Social thievery: A fradulent trend to be mindful about
IN RECENT years, it is an irrefutable fact that social media have become significantly strong channels of communication in the modern business world. They are so widespread that many brands have placed their faith in social media as among their main commu
From this fact alone, branded social-media handles, accounts, |or pages have become the heart |and soul of how to engage smoothly and uniquely with modern consumers.
Alas, using social media is not a bed of roses, as there are always thorns on the side. The unique heart and soul of branded social media can now be stolen.
One victim of social thievery is one of the most famous green-tea brands in Thailand, which has been enjoying successful communication with consumers through Facebook. The name of the brand doesn’t really matter because the owner of the brand has notoriously brought himself into the spotlight by creating countless social-network engagements with consumers.
Major prizes ranging from smartphones, gold and vacation packages to sports cars were given randomly on daily basis to those who bought his product through lucky draws, while minor prizes were given to those he found to be amusing and openly cheered for him and his brand on social networks.
After enjoying this prosperous reign on the social network, the green-tea hero was pricked by a social-media thorn. In the past month, countless imitation social-network pages have sprung out of nowhere. The names of these imitation pages range from a parody level up to being one letter or one vowel different from the original page, causing massive confusion to social-media users.
In an early stage, these pages were supposed to be humorous, poking fun at how Thais are addicted to offers of prizes and will blindly share when prizes are at stake. Now, the parody has lost its humour.
Many may argue about the consequences: How could these fake pages damage the original?
Well, it is damaging to the core matrix of success for any businesses operating within social space. To marketers or brand owners, a social-media campaign’s key performance indicators (KPIs) usually fall around the number of “likes”, comments, shares and views. These fake pages are now stealing these key matrices from the original owner who has put investment and effort into the real thing. In less than a month, these fakes have taken almost 300,000 “likes” and countless shares away from the original page.
The saddest and most dangerous thing about this whole fake-pages escapade is the fact that many Thais still blindly “like”, comment on and share the illegitimate content of the imitation pages. This is very dangerous because it is an indication that consumers cannot tell a genuine page from a fake.
If this phenomenon becomes a norm, future communication campaigns on social network will never be the same for marketers operating in Thailand no matter if you are the owner of a small business or a multinational conglomerate. A few measures and new ways of thinking will have to be adopted to deal with these issues. However, since cases like these are relatively new, here are some out-of-the-box ways we could use to cope with these incidents.
First, look again at the way social-media KPIs are set. If the fake pages are trying to emulate you just for the humour, count their “likes” as part of your success matrices. This may sound absurd, but if we really examine the fans, those who click “like” or share content from the fake pages are actually your real fans. They clicked because they like your brand.
Second, educate and glorify your followers.
If you believe that these fake pages will not contribute anything but suffering to your brand, turn your fans into heroes by pleading with them to report these pages as well as asking them to share the genuine page with others in their network.
shareable infographics to educate consumers on how to distinguish between your real page and the fake pages by asking your real fans to be the heroes in spreading the info.
Third, take back your followers. If the damage from fake pages is really severe, contact Facebook directly, as it will be able to find you a solution to pull those misled fans back to your real page.
As a closing statement, I would encourage you always to be on the lookout when you conduct social-media campaigns. Fake pages may not happen often, but it would be good to include a contingency plan in case your brand becomes a target of social thievery.
There is no pre-emptive manoeuvre to stop thievery from happening, but being vigilant can always help you bust the emerging crook.
MAAS VIRAJOTI is group head, strategy and innovation, IPG Mediabrands Thailand.
