Companies who don't get Social Media

A few months ago I needed to order a lot of spices to restock my burgeoning spice rack, searching online for a supplier (I rarely have time to bricks and mortar shops) I found Spices Of India. I made a large order, it all arrived in one piece, in fact they gave me two pots of Saffron by mistake. Bonus. The email confirmation I received at the time encouraged me to become a fan of their Facebook page, enamoured as I am with this sort of thing I joined up. There were regular announcements of new products, recipes etc. All good and inoffensive. That is until they advertised a new skin cream that contained rose oil. For those who don't know, rose oil is an irritant and should't go in any skin cream at all, ever. All it will do is make your face red as a reaction to the badness in the oil.

I mentioned this.

Instead of a back and forth, a conversation, engaging with their dedicated fans, proven customers in fact, they panicked and deleted the post, blocked me from posting on to their wall and made no mention of it ever again.

This - in case you hadn't guessed is *not* how to deal with your customers using social media. Not only have they lost a customer (me) they have had bad press written about them (here), lost the opportunity to explain themselves and develop their online personality. In fact they have in all ways behaved like a much larger company faced with bad press, delete it and clam up.

Well done "Spices Of India" I hope someone a little more media savvy takes over your marketing soon.