The Victorian Taxi Association(VTA)’s “failed” social media
campaign recently made headlines. News feeds were flooded with reports of how
the campaign “backfired” and was an “epic fail”. A
news site even went so far as to say that it was the “social media fail of
the year”.
In the aftermath, the VTA has parted ways with the agency
responsible for the campaign, just days after the campaign was launched. The VTA
released a statement stating that the “campaign concept and delivery did not match
our intention”, but asserted that the organisation wanted to “connect with
customers and listen to their feedback in order to build a better service.”
Now that the hullaballoo has somewhat receded, it is
probably timely to reflect on whether this campaign actually went awry, and
whether in the bigger scheme of things, the VTA was deserving of all the mud
that has been slung at them in the media.
I don’t profess to be a social media expert in any sense of
the word, but I think the intent of the whole campaign deserves some scrutiny.
The VTA themselves expressly stated that the point of the campaign was to connect
with customers and build community engagement. If this is so, then all comments
– good or bad – should in fact be valuable in helping it to be “a better
service”. To their credit, this is something that the VTA themselves have
alluded to in the statement they released.
However, it seems to me that the VTA
have self-inflicted their woes by claiming all in one breath that they were
listening to their customers, but that the means in which they have encouraged
this and succeeded in doing so – purely in the amount of feedback they received
– needs a “thorough review”.
In my opinion, there is a grey area where the line is drawn
between social media marketing (ie: good stories and good stories only – god
forbid anything that may remotely damage our reputation be publicly discussed) and
community engagement (ie: good or bad, your opinions matter and we will be open
about it for everyone to engage in). With this campaign, did the VTA want to
challenge their nemesis Uber and build confidence in their brand, or did they actually
want to engage their community online?
If it was the former, then the execution of the campaign was
never going to work. The VTA were obviously already aware of some of the key
issues that their customers were facing with their service, and presumably were
trying to turn the negativity around by attempting to extract feel-good stories
from their users. The issue with this premise is that the chances of any good
stories emerging from a large proportion of dissatisfied customers was always
going to be slim.
On the other hand, if the VTA wanted to build their community
engagement, then in my opinion, the campaign was a massive success.
The trouble is that unfortunately – or rather, expectedly – the
media has chosen to highlight the campaign bits that were “negative”, and this
whole saga has suddenly turned into one big public relations disaster.
Some key thoughts on social media strategy and execution, as
I mull over this particular case:
Always know your intent on social media. Are you wanting to
engage your community, or are your social media efforts a branding exercise?
There is a fine line between the two– don’t try to bundle both together in the
hopes that something beautiful will emerge from the mix.
Know your audience’s perception of your organisation before
you settle on a social media strategy. As we have seen, often times a customer
base that doesn’t feel connected to your brand will breed more negativity in an
open forum. This is fine if you are actually listening and wanting to engage your
community online, but it could also do a lot of harm if your intent was
different.
Listen and participate. To VTA’s credit, they have stated
that their focus is now to address the feedback that they have received, and
the CEO has committed to ensure that all passenger issues are captured.
Social media – there are many knowns, but also a whole lot
of unknowns. It is a learning journey for all, and as much as the VTA has
bumbled their way through this social media campaign, I give credit to them for
taking customer feedback seriously and working on turning things around.
Su grew up dreaming of being a journalist, dodging bullets
and gunfire with a camera thrust in front of her reporting from a war zone.
Having realised that she is not really as agile as she thought, she has settled
for dodging cockroaches in metropolitan Sydney as her adrenaline fix. Su is
inquisitive and loves a good challenge, which is why she has chosen to produce
conferences at Akolade. In her spare time, Su likes to read, drink green tea,
and fantasise about making the world a better place; getting rid of the need
for war journalists entirely.
No comments :
Post a Comment