Your Company — and Idea Paint — Should be Listening
November 13, 2008
Why does social media matter? Because people are talking about your company … whether you know it or not.
Consider Idea Paint, which is supposed to “transform any smooth surface into a high-performance dry-erase utility surface.”
Not so, according to Alex Rudloff – a fairly influential member of the Twitter community. The other day, he revealed to his 1,703 followers that Idea Paint dried with bubbles and bumps on his wall. Clearly, a bumpy dry-erase board won’t get the job done. This is not the message Idea Paint wants spreading through the Internet.
If Idea Paint had created “alerts” – using services such as Google Alerts or Tweet Beep – they would have known immediately that someone was telling the world that their product fell short of expectations … and they could have responded quickly. Instead, almost 2,000 people – many of whom might find the idea of “dry-erase board” paint appealing – only know that this product dries with bumps. Not exactly the message the company wants to communicate.
On the flip side of the coin, a growing number of companies are embracing Twitter as a tool to improve customer service and strengthen their brands. See ComcastCares or WholeFoods.
Is your company listening to what is being said? If not, don’t you think it’s about time to start? Your brand reputation depends on it.
