Another Example of How Not to Manage Social Media

I know you're thinking that this is yet another post on "How not to Manage Social Media". But have you thought about why you see so many of these posts? It's because brands will keep making the same mistakes. As we expect better marketing strategies from brands on social media. Brands can learn from past mistakes so that they won't repeat them in the future.

This time, I have covered a very popular hospitality chain, Lemon Tree Hotels. When I was going through their Facebook page I found several things that caught my eye.

1. Intellectual Property Issue

You can't use another brand's creative content, such as written material, photographs, art, graphics, the layout of an advertisement, music and videos until and unless you've taken a prior permission because the other brand could initiate legal action.

I don't see either of these images as horizontal cooperative sales promotion:

2. Using Original Graphics

Take a look at the graphic below. It doesn't meet the expectations one would have with a hospitality brand.

How long does it take to make your own text graphic?

Yet another cropped image has been used by neglecting the copyright. Being a fan of Randy Glasbergen, I can easily tell that it is his copyright. The least they could have done was to mention his name with the post to avoid the plagiarism.

 Here's the original one, I guess Randy should start using watermaks on his creatives :P

 3. Violating the Contest Guidelines

This is the biggest issue when it comes to running a Facebook Contest, most brands blatantly violate Facebook guidelines. Here's another example:

These are the Facebook guideline violations:

1) You can't ask your fans to use a specific image as their profile picture.

2) You can't ask your fans to tag your page on any image.

3) You can't run contest out of the specific / dedicated contest tab.

4. Content Strategy

Lemon Tree Hotels promotes itself on Facebook with the tagline "Like Lemon Tree Hotels's Facebook page to stay fresh everyday" but I don't see the rationale behind it; posting old Rajinikanth jokes won't make my day refreshing anyhow.

Look at your target audience - they are mostly corporates who would expect a hospitality brand to behave a little sensibly. Making fun of an actor or the Prime Minister is in no way in-sync with a hospitality brand.

Here are some snippets:

Once in a while, these jokes would make sense if you run out of content. But as an end user, I don't expect a hospitality brand to clutter my news feed with these jokes. I would expect relevant content, even if it is generic.

The 80-20, 70-30 or 60-40 proposition of branded and generic content should be maintained but, in the case of The Lemon Tree Hotels' Facebook page, it is the exact opposite.

Conclusion:

Obviously, brands must use social media sensibly and their ATL marketing strategies should be in sync with their social media strategy. Social Media is serious business and is not just about earning 'Likes' and 'Shares'. In comprising its target audience, a brand will lose focus. Depicting different personas on different marketing platforms, will take you nowhere. In fact, it will impact your brand equity negatively.