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Social Media turns on nappies and goes to the toilet

Social Media is very strong and big bands are still coming to terms with that. A recent case with Pampers is a great story of how social media can damage your brand value. Earlier this year the scale of complaints made about Pampers Dry Max, became a public-relations nightmare for Procter & Gamble this year, was only exaggerated because they were made on Facebook, according to the Procter & Gamble's marketing chief.

Pampers nappies suffered the social media backlash when it launched the new Dry Max range this year, with some mothers complaining of rashes on their babies. Thousands of parents joined a Facebook page complaining about Dry Max, which the company denied had caused harm. According to Marc Pritchard, P&G's chief marketing officer the number of Dry Max complaints was smaller than for other product launches when compared with a database of complaints via telephone and mail dating back for many years. However he went on to say: "The difference is Facebook had a much higher amplification of the negative comments. That is one of the things we have to deal with in the new world of brand building."

Has social media dampened Procter & Gamble sprits, no, Marc remains enthusiastic about the site. And when to say that "We are with Facebook in a big way, we want to go wherever Facebook is going as well"

The key take away is that social media is here to stay and it is no longer about what you are saying but what other people are saying about you that matters. Take advice from the Procter & Gamble case and invest in social media monitoring to see what people think of your company, brand, product or service before it is too late... I do have report (somewhere) which does show that the British engage more in social media on positives issues rather than complaints. So remember monitoring social media is also for the positive stories.