Marketing Virgin

Thousands of companies leverage social media for positive viral and word-of-mouth marketing. There is, however, negative implications for companies when what is being said is damaging. Google Alerts is a tool that is now being used by organizations who want to track the communication about them on the Internet. A user can simply sign up to receive links to any site that publishes a word or phrase they are interested in. For example, if you’re looking for news on Barack Obama, Google will send you daily links to all sites that publish his name.

This begs the question - can companies manage such communication?

A few months ago, I wrote a post about a bad email I received from a software company. There were three flaws with the email:
1. I received an e-mail  for a class I had already taken through them so I should not have been on their distribution list
2. The e-mail addressed me as “Dear FirstName”
3. This was not the first time that this company has made this mistake

Out of frustration, I decided to exercise my freedom of speech (and press) and write about it. The image of the e-mail that I had included on my website had an embedded code with the name of the company, thus, it showed up on Google Alerts. The entire company was heated over my post. I was even contacted by a representative, asking me to take down the post and telling me how disappointed in me they were in me.

Does a company have the right to make a mistake and then place blame on a blogger for pointing it out? Does a company have the right to restrict what is said about them from independent parties?

There is no such thing as control in social media. Welcome to the game…you better be willing to take a fall if you want to step up and play.