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Amazon fails at measuring perception on Twitter…at least so far
By Justin Goldsborough | April 13th, 2009
Justin case you were wondering…How fast does word of mouth travel? Well, just ask Amazon.com. During the last hour while I ran to the Sprint store and grabbed some lunch, more than 6,500 new tweets were posted on Twitter under the hashtag #amazonfail.
Why are people mad at Amazon? Well, according to “The Inquisitor” blog it’s because Amazon.com has been removing GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) book titles from their sales pages on the grounds that they are “adult content.” As you might imagine, this issue has many people up in arms, but what is worse is the speculation in the blogosphere that Amazon may have purposely done this as the result of a policy decision versus the removal being an actual computer programming glitch.
Did Amazon do this on purpose? Or here’s a better question…Does it matter? In today’s social media world the answer is a resounding no. Amazon removal of GLBT titles may have been the purest of accidents. But the company needs to measure to people’s perception, no matter how much it differs from reality.
As Jessica Gottlieb said in her blog on the subject — where she mentions btw that she talked to a source at Amazon she’s known for more then 20 years who said that it really was a content “flag that was too broadly applied by some poor dev guy by mistake” — “perception is everything.” All it takes is for one person to see a tweet or a blog and then start passing word on to their social networks. Heck, that’s what I’m doing right now. That’s how this story went from one blog over the weekend to the Wall Street Journal in under 60 hours. And remember this happened on the weekend. Probably would have gotten to the Journal faster during the week.
So what do you do if you’re Amazon? Well, there’s no fool proof plan. But here are some thoughts:
- Apologize, apologize, apologize. Even if the content wasn’t removed on purpose, it happened. Remember brands must measure to perception.
- Join the conversation where it’s happening, apologize again and tell your side of the story. Twitter is currently blowing up with conversation about this issue. And Amazon has a Twitter account. But have they addressed the issue there? Nope. In my mind, that’s the amazonfail.
- Tell the truth and be transparent. Do not put a PR spin on a story like this or you will get eaten alive by the people. If it was done purposefully, say that. A mistake, say that. And either way, say you’ve heard what people are saying (tweeting) and you’ll work to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
- Learn from this. Develop a social media strategy. Actually, Amazon may have one already. But its Twitter strategy needs updating as the company account is set to behave purely as an RSS feed and doesn’t recommend how to get in touch with someone from Amazon. Remember Twitter is about conversation. If Amazon had already built a relationship with tweeps via its brand name account, an issue like this would have been easier to explain/handle. Instead, when people are rapid tweeting about Amazon and its most recent tweet is a daily book recommendation from 17 hours ago, that’s screams “we don’t get it.” Amazon.com also has no mention of the incident on its home page.
What are your thoughts? Surprised at how fast word of mouth can spread? How would you handle this issue?
Btw, here are some samples of the tweets being posted on the #amazonfail hashtag:
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