There will lots of chatter again about whether social media is a good thing or not after JP Morgan had to abandon a planned Twitter Q&A yesterday.
The bank had invited people to tweet questions to them using the hashtag #AskJPM. Before the official live session even began though, the hashtag was overwhelmed with both ridiculous questions and very pointed ones questioning the ethics of the banking giant. It soon became clear that the live session would be drowned out by the noise, and it was cancelled. Read the story at Huffington Post.
JP Morgan will probably be blaming social media this morning. They shouldn’t. Why blame the messenger?
Right now is a bad time to be a banker. Many, many people are still angry at how banks behave, and to be honest banks like JP Morgan have done precious little to manage their image or change their ways. If you were to give people anywhere a platform to speak to the banks, they would use it to vent and rage.
This is not a social media problem, it’s a banking problem.
Many companies don’t know how to use social media. They tend to use it more as another set of channels to just go about doing what they used to do. They don’t realise that social media is about giving people a voice, then listening to those voices and fostering community. Social media is also a fantastic way to get a sense of what people are thinking, feeling and saying – about you, your brand and your products. So, when people don’t like you, they’ll use social media to let you know. That’s not social media’s fault, though.
Don’t blame the messenger, JP Morgan. Blame yourselves.