Sweet Nestle in a not-so-sweet social media stomach ache

There has long been controversy about Nestle. The issues started in the 70’s with boycotts surrounding their formula and products for various reasons.  And while boycotts are not new, they are particularly interesting and additionally fueled now with the increasingly widespread use and acceptance of social media.

In recent weeks, Nestle has found themselves in an all out war (although in some cases seemingly a one sided battle) with one of the most potent and well-trained armies in the world: the angry mom blogger. Nestle like many other companies made the decision to jump on the social media bandwagon. And like many of the brands we have come to know and love, they went about it wrong – and really not so socially. What ensued from what many would say was a good intended start is now a reputation and brand issue that goes far beyond what their internal teams and agencies can possibly fix at this point. And sorry, it’s not going away.

So here’s my free my open plea to Nestle: don’t run scared: embrace and PROPERLY use social media for both short and long term consumer management and interaction. And please call in qualified professionals to get you through this crisis. In the interim, here’s my pro-bono counsel:

1. Listen first. When engaging in social media, the first important step is to listen to the conversations. This does not mean just reading Google alerts and tweets about your brand, but instead listening to everything being said about your topics of interest and expertise across multiple mediums and tools.  Your goal is to take a honest look at sentiment and the active participants whom you may want to engage with for some time and begin to formulate (or tailor your existing marketing messaging around) an honest set of dialog with parameters for engagement around your topics.  A note on this: do NOT just listen to influencers. In social media, it’s about way more than “influencers.”
2. Create a master content document.  If you have taken an honest look at the conversations surrounding your brand, industry, and offerings, then you can take the most common conversations that are occurring – good and bad – and formulate, along with your marketing, PR, and IR team. (You can include your attorneys if you must, but be careful of getting to litigious in nature – this is real conversation, not debate.) If Nestle would have done this simple step, they would have already had in place the realities of the boycotts, formula issues, sugar hater sentiment, and the like and would have been prepared to IMMEDIATELY respond with their commentary rather than days later (like the SVP Scott Remy did.)  Sometimes in social media, the immediacy of response is the most important part – so be prepared with real conversation, good and bad. And this should happen 24/7 (more on that later.)
3. Create a solid, integrated social media plan.  A social media plan is really just an extension of your other efforts. Focus less on the technology, and more on the goals of the company. If Nestle’s goals are to extend brand, increase sales, and raise positive sentiment, then their plan should be tailored to just that. It seems though that the only “plan” was to jump into social media blindly and without a plan or assignment of duties. We bring in multiple teams from corporate, communications, and customer service for our clients, as well as experts in the industry. If you are publicly traded, like Nestle, then you should also bring in your investor relations expert and a compliance expert to navigate the laws for these entities. A big part of your plan should also include the parameters of how long, when, and when you are NOT going to respond to something. It is OK not to indulge people in banter that is mindless and has no merit. It is not OK to ignore a series of real complaints. There are sadly times you need to escalate something legally (defamation, illegal RTs, trademark issues and the like.) Put these parameters in your plan so the team knows how to respond.
4. Get a team on board and train them. For many of our clients there are not enough content writers or hours in the day to manage the deluge of social media. And while the tendency for most companies, like Nestle, is to put the SVP of Marketing on the front line, this is not possible unless you are going to actually change their job description and allocation of hours to manage the conversations. Typically, to do social media correctly, you need a team of 5 or more. For Nestle, our approach would have been a model of both internal and external participants.  A note here – the invitation to the bloggers could have been valuable in this instance. When they brought them out to talk AT them (under the guise of talking WITH them) they could have found existing Nestle advocates and offered them positions, much like we do for clients.  Ideally, you find people who are already immersed, already brand zealots, and already great writers. And you man the team 24/7.
5. Set up your profiles and publishing hub for reach. This is where most people start – selecting the tools. And that’s partially why they fail. At first, it doesn’t serve a company well to determine whether Facebook, Twitter, a blog, or CafeMom is the right TOOL. When you’ve listened carefully, you will find where your “influencers” are – and those shouldn’t be the most popular bloggers only, it should be wherever your customers live, period.  Only then can you determine what profiles you should create, etc. and how you should optimize them for the most reach.  One of Nestle’s failures was that they set up just one profile. While the tendency to do this makes sense, you are missing the niche conversations and the coverage.
6. Start talking, about everything. Social media is just like going to a party. You don’t talk to people at a party just about yourself and your interests. Instead, you build relationships through conversation of like interest.  So the team at Nestle should have had a team of people talking. Not talking just about Nestle, but talking about what moms, dads, kids, and chocolate lovers talk about.  You will find natural ways to insert your brand and your messaging (much like the appropriate time to tell someone at a party what you do/sell for a living.) And building those true relationships is how you gain a robust following, and great results.  The Nestle team talks about themselves too much. Take the conversation to something bigger.
7. Constantly monitor, respond, and interact. Use tools that are out there for monitoring – Google Alerts, Radian6, Collective Intellect, Sentiment Metrics, weblogs, etc.  Pay attention, DAILY to what’s going on. And if a conversation sparks – good or bad – jump in. Nestle and other big brands are infamous for taking too long to respond. Talk now. You’ve got your content document to guide you. When in doubt, be real and honest. If you don’t know something, respond as such and find an answer.
8. Embrace the lovers, and the haters. When a group of zealots get on a roll, listen to them and consider engaging them further. Sometimes your best voice is the loudest. If you are going to do an invitation to truly get to know your new audience – like Nestle did with their invitations, make sure it’s well-rounded, and that you are following the new FTC guidelines.  Inviting only top bloggers or “influencers” like Nestle did is ridiculous.  It contributes to the celebrity worship our country is too full of already.  Giving access to only these type of events promotes the close-mindedness that we should get AWAY from and why social media is as strong as it is (gives the little guy a voice.) Remember, access is currency – use it. Inviting excited mommy bloggers is usually no more honest than paying celebs to endorse you – pay attention to the newlaws here.  And think to yourself, how many of these “influencers” ever write negative reviews?

Know when to shut up.

Tagged as: nestle, social media, twitter terrorism