Learn from Vodafone

DIGITAL NEWS BITE: Oh dear, surely someone should have thought about how this would work out? Phone firm Vodafone launched a competition last week giving customers the chance to win a new mobile. All they had to do to enter was tweet something that made them happy along with the ‘hashtag’ #mademesmile. A special website was set up where any such Tweet automatically appeared.

Which was a risky move for a company whose appearances on social media sites of late have been mainly as part of Facebook campaigns over the firm’s rather controversial tax arrangements. Needless to say, campaigners quickly cottoned on that they could get their comments on a Vodafone website just be employing the smiley hastag. And so the phone firm’s site became host to a lot of anti-Vodafone commentary. Until the spam engines of the world also cottoned on to the hashtag and filled the page with low-rent advertising messages.

Social media campaigns like this are fun but probably need some moderation, even if that is time consuming, especially if your company has been getting so much bad press of late.

Posted Tuesday December 14 2010 by Chris Cooke