Credit: Marvin Meyer on Unsplash
“When eating, bring the fork or spoon to the mouth, rather than lowering the head towards the food. Bring the food promptly to the mouth and do not gesticulate with the knife and fork.”
So goes the preeminent advice on how to sit at a dinner table. Debrett’s has, since 1769, written the rulebook on the proper etiquette for a range of traditional activities—from dress codes, to table manners, to meeting the Royal Family. When exploring the company’s site, I particularly enjoyed the entire section devoted to challenging foods. Especially the piece on how to tackle a globe artichoke (designed to injure and not a problem many of us will encounter).
Debrett’s recent partnership with Facebook to determine modern age “digital etiquette” on first viewing seems a little surprising. They have identified some basic principles to steer us through the world of digital messaging, featuring don’t be sarcastic (it doesn’t translate well), keep it short, respect other users’ privacy, don’t ghost and remember to say “goodbye.” A marriage of the keeper of strict traditions and the disruptor that threw out all the rules is, at first, somewhat puzzling.
However incongruous the partnership, the need for a new kind of etiquette is horrifyingly self-evident in a society in which a young popstar was driven to a suicide attempt due to online trolls, and both people and businesses can rise or fall on the changing tides of social media favour.
The rise of digital has profoundly changed how we communicate, as well as how we relate to one another. Our reactions can more easily be kneejerk and our communities restricted to only those who hold exactly the same views as us. As Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore points out, “in the bad old days at least people had to get a postage stamp before they could threaten to kill you.”
New worlds, new etiquettes
Debrett’s and Facebook are on to something in trying to identify some basic parameters and standards to help navigate the tangled mess that social media can sometimes create, regardless of how you might feel about them as institutions in their own right. What should be common sense often isn’t and when you consider how global our online conversation is these days, the risk of misunderstanding and offence is at high tide.
For businesses and brands, it’s essential to understand this new world and what it means for their own behaviour. Brands are inherently cultural and social objects, defined by the attributes they and we assign them, reinforced by how they behave. As such, they can only be understood in the context of societies and how we interact with each other.
So how can brands be better at understanding and communicating online?
Burger King, as an example, seems to have decided that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em—famously joking about its milkshakes being used against the far right. It’s funny, it’s reactive, and it’s what a lot of customers today like to hear. Although it was rapped by the ASA, it reflects the direction the brand is taking with provocative and humorous content.
It’s not the only brand using the social spotlight to build resonance with an audience: when Wendy’s told a fan of chicken nuggets he’d receive free nuggets for life if he got 18 million retweets, it became the most retweeted tweet of the platform’s history. He didn’t reach 18 million—but he still got the nuggets. Fast food companies, however, have a particular licence to amuse on social and via digital comms—this might work for Wendy’s, but HSBC, for example, would never be able to get away with this tongue in cheek approach. In fact, when the bank tried to show personality and ran its “We are not an island” campaign, it was widely criticised.
If we look at the nonprofit sector, the viral ALS ice bucket challenge of 2014 (which raised $114 million for the charity) showed the world how nonprofits could use the web to raise both awareness and funds. The legacy of this is still alive today—consider Veganuary, the charity whose simple mission is to encourage and inspire people try veganism for January and throughout the rest of the year. A record 250,000 people took part last year, as the charity encouraged participants to post recipes and progress updates to social media in order to create a Veganuary community, building FOMO and further sign ups into each year’s activity. Again, this only works because the business understood that its audience wanted new ways to get involved with raising awareness or funds for charities that didn’t always require a bake sale.
So what are the rules?
For every brand, and every category, success communicating online will mean different things and there will be a huge range of routes to choose from. Obviously there’s a lot of attention paid to when it all goes wrong, but understanding your audience and applying some basic rules will mean less likely to happen—or you’ll recover faster if it does.
In my view brands do best when they’re clear about what they stand for, what their values are and how both connect with their audiences. Then all they really need to do is relate online in the same way that they would offline i.e. as a human being—the kind you’d be pleased to know and enjoy giving your attention to.
So here is my slightly adapted take on the Debrett’s rules, for brands.
Don’t be sarcastic—but do use humour if your audience likes to laugh with you.
Respect privacy—not everyone wants to tweet your brand in an open forum, so ensure you have private communication channels set up to be responsive if a customer needs you.
Don’t ghost—respond to customers quickly and if something does go wrong, address it openly in order to avoid further backlash.
Remember to say goodbye—if you start or join a conversation then remember to end it appropriately, rather than leave people hanging—finish strong.
All of which appears to be much simpler than tackling an artichoke, from what I can tell.
