In yet another sign of the risks of social media marketing, Citibank’s Twitter campaign for its new Citi Simplicity Card has been hijacked with negative tweets.
The hashtag #CitiSimplicity, designed to showcase social media comments on the new Citi credit card, is generating some negative comments about the bank. For example, Citi posted a tweet about how “#CitiSimplicity is putting every cent towards wedding of ur [sic] dreams, not a late fee. Learn about no late fees, ever.” And that generated the following reply comment:
@Citibank Up yours, debt plantation masters. #strikedebt
Ouch.
A request for comment from Citibank — via Twitter — went unanswered.
Ouch is right, but I have learned that negative comments happen. Just the nature of social media and passionate consumers. Good comments happen too! The best thing is for the bank to address the negative comment publicly and try to remedy the situation so that others can see the bank cares about the opinions of others. After all, no company is perfect, but those that listen to consumers and try to always improve wins. If the people don’t want a remedy and are just looking to complain, then that’s a different situation. I am of the belief that those type of conversations should just removed that from the conversation thread. Has the bank not replied to these negative comments yet?