How should marketers deal with unpredictable user content? Our media strategies editor tells you what you can -- and should -- do to protect your brand.
The internet and digital media have made the lowering of barriers between one's thoughts and desires and their means of expression possible. The less it costs to introduce an idea to the marketplace, the greater the number of ideas there are to potentially introduce.
As anyone working in the advertising or communications industry knows by now, what this means is the opportunity for producing content is available to more and more people. The consumers of media are now given nearly the same access to the marketplace of ideas as major media industries are.
Of course, what we're talking about is consumer-generated content, something that's seen more daylight in these past months than Bradgelina's escapades.
All forms of consumer-generated content have been around for a long time-- fan sites, bulletin boards, et cetera (and don't forget GeoCities, Tripod, Xoom and others). And talk of it has been around, in earnest, for a couple of years. But in the last few months, marketers are really focusing on using consumer-generated content seriously -- and blogs in particular -- as an important advertising vehicle.
The problem is, and continues to be, marketers' reticence to letting what consumers have to say really be said. In the days of old, online properties that either focused on or facilitated chat were desperate to get advertisers. Sites like Yak! and TalkCity worked hard to get advertisers to recognize that there was value in being somewhere where the audience had a high level of involvement with the content that was there. The level of engagement was so high because the creation of that content was what the audience was engaged in.
But advertisers feared the uncertain nature of that content. The unpredictability of what was going to become a permanent part of the textual fabric of the universe made advertisers skittish.
And it still does. Marketers, though interested in consumer-generated content like blogs or boards where customers can post their comments, are still not willing to relinquish the control they think they have over their brand in the open marketplace of ideas. Although marketers want to engage their audiences in the 21st century, they fear engaging those audiences in a 21st century manner.
Move along, there's nothing to see here
Both marketers and the media outlets they employ are trying to get used to a world where the audiences they reach are empowered to reach back.
Last week, The Washington Post took a users' comments board off the website after a flurry of off-color and, at times, vicious personal attacks were posted regarding an article written by ombudsman Deborah Howell about donations given to political candidates by indicted super-lobbyist Jack Abromoff. (A brief story about this can be read here.)
Instead of filtering the comments or moderating the board, the washingtonpost.com editor made the decision to take the whole thing down: lock, stock and barrel.
How should public media outlets handle user comments when those comments are considered in bad taste or take on the form of ad hominem arguments and attacks? What do we think about the governance of the marketplace of ideas?
Marketers and the media they employ need to get just as involved in the conversation of this marketplace as the audiences are. A watchful moderator would suffice in cleaning out the more overtly offensive statements made by an offender. But washingtonpost.com's decision to close the whole thing down is indicative of a client and the medium's lack of preparedness for this brave new world. It's kind of like closing the store instead of instituting a loss prevention program.
The first thing to remember is that the internet is a public space. As David Weinberger says in his section of 2000's The Cluetrain Manifesto, "having a voice doesn't mean being able to sing in the shower. It means presenting oneself to others." To preserve the integrity of the internet as a vast public square that enables self-expression without suffering the indignities of the untruths that are found there, advertisers need to take a level assessment of the expression and its potential implications.
Marketers need to do work if they want to participate, and they have to participate if they are going to have a future. This does not mean simply to let people post complaints or praise on a board and let the posts hang there like cobwebs in Ms. Havisham's parlor. It means talking back.
This means actually listening to what is being said and responding accordingly. Marketers and their media should not be afraid of opening their kimonos and letting audiences make comments on their looks.
This initiates authentic engagement with the brand and the media they use. Instead of being afraid of what people might say about you, be sure that, just like real life, you regulate your own responses to it. Ensure the company that facilitates the conversation has reasonable but open systems in place to manage it. Don't involve your brand in an environment that does not have the ability to commit to civil regulation, but don't also limit yourself to involvement with those properties that protect your brand from the indignities of human discourse.
How can you expect to have an intimate relationship with your consumers if you don't treat them openly and honestly?
Jim Meskauskas is media strategies editor for iMedia Connection.