Jeff Bennett's Blog

Earlier this week I posted about Skittles new social site. The new Skittles.com isn’t so much a website as an app pointing visitors elsewhere online where Skittles material — official or not — is hosted.  Skittles is tapping into the social media ecosystem about all things Skittles really leveraging Twitter.  In doing this Skittles was putting itself at the mercy of those who visit the site to participate.

The site launch surely created quite a stir.  All of the major media outlets reported on it in print and tv.  The blogosphere was buzzing as well.  So from a pr marketing standpoint you would think this was a big success.

All of this awareness backfired though as users began tweeting profanities that showed up on the company’s home page.   Apparently the company thought that people would just tweet about how great Skittles are, or which flavors they liked best, or how they planned on going to buy some right now, according to the report. Instead, people began writing negative and unrelated comments all over the place.

I for one think that the approach for the site was bold.  A key learning for all brands here though is you can not just launch into the social media ecosystem and assume you can instantly build a community.  Skittles has millions who buy their candy.  First learning here is that this does not naturally translate into the ingredients to instantly form a social media community.   The old adage “Rome was not built in a day,” holds true for social media communities as well.  Internet based communities are “social” first…that bring like minded people together.  You can not just infuse commercialization and expect success.

This is an unfortunate situation as many brands are doing the hard work to figure out how to productively participate with social media.  It sounds simple but you dont just move into a new town and ordain yourself the Mayor.  You move in, get to know some folks, join some organizations, these relationships and activities enrich your life (hopefully)  and others in your community.  Brands can do just this if they think it through.  A big point here is that the social networks exist out there…brands don’t have to create their own.

Larry Weber addresses this very well in the Second Edition of Marketing To The Social Web.  Larry dedicates a section of his informative book to the topic joining existing communities.  Larry writes, “Depending on your marketing goal, it is possible to join all kinds of conversations both as an organization and as an individual.” I posted about a great example of Keurig Coffee being integrated into the conversation on the NameMedia Stamping site.  We have scores of examples of this type of positive branding opportunity.  I have also posted about Starbucks social strategy as well which they did on their own…but they did a great job integrating with Twitter.

This new Skittles effort has been shuttered.  The massive pr about this launch probably cause some to be skeptical of all of these approaches.  I say no way.  Lets all learn from this and move on.  There are enormous opportunities for brands to plug in, get social and succeed.