There are few rule books on managing corporate reputations in social media.  When should a brand engage and show it’s listening?  When should it stand back?  Chris Lake on eConsultancy Blog (21/5) posted an interesting discussion on a recent spat between Dyson, a blogger and Mitsubishi Electric.  What should a brand do when a competitor wades into the discussion? 

Mitsubishi recently jumped into the ring and joined a row between blogger Nick Donelly and Dyson over the supplier’s Airblade.  Donelly claimed the dryer was an “awkward and unusual” way to dry your hands among his list of gripes.  The company was quick off the mark in responding to pinpoint the fault and the blogger was “quickly impressed with the engagement – thinking ‘wow, Dyson gets it”. 

Then everything changed.  Mitsubishi lost no time and ‘threw a massive curve ball at Dyson’ by adding its comments to the original post.  It listed the reasons its dryer was better than Dyson’s.

At that point, Dyson left the discussion, which it thought was going nowhere.  The move didn’t impress the blogger, but was understandable according to Lake, given Dyson couldn’t be 100 per cent sure Mitsubishi had posted the comments.  Lake explained that in the irregular world of social media, brands should determine how they manage their reputation online, and with a competitor at its door, Dyson was right at the time to back off.  Other brands would have quickly got their gloves off. 

There was some positive support for Dyson in the comment thread following the eConsultancy post.  For example, Dan Barker posted: ‘To be honest I think Dyson came out of this rather well’.  Donelly commented: ‘I think Dyson did a lot right’, following a subsequent discussion with the company.  However, he did update his post on how Dyson could have better communicated its position. 

It’s all a bit of a minefield and there no hard and fast rules for social media engagement.  Clearly, being fully transparent to your customers, and listening to their needs is key.  However, is it right for brands to jump in to discussions about their competitors in the blogosphere?  It will be interesting to monitor the situation and see if this is an emerging trend.