TemplateZone Blog

Social media has drastically changed the relationship between companies and consumers. It is imperative that companies begin to take social media marketing seriously or there will be dire consequences. Recently there have been major reactions to The Gap’s logo change and the redesign of Digg.com by members of the social media. The Gap and Digg took vastly different approaches to the comments by social media users, and the difference in the results is very impressive.

After using the same logo for 25 years the Gap decided to ‘update’ the logo at the behest of a new CEO. The Gap released the new logo online and was immediately criticized by users on every social media outlet.

The overwhelming negative response to the new Gap logo caused them to revert back to their original design. The Gap took the criticisms seriously and acted quickly to appease their consumer base.
Unlike the Gap, Digg.com decided to ignore the comments of its user base after their website’s redesign. Upon the website’s launch there were many comments by users opposing the new design and voicing their discontent with popular features being removed. Active blog users, Facebook users, and Twitter users were not pleased when Digg gave their comments the cold shoulder, resulting in a 26% drop in unique visitors (roughly 10 million visitors).

Social media has changed the dynamic between companies and consumers forever. Companies no longer have to guess why there is a negative reaction to their products or websites because all of the information is directly available from a company’s most important source, their customers. Social media has a much bigger affect on a company’s success than both the Gap and Digg ever believed, and these two cases should prove to be a standard example as to why companies must take social media seriously.
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