An Error Page Error: How Hootsuite Missed the Mark on Effective Marketing Communications

I use Hootsuite daily. 

You likely know that Hootsuite is a useful social media dashboard application.  It helps manage client’s multiple social networks from one website.

Specifically, I spend a few hours each week writing relevant Tweets of interest, and scheduling updates to my client’s Twitter account, as explained in previous blog postings.

You might also know that late last week, Hootsuite was one of the applications that was affected by a severe service outage.  Hootsuite crashed for almost a full business day.

How Did The Crash Happen?

I’m over-simplifying here, but here’s how I understand it. Hootsuite is one of several applications that use Amazon web services and databases to provide “cloud computing” capability so users can log onto the applications from the cloud. 

There was a total, unforeseen failure of Amazon's web services and database functionality (not the Amazon site itself, but their web services). Unfortunately all recovery or fail-safe strategies crashed as well.

Other popular websites and services that went dark that day were Reddit and Foursquare. They were crippled or outright disabled well into the early afternoon.

Other folks far more technically savvy then me are writing about this outage, and putting it in its proper perspective.

A Marketing Communications Challenge

My concern in this post is a little more mundane, but relates to marketing communications.  

Hour after hour, as I tried to unsuccessfully log in to Hootsuite, what was displayed was very snarky error page.  (pasted above). 

More than snarky, it was downright rude.  As the error page said in multiple languages:   “Owls need a break sometimes, too. We’ll be back in action, but in the meantime go outside and flap your wings around, you may find that flying aint’ very easy.”

Granted, after about five or so hours a more professional and “Kinder” error page was displayed, but this one really missed the mark.

Missed Opportunity for Positive Branding

The error page bugged me every time it was displayed.  

It created a certain perception about Hootsuite's service and brand.

Even though it wasn’t a critical situation by any means (nobody died), I lost a few hours worth of work since the outage resulted in losing 4 or 5 days worth of Tweets scheduled in advance.

So here’s to paying attention to content on an error page.  Seeing a directive to “go outside and flap your wings around” set quite a negative and dismissive tone, and wasn’t an effective use of positive branding or marketing communications.

Twitter as a Brand Expression: 5 Tips for Effective Branding Using Twitter

This is a topic I’ve been mulling over for some time, but how to begin? 

The most useful place to start is to talk about the term “brand” so let’s begin with that.

What is a brand? 

A generally accepted definition of the term “brand” is “the emotional relationship a product, company, organization or even person has with their customers, audiences, consumers, community.” 

This is a definition modified from several sources including Marketingspot.

B-to-B Branding

In terms of business-to-business marketing, a brand elicits thoughts, perceptions, emotions, and responses from business customers. 

Responses are based on many key elements such as the product/service itself, the company reputation, the company history, the logo, the website, product packaging, the company employees, news articles, etc. 

(Quick side note – remember that logos are not the same as brands.  In fact they are design representations of a brand.  In a way, they serve as a brand “symbol” when they are created effectively.)

Twitter as a Branding Tool

So how can business-to-business marketers use Twitter as a branding tool?

A previous blog post about the basics of Twitter etiquette made the case that “a brand is a collection of perceptions in the mind of your prospect. A Tweet stream contributes to that perception.  It’s wise to operate within the constructs of common courtesy to lock in positive branding. Your Tweets are a reflection of your brand!

5 Tips for Effective Branding

To explore this concept more thoroughly, here are 5 Tips for Effective Branding via Twitter.

1)    Do the hard work first.  A Twitter or social media program can only reinforce your brand if you’ve taken the time to develop one in the first place.  Is your organization striving for a “thought leadership” brand?  If that makes sense for you, then Tweets can reflect cutting edge information, leading industry trends, and other materials supporting that brand image.  But you can’t be effective until you have a sense of the brand.   Are you hoping to brand the company as a leading edge innovator?  Then Tweets should reinforce that brand image by directing followers to innovation success stories, accolades and awards for innovation, breaking news of other innovators in the marketplace, etc. Again, this only makes sense if that branding work was done beforehand.

2)    Be Consistent.  Branding must be consistent across all media and programs.  As an example, a financial consultant might use print and online ads and its website to portray a conservative and trustworthy brand. Thus it wouldn’t make sense for the financial advisor to Tweet goofy jokes or off color comments, personal observations about the weather, Charlie Sheen or unrelated topics.  Be human, yes, but don’t go off-brand. The advisor’s tweet stream should reinforce a consistent brand image that relates to other programs.

3)    Use common sense. Courtesy goes a long way.  This was covered in another post, but it is worth repeating.  Mind your manners!   Don’t be reckless, use profanity, or insult.  That makes a terrible brand impression! Don’t Tweet or post when angry. Refrain from being intoxicated when Tweeting, as many organizations have learned.

4)     Be timely.  This is a pet peeve. What does it say about a business consultant’s “brand” when the Twitter feed hasn’t been updated in over 12 months?  It doesn’t say anything good that is for sure.   If you start a social media marketing program, by all means maintain it in a timely fashion.  It is a detriment to the brand if a blog, Twitter account, or Facebook goes through a ‘set it and forget it” process, and the last post was over a year ago.

5)    Be thoughtful.  It is a mystery to me why so many business to business companies don’t take time to draft an effective Twitter biography profile.  Many also neglect to include their website’s URL. Other relevant followers search Twitter bios using keywords when looking for folks to follow.  If a corporate trainer, for instance, leaves the bio blank, or doesn’t use keywords in the bio like “training’ “corporate training” “learning workshops”, they are missing out on a great branding opportunity.

 Parting Thoughts

A brand is the foundation of all marketing activities. 

It takes thought and effort, but social media marketing can effectively reinforce your brand, and deliver a favorable perception in the mind of your prospect.