For a long time now, whenever I’ve been discussing Social Media best practices with clients, there’s a brand that I champion, holding them in highest esteem thanks to their almost faultless record on Twitter.
I had the pleasure of visiting Fruit Towers back in the days when I blogged regularly and got offered free stuff and interesting trips (my kids have still not altogether forgiven me for the fact that life got busy and my blog got neglected). I loved the place so much that I was willing to overlook their tryst with the people who claim to have invented Father Christmas.
Time and again @Innocent gets it right on Twitter – Fearless, funny, engaging, irreverent and present, they epitomise the notion of marrying brand authenticity with social awareness, and they’ve raised the bar on what consumers expect from brands online.
I’ve long been an advocate of the 80/20 rule when it comes to Social Media – spend 80% of the time engaging with your community; championing others; talking nonsense; whatever floats your boat, as long as it’s not salesly, and 20% of your time championing yourself and your brand. But you don’t need to stop there. There is a hallowed place where, if you get it right, you don’t really need to spend ANY time ostensibly selling – your community and your ongoing conversations are doing the job for you.
It’s this holy grail that I encourage everyone I work with to aspire to, and it’s a place that I’ve always felt that Innocent has pretty much reached, which is why I felt a little let down by them on Twitter this morning when they tweeted this:
So much so that I felt the need to respond:
To their credit they replied, albeit with a dash of passive aggression:
Never let it be said that we can let things lie – we concluded with:
The thing is this – the original tweet was no big deal, not really, but it jarred, and the reason it had jarred is that I have come to expect more. That’s the thing with all Customer Relations / PR / Social Media / Communications / Life – once you set a standard you’ve got to (at the very least) maintain it, and better still, exceed it #Justsaying.
