Social media has its allies and detractors. Some find value in the community feel it provides. Others use the platform to spread slander, negativity and worse. Twitter — yes, that’s what I’m calling it — remains the focal point of the debate over the benefits, worth and perils of social media.
Whatever you think of social media and its importance to your brand, it’s the most immediate tool a manager can use to gauge how a product performs. But you can’t have it both ways. You can’t celebrate the positive while dismissing the negative as unimportant. Either way, it’s feedback on your product.
WWE President Nick Khan isn’t a fan of catering to social media feedback. In an interview this week with John Ourand, he compared Twitter to an old-school comment or complaint card on steroids. Instead of offering options for exceptional service or suggestions for improvement, Khan believes Twitter was created primarily for complaints and complaints only.
While I disagree with his premise, Twitter certainly isn’t a haven for positivity most days.
Human Connection To Your Brand
However, any manager worth their salt must remain open to customer feedback, no matter the platform or method. Feedback is the cornerstone of understanding what the data says versus what the customer experiences.
Was your steak undercooked? How was your shopping experience today? Every restaurant you visit would welcome a Yelp review. That isn’t data from a third party a business or brand pays for. It’s feedback from a human being who experienced your product.
Sports are no different. Although scripted, WWE is a performance-based form of entertainment with more than half a century of history behind it. Like sports teams and players, WWE receives plenty of feedback on its performance. Good, bad and indifferent.
Yet Khan believes brands that listen to Twitter feedback never come out better for it.
“Companies that read it and believe it and react to it. It never ever works,” Khan said about companies reacting to and catering to social media feedback.
Wasn’t this the same WWE that pivoted from a storyline involving The Rock and Roman Reigns at WrestleMania XL following social media feedback? Isn’t this also the same WWE that prioritizes clips of streamers reacting to storylines in promos and sizzle reels?
Maybe I’m falling into the wrestling storyline wormhole, but isn’t the point of professional wrestling to get a reaction from the audience? That’s why you have good guys and bad guys. Good guys generate cheers, while bad guys earn boos. Either way, the goal is an emotional reaction. It doesn’t matter whether that reaction comes in person, from afar or on social media.
So why would a business built on generating emotional reactions dismiss the feedback that follows? That simply doesn’t make sense.
Silence Is Never Beneficial
Make no mistake: WWE is a social media titan, with 13 million and counting on Twitter, 35 million on Instagram, 102 million on Facebook, 40 million on TikTok and more than 114 million YouTube subscribers.
I’m sure WWE gets plenty of feedback on plenty of things, probably with more negative than positive responses.
But social media feedback should be read, considered and, when appropriate, acted upon because it’s real, timely and just as important as a call, email or conversation outside the arena.
Ignoring it means ignoring the audience you serve as an entertainment company. When actors receive bad reviews, they make adjustments. When teams aren’t performing to expectations and fan apathy rises, they make changes. That’s feedback, no different from what appears on social media.
If you ignore feedback about your product for too long, the silence that follows can be even more damaging.
Maybe the lesson here isn’t whether Twitter is right or wrong. It’s whether a business is willing to listen to the people consuming its product.
Be Responsible With It
No manager should blindly react to every social media comment. But no manager should fully dismiss social media feedback simply because it comes from a platform where negativity can thrive. The same audience that tells you what it hates can also tell you what it loves, what it wants more of and, most importantly, when it’s losing interest.
That makes social media feedback no different from any other form of customer feedback. It’s another data point. Another perspective. Another opportunity to understand your audience.
The smartest businesses don’t listen only when the feedback makes them feel good. They listen because the feedback — good, bad or indifferent — tells them something about the health of their product.
That’s where WWE’s position becomes difficult to reconcile. You can’t build a business around provoking an emotional reaction from your audience and then dismiss that audience when it gives you one.
You don’t have to obey every tweet, change every storyline or let the loudest voices dictate your decisions. But you should listen, just as every other business or brand should.
The reaction is part of the product. Ignoring the reaction means ignoring the very audience you’re trying to entertain.
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