One of the first signs that a company is in trouble it when tries to regulated its less formal communications channels with external stakeholders. We saw it with the banks last year, all of whom started to micro-manage every communication from the outside world. Unless it came from the c-suite and had been scrutinised at length by corporate corporations and legal experts, it wasn’t going out of the building.
Ironically, this was the worst thing they could have done. No one these days trusts official communication, especially when it comes from the men in suits at the top of an organisation. Conversely, other less formal communication, between people on the inside and people on the outside of a corporation, tends to be more trusted. Microsoft and Sun Microsystems learned this lesson years ago, which is why they allow thousands of their employees to blog, Twitter and chat, without any corporate interference.
Unfortunately the marketing people at Manchester United haven’t learned this lesson. It was revealed today that the Twitter accounts of their leading stars have been closed down and from now on, all communications with fans has to go through the official Man United website. This is the reaction of a corporate communications team in complete panic mode. At a time when the club needs to win the trust of its fans, in the face of escalating protests against the Glazer family’s ownership, closing down one of the few credible and trusted links between the club and its fan-base is not the cleverest of moves.
One Comment
Hi Martin, great post and I couldn’t agree more. It’s such a shame that certain mis-guided corporate teams react in this way. As you said, Twitter accounts held by the players provides the fans with a really credible and trusted source of information… now all those fans, who were following players such as Rooney, will have now seen that link severed. These fans will be left with a bitter taste in their mouths and they will have yet another reason to lose a little bit more faith in their club. Surely they would have benefitted more by having a few behind closed doors Twitter training sessions, to educate the players in a few basic Social Media do’s and don’ts?
What with a corporate team like this and ‘boot-licking morons’ like Neville, they are surely doomed to become the second team in Manchester in a few years!