I found this interesting article on ChrisBrogan.com discussing an analogy between social media and a phone. Chris quotes Marcel LeBrun, CEO of Radian6, who had said that companies needed to realise that some of their customers are “dialing the social phone”, and that they better have some “operators standing by”. The most interesting takeaway I got from Chris’ post was the emphasis on the the way we use the social phone.

Chris says “getting on the new tools and blasting out old methods will fail (is failing)”. I can’t agree more!! As you know I am massively into the idea of permission marketing – finding your niche that “invites” you to market to them. Simply blasting promotional information down Twitter I don’t think is very clever.

I have a great personal story to recount where one big company has listed their address in the social phonebook but is not answering the phone. Vodafone New Zealand is on Twitter. I laughed when I saw them as I had just given up on a week long argument with Vodafone over my eligibility for an iPhone. Apparently I am on a 3 year plan (I pledged my allegiance to Vodafone) and although at the time I was 17 months in the plan I was not able to switch to an iPhone plan – because this is a 2 year plan. My argument is that I am upgrading my remaining 18 months to a further 24 month plan, paying more per month and all is good. Vodafone view is that I am breaking my 3 year plan for a 2 year plan.

So, when I saw Vodafone come up on Twitter I asked them why I could not do this “upgrade”. Their answer was that @vodafoneNZ was unable to answer technical questions and that I would have to address this directly with Vodafone. Vodafones exact words were “Many questions require specialised knowledge, so the forum is the best route. Twitter will mainly be used for announcements.”. I noted only a day earlier Richard McManus of Read Write Web had receive similar short shrift when he had asked how come iPhone early adopters were being penalised by the introduction of cheaper data plans only a few weeks after the release of the phone.

Needless to say very few have chosen to follow Vodafone New Zealand on Twitter. We simply do not want to be messaged at. Social Media is not another opportunity to ram traditional marketing messages down peoples throats. It is an opportunity for companies to engage their customers thereby creating a more loyal relationship.

P.S. I still don’t have a frigging iPhone – bring on the Android to NZ and alternative phone providers.

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