Boomerang effect: how to avoid it

Boomerang effect: how to avoid it

In recent months, we are only talking about social media marketing as a strategy that each company will not be able to do without using; States research suggests how investments for the coming years are intended to increase and, as will be more and more aware of the potential for using these tools.

But what are the risks and traps that hide around the corner? Why do many companies still avoid today (in particular in Italy) to embark on this activity or if they do it, are not limited to investing in this strategy that partially? The real problem is given by the so-appeal Boomerang effect.

The boomerang effect is as risky as possible with a marketing strategy on social networks implemented in a bad way, with little attention or worse, with a product of poor quality or poor quality at the base. To date, we know that social media marketing has conversational marketing at the base, which has its point of support buzz (word of mouth) and that if we want it, it is the most recent evolution of relational marketing, the first socio-economic thinking line that has placed the consumer at the center of the strategy for the definition of a product service involving in the realization of the same thing. In this type of strategy, what matters is what the consumer thinks of a company, a product or a service: if he matures a need and transforms it into purchase, he will test the product and according to the satisfaction or not of his need and his expectations, he will produce comments that will circulate through the mouth, which will generally tend to spread with a viral effect.

This communication potential that will develop will be positive and advantageous for the company if the consumer has been satisfied and will speak well to his neighbor, on the contrary, he will be negative if he has remained unhappy and activate a negative word of mouth; This is essentially the boomerang effect.

For example, I point out a case of «devastating» boomerang effect for a company, Kryptonite. Everything was born from an article on a blog and on a video on YouTube, on which we were talking about and saw how to open with a simple bic pen the supports for b bikes produced by kryptonite. The news has spread virally in a few days, by sharing blogs and sharing the video. The company was convinced that its customers had not read blogs and that the effects produced by online media forced him to spend ten million dollars to replace 380,000 defective packages around the world for free.

What should be the best way to avoid the boomerang effect in social media? Well, obviously, a means does not exist, and not even a consolidated and verified technique. If anything, there are advice to follow; Operating today on social networks, this also means risking and the more you offer a product / quality service that satisfies the consumer at the base, the more the possibilities will be obtained a positive mouth that will grow virally in the network by reaching many other consumers and by increasing the visibility of its brand or their product and the reputation of the company. In addition, social media today put the platforms available today which allow you to manage content and dialogue directly and especially amicably with the consumer. Let us not forget to avoid the institutional tone of mass marketing of the 1970s; Today, the dialogue is bidirectional and if you receive a criticism, you will have to respond immediately, without arguing, trying to understand what is the reason for dissatisfaction, transform it into comments and use it to make changes to your product in order to improve it. It is clear that if there are users who speak badly of a company and its products without real reason (think of the comments of denigration of competitors), it will be necessary to act differently, but in this case, it is also possible to use the moderation of the comments or the deletion of the same thing. If, on the other hand, you think you can promote a bad product / service on social networks by transmitting it for «a miraculous product», my advice is to abandon this type of strategy; It would be destroyed in a short time and society would fail.

To win in social media marketing, you must therefore first be excellent at the base, that is to say in the product / service that you want to promote, because we keep in mind that in the marketing of word of mouth, an unsatisfied customer can activate a negative word of mouth which can be branched up among other users and with a higher exponential weight, compared to that which can be activated by a satisfied customer.

Thus, by summarizing, we can say that the guides to follow to avoid the boomerang effect in social media marketing are:

• Offer a quality product / service (This is the basis of the success of any marketing strategy!);

• Analyze customer satisfaction (Cluster cards and periodic reports);

• Manage all different social profiles And interconnect them on their blog: all profiles must be managed and not left in themselves (that it is not Social media marketing!);

• Participate in all the various discussions on blogs, the community of third part and groups on social networks, being participated directly, responding to requests for clarification, information and also criticism, in 3 words, monitor the network;

• Be honest, sincere and transparent: Consider the customer as one of our friends to satisfy And not only as a small target goal to bomb with our policies.

Following these little advice, social media marketing will no longer be a strategy to be feared, but a resource to exploit to bring out its activities in the new communication networks.