Dislikes, Detweets and Checkouts

Our online world is a happy go lucky place. You can’t throw a stick at it without hitting a “Like”, “Tweet”, “Check-in”, “Thumbs Up” or “Share” button. Facebook has “Likes” … why not “Dislikes”? Some bloggers like the idea, other’s don’t.

It was my nephew’s first birthday party in St. Louis last weekend. So I started thinking about firsts on my trip. Funny thing about firsts. People tell me they only happen once. What really happens after a first impression? Sure, it only happens once, but can a negative one become a “Like” in the future?

Here’s a post about my firsts last weekend and some research I found about first impressions and customer satisfaction that might change the way we look at measuring the anti-happiness of social media.

My Firsts
Just in the middle of our trip to visit the birthday boy, we stopped at a hole in the wall gas station in Boonville. I walked in to find a group of old men playing checkers and a day-old hot dog spinning its way into the heart of a kid salivating through the plexiglass flipper. I grabbed a pack of Gardhettos instead and a gallon of windshield washer fluid. It was the last gallon. Things were looking up.

My daughter had to go potty, so I took her inside with me. I threw my id and credit card on the counter and let the cashier know we had some business to attend to. To our surprise, the cashier had a candy necklace and a push pop waiting for us on our return. “Free of charge,” she said. They were for my kids. What a nice lady. I trotted back to my car with our trophies and my daughter saying, “Daddy, candy please.” Her mom was super thrilled. Well, not really, but it made my day though. Mark one in the “First time I ever got something free in a gas station” column. Besides the overcooked hot dog, it was a great first impression. Or for you Facebookers out there, I “Liked” it.

We got to the hotel later that day and put the kids to sleep. They had partied a little too hard with the birthday boy. Or maybe it was the sugar crash from the coconut walnut chocolate bars. My wife informed me we had free alcohol drink coupons for the hotel chili hot dog party bar. I was out of my mind excited. The pink zinfandel was served in a plastic champagne cup and tasted like the juice from a fermented prune as opposed to a grape. The hot dog tasted like shit. I think it was the same hot dog from the gas station. But, my expectations were pretty low coming into this deal, so I was thrilled nonetheless.

Next day, the hot dog returned to haunt my stomach. It was free and worth what I paid for it. Although it was the “First time I ever got free booze from a hotel”, it wasn’t my “First stomach trauma from a hot dog”. My first impression with the hotel was a little negative. I don’t really remember the first time I met my sister-in-law, but I was damn happy with her the 143rd time I saw her and she brought me Pepto-Bismol.

First Impression Research
What can my hot dog tell us about first impressions? Quite a bit.

After eating that sickening sausage, Larry Freed from ForeSee Results popped into my head. Who is Larry? He’s the master mind behind many of the annoying “Are you satisfied?” pop ups online. If a pop up would have appeared at my hot dog moment, I would have clicked, “Not satisfied” and “Would not eat again”. Larry follows the ACSI model and likes to know satisfaction level and what it will do to my future frankfurter eating behavior.

Would I stay at the hot dog Hilton again? I consulted my dear friend Google. After 13 hours of searching, Google connected me with Professor Muthukrishnan from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. It just so happens he published “Just Give Me Another Chance: The Strategies for Brand Recovery from a Bad First Impression” in the Journal of Marketing Research. It wasn’t, “Brand Recovery from a Bad First Ballpark Frank”, but it sounded close enough.

What did I learn? Professor Muthukrishnan got a group together and told them bad things about a pen called the Elegance 3 (let’s switch it to hot dogs for consistency in this blog post). He got another group together and told them good things. This was the “Like” group. After their first impression, he flipped the switch on them. Not the electrical shock therapy kind. He presented new good things to the “Dislike” group and bad things to the “Like” group.

To gauge effectivness of the new information, he presented it in two ways. First, comparing the information to the hot dog itself. “This new hot dog has new ingredients and is less likely to cause serious illness.” The second, comparing the information to a competitor, “Compared to the street corner vendor, this new hot dog is less likely to cause serious illness.”

He also got data on all this info. In a nutshell, here’s what he found out.

• For a negative first impression to turn positive, it’s best to advertise improved benefits of the product by itself and not compare it to its competitor.
   (60% increase in satisfaction instead of 39%)
• To turn a competitor’s positive first impression negative, it’s best to compare your product to the competitor and not attack the product by itself.
   (41% drop in satisfaction instead of 24%).

Application to Social Media
Here’s my what if?

That hotel I stayed at just released a new jalepeno swiss cheese stuffed Bud light infused bratwurst. They want to win me back. Second impressions are important. What is their campaign? “Compared to the street corner vendor, this new hot dog is less likely to cause serious illness.” It looks to be a popular campaign. Check out all the “Likes”, “Retweets” and “Check-ins” in our happy social media world.

While sales increased with new customers, I’m not completely sold. Neither are the others still suffering from stomach trauma. If they just would have seen my giant Facebook, “Dislike” the first time (and read Professor Muthukrishnan’s paper), they could have adjusted their ad campaign around and increased my second impression satisfaction by 60%, instead of 39%. Oh well, it’s only the bottom line.

Social media is the new point of entry and distribution system for impressions. “Likes”, “Tweets” and “Check-ins”, just like the experiment above, give us all immediate first impressions. Problem is, we have the ketchup, but are missing the mustard.

What if you “Like” something on Facebook? You can “Unlike” it, but can you truly “Dislike it”? You can “Tweet” something and “Untweet” it, but can you “Detweet” it if you hate it. You can “Check-in” through Foursquare, but you can’t “Check-out” if you aren’t satisfied.

How do we improve social media measurement? First impressions are important, but changes in behavior and dissatisfaction are even more important in determining likelihood for buying decisions when negative first impressions turn positive or vice versa.

We all remember our firsts. Why shouldn’t our seconds and thirds be just as memorable, both good and bad. Maybe if social media thought a bit more about all of our “Dislikes”, “Detweets” and “Checkouts”, we’d all be purchasing more of those jalapeno Swiss cheese stuffed Bud light infused bratwursts. Or at least be getting some Pepto-Bismol.