Companies begin to get the message from social media

The blog on Southwest Airlines has now gathered more than 1600 comments.

The upside to the explosion of social media and having those conversations take place in cyberspace is that they can be an excellent early warning system, said Mr Richards.

“If something is a potential PR disaster and starts becoming a campaign, we know about it very quickly,” he said.

The good thing is that those conversations about good and bad experiences at the hands of companies which used to take place in pubs, clubs and living rooms are now on the web. Far better, said Mr Richards, to take notice rather than ignore the chatter.

It used to be the case that companies expected people to come to their website when they wanted to talk about product and services, get help or find out about new offers.

No longer, said Mr Richards, companies now have to find out where the conversations are taking place and take an interest.

Social change

Appreciating that difference is not all that companies have to contend with when trying to exploit social media. The really hard part is giving up any notion of control.

“Companies are very happy with making a homepage or site because they can control every pixel on those pages,” said Mr Roope from Poke London.

With community sites they have to take a back seat and let people get on with it, he said.

Often those that gather to talk about a product, company or service are not doing it to criticise, said Mr Roope.

They can be good advocates and even defend a company if a customer reports poor service or problems with a product.

One thing is clear, he said, companies have to get involved. They cannot ignore the conversations any more. And they need to take action quickly as people discover the speed and usefulness of social media.

“If this becomes as powerful as it seems to be, then the traditional marketing channels will not be enough to shore up relationships between customer and company,” he said.