Social marketing, as a realm that many brands are just starting to explore, is bound to feature many missteps as we learn what to do and what not to do. Nothing is more educational than failure, and just to make sure that failure isn’t you it’s a great idea to watch and learn from what other people are trying.

This was the theme of a recent panel discussion at South by Southwest Interactive here in Austin. Social marketing specialists from across the nation gathered to discuss, and have the audience vote, on the worst social media campaigns of the past year. Offenders ranged from Molson to Rudy Giuliani, and the awards had over 20 nominees.

The important thing was not who was the worst or what the particular offenses were (most of them have been removed from the web already), but why the efforts were failures. After listening to the nominees I believe that the mistakes break down into five areas - the five lessons of social marketing disaster:

1. Don’t be a brand control freak

Nothing panics you faster as a brand manager than someone else requisitioning your carefully crafted brand image and completely recasting on the web. The first impulse is to call the legal department, but unfortunately that will just make it worse. Once your brand image has become part of the social world it no longer belongs to you, and rather than fighting against the way someone might mash it up you have to look for positive opportunities to ride that wave of free, participatory marketing.

2. Be transparent

Many of the most damaging things brand did to themselves among the cases reviewed had to do with secretive behavior. Blogs, Facebook groups, or Youtube videos that pretend to be consumer-driven but have corporate marketing dollars behind them are exposed 99% of the time, and they can be extremely difficult to recover from once the resulting online revolt begins. If you pay for something, make sure it’s clear you did so, and make sure you expose as much about what you are doing behind the scenes as you can. The more open you can be, the better.

3. Don’t enter the objectivity zones

There are places on the social web where marketers marketing aren’t welcome, under any circumstances. Just as in the offline world, there are outlets that pride themselves on their objectivity, and these communities often police themselves very effectively. Most of these areas are open and participatory in nature, so they can be a temptation to individual marketers. Wikipedia is one such destination. Entries in Wikipedia that contain bias are quickly exposed and rolled back to previous versions, and if it’s discovered that a corporate marketer was involved it is likely that the effort will be publicized and panned on the open web. Know the landscape.

4. Stick with it

The word “campaign” can be a bad word in the world of social marketing. A campaign by its very definition has a time limit, and when a social marketing “program” launches it needs to have a minimum lifetime that matches the scope of the audience it is reaching. A successfully established social environment will weave itself into the fabric of its users’ lives, so if it is jerked away or cut off prematurely it can leave them disenchanted. That also severs a valuable connection for you. The best way to approach a new program is to make an ample commitment and leave yourself an option to continue it indefinitely. Hopefully you’ll have the opportunity to take that option.

5. Don’t ignore it

In the featured examples there were 20 or so brands that tried, and failed, at a social marketing effort. They were guilty of doing it wrong, but there are hundreds if not thousands of brands guilty of not doing it at all. At the very minimum you should be listening to what the social web is saying about you. At this point, you should probably also be planning a foray to get you into the mix - you can be assured that your competitors likely are. The sooner you start the more you begin understanding the vagaries of how the social web works within your category, your brand, and you can start building a conversation with your customers. That learning, and that conversation, is invaluable.

(Photo Credit: Bonnie Martin)