Airkix want me to shut down my Facebook community... thoughts?

[denny]

Hi Denny,

We have not met yet, but I am Matt Gough. I am the Marketing Coordinator for Airkix.

I understand that you are the administrator for the unofficial Airkix fan group(?).

I understand that you created this group to bring together fellow fans before we decided to make a fan page ourselves, so thanks very much for being a great supporter. It is much appreciated that we have such loyal customers.

I have recently been bought on board at Airkix to improve our marketing and drive our brand image. As such I am putting some focus towards social media sites, including our Facebook page.

Whilst I know you made this group with the best intentions and it has been a great place for members to communicate about their experiences, would it be possible for you to close the group down? The only reason why I ask is that, I'd like to avoid any facebook users not realising that the official page exists (where we provide special promotions etc), and as I'm sure you can imaging, I need to have tight control over anything that could influence our brand image.

I hope you are able to understand my position.

Many Thanks,
Matt


Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4959914398



Hi Matt,

Yes, I am the administrator for the unofficial Airkix group. I work in web development and spend a lot of time using social media and consulting with regard to it, and did in fact offer to help Airkix out on that front some years ago, but they decided it wasn't important at the time - hence the unofficial group was born.

There's not really any way to say this without sounding rude, but your sentence "I need to have tight control over anything that could influence our brand image" is pretty typical of a marketing person who has (in my opinion) failed to understand social media properly. That attitude gives me some pause about whether I'd be happy to shut the group down on your request, forcing the community to only have a 'tightly controlled' space at their disposal. I'm a big fan of loosely-controlled spaces on the Internet, and I think it's important for brands to come to terms with them too, and work with them and within them, rather than trying to control them or close them down. There are quite a lot of articles on this subject if you take a look around some marketing blogs (mostly pro, although also some against, take your pick).

That said, I've posted to the group to see if anyone cares if it lives or dies. I've not been actively promoting it since you started your own page, and I've noticed when I've done spot-checks in the past that everyone who's a member of the group seems to be a fan of the page too, so perhaps it doesn't make any difference. If nobody cares, then I may as well shut it down.

You can watch the wall for yourself obviously, and see how the comments go (if any). We should have a good enough idea how people feel by next weekend.

Regards,
Denny



Hi Denny,

Thanks for putting the question out there.

As a fresh graduate from the University of Bath, studying Business Administration and focusing my studies on web based marketing, I do understand the benefits (but also the drawbacks) of social media.

I think you may have misunderstood my comment "I need to have tight control over anything that could influence our brand image". I don't think I've indicated here that I would remove (or manipulate) any content presented by any members of our page. This is absolutely not something that I do.

However, there are situations when my input is required in order to provide a professional response to issues raised in the social media.

A prime example being the reactions that we had a couple of months ago when we experienced and accident during one of our Air-Sphere classes. Quite rightly, our fans discussed the situation and questions were asked regarding what had actually happened, what was being done, and who was to blame. In this situation, it was vital for our brand image that we provided the fans with information about what happened. You may have noticed that we were completely open to any questions, but wanted to avoid the circulation of any rumours that would damade our image. I would hope to avoid a similar situation occuring on an unofficial site, which could result in a heap of people throwing in negative input regarding a situation that they really know nothing about. This could easily result in a direct loss of sales, as individuals are more frequently looking up experiences on social media sites (to see true feedback), before purchasing vouchers.

I hope this better explains my position.

Thanks,
Matt



Hi Matt,

Thanks for the swift response.

I did see the Airsphere discussions, I thought they were a fairly good example of 'doing it right'. I think you could equally have had those conversations in an unofficial space though, if anyone had raised it there. I assume you are tracking discussions about Airkix that aren't happening in the spaces you control. In the case of the group, several of your members of staff have been participatory members in the past, which is obviously something I tried to encourage.

Most of the time, the group is a good source of visibly unpaid and uncontrolled enthusiasm-based advertising for Airkix. When any negative situation does arise (like the Airsphere incident) you'll presumably be keeping your eyes open on more far-flung conversational spaces such as Twitter and skydiving forums, so the group is an easy stretch.

Having given it some thought since your request, I don't think I can recall a single negative comment about Airkix ever being posted in the group (unless you count "it's expensive"). Airkix is a fantastic experience and it tends to bring out the enthusiastic fanboy/girl in anyone who tries it. I think perhaps you're worrying unnecessarily. Even if it had, I think that's something I'd choose to manage ad-hoc, rather than trying to control where those conversations happen.

Cheers,
Denny

Comments

[deliberateblank.livejournal.com]

Well, "I need to have tight control..." is weaselly (and a commonly used phrase) isn't it?

Really it should be "I *want* to have tight control..." to which the usual response is "I'm sure you do."

If they insist on their "need" then it's all to tempting to interpret that as "I need to have tight control [...] otherwise we won't be able to screw over our customers without them being able to scare new ones off."

Which I'm sure of course they don't mean.

[zotz]

Seems a reasonable response. I doubt he's happy with it, but it's not your business to go out of your way to help people earn their wages.

FAO of Matt.

[dhaliwal.myopenid.com]

FAO of Matt.

Matt, it is not my place to interfere, but has someone who has many years of working with communities, I would highly recommend that you WORK together with Denny and the community. Sure, you are welcome to create your own page. But, you and the brand need to realise, that just because you provide a container for the conversation, it doesn't mean the community will want to necessary take part there. The community controls the voice, not the brand. If you close this down, they will go somewhere else. Create a stronger community on Facebook without you. Worst case scenario, you'll receive a massive backlash, a PR nightmare.

For your brand, I suggest you create a Facebook Page, where you can keep the topic on business message. But support the existing community, work with them not against. If you insist in closing down Denny's group page, you will mostly likely find a big backlash.

Is this really something worth risking? I know hundreds of companies who would pay top dollar for a community like the one already there. Think through the options carefully.

Jas Dhaliwal

Head of Communities @AVG

Re: FAO of Matt.

[denny]

They do have an existing official fan page, which is much larger than the unofficial group (4000+ members vs 500+). If I were them I'd let the group stagnate and die in its own time, which seems to be its current course anyway. Or, if it resurged, I'd be happy my business was cool enough to sustain an externally-managed community, and join in with it.