This information is 100% stolen from trendwatching.com

Here are some conversations that have been collected from twitter where big brands are monitoring the conversation and responding in real time to customer service issues.

Five years ago if your company had world class customer service that meant you had some good information on your website and customers could call your toll free number 24/7

Today? you can no longer afford to wait for customers to bring their complaints to you.  If you are waiting to solve problems you are losing customers. You must be proactive about listening to the conversations and responding in real time. Twitter is an amazing tool for this. Here are some awesome examples from big brands.

Let me just qualify that and say I am throwing in the big brands thing to show that this behavior is now mainstream not that you need a big budget.  We have clients doing this way better than the big boys with micro brands and micro budgets.  check out zarbees on twitter.

Chances are your company or cause is much smaller than these. Can you really afford not to be part of the conversation?

I am sure everyone and their mother has heard about the Motrin drama. Motrin launched an online ad campaign targeting “babywearing” moms that was supposed to empathize with the pain associated with carrying your baby in a sling.

The reaction was less than positive. Moms were mad, real mad. Tweets, blogs, and youtube videos were popping up like crazy about the offense taken from the ad.

For those of you who thought that ad was pulled quickly enough that a spoof couldn’t be made, I am about to put your minds at ease. This is our favorite response video

Obviously, J&J should have tested the ad before the launch. That was their big mistake. Although they are still getting a ton of negative fallout from it they handled the reaction well. They immediately apologized and pulled the ad; it was launched on Friday and by Monday, the ad had been pulled. The buzz about the ad continued throughout the week and mostly fizzled by Friday.

The Motrin story is becoming an instant case study for how influential social media is on brands today. It also proves that there are huge opportunities to use social media to improve your brand image.

Even though there was negative buzz about Motrin, the good thing is that the fact that people were tweeting and blogging about it proves that there is some level of passion for the brand. Now Motrin’s challenge is to take that passion and make it positive.

So you might ask “what would buzz.io have done differently?” Well as you have heard us preach so many times from this pulpit it is about the conversations with your customers.  Don’t wait until a crisis to start talking.  Have you seen Motrin contact the offended mothers and apologize? they probably lost some moms forever because of this but by having a conversation they might have turned some anger into excitement because they are a brand that cares.

It isn’t too late for your brand – get out to the conversations and start talking!