#BrandMonitoringFAIL

Society Needs to Catch Up to Social Media, Part 3 (The SuperBowl Edition)

While watching SuperBowl XLIII last night, I decided I would live tweet my opinions on the commercials as they came up. Nothing out of the ordinary – I liked some and disliked others.

Looking back now though, something happened right before halftime that has me thinking. (Yes, I do occasionally think.) I tweeted that I had my 3D glasses ready for the Monsters vs. Aliens trailer and the Sobe Lifewater commercial. Within minutes I had an @reply from “Lee the Lizard” (@sobeworld). At first I thought, “Hey, that’s kind of cool. They’re monitoring for mentions of their name and they’re playing along in character.” This is exactly what companies should be doing. I sent them an atta-boy tweet later.

Now that I’m thinking about it a little more though, I’m disappointed. I sent 15 tweets mentioning 11 specific brands or products. I had also sent a tweet last weekend expressing my feelings about a product made by another of last night’s advertisers. So out of 12 mentions, I got 1 response. One response?! Clearly companies still aren’t getting it. They have to be active and involved. Last night, eleven companies got it wrong. Congratulations to Sobe for getting it right.

This is an ongoing series of blog posts about the effects of social media in corporate culture and society in general. Part 3 was supposed to explore the business applications of social media and discuss why IT departments need to be less restrictive with those tools. I promise you that will be Part 4.