Twitter, for better or for worse, has forever altered the way that humans connect with one another on a daily basis. It took the basic concept of the text message and changed it from a private conversation between two parties into a public platform for all to spread their opinions.
This, in turn, brought corporations into the social media fold as customers would be frequently tweeting away about what they loved and, more commonly, what they hated about about the brands. Twitter serves as an excellent medium for customer relationship management for brands: an opportunity to directly connect with unhappy customers to address their concerns and transform them into brand advocates. At least, that's what effective social media management looks like for a large brand.
But for some companies, consumers spit so much vitriol at them that no matter how much the brand communicates with them, its image cannot be fixed. This is where the strategy around how a company uses a tool like Twitter. Marketers and PR pros have to look carefully at a company's position in the eyes of the media, the consumers and its competitors to help dictate its social media strategy.
Clearly, J.P. Morgan missed the memo on this lesson. Right in the middle of its settlement negotiations with the US government over its role in the 2008 financial crisis (which ultimately resulted in a $13 billion settlement), the team at J.P. Morgan decided that this would be a good time to host a Twitter chat with its vice chairman, Jimmy Lee.
Call me crazy, but people don't seem to like banks very much since 2008, do they? And I don't exactly think that this is uncommon knowledge. So it should come as no surprise that thousands of individuals descended upon the Twitter chat's corpse like vultures and picked it apart so badly that J.P. Morgan ceased the chat right in the middle of it. But the damage was already done by the time they stopped it. They completely lost control of the situation.
J.P. Morgan, in its defense, isn't the first major brand to have a screwup like this. McDonalds experienced a similar crisis when it tried to start a chat with the hashtag "McDStories". It was quickly hijacked by various groups that used the social platform to bombard the brand with its grievances. Just like J.P. Morgan, McDonalds had to stop the chat almost immediately. The fact that J.P. Morgan committed the same exact social media sin after all of the negative whiplash that McDonalds saw from this makes it all the more embarrassing.
Customer relationship management is a tricky business. Don't engage with customers and they complain that you don't listen to them. Listen too closely and you just might not like what they have to hear.
But when it comes to brands like J.P. Morgan, giving consumers a vocal platform where many voices can drown out one may not be the best option. If the company's intention was really to target students in particular, as they claim, set up a series of seminars on college campuses and have local leaders appear there to speak with the students. While it may require slightly more money and time, it is in a situation that the company can control.
Twitter really has changed the way that we interact. But that changes means different things to different parties. Brands that want to communicate with their consumers or spread a message must closely examine the inherent risks that these changes have brought and weigh the benefits against them. Otherwise their carcasses will be picked clean by the flocks of tweeters above them.
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