In today’s digital news, there are tales of two companies using social media: one showing how to do it right and the other how to do it very wrong.
Andy Sharman went on holiday to Tunisia with Thomson Holidays and had a terrible time, so on his return he wrote about it on his blog.
Unfortunately for the firm, his tales of woe ended up high in Google’s rankings when people searched for Thomson and Tunisia. Fortunately for Andy, he received a positive response from the travel company and compensation.
‘Jane’ from Thomson posted an apology on the blog and gave an assurance that further action was being taken. Top marks to Thomson for interacting with their customer on a personal level.
Meanwhile, Habitat has resumed its Twitter service with the words: “This time we want to get it right.”
In June the firm was accused of spamming on the microblogging service by using hashtags of trending topics – including one relating to the Iranian elections – to push marketing messages, a major no-no of Twitter.
As John Waine says in an article in Border Business, on Twitter it’s people first, business later. Those who don’t get this rule will soon find themselves ostracised by the very people they are trying to contact.
What other examples of good or bad social media have you seen?