Ouch! One of the biggest complaints my clients bring to me are the bad experiences they’ve encountered on Social Media sites such as Facebook.
Well, chalk one up for the Liberty Tree Mall Facebook Page. I mean, I literally feel bad for them! The concept here was simple enough, post a photo to the Facebook page, promote one of their retailers and the advertising money they spent on the food court banner, and show them all the additional “buzz” they created for them on their Facebook page.
Well unfortunately, I can assure you that Pet Express Boston isn’t very appreciative of the “additional” social media exposure.
Taking personal opinions on the ethical debate behind puppy mills aside (I am a dog lover myself, and don’t know enough about where Pet Express gets their puppies), this is why it’s so important to not only have an experienced social media coordinator managing your social media pages, but it’s also important to have a content editing strategy in place. Is someone rifling off posts alone at their discretion? Or do you have a few people signing off and looking over the links, images and text that are going to be posted?
While it may work for blogs and news outlets to post controversial topics on their pages to increase engagement, it’s probably not best for you to associate your brand with controversial topics. Liberty Tree Mall is obviously learning this the hard way!
Not only has the post brought out the negative comments, the power of social engagement may end up being responsible for a protest and boycott. Not a good outcome…and all just from one image post!
I discussed the Top 3 Mistakes Most Companies Make on Facebook, well I think content alignment and posting execution are your number 4 and 5 mistakes. It’s important to have a strategy in place for who and how content is posted. Who and How negative and positive comments will be handled, and secondly, what types of content work well for your brand.
If you’re unsure what type of content is best for your brand, err on the side of “feel-good” content.
As an aside, this wouldn’t be a bad time for Puppy Express to launch a counter marketing campaign that features real breeders who provide their puppies to Puppy Express if in fact that’s where they get their pets. The banner with the breeder, the mother of the litter, and the litter would be a much better image than two puppies sitting by themselves. Isn’t that the worst aspect of puppy stores? Seeing the puppies sitting in the window or their crates?
And then I’d get those breeders to post and be a part of posts on their Facebook page to hopefully calm, and potentially change the opinions of those that commented negatively.
To end things on a good note, I couldn’t help but share a recent Instragram I took of my dogs. Here are Lincoln and Zoe!
