An Open Letter to Ann Taylor LOFT (That Means You Mr. Muto)
by Guest Blogger, Lena West, Chief of Social Media Strategy at xynoMedia
If you haven't heard the latest scuttlebutt (don't you just love that
word?!) about Ann Taylor LOFT's alleged FTC blogging rules violations,
I won't recap it all here, but click here
to get the skinny. Seriously, click that link and read the blog post
there – I'll wait. C'mon, it's important to read it so you understand
what I'm about to say below…
Ok, back?
Here's my advice for Mr. Muto:
- Come
clean. Even if you technically didn't do anything wrong, this looks
bad. Your response of, "They could write whatever they want. Obviously,
there's freedom of speech," is a horrible defense. It brings up the
same sentiment for me as when someone says, "It's his word again'st
mine." It make me think that most truly innocent people don't make
statements like that. Honesty trumps here. A solid, "We were trying to
move into the social media space and we may have gotten over zealous.
It was not our intent to break any laws. We're all still new to social
media. Our brand stands for classic integrity and we still uphold
that." You don't have to say the dreaded "A" word (apologize) or the
"S" word (sorry) and you make sure people can still connect with your
brand's values. But, right now, the brand looks like it got caught with
its hand in the blogger jar. - Develop a social media "home base"
and do it now. If this little snafu has taught you anything, it should
have taught you that in order to defend your brand in the brave, new,
wild west of social media, you need to be ON the social media grid to
do so. Trying to defend your brand from blossip (blog gossip) with
traditional PR methods is like trying to win the football game by
playing out in the parking lot. I went to all the Ann Taylor web
properties and didn't find ONE social media icon. A Facebook search
turned up a darned near blank Business Page. A Twitter search was not fruitful. The company does have a Company Page
on LinkedIn. *Yawn.* C'mon Mr. Muto. The fastest growing population
segment on LinkedIn is women ages 45-55. Why isn't the brand there??? - Getting
bloggers to blog about your products is NOT a shortcut to using social
media. There is NO shortcut to engagement. Just because bloggers are
writing about your products, doesn't mean you're "doing social media".
Understand that, influence is but one piece to a solid social media
strategy.
This is precisely why companies need to
work with "someone in the know" about social media activities. When you
don't, you get into hot water like this. Again, even if they did
nothing wrong (that's for the FTC to decide), it looks crappy (to say
the least) for their brand to be in the middle of this mess.
Right about now, Ann Taylor has just undone any social media street cred they worked hard to produce. Bummer.
I asked one of the top media law guys, Damon Dunn, about the Ann Taylor fiasco and here's what he says:
"Though
the FTC has been talking about regulation, there hasn't been much enforcement,
creating more confusion about company published content. The decision not to
bring enforcement action against Ann Taylor adds to the confusion."
I agree. So, what can you do?
- Get
the best possible advice you can afford before you do anyhting. And,
ALWAYS check with your attorney. If you don't have one and your
business is based in New York, I recommend Nina Kaufman WITHOUT reservation. She really gets this star spangled, new fangled social media stuff. - Never
trade seemingly unbiased social media content for anything of value -
not a gift card, not for in-kind services, not for money. Nada. Bubkus.
(Yes, you can engage the services of a copywriter to help you write
blog posts, but that's different.) - If you do "incentivize", disclose and make bloggers sign an agreement to disclose. CYA and keep your nose clean.
- Go
with your gut. If you feel like something might cause a problem,
chances are it will. Mitigate where possible and expect and prepare for
the unexpected.
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