BusinessWeek recently ran an interesting piece on how multinationals are hiring others to monitor social media to see what people are saying about their company. (Click here for full article.)
The article, by Dexter Roberts, focuses on Daqi.com. Specifically, Daqi.com helps multinationals monitor their reputation online in China. The article has a few good examples and is a great example of how companies recognize the impact of social media.
But two things stood out:
- The article points out a case of a Toyota customer upset that his car wasn't delivered and venting about it on a blog. The customer was finally taken care of but the Toyota's PR agency then refused to comment on the complaint or provide details.
- Some of these agencies hire people to post positive things about clients on various blogs.
Seems to me if you're going to play in these arena you should be open about it. In the first instance, a golden opportunity was missed. It was a chance to talk about a problem and how it was solved. That, in turn, builds trust. In this case, Toyota dealt with this the old fashioned way -- doing what it could to make the customer happy and then saying nothing about it for fear, I presume, it would make the company look bad.
In the second instance there's a pretty good chance such actions will be found out pretty quickly. And then the world knows you are not being genuine. And then you have a real problem.
Conclusion -- if you're going to go this route you probably better off going the whole way.
