“" 10) Customer service NWS LX4L cra UL Before you read Is it possible to have a personal relationship with a brand? Why? / Why not? Reading Read this article from the Financial Times by Tim Bradshaw and do the exercises that follow. FT LeveL oF iicutry Do you want to be friends with a brand? ‘Tim Bradshaw When first faced withthe prospect of ‘marketing on social networks, many people ask a reasonable question how many people waal tobe friends 5 witha brand? The answer ~ surpris- ly, perhaps ~is: millions do, on & daily basis. More than 10m people each day become a “fan” of a brand ‘on Facebook, The world's largest 1» social network —with well in excess ‘of 400m members globally ~ plays host to more than 1m branded Fan pages on Facchook. BrandZ.Top 100 brands such as Coca-Cola and Sta- ss bucks, aloag with other smaller brands such a Adidas that have each “befriended” millions of people. Social media have matured rap- idly in recent years. Sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter offer scale and reach to rival Google sill the most dominant single site for online advertising - and many television channels, The best adver tisers use social media alongside there traditional channels fora com- bination of brand-building, direct sales, customer service and PR.The ‘worst simply ignore them, unt they realise the complaints and aceusa- tions that unhappy customers a telling other would-be consumers. ‘Social media have given con- sumere a voice to respond, a8 well at hundreds of channe's through Which todo so,” says Debbie Klei, jo chiel executive of Engine, a UK- based ageney group. “These websites have fundamentally rans- formed marketing froma monologue to adialogue. Brands cannot hide.” Eurostar, for instance, recently faced criticism for ignoring Twitter messages — Which, unlike most Facebook posts, are usually made public for anyone to read ~ from fagty customers trapped on trains between Paris and London, Eurostar had failed to grab its brand name on ‘» Twitter, and its main presence onthe site named "litle break” totie into 1 wider marketing campaign — was still showing special offers rather ‘han information on the disrupted service for tome hours after the problems began. In the fast-paced, “real-ti environment of Twitter, just afew hours is long enough for such exit- cism to spread widely, be chewed fverby ils users and, if it reaches a certain volume, be picked up and amplified further by the mainstream media. Kevin Smith, a film director, ‘used a similar Twitter storm when hh complained to more than Im fol lowers that SuthivestAirines threw him of ight for being overweight. Southwest later made two public fpologies on its blo. 152 ‘© Pearson Education Limited 2011 PHorocoPtaBLe