By Mike P
This morning Hotwire and our sister agency 33 Digital hosted a breakfast seminar on the driving forces that will shape digital marketing in 2010. Joined by clients and friends bridging a variety of sectors, my colleague Drew Benvie presented with Richard Baker their paper “Driving Forces of Digital Marketing in 2010”. The debate was both stimulating and surprising. The topics under discussion ranged from the rise of ‘Social TV’ and ‘social spam’ through to how to effectively measure social media PR, but one point in particular struck a chord with me.
The discussion centred on the potential pitfalls new social media communications channels can present businesses if not handled correctly. While social media platforms provide excellent channels for companies to communicate with their audiences, they can also cause headaches for businesses when minor issues escalate into large-scale crises overnight.
For media-savvy businesses that have embraced social media channels from day one, this is less of an issue. While this is a new media environment, the same truths still hold: once a crisis is spotted, there needs to be a coordinated and precise response in order to stop it escalating. The only difference lies in the tactical delivery of these messages.
The problem lies with those companies who do not fully understand social media and have shied away from using it. There could be a major crisis of confidence erupting on Twitter or Facebook, but unless the company is monitoring these sites they will be completely unaware of it until it hits the traditional print media.
Crises therefore, now have the potential to be far more damaging than ever before and businesses must proactively engage with social media channels to monitor and react in real-time. It will be interesting to see which brands manage to do this effectively in the coming months.
