MaestroJ - digital strategy & new media

The inaugural Social Media Club Sydney meet up is due to be held 27th April 2009. It promises to be one of the more exciting new events this year, with a great attendance list of industry members.

But before the event has even begun, it has been marred by a very public spat amongst its members, organisers and critics. Its founder describes the club as an inclusive non-profit which began as a “love” project, but there has been some accusations since of “commercial infiltration” and fears of the club becoming a self-imposed regulatory body.

I was and still am very much looking forward to attending this event, even with the squabbling. Social media marketing is a relatively new field, and thus, there are only a few agreed upon best practices, with only a few initiatives in Australia that have been very successful and can be used as case studies. Where the fundamental ingredient is “opinion” discord is bound to ensue.

While it is the buzz marketing term at the moment, organisations should tread carefully when attempting any kind of engagement with social media.

The most well-known recent example of social media controversy must be the fake Stephen Conroy and Telstra; where a Telstra employee set up a Twitter account pretending to be Communications minister Stephen Conroy. Telstra also launched its Twitter customer service account to numerous criticism, with industry experts judging Telstra’s responses robotic and automated, which defeats the purpose of a social media channel. Witchery’s attempt was also quickly outed as fake and subsequently vilified, where a young woman was “looking” for a potential suitor by posting a video in Youtube.

It seems enough to turn anyone away from all the hoo-ha.

For any organisation wanting to engage with social media my only warning is this: people will disagree with you, they will voice their disapproval/conflict/scorn/hostility towards your product, service and even your methods of attempting to make it better.

There will be negative comments and it will be very public.

This is an important consideration for any organisation. But more importantly, these comments will probably happen regardless.

However, if you can muster up a bit of courage, do some research, engage some consultants, and give it time, the benefits of social media marketing will far outweigh the negatives.