Lesson 2: Turn the chairs inward (and take a seat)
It's become a marketing cliché: Your consumers are talking, and your brand is the topic of conversation. In an effort to show that they understand this, Skittles decided to bring that conversation to the fore in the guise of its official website, which it replaced with an unsupervised Twitter feed that showed every tweet mentioning the Skittles brand. At the same time, the brand allowed website visitors to switch between its Wikipedia page, YouTube account, and other social media outposts using a simple widget. Within 48 hours, the messages on Twitter were littered with expletives.
Skittle's parent company, Mars, had a great idea, but while it exposed conversations around the brand to the bright, harsh light of day, the company neglected to participate in it.
By participating, Mars could have managed the conversation around its brand, instead of letting it spin out of control. Consider what Pepsi did with the "Pepsi Cooler" on FriendFeed, a social media aggregator now owned by Facebook. Pepsi managed the conversation through multiple social media channels partly by taking a seat at the table and participating as an equal contributor.
Lesson 3: Behave Yourself
My iPhone is the most personal of personal technology devices. It's always on my person, it's always on, and it contains my contacts, calendar, and music; it's my life in my pocket. It makes perfect sense that a smartphone app can be a great way to increase engagement with consumers.
But remember, when in the personal space of your consumers, it's vital that you follow their rules of etiquette. Pepsi released an iPhone application to support its AMP energy drink that was designed to help make male customers more successful with the ladies. The app categorized women into types, and it offered pick-up lines targeted to those types. The backlash was so great that Pepsi yanked the risque app from the App Store and offered a public apology.
Mobile apps have been a great way to create a service out of a brand. Molecular worked with Nikon on an app that helps its consumers take better photos, regardless of whether they own a Nikon camera or not.
When you engage with consumers on their turf, on a device as personal as their mobile phones, make sure that service is helpful. To Pepsi's credit, it admitted the mistake, but it could have been avoided by understanding how far it could take the joke without offending its audience.
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