Lessons To Be Learnt – Social Media Marketing
Image credit: digitalart
I actually feel really sorry for Qantas right now. In the current uncharted waters of social media marketing, especially Twitter as a marketing tool, I think today’s ‘bungle’ could have happened to anyone.
Today Qantas launched a Twitter competition (official competition details here) encouraging users to “tweet a response in 140 characters or less to the @QantasAirways tweet ‘What is your dream luxury inflight experience? (Be creative!)?’” and include the hashtag #QantasLuxury. Creativity blossomed, but I am guessing not in the way Qantas had hoped for, and before too long the vast majority of tweets using the #QantasLuxury hashtag were witty negative comments related to the ‘Qantas Luxury’ experience.
Main stream media has picked up on the story with articles featuring on the SMH website as well as the Herald Sun and Sky News sites, all screaming of a major PR disaster. Perhaps Qantas should have listened to the Gruen Planet panel advice and just kept saying sorry rather than launching into a competition to try to win back customers hearts and minds.
The practice of using or ‘taking over’ a hashtag created for one purpose for another adverse purpose is known as a “HashTag Hijack’. This is not the first time we have seen a hashtag hijack (think Nestle) and it won’t be the last.
Lessons will be learnt from this experience for all social media marketers both within Australia and internationally. I am sure it will be added to the pile of case studies starting to form in relation to ‘best practice’ for social media channels like Facebook and Twitter.
I think a few social media 101 lessons shine clearly today:
- Social media will not make a bad product good
- Listening and monitoring is a key and ongoing element to any social media strategy
- You no longer fully control your brand, your audience does
- Social media strategy and tactics need to be integrated with all other organisational activities (other announcements were being made today about Qantas in relation to the ongoing industrial dispute that should have been taken into consideration prior to launching competition)
I am sure there are many more lessons? Love to know your thoughts?
Great post, Holly.
The only way “out” of this for Qantas, surely, is an “Oops, our bad”, self-deprecating response with the prize perhaps going to one of the so-called hi-jackers.
And all of this for a pair of pyjamas and an amenity kit?
Priceless.
Thanks for commenting Ben.
Yes there must be some creative thinking going on in the Qantas marketing department right now. Surely some sort of humorous spin can be found as I think the by this point the majority of tweets are not malicious but are just involved for the fun of it……?
Thanks Holly – must have been head down to have missed the article today.
I feel sorry for Qantas – and also a sceptic. Perhaps the social media twit who started this campaign is actually working for the “invisible man” that Tony Abbott keeps referring to.
Maybe they should outsource their Social Media activities too