Social media crises ‘reflect what is wrong with your company’

Knowing yourself, staying focused and being “you” might sound like so many self-help clichés, but they are solid principles when it comes to social media. Yann Gourvennec, director for web, digital and social media at Orange Group, shared a few pieces of advice on how to build awareness in social media and manage a crisis effectively.

What trends have you identified in corporate social media management lately? Do they apply to Romania too?

First, social media is reaching maturity and is no longer considered an innovation. Second, barring a few exceptions, social media is now part of everything we do, and has become an integral part of digital marketing; b2b is no exception – on the contrary. Digital marketers who have failed to delve into the nitty-gritty of social media have missed something big and they had better catch up.

Lastly, social media is no longer restricted to a particular team within the digital department; it can be used by each and every one of us in business. Very few companies are an exception to this rule. The impact on b2b marketing might even be more important than that on b2c marketing, however counter-intuitive it may seem.

As for Romania, we are talking about a country in which there is already a very high level of IT knowledge and expertise. There are even some international high-tech giants that are Romanian, such as Bitdefender, so it would not be right to treat Romania as separate from the rest of the world.

Having said that, there are real regional differences in social media adoption both quantitatively and quantitatively, but the results of these discrepancies are sometimes surprising. Looking at the profile of the users of the Orange Worldwide page you might be very surprised to learn that CEE users amount to more than 35 percent of our overall users: Poland is by far the biggest fan base in our portfolio, but Romania is not very far behind in proportion, given it is a smaller country. More than 5 percent of our users are Romanian, in fact.

What can a Romanian company do to build brand awareness in social media?

First and foremost, know one’s brand and use social networks consistently with regard to your image, and your overall marketing strategy.

Secondly, don’t shift your focus from business to social media: obviously, social media should support your business by enhancing your brand experience, awareness and/or visibility. If it distracts you from doing business, then don’t do it.

Thirdly, focus on content: if you are in b2b, it will have to be very professional (in-depth articles about your visions and technical prowess for instance). If you are in b2c, your content has to be essentially entertaining, mostly on Facebook, on which users rarely want to be bothered with serious stuff but are more interested in games, polls and interaction.

Fourth, be yourself: there is nothing worse than bombastic boasts (such as “we are the leaders!” mostly when it’s not true and you are only leader of a niche, and therefore not a leader) or salespeople trying to sell their wares on social media. Think of keeping your readers/users and customers happy first, and then think of yourself. Be simple and natural, and when you produce content make it interesting for them, and not for you. Lastly, “socialize” your website: not by multiplying Facebook buttons, but by making your (interesting) content easier to share.

How can companies manage a crisis with the help of social media?

Despite what most people think, and despite the usual romantic stories told about internet crises and rumors, managing crises is a long-term rather than short-term exercise. Crises in social media reflect what is bad about your company, not what is wrong with your community management or the way you handle it. Here are my five tips for managing crises.

Fix internal problems first: things that you do in your day-to-day business may be kept hidden, but not in social media. Eventually, social media reveals more about the way that you are organized internally than about anything else.

Secondly, work on the process: if you are responding to events as a crisis arises, and then building the process as it happens, it means that you have done something wrong. You should work on that process from day one, before a crisis takes place.

Thirdly, make your PR go social: don’t put all your eggs in the same basket; your PR and social media departments should work hand-in-hand. There is nothing that the community management team should do without referring to PR when a crisis arises, and vice versa, there is nothing that PR is aware of that should not be communicated to the community management team, inclusive of the stances which have to be taken and displayed. Don’t take the Lone Ranger approach by letting community managers express themselves in the name of the company even though they haven’t received clearance for it. This applies to large companies and mostly listed companies, for which external communications are extremely critical, and may not be applicable to smaller enterprises.

Fourth, prepare for the worst to happen outside normal working hours: my experience of crises online has shown that the worst problems often occur on a Friday night from 8 pm onwards or during the weekend, or at night. Work with vendors in order to set up round-the-clock moderation when necessary, in multiple languages when you are a worldwide company.

Fifth, set up your alerting system: not to generate alerts in real time all the time, but to alert you to problems in real time when it is really necessary.

All these are applicable to companies with strong brand awareness, though are most relevant to large companies. Listed companies rank high on the agenda with regard to crisis management issues and the need to industrialize the process around them.

What do you think the ratio for the implementation of social media campaigns should be in the company’s entire media budget?

Social media marketing has to be thought of in the long-term, not in the short term.

My recommendation would be to build engagement and then spend money, not the other way round. Each time I am in charge of a new digital department, I start working on my content strategy and building the content, both externally and internally, which will fuel my digital strategy. Once I have done that, I can start to crystallize communities around the content which we have created, as well as adapt the content to the liking of our audiences. The second step is to grow the network so that it reaches a critical mass. The third stage is to create synergies between the pages and the different platforms that we use.

Once I have sorted out all my budgets, and made considerable savings, then and only then can I invest my money, with great care, on advertising to promote this content and bring back traffic to my main platforms.

My last recommendation would be to say to companies that they shouldn’t spend millions on word-of-mouth because word-of-mouth is supposed to be cost-effective; otherwise it is just advertising and advertising works best in traditional media.

My main frustration with regard to social advertising is to see that mainstream social media platforms have done very little to reinvent advertising so far. But this will probably change in the medium term, hopefully. Now that we have grown a critical mass, we might consider advertising to speed things up or bring them to the next level, but I do not expect those spends to grow out of proportion and much in excess of 10 percent of my overall budget, in the very long run.

CV Yann Gourvennec