So over the past few days we have been seeing a large number of so called “Social Media Experts” (usually some one who has around 1 year experience in social media who is a self confessed expert) come’s out of the woodwork in the Australian market and start’s saying: this is how Qantas should be doing their Social Media Strategy, this is how they should be responding to customers, this is how they should run the accounts and throwing around a whole bunch of advice.
Most of these people have limited experience in working with big brands social media and most if not any have ever worked with brand reputation management social media. Where you have to deal with consumer backlash in light of negative PR for a large brand. I am not talking about some small one man shop brand which sold some bad food, I am talking about ASX listed companies and to potential problems which can happen.
Now the first thing which I find funny is the amount of people who are saying that Qantas is not doing things right by not replying to all the comments and mentions which are been thrown around the web. What this shows is that all the Social Media Experts have not even bothered to do some analysis on the mentions behind the Qantas brand and related terms.
I compiled some quick analysis and saw that when the plans were grounded by Qantas we saw over – 65,000 mentions.
In light of the new social campaign we saw over 13,000+ mentions in light of the #QuantasLuxury hash tag.
(refer to analysis below)
Qantas mentions
Now what is the point of the analysis above, it is to show that when you receive over 65,000 brand mentions you can not physically get out into the market and have a personal response for all concerned. You need to work your strategy around developing how to best respond to these comments, replying to 13,000 comments in one day or even 65,000 comments is not going to be possible is it with out automated software which I would not recommend at all, I do not get why people are recommending this at all.
This been said I think Qantas need to take a step back and sit down and build up a strategy for the next 12 months. All areas need to be looked, things such as potential outcomes both positive and negative need to be addresses. A great thing you can do is also listen to the customers, what do the real customers want the ones in which have been affected but are still with the brand. Involving customers who are still part of the brand and probably the best thing to do is not run any competitions for the moment.
Other important points to note for future Social campaigns include:
– Could Qantas use Influences to speak for the brand (blogger out reach)
– How can you manage the reply process over time.
– What properties can you use to the best effect for the brand.
– What should your messaging be?
– Who should be involved in the campaign?
