I think one of the spookiest things some companies could imagine knocking on their door this Halloween is a social media specialist: Standing there at a company’s door, laptop in hand, surrounded by an army of Twitter followers and blog subscribers with their goody bags open,  asking for engagement, community, transparency and humanness. The company thinks: Trick or Treat? This image is more frightening to some companies than a vampire lunging in for a bite. There are many companies that want to be involved with social media, or think they should be involved, but at the same time they are deathly afraid of it.

I was contacted the other day by a children’s product company interested in engaging my services to “legitimately” (their quotes) populate their company’s website with positive reviews and photos of people using their products by tapping into my network of bloggers, providing them with free products and asking them to post accolades.  Apparently the company feels they don’t have enough reviews for their products on their site and many of them that have been posted legitimately (no quotes) have turned out to be negative because of ongoing QC problems that the company has been having. Her response was that “there are always QC problems in manufacturing, that’s just how it is.” She also wanted me to screen the product reviews before they were posted and intervene if anything negative arose. I explained the new FTC regulations  and that I thought this method of “legitimate” population might be considered questionable without a disclosure. I also offered other methods that could authentically populate their site’s reviews, but the conversation ended and I haven’t heard from them since.

I think in this case, there were missed opportunities. Instead of trying to drown out the bad reviews with manufactured good reviews, they could have embraced them, thanking the consumer for pointing out a problem and actually addressing the problem in a public way with a vow to fix it at the source and follow up with proof that it was fixed, instead of saying, well everyone has QC problems, that’s just how it is. That’s not how you engage your consumers. I know nothing is perfect in business, but when you put product out there to consumers, especially if you are inviting them to respond publicly on your company site, then you better make darn sure the product is as good as it can be, and if it isn’t and your consumers care enough to let you know, then you should respond with thankfulness, action and implementation to make sure it never happens again. To try to drown out negative comments with crafted positives just defeats the whole purpose of engaging people. It’s like inviting consumers to offer their opinions, and when they open their mouths occasionally saying something you don’t like, you cover your ears and say: “I’m not listening, LA, LA, LA.” This is what is meant by companies being human. To acknowledge mistakes or problems, apologize, promise to fix them and then actually fix them is the kind of thing that will gain a company respect in the marketplace with their consumers.

The thing about social media is that it can’t be completely controlled the way that advertising can. That is a very spooky thing for many companies.  There is some control, like determining the right person to manage your social media strategy and what to put out there to the public, but as far as trying to control what the public will perceive and say and do and manipulating things to look legitimate when really they aren’t, that is not what social media is all about.  That’s what advertising is about.

Here lies the problem for a lot of companies.  They know all this social media stuff is important, but don’t fully understand how to use it or why and how it’s different from advertising. They try hard to turn social media into just another controlled venue for advertising, and in my opinion, that is simply a waste.  Use your advertising for the crafted, controlled message, and use your social media for really listening to and engaging with real people.  If you are not ready for what may happen when you let go and start talking publicly with your customers, then maybe stay out of it for a while until you feel confident that what your company offers will be well received, or until known problems are fixed, or until you can respond to negative feedback with positive action. It can also be started in small ways. Start with a blog, talk about new products coming up or things in the industry. You don’t have to do a full-blown blitz to be involved in social media.  Start where you are comfortable, but understand that there is a certain amount of letting go of fear that needs to happen.

So if a social media specialist comes knocking at your door this Halloween, don’t be afraid, just drop a little humanness in his or her goody bag.