Social Media. It’s highly misunderstood by many…still. Yet, something that makes Social Media so amazing is how it shifted power and gave people a voice. Whether companies, politicians, people, organizations and so forth want to listen or not is entirely up to them. Nobody forces you to use social media. Well, perhaps your customers might.
Last night we were watching Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and talking about the Yelpers who had many negative things to say about this purveyor’s hamburgers. Yet the feedback was taken as vindictive criticism and further perceived as a ploy to send the restaurant out of business. I had to laugh. I once wrote a negative review about a business down the road and the owner’s husband found me on Linkedin and asked me to change my review because they believe it is negatively affecting their business (oh that’s another story). I understand the Yelpers…they’re people with an opinion and an outlet to share their views with other people…go there it’s great….don’t waste your money. Funny enough humans seem to enjoy peer-to-peer feedback.
But what happens when you’re a big multi-national accused of not paying your fair share of taxes? Well Starbucks UK is sponsoring a skating rink in London. They have a nice café set up and have decked the seasonal halls with a fantastic photo booth. I was just looking on Starbucks UK Facebook page at the photo album and their good intentions have turned sour. Disgruntled tax payers have been posting their displeasure in the album’s comment section.
Ah the glory of Social Media for the people and the nightmare for any company’s PR department. How do you respond? Maybe Starbucks should whip out their smartphones and upload a photo of their tax payments along with justification documents. Of course they won’t. But people who don’t read the newspapers, or watch BBC, with social media even those not keenly interested in business news, those who just wanted to see if their photobooth pictures were in the Starbucks UK album will likely know that Starbucks UK is accused of not paying their taxes. And they just might be influenced by those who say they won’t do business with a multinational in the UK that isn’t paying their due part…
Breaking the Marketing Rules 