Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Not everything that shines is gold: faux promises and social media


I am back with my best polemic verve. Today I want to tell you the story of a luxury website that doesn't follow-up to its promises, just to get some followers.
Sono tornata e oggi voglio proprio essere polemica, nei confronti di un certo sito che, per raccogliere followers, fa false promesse.


We are in the era of social media, where the more followers you have, the more influential your brand is, we all know that. So it is not a news that brands try to get as many followers as they can, playing all the cards they have. Everyone has seen images or ads saying "like us and you could get a fabulous trip for free or 2000 Euros to spend in designer clothes on our website". Personally I think that this is more than fine, it´s a way like another to get people liking your page, BUT it becomes a problem when nobody ever wins those competitions.

I think this is just a mockery and that´s why I decided to write this post about a website than not only never* publish the winners of its competition, but don´t even bother to reply to someone who tries to investigate the problem, and I am not talking about a small city shop. I am referring to one the biggest websites when it comes to luxury designed clothes: MyTheresa.
Have you ever seen on facebbok, twitter, pinterest or somewhere else any winner of the really generous contests that the German website organizes? I haven´t and that´s why I became curious and I wrote to the customer service, asking about where I could find a space dedicated to all the winners of the competitions. I think this is a pretty common rule and shows to your followers your full transparency. But after 1 month and a half and 3 messages, I am still waiting for a reply. I think this is just ridiculous and inappropriate for a website that aims at luxury.
Let´s see if after this post someone will bother replying to me.

*The only winners I could find in MyTheresa´s webpage is the one of a recent twitter competition and of the contest organized with Tamu McPherson.



Non è una novità che, nel´era dei social media in cui più follower hai e più conti, i brand facciano a gara per aggiudicarsi quanti più "mi piace" possibile utilizzando tutte le frecce disponibili al loro arco. Quante volte abbiamo visto campagne del tipo "clicca su mi piace e concorrerai a vincere un viaggio, o 2000 euro da spendere sul nostro sito". Personalmente non ci vedo nulla di male, si tratta di un modo come un altro per attirare persone sulla propria pagina, il problema è quando a questi concorsi non vengono vinti da nessuno.

La trovo una presa in giro e per questo ho deciso di scrivere un post su uno di questi siti che, non solo non pubblica mai* i vincitori dei propri concorsi, ma non risponde nemmeno ai messaggi di chi prova a chiedere spiegazioni in merito. E non sto parlando di concorsi organizzati dal negoziato del quartiere, ma da uno dei siti luxury più seguiti e cliccati: MyTheresa.
Avete mai visto pubblicati sul sito, facebook, twitter o uno qualsiasi del loro social media, i vincitori dei generosissimi concorsi del sito tedesco? Io no e per questo ho provato a chiedere spiegazioni attraverso il servizio clienti. Un mese e mezzo e tre messaggi dopo non ho ricevuto ancora alcuna risposta. Ritengo personalmente che si tratti di un comportamento assolutamente inappropriato, soprattutto per chi vuole rappresentare brand di lusso. Vediamo se dopo questo post  riceverò qualche risposta.


* Gli unici vincitori che sono riuscita a trovare sulla pagina facebook di MyTheresa, è stato quello di un recente concorso indetto su pinterest e del concorso organizzato con Tamu McPherson.



3 comments:

MB from mytheresa.com said...

Dear Francesca,

Hope you are well? My name is MB Akinyemi, I am the Social Media Coordinator for mytheresa.com. Thank you for your query regarding mytheresa.com’s competition policy.

First of all, apologies for not receiving a response from customer care. We have a very busy team who prioritise mails relating to orders and customer satisfaction. In the future please direct such correspondence to the PR/Social Media department for a prompt response.

Now relating to our terms and conditions for competition, you can rest assure that Mytheresa.com ALWAYS picks a winner at the end of every competition! Our process is as followed:
1) We collect all the names of people who have entered our competition
2) A winner is picked at random using random.org
3) We contact the winner and give a 2-week window to respond
4) Should the winner not respond within 2 week time frame, we use random.org to select a new winner.

Please also note that under German law it is illegal to publicise the full names of winners, both on our website and on social media platforms. This is why when we do announce winners on social media-as you rightfully pointed out with the Tamu McPherson competition- only the first name is provided.

Moreover, when it comes to bigger competitions which qualify as a promotion, contacting the winners through facebook would be in violation of facebook’s guidelines- I have included the direct quote from the guidelines for your review:
“You must not notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles (timelines) or Pages.ous”.

Hope this answers all you questions?
Have a nice day
Kind Regards
MB Akinyemi

simply frabulous said...

HiMB Akinyemi,

first of all thank you for taking the time to reply to me. I understand that for privacy reasons you can't divulgate people names or sensitive information on social media; however I think you should at least have a simple explanation of your social media policy in your website. Additionally as a customer and person that take part in competitions, I would like to see at least a message somewhere sayin "we picked the winner, check the e-mails and see if you are the lucky one". Something really genearl but that at least gives a follow-up to the ones who took part at the competition.

Thanks for your consideration,
Francesca

MB from mytheresa.com said...

Hi Francesa,

Thank you for your suggestion, we will discuss this internally.

Have a great day
Kind Regards
MB Akinyemi

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