The Buffalo Blog

Habitat Get It So Wrong

Now we all know that there is a debate that rages throughout the social media world, one that spawns passionate statements about freedom, corporate responsibility and user experience.   This debate tends to revolve around one issue:  Should companies be taking advantage of social media to directly sell to their consumers.  The general consensus is that businesses can (and I would say, should) engage with customers at a personal level, maintaining a strict adherence to a self imposed rule of no selling. 

Social media can be used to give a company a platform to actually engage with the public, whether they are potential customers or not.  There is an exceptionally important line that should, by no means, be crossed by any organisation, or for that matter individual: do not capitalise on a serious social media conversation in order to push your product or service.  Habitat, the furniture retailer, decided to take an enormous step over that line and is now facing an online backlash of unprecedented proportions.

The over zealous retailer (@habitatuk) decided to hashtag (keywords used on Twitter to help users track posts on specific themes, achieved by putting a #theme before the tweet) new season products with incredibly popular and some sensitive hashtags such as #Iran, #iPhone and #Apple.  Of course none of the used themes had anything to do with the subsequent tweets, Habitat were simply using the hashtags to pitch their product to as many people as possible.

This irresponsible and deplorable marketing tactic earnt Habitat a plethora of condemning articles within the online press not to mention the flood of angry tweets sent directly to @habitatuk.  They have effectively alienated any online consumer they were attempting to target, to rub salt in the wounds Habitat have (as I write this blog) as yet apologised for this ridiculous stunt, the company has simply deleted the offending tweets. 

The power of social media tools such as Twitter has become more evident every day.  Earlier in the week, Twitter users managed to skew an insensitive poll on the Daily Mail site, in fact I think more people voted on that poll than on many other Daily Mail surveys.  This time, it was incredible to see how quickly a corporate error can snowball as well as the millions of Twitter users leaping to protect the dignity of planet Twitter. 

The Social Media Today blog captured screen shots and posted the original article alerting a host of other publications and media outlets (including Sky News) to the story.   Twitter users were already moving in on the kill as publications such as ComputerWorldUK and Computer Weekly uploaded scathing articles.   I expect the evening news will pay homage to the story as well as the morning Metro.

This only goes to show how quickly things can go wrong when companies decide to simply ignore unwritten protocol, wade into the online furore and attempt to unscrupulously sell to a highly aware and totally connected community.  Whether this marketing blunder was orchestrated in-house or through a marcomms agency, is yet to be clear.  Organisations have to be fully aware of the potential consequences of getting the online conversation wrong. 

Social media does give businesses the opportunity to interact at a personal level with potential customers, however it is a wild beast and businesses should be prepared to be on the backfoot from the outset and should always follow an honest and open approach to any interaction. Habitat didn’t and one thing is for certain, they have severely damaged their image and reputation with millions of potential consumers; and all in under 140 characters.    

Cease and desist! The myopia of content blocking

It’s about time for another ‘why don’t the big companies get it?!’ blog. The subject to enflame my social media sensibilities today is the wonderfully cringe-inducing stunt pulled by Sacha Baron Cohen at the recent MTV Awards. The lowdown is the entirely devoid of shame, Cohen, ‘flew’ into the arena dressed as a trouser-deficient angel – in the guise of his alter ego Bruno. He promptly crashed into the ceiling and descended directly in a wonderfully faux-accident to place his crotch on Eminem’s face. The stunt was hilarious and the reaction of Eminem and his crew equally so. Whether they were in on it is beside the point.

The key point is the enormous share-ability of the footage and the fact that the company are doing everything in their power to hinder such sharing. Just try to find the video on the popular sharing sites on the internet. Chances are you’ll bit hit with some red text saying ‘Due to copyright issues you cannot view this video’. Now how many people are going to see that and simply give up? You can bet it’s a large proportion. If your content isn’t where your audience is, don’t expect them to search for too long.

The myopia of large organisations (mentioning no names) still trying to dictate terms to the audience they covert are astounding. OK so the footage was sufficiently gruesome to make it into the newspapers, but what of those that don’t read them. What of those that didn’t see the MTV awards and want to see the video for themselves. Why can’t they? And why can’t they share the video on their blogs or Facebook pages? No, the video can only be seen on a designated MTV page. Hindering the spread of media content is negating a ton of free brand awareness.

The whole ‘build it and they will come’ mantra is fast eroding as those in the Web 2.0 space realise that you can’t dictate where people congregate. If you build something like a social network or a video sharing portal, the chances of it taking off are as slim as they get. People only have so much time to engage in such things so marketers need to get savvy, work out where they are and engage where they are. Forcing everyone to come to your site regardless of what they want is simply reducing the audience by a huge amount.

It’s always good to be constructive at such times as we have been accused of taking an overly negative tone in the past. So, to those lumbering giants that continue to squash any conversation about their brands through heavy handed legal practice and so on, why not ease up? If people want to talk about you it’s a blessing not a curse. Engage with them, give them even more reasons to talk. If they want to share your videos, let them. And if you want them to visit your website, why not offer them something more to play with?

Give it a go – you might like it…

Oh, and by the way, I’m not going to put up a link to the official video.