Social media needs stamina, not speed
Sixty-five per cent of New Zealanders now use Facebook Messenger, followed by 24 per cent on Snapchat, 23 per cent on Whatsapp, and 20 per cent on Viber.
Pretty astounding given none of these companies existed eight years ago. It took TVNZ 57 years to hit the same levels of penetration. Again a clear message for business: You need to be present in the messenger world, be it earned or be it paid.
When it came to selecting organisations that did a good job, there was a standout winner: Air New Zealand. In the second tier of highly commended were a range of local companies including Countdown, Spark, Vodafone, Trade Me and The Warehouse.
The brickbat awards included the Government, the New Zealand Herald and Vodafone.
But the brand that caught my eye in the list of poor performers was Ekim Burgers. Wait, who exactly?
Ekim Burgers is a food van on Wellington’s Cuba St. Back in April 2015 a mum suggested that an Ekim burger may have given her son food poisoning.
The owner responded with a vitriolic Facebook rant including classy phrases like ‘‘middleclass no-idea housewives completely out of their league’’, together with a generous sprinkling of colourful language.
The lesson here is that if you bugger things up, and don’t try to right the wrongs, the stink will hang around for a long time. A long time.
The survey also asked respondents what would improve things. The top four gripes – in order – were not answering questions, not carrying out paid advertising, being boring, and providing false information. These provide four pretty good rules of thumb.
First, try to answer every reasonable question.
Second, don’t try to deliver controlled commercial messages via a channel which by its very nature takes off the shackles of control.
Third, try to be interesting, or even funny – just don’t try too hard.
Fourth, tell the truth. If you don’t, you will be found out and then you’ll look like an idiot.
If you try to win by driving Targa as a series of sprints, you’re destined to lose. It’s all about endurance and finishing each day in one piece. And the loudest cars aren’t the fastest.
The same is true of social media. Just ask Ekim Burgers.
Again a clear message for business: You need to be present in the messenger world, be it earned or be it paid.
Mike ‘‘MOD’’ O’donnell is a professional director and e-commerce manager. His Twitter handle is @modsta and he’s hoping to keep all wheels attached to his car in this year’s Targa Rally.