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I wanted this post to be positive… something positive about social media. I was almost there when the Netflix eruption occurred. Millions of people caught in the earthquake that was Netflix splitting into two separate companies!

(here’s a quick link to the details just in-case you don’t already know about it) Great article by MarketWatch by Al Lewis

What a shame I thought. Another perfect example of a company not utilizing social media. Is this really still happening I thought?

ATTENTION all the companies that have been out to lunch the past three years – social media provides the opportunity to ask fans questions, to involve them in decisions and ideas.

Poor Netflix, instead of engaging the millions of people that utilize their great service every month, Netflix decided to cut them off at the knees and make wholesale changes without even asking them if they wanted change.

Looks like Mr Hastings is going to have to read an earlier blog post of mine (Social Media Ecosystem & crisis management), because it’s totally crisis management time at Netflix!

Currently they are using every social media channel available to correct the issue.

  • blog
  • emails
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Please stop the madness Netflix, and stop making it worse by telling your millions of fans that you care when you really don’t care. If you did you would have simply asked them a few questions about what you were thinking about doing.

Example: Hey Fans, we are contemplating splitting into two separate companies in order to serve your needs better. What do you think?

Honestly, I believe that if Netflix just asked their fans this question they would have done better in the long run. Sure, I think you would have had some people oppose this change but in the long run fans would have just been happy to know that they were consulted a little bit on the decision. It kills me how companies do countless amounts of research and spend hundreds of hours in meetings preparing decisions like the Netflix one and never think to actually engage fans and customers.

A company’s product or service is essentially a relationship with a customer.

When a company is one sided in this relationship, bad things happen (just off the top of my head I’m thinking about the Full Tilt Poker website thing).  But the fact remains, in today’s media driven landscape there is a two way communication that exist between companies and customers. Or a better of way of saying it is

“yo, communicate with your fans or be the joke of everyone on Facebook”

I still want to remain positive about the subject of asking fans questions and I thought that the best way to do that was to give some credit to companies that are using social media to there advantage. One of the strongest examples of social media communication is asking fans questions.

Big thanks to some great companies above, and to Domino’s Pizza, who I may have called out in a past blog post. Domino’s Facebook page is a real-time lesson in how to engage fans and talk to them via social media.

Before you stop reading… here’s some free and simple advice on what types of questions to ask fans and why?

1 – Questions about your brand, product or service: these types of questions engage fans, they help a company improve and promote positive awareness. They add to your marketing mix and work just as good as traditional marketing activities.

2 – Questions that are relative to your audience: Basically, people like to discus things that they have in common. If you sell books, talk about books and ask your fans questions about books. Keep in mind that your product or service is an extension used by customers.

3 – Questions that are relative to everyone: Overall companies want to be part of a customers everyday life. So ask everyday life types of questions. You don’t walk up to someone on the street and say.. buy my product or services. You say Hi, you say Where are you from?

That’s all folks – see, i was negative but also still very positive.

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