Social media for companies is not just about sharing the latest cat video, it’s about providing a solid customer service base for customers who want to communicate to you outside of the office and phonespace.
Reputation management is even more important in the digital age, brands can be made and broken through the power of Twitter and companies such as British Gas are getting it all wrong.
Bad Ideas
On the day that British Gas announced that they would be hiking up gas prices by 9.2%, they also decided to ask their social customers for their opinion. We can all guess what happened here…
#askBG soon started trending worldwide but not with useful information about British Gas and how they can help their customers. Instead a worldwide backlash occurred with people storming to their computers and their phones to complain about the recent increase in prices
British Gas #AskBG Twitter stunt backfires as company is inundated with price rise complaints http://t.co/HoSaq275Pc
— Daily Mirror (@DailyMirror) October 17, 2013
British Gas held a Twitter Q&A today – the same day they unveiled a 9.2% price hike… http://t.co/8LVt1m2y0t pic.twitter.com/DgWCmqkw7k — HuffPost UK (@HuffPostUK) October 17, 2013
However British Gas are not the only people who are getting it all wrong. Southern Electric have announced an 8% increase on their customers’ bills. When people jumped on Twitter to complain, they only get a stock response from the company.
Either way British Gas are either genius’s or quite the opposite. Somewhere this would have had to been signed off knowing the potential fall out and when the dust quickly settles British Gas’ SEO manager will be rubbing his hands together. They’ve already had mentions and link backs from high authority news sites such as the Huffington Post, The Guardian and a whole lot more before this finishes.