Teresa

It does become self-destructive when we can’t get past the petty grievances and move towards the advancing of social media in Australia.

But, the winds of change are blowing and attitudes are changing. I myself have met some very sharp “social media experts”.

And they’re helping me shape a bolder social media strategy. Cheers.

Sure there will be a few dodgy efforts along the way, but an attack mentality will not help any of us.

Great post

i went to a couple of the social media events this year, digital tipping point and most recently, the social media club in sydney. the turnout has been outstanding, which shows there is very high level of interest.

i’m a bit wary of the term social media expert / guru. i’m more interested in the social media campaigns that people have actually executed. there’s doesn’t seem to be that many in australia. and like u, i’m keen to connect with people working in this field overseas.

@Jonathan Crossfield – you should look at what @comcastcares does with their twitter account. u have to acknowledge (and i think u have), there are limitations on the amount of customer service that u can provide over twitter. as someone that has previously tweeted a #netregistryfail, i was surprised how fast u got back to me (within minutes) to help me with my issue.

Some great points and I’m not really going to say much, since the dust has nicely settled now on the debate.

What I would like to say is that at Marketing magazine, we’re constantly educating and conversing with our audience about digital and social marketing and how they can approach this space. After all, these are mainly client-side individuals, who possess the word ‘marketer’ or ‘marketing’ in their title. They are purely looking for factual insights and the knowledge to make decisions about what direction they should be taking in regards to social media and most importantly, what it will mean for their brand and what the ROI will be. They don’t have time to follow the gossip, and most of the time don’t care.

If would be great if the players in this space, such as some of the names above, could spend less time talking to each other (or arguing as we have seen in recent weeks) and more time talking to marketers – being leaders and pioneers. This way, hopefully we’d get some social media campaigns coming out of Australia, that are actually worth us reporting on!

For me, I like the way Matt Granfield has run with it, and not just because he is an @MarketingMag guru blogger. By blogging posts such as ‘Everything you need to know about social media monitoring’ on our site –  http://www.marketingmag.com.au/blogs/view/everything-you-need-to-know-about-social-media-monitoring-1215 – which are so helpful and informative – how can marketers say no?

Finally, if any of you are ever in Melbourne, please feel free to pop into #socialmelb on Fridays – a little like the the Sydney ‘coffee mornings’. Here, you will find some of the nicest and welcoming assortment of social media peeps you can imagine from a range of industries. On my ride back to the office every week, I feel so inspired by the conversations I’ve just had, many not even about social media.

Enjoy your weekends.

Kate

Without dragging up very single tweet, and at the risk of being forced to justify myself – something I don’t think I should have to do – the tweet you refer to was after tweets and DMs where I had asked for further info by DM. Even our CEO had tweeted the previous evening asking for details but didn’t get a response after 12 hours so we couldn’t fix the issue, and Mark’s designer I had also messaged had not got back to us with anything. Hence why limitations had to be placed on how much I chased this particular issue in 140 characters considering Twitter was set up as a marketing strategy – and a minor one in my daily duties at that – and not initially as a support one.

We have successfully chased up many support issues on Twitter and helped people out directly by serving as a back-door into the customer service team downstairs. I am sure Twitter searches of netregistry will show this – chasing up ticket numbers, clarifying current issues and offering advice where possible. This is the preliminary toe in the water for Netregistry to explore how usable Twitter is as a tool and one that, if it becomes popular for support issues, may eventually have a more direct support strategy developed instead of marketing serving as go-between. But it has to prove itself. I started the Twitter strategy purely on my own and have gradually seen it change people’s minds in the company as to what it can achieve.

But in this case, it was becoming an issue that we were not being provided with anything to go on and there has to be a point where we say ‘no’ because we’re not capable of mind reading.

This was what was unspoken and what Mark sought to correct when he tweeted

“just had a call from my mate @kimota – turns out he is @netregistry but not official support. thanks for stepping in to help out” – as he sought to clarify what had occurred. So, from “Fail” to “Thanks” in a couple of tweets.

We went into a series of DMs and phone calls that eventually resulted in Mark discovering that Netregistry was not at fault at all and never had been. I have great respect for Mark, which was why I never gave names in my last comment. I understand he was frustrated with an email problem not of his making at the time when he sent that tweet. We resolved everything by phone and DM once he realised we had been trying to get the details all along on a Twitter stream that was never set up for support, doesn’t claim to be support, yet still is willing to provide it when possible. I’m pretty sure if you asked him he would reiterate what I’ve said.

After all, would you contact @DellNews with your laptop problems or seek out one specifically set up for support issues?

It is a mistake to assume every business account is set up for support and I think limits dramatically how businesses can or should use twitter. Who made up that rule that Twitter has to be used in that way in the first place? Suddenly, the person running a company Twitter feed has to have a line into the CEO, look after support issues, provide marketing, build relationships through conversations, offer special deals, publicise the blog and a heap of other supposed things businesses should do. It really is incorrect to say to anyone that there is a definitive right and wrong way for a business to use Twitter which is why discussion and meet-ups like tonight’s Social Media Sydney are so important.

And yes, I really do think encouragement and help is what is required. If I am a business considering whether social media is a good or bad use of resources, am I more or less likely to embrace Twitter as a tool if the first time I tweet something someone doesn’t like, I get blasted with ‘fail’ retweets across my customer base for daring to participate without ‘knowing the rules’?

This is exactly the criticism and sniping that causes businesses to think twice. You may feel that is their loss, but it’s not. It is the whole industry’s loss if business decides social media is equivalent to standing up and having rotten tomatoes thrown at you and smiling while they do it.

What would be more welcome, would be tweets offering constructive criticism – “BigPondTeam was criticised for forwarding people to their support phone line on twitter. I suggest finding a way to offer support.” –
rather than ridicule, standing and pointing and shouting Fail! After all, aren’t we supposed to be the ones businesses come to for advice? Will they, if they think that’s how we advise them?

You say it yourself.

“The sooner marketing and PR folks stop their whining and start giving their clients good advice about how to be open, honest, transparent and provide good service, the sooner their clients will start getting positive feedback in social media.”

Shouldn’t this also apply to how we – as supposedly the ones who understand social media – engage with businesses on Twitter?

Criticise brands, sure, but attack? Terrible idea.

Good advice – not harsh attacks.

Far too few helping. Too much marking of territory. And, while Mumbrella and some others don’t like to be told this, way too much tabloid bullshit that focuses on trying to be scandalous rather than on accurate reportage.

No wonder the heritage media don’t take us seriously.

And, while I do my level best to be helpful and a good guy, I’ve been known to get my back up. Which belittles me, my industry and my peers.

When you told Mark Jones “‘fraid I wouldn’t be able to help you directly. Please connect him with support on 1800 78 80 82″ (http://twitter.com/Netregistry/statuses/1589721560) that was appalling and deserved criticism. How can you classify that as a “misunderstanding”? As Mark replied: “if yr a biz on twitter, we expect customer support, not buck passing back long waits at teh call centre.”

And I didn’t see a tweet from him saying “everything is fixed now, it was a misunderstanding”.

If anyone thinks businesses, including agencies, should be immune from criticism and deserve “encouragement and support for embracing Twitter”, I have to disagree.

That’s like saying we should have supported them for getting a Web site in 1995. Give me a break. It doesn’t matter if they provide bad service via a telephone call or Twitter. Bad service is bad service and deserves criticism.

We are their customers. If they treat us badly – whether its through telling us “sorry can’t help you, ring support” via Twitter or lying to us through a bullshit YouTube campaign like Naked did for Witchery – then they deserve criticism and contempt.

And this whole “oh the social media kids are so bitchy” rant is just pathetic. Yes – the people have a voice. And they talk about the brands they like (iphone?) just as much as they talk about the brands they don’t like, just like they always have. The only difference now is that they have a louder voice. Get over it and deal with it and tell your clients to treat them with some respect.

The sooner marketing and PR folks stop their whining and start giving their clients good advice about how to be open, honest, transparent and provide good service, the sooner their clients will start getting positive feedback in social media.