Anna Lawlor and Paul Armstrong 

Attack of the social poachers

The art of enticing customers away from competitors using social tactics requires a human touch. Without it the results can be creepy and inappropriate
  
  

Online retailer payment
Will brands’ social ‘conquesting’ have consumers reaching for their credit cards? Brian Jackson / Alamy Photograph: Brian Jackson / Alamy/Alamy

When James Yammouni (@James_Yammouni), an 18-year-old Australian, used Twitter to complain to T-Mobile about his $180 (£108) phone bill, he inadvertently exposed how brands are using social media to ‘poach’ customers from competitors.

It is not clear whether Verizon had been monitoring social media to pro-actively poach customers, or as a result of monitoring their own brand mentions on Twitter, but the upshot was the following tweet, which was (apparently accidentally) posted publicly:

What made Yammouni especially attractive was his significant social media following (he has 1.19 million Twitter followers); he is part of the Janoskians, a popular YouTube comedy entertainment group.

The tweet was swiftly deleted, allegedly after BuzzFeed contacted Verizon for comment. Verizon seems to be the latest of a small group of large retailers who are actively (or provably) conducting social media strategies to coax dissatisfied customers away from their competitors.

Poaching soft targets

Another notable example is Walmart’s “Twitter Elves” offering counteroffers to disgruntled customers complaining about availability and delivery issues for electronics goods at Christmas, and O2’s obvious outreach to not only new customers but existing mobile users.

The ethics of social ‘conquesting’

Google “conquesting” – in which digital marketers target online ads at consumers searching for competitor brands’ products – has long been practised in e-commerce, and it is this approach that is bleeding into organic and paid social strategies.

In today’s challenging economy and fickle marketplace, with ever more complex (and changing) paths to purchase, social conquesting is arguably an evolution in marketing practices that, if done correctly, can reap rewards for both brands and consumers. In the social and digital marketing space, needs are expressed in such a way that invites them to be fulfilled by those who are paying attention.

Does this make it ethical, though? Each case (or choice to conduct this social media marketing approach) should be evaluated on its specific merits, the context of the brand and the appropriateness for its market sector.

However, if all laws (such as libel) are adhered to, there is little to stand in the way of any business targeting and enticing customers through social media. There are clear “creepy” issues to contend with, as technology becomes an increasing part of the equation, but companies that strike the right tone in the following ways, should avoid the pitfalls and enjoy the benefits of social poaching:

  • Timeliness of message
  • Appropriateness of message and tone of voice in response to the consumer’s post (a gentle nudge is different to a hard sell)
  • Brand appropriateness (highly-competitive consumer markets are more ripe for social poaching)
  • Commit trained staff to this task to deliver consistent service levels

Automated social poaching

A trend toward social media automation and algorithmic behaviour analysis has the potential to replace the human touch in social poaching, and with it the risks of erring in any of the above four ways increases.

HP recently launched SmartShopper, which uses an indoor proximity system (Apple’s iBeacon) to trigger push notifications to surface retail offers that are tailored to the recipient based on their social (publicly available) data.

HP’s SmartShopper - lacking the human touch?

The fear is that it could be used to apply conquesting principles to people as they shop. HP’s SmartShopper announcement was met with headlines such as “Stalking us as we shop” and “HP unveils creepy app”. As ever, success is likely to remain reliant on being bold, being smart and using new technology tools to assist you, not replace you in connecting with customers.

A ‘How To’ for small businesses

This doesn’t mean that small businesses can’t benefit from social conquesting – far from it (in fact, they may just have the most to gain). Twitter is favoured because it is publicly searchable, so different monitoring strategies are needed when applying this approach across Pinterest or Facebook, for example.

There are a variety of tools that can be used to monitor conversations and respond to people on a case-by-case basis or using automated responses. For those with little-to-no budget, try experimenting with Twitter Advanced Search; it will help find people within a set geographical area using keywords.

Longer-term solutions include Conversocial or Hootsuite, which help you create ‘streams’ of social conversations, grouped by geolocation and keywords, that can be monitored on an on-going basis and respond to suitable consumer posts within the software. Other tools that provide an interesting twist on the more mainstream social media monitoring software include IFTTT (If This Then This) and NeedTagger.

Be warned, there are some large caveats to using social data – read Five Inconvenient Truths about Social Data – and all of these tools require an investment of time and staff resource, which may be a challenge for small businesses.

Conclusion

So, is social poaching or conquesting just a modern marketing practice, or an unethical breach of consumer trust? It all depends on the intent and the execution – and only time will tell whether consumers respond positively or find the whole thing creepy and unappealing.

Anna Lawlor is content creator and co-director of Social i Media. Follow her on Twitter @Little_Lawlor.

Paul Armstrong runs Here/Forth. Follow him on Twitter @paul__armstrong

 

Leave a Comment

Required fields are marked *

*

*