麦当劳遭遇微博“滑铁卢”

    互联网是一个精彩的世界，但要想通过它获得真实意见，可要做好准备，因为互联网世界不见得全是鲜花和掌声。许多帖子、博客或者视频中充斥着未经审查的评论。很明显，互联网在给人们带来各种便利的同时，也为人们提供了发表批评意见的空间。不过，这些意见或许有建设意义，也可能并不尽然。

    麦当劳（McDonald's）早该明白这一点。1月24日，麦当劳在Twitter上发起了一项活动，但不久后就取消了活动，可谓马失前蹄。所以说，如果对互联网了解不足就贸然行事，并非明智之举。当然，麦当劳此次活动的出发点没有任何问题——发布几条付费“微博”，鼓励消费者与农产品供应商互动。起初，麦当劳发起了话题#meetthefarmers（结识农场主——译者注）。但在活动过程中，这家快餐业巨头又推出了话题#McDStories（麦当劳故事——译者注），希望吸引消费者发布他们在麦当劳餐厅中愉快的用餐体验。

    第一个活动内容是：“这些了不起的人在为我们生产土豆。”第二个则写道：“请告诉我们您对麦当劳的看法。”而在互联网世界，这样的提问方式绝对是冒险的举动。

    麦当劳随后发现了这一点，但却已经付出了代价。两条推广性质的微博得到了72,000条回复，麦当劳社交媒体部门负责人里克•韦恩发布发布微博称，仅有2%的回复为负面评论。但多数回复内容平淡、粗俗，甚至非常滑稽，这绝对不是麦当劳想要的结果。虽然负面评论的数量不多，但麦当劳的反应却堪称败笔，活动发起几个小时后就匆匆收场。麦当劳没有就本报道作出回应。

    罗切斯特广告公司Partners + Napier的CEO莎朗•纳皮尔认为，这自然算不上严重的公司危机。“这样的事情不会死人，也不会改变我们的环境。只不过，这次麦当劳在推广上确实犯下了一个愚蠢的错误。”她认为，公司一开始就不应该让这样的事情发生，并且，这样的错误并非完全无害。

    杜克大学（Duke University）市场营销与心理学教授加文•菲茨西蒙兹认为，负面的舆论可能伤害一个品牌，即便这些评论只是为了开玩笑，或者夸大其词。菲茨西蒙兹表示：“一旦产生了负面联想，就很难将它从人们的内心抹去。”

    所以，公司在遭遇社交媒体滑铁卢之前就要了解这一点，这才是明智之举。品牌咨询公司Prophet美国区总裁安德鲁•皮尔斯称：“几乎所有人都认为移动世界是培养品牌的完美媒介；但在面临负面舆论时，公司也不应该感到意外。”

    要想做好思想准备，接受负面舆论，需要公司对社交媒体有充分的认识——比如那些成功的社交媒体推广案例。2011年6月，宝洁公司（Procter & Gamble）发起了一次营销活动，由演员以赛亚•穆斯塔法通过YouTube在Twitter上发布简短而精炼的回复。宝洁公司称，共有2,000人参与了提问，作为回应，公司发布了约200段视频。根据公司最终公布的结果，此次广告活动大幅提高了宝洁男性护理品牌Old Spice的销量，并且在Facebook和Twitter上吸引了大批追随者。这次活动也向我们揭示了什么样的推广才会在Twitter上大放异彩：那就是随性且有趣的内容。

    The Internet may be a wonderful thing, but no one should expect sunshine and rainbows when asking for its honest opinion. Read an uncensored comment stream on pretty much any post, blog or video, and its clear that the Web provides people with, among other services, space to criticize, constructively or otherwise.

    So McDonald's (MCD) should have known better when it got knocked on its heels after launching a Twitter campaign on January 24. The idea wasn't a bad one -- pay for a couple of promoted tweets encouraging customers to get in touch with farmers. First, the company pushed the hashtag #meetthefarmers. But in the middle of the campaign, the fast-food goliath introduced the hashtag #McDStories, hoping to stir up good press about consumers' experience at its restaurants.

    The first hashtag was saying, "Here are the great people who make our potatoes." The second says, "Tell us what you think of us," which, in the Web world, is risky business.

    McDonald's found that out the hard way. The promoted tweets received 72,000 responses, McDonald's head of social media Rick Wion tweeted, and only 2% were negative. But many of the tweets were just plain mean, gross or, even worse for McDonald's, hilarious. There was enough of a negative response that McDonald's, which did not respond with a comment for this story, pulled the campaign a couple of hours post launch.

    Granted, this is not a major corporate crisis, says Sharon Napier, CEO of Rochester ad agency Partners + Napier. "It didn't kill people or change our environment. McDonald's just made a really silly promotional mistake." But the company should have never let this happen in the first place, she says, and mistakes such as these aren't harmless.

    Bad press can hurt a brand, even when comments are meant as a joke, and even if they are over-the-top, says Gavan Fitzsimons, a professor of marketing and psychology at Duke University. "Once you have a negative association, it's almost impossible to just remove the link from people's minds," Fitzsimons says.

    Companies would be wise to know that before they stumble into a social media fiasco. "As much as everyone believes that the mobile world is this wonderful petri dish, companies should never feel caught by surprise when news turns negative," says Andrew Pierce, U.S. President of brand consultancy firm Prophet.

    Staying prepared for negative press requires knowing the medium -- consider social media success stories. Procter & Gamble (PG) released a marketing campaign in June 2011 with actor Isaiah Mustafa dishing out pithy responses via YouTube to tweets. According to P&G, 2,000 people sent in questions and the company posted almost 200 videos in response. The advertising stunt boosted P&G's Old Spice sales and attracted tons of followers on Facebook and Twitter, P&G claims. The campaign tapped into something that generally gets great play on Twitter: irreverent, funny content.