ial Media Marketing is a powerful tool, but also is hard to control. This article features a couple recent cases in which social marketing has failed or gone wrong.
The Wal-Mart case
In August 2007, Wal-Mart started its own Facebook profile, aimed on students. The goal was to stimulate the consumer behavior of students on their student rooms. After a few weeks the original goal of the âWal-Mart Roommate Style Matchâ was far forgotten.
Visitors of Wal-Martâs room decoration page can leave comments; a function intended to receive praise on the decoration tool, or a few suggestions for improvement at worst. Wal-Mart did probably not expect to have their complete Facebook Wall filled with criticism on its low wages, aversion to trade unions and unhealthy competition practices.
Marketers should keep this in mind when offering customers the option to make their opinions public. You could have many satisfied customers, but when you expect a small group of âbrand terroristsâ to vent their frustrations for the whole world to see, you might want to think twice about opening a brand page on a social network site.
One of the visitors said Wal-Martâs biggest mistake was putting a âWallâ on their profile.
Wal-Mart â The second attempt
Packed with the experience of their last campaign a new attempt on social marketing was made. Wal-Mart announced the launch of a Social Marketing Campaign by allowing users to review content on their site.
A Social network site was launched for kids on the wal-mart website named âThe Hubâ. What happened was, parents had to be informed of every new registration which isnât very âcoolâ for the kids, although itâs great for parents. All content got screened by third a third party, while social networks are joined to express yourself in the way you want to. Next to that there were no options to PM or mail each other. Communication possibilities are a basic requirement for a social network site.
The marketers shouldâve realized that just one stage of child-protection is the best they can do to keep kids safe while building a popular social network. People need to be given control and have the ability to allow two-way conversations to flow without you being the only one talking.
The Molson photo contest
In November 2007, Molson pulled the plug on its Facebook photo contest. Molson’s online marketing campaign, in which students were encouraged to post pictures of themselves partying on campus, was âmisinterpretedâ as promoting irresponsible drinking.
âWe need to be communicating with our consumers because that’s where our consumers are communicating among themselves. We need to make sure we’re in that relevant channelâ, the company said.
Marketers have to be more subtle than Molson in trying to capture users’ attention. The risk always remains that the marketer can lose control of its brand. Molson is wading into uncharted territory and stepped over the line of acceptability with its Facebook campaign.
The 2008 Ford Focus, unfocussed?
In October 2007, online ads were seen about a man who roars, moves and behaves like a lion. âFakeâ news articles were found as well; âThe Lion-Man Escapes From High-Security University Research Centreâ.
The relation between the âThe Lion-Manâ and the Ford Focus stayed undiscovered by the big public. The viral failed because it was too hard to figure out what it was about. It also seems to have no purpose â thereâs no payoff. There are no clear call-to-action events, no âgo out and buy thisâ, nothing.
A lot of wasted money that ended up in an ad that looks more like a practical joke, rather than a viral campaign. Fordâs attempt on putting up a Facebook page featuring the âLion-Man of Tanzaniaâ ended up having 0 subscribers.
Titleistâs fictional golfer
Titleist is a major golfing product manufacturer that created a website for a fictional golfer and promoted it offline using formats like television advertising during major golf tournaments.
Offline marketing for an online campaign can sometimes work but itâs so much easier and cheaper to get things promoted online. Although the site really isnât that bad, thereâs no call-to-action for people to share the content or any incentives for them to upload music and videos which the site hopes they will do. People seem to forget all too easily that good content just wonât go viral â great content can and sometimes will. The videos on the site are good but arenât great.
Titleistâs marketers should have looked at ways to promote their product online via social networks where they could have gotten their video more attention and website traffic. Donât spend big dollars on TV advertising if you donât have a website to back it up.
Â
sources:
http://lab. 77agency. com/social-marketing/social-marketing-gone-wrong-the-wal-mart-case-250/
http://www. theglobeandmail. com/servlet/story/RTGAM. 20071125. wmolsonn1125/BNStory/Technology/home
http://namw. wordpress. com/2007/10/15/viral-marketing-gone-wrong/
http://www. viperchill. com/blog/2-social-media-marketing-failures/
Â
Tags: Blog, Home, Make Money, Making Money, marketing, Media, money, Online, social, Video, without, Work
