Social Media Tips

On the ‘Tips’ page of their website, social media gurus MOSH recently posted an article that Jeremy Marks, their Community Manager wrote for the New Zealand Marketing Association.

“We have had a challenging and insightful few weeks managing the Hell Pizza campaign on social media sites. It’s always good to use others’ experience in these situations. One of my favourite clients is HELL Pizza. Back in the olden days when we were a fledgling outfit, eager to get our name out into the world we won their social media account. They are a ballsy bunch with a fantastic product and are always keen to push boundaries which makes for a fun client.

“We are often asked by prospective clients about dealing with complaints and backlash on Facebook. We actually wrote about it in our recent social media tips post a few weeks ago. HELL’s most recent campaign was to promote a rabbit pizza. They put up a billboard in Parnell, Auckland last month with the slogan ‘Rabbit Pizza – made with real rabbit, like this billboard.’ About 500 pelts were nailed to the board.

“These boys are no stranger to controversy, they have made a name for themselves because of it. As a result they are adept at dealing with the inevitably polarised views of the nation. It was an excellent campaign which received masses of media coverage both here and abroad such as this article in the Time magazine’s website. The deluge of comments was immediate. It’s important to remember that the feedback on Facebook isn’t necessarily in line with the split of opinion out in the real world. You don’t always rant about how great something is but if you hate it, you’ll sure as HELL find an avenue to vent your opinion.

 “The HELL Facebook Page was inundated with outrage and indignant animal rights protesters. Our advice to companies dealing with vitriol on the company Page is to let people have their say, don’t respond to every comment and you’ll find that your community will often stick up for you. My job as the community manager was to carefully monitor the feedback making sure there wasn’t any personal abuse being hurled around and to make sure I picked up on any legitimate complaints which needed to be handled immediately such as a cold pizza being delivered.

“ Having worked with this client for a long time, I have a vested and emotional connection to the product which can make it harder to stay professional and not take things personally. Writing a coherent Terms and Conditions note on your Facebook page is useful for the community manager to stay on track and explain to users what is tolerated on the page. Here are the HELL T&Cs, ‘This is a community page for HELL customers where we listen to feedback and interact with our fans. People that post with abusive messages, swearing or insult other fans will be banned from our Page. It’s not how we roll. And just reflect on that; how bad must you be to be banned from HELL!’

“It is important to allow negative comments on your page. As awful as it seems to allow the world to see when you have stuffed up, don’t forget no one expects you to be perfect. See it as an opportunity to show the world how great you are at handling negative feedback. Don’t be tempted to delete comments or ban users because it looks defensive and highly suspicious. And those people will find another way of letting the world know how you were all friendly when things were going well then cagey and aggressive when it wasn’t quite as rosy.”

 Above all, stay respectful to all those posting on the page, even if you disagree with them, and enjoy the liveliness of a great debate.

For more tips and information on the social media scene, please visit the website at http://www.mosh.co.nz .