Branding and Social Media… Can’t we all just get along?
Social media is exactly what it means: a social experience commenting, sharing, and experiencing things across all forms of media. This new form of communication and collaboration is great for consumers; but is it great for brands?
A lot of companies have started to fear user responses and feedback to their products and services online because of negativity, take the Boston MBTA for example:
There are pros and cons to this example.
Pro: other users of the MBTA can get notified with real time updates of train delays, or bus problems.
Con: About 95% of the tweets involving #MBTA are negative and therefore give off a bad impression to tourists and potential users.
But what about positive reviews or interactions with users and brands? Do they even exist? Is it possible, with all of the new forms of technology (Google’s SideWiki anyone?) and transparency of the Internet for a company to successfully reach out to and positively connect with its consumer audience?
Dear audience, I give you @Boloco.
I’m going to admit this from the beginning; I have a bias towards Boloco. I’m a student at Emerson College and ever since they’ve opened up their Boylston St. location I just can’t get enough of their “free small coffees with Emerson and Suffolk ID’s” or other sweet little promotions that they run.
With that said, however, I think that Boloco is one of the few companies to successfully integrate a social media presence into their online footprint. They have a Facebook fan page with a list of on going events, a Twitter, and utilize both on their main website as well. They’ve even accommodated online ordering for the busy student and professional, which, having personally just used during a 6-hour meeting comes in quite handy.
Boloco also hypes, and sponsors, social events such as their “Boloco airstream” that made a cross-country trip as a giant wrapped burrito. (I’m actually sad that I missed it. Something about a giant foiled ad rolling across the country just hits me in the right spot).
The biggest selling point of the Boloco customer experience to me, however, is the personalized aspect to it. They keep up on twitter and if someone has a negative experience they react, find out the problem, apologize, and in the case of my friend get their Boloco Card number through DM and add on a free burrito or two.
So in conclusion, I have this to say:
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