers here don’t want to be friends with brands or have a so-called relationship – however we wish to define this term.

Nevertheless, I want to be treated with respect and get value for money. Moreover, I do want to get help in case the product fails to work properly and if the product fails to work properly while still being under warranty it needs fixing.

Just recently I had to bring my garment bag in for having a zipper inside the bag fixed. Unfortunately, product warranty had expired by then. Going to the store and convincing the manager that this needed fixing took a bit of talking but in the end the Bree people came through.

I doubt if a stream of tweets with the Bree people would have done the trick. And no, neither have I ever gone to their website or blog, why should I when I can get great service including the touch and feel of their products in their stores?

So for me things get real face-to-face and not on Twitter or Facebook as we discussed here:

http://commetrics.com/articles/twitter-wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee-have-a-conversation-instead/

What you think? Am I not getting the message here?

@ComMetrics

By: Neicole

Neicole — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:08:04 +0000

Boy, there are a lot of differing opinions on this. Misti, you may be right. It’s true that in a larger business, only a certain number of people in the company are going to be doing social media work. The others won’t see those customers. And if you’re only looking at @’s and company mentions, you won’t connect as much. On the other hand, the act of coming up with a social media strategy, I find, involves thinking about your customers and what they need, first. That’s one of the reasons I like the user experience field, as well. It forces that kind of thinking. That also makes the customer at least a little more real.

Thanks for your comment, Cheryl. I was actually a little nervous making those analogies. I’m glad you liked them and didn’t find them offensive.