Here in Washington, the community is abuzz with news that Wikileaks, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing whistleblowers a safe place to publish sensitive information, has released a gargantuan store of documents related to the war in Afghanistan. The documents paint a picture that is decidedly at odds with more official portrayals of the war.
The same day, the Library of Congress’ Copyright Office determined that “jailbreaking” the iPhone – a process that allows users to access apps not available in Apple’s App Store – does not violate copyright laws. Apple contends that jailbreaking can harm the phone’s user experience, and leave it vulnerable to viruses; the company voids warranties of jailbroken phones. The Copyright Office, however, said in its ruling that jailbreaking is “innocuous at worst and beneficial at best.”
Regardless of your opinion on the war in Afghanistan, the ethics of leaking sensitive information to the public, or the use of products in ways that weren’t intended, these examples serve to illustrate one principle of the changing information economy: You are not in control.
Media critic Jay Rosen encapsulates this perfectly in reacting to an editor’s note that accompanied the New York Times’ coverage of the Wikileaks documents:
From an editor’s note: “At the request of the White House, The Times also urged WikiLeaks to withhold any harmful material from its Web site.”
There’s the new balance of power, right there. In the revised picture we find the state, which holds the secrets but is powerless to prevent their release; the stateless news organization, deciding how to release them; and the national newspaper in the middle, negotiating the terms of legitimacy between these two actors.
Indeed. And that new balance of power applies just as much to corporate marketers as it does governments and militaries. Power has shifted to end users; they’ll take your messages and your products and do what they want with them, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
So while you can’t control, you can listen and learn. MLC counsels our members to optimize their social experiences to listening and sustained engagement, rather than a top-down, “we say, you do” atmosphere. But engendering this connection with your customers is tough – here’s what we suggest:
1) Focus on service. Organize your efforts in social media not to blast messages at your customers, but rather to be in service to them as they interact with each other and with you. Communication cannot be primarily about the brand – customers will almost certainly detect that and react negatively.
2) Embrace the power of the medium. If you’re treating social as yet another channel in an otherwise top-down marcomm mix, rather than an engine for creating and strengthening relationships, you’re not taking advantage of the unique opportunities that social media engagement provides brands. When done right – i.e., with a focus on service – engagement on social platforms can lead to better connections between brands and customers, as well as connections between customers with the brand as the focal point.
Taking advantage of those unique opportunities requires broad cross-functional alignment and silo-busting, and in our 2010 study on social media, MLC argues that active executive leadership is essential to produce results in the space.
3) Prepare for (but don’t expect) the worst. Social media has obvious upsides, but just-as-obvious downsides. If you’re active in the space, you should absolutely have policies in place to protect essential information (intellectual property, for example), establish guardrails that limit downside risk, and have contingency plans in place for when information gets out in a way that’s not intended.
But, by the same token, don’t expect bad behavior from your customers – they can smell a suspicious brand from a mile away.
MLC members, for examples of how your peers have created dynamic and collaborative social experiences for their users, please visit our Social Media Showcase.
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