Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
What compels someone to create a Twitter account and do nothing with it but post rants about a brand or company? To the tune of 13,000+ times over 134 months (or an average of 3.5 times a day, seven days a week, for over eleven years…).
I have no idea. But that’s exactly what Twitter user @Surbiton did.
The guy/gal was clearly obsessed with Zillow, and not in a good way. Many of those Tweets were about the injustice of Zillow publishing a Zestimate of their home on Zillow.com. There were also Tweets every time Zillow released quarterly earnings—typically proclaiming that Zillow could never earn a profit, any time a Zillow executive sold stock, disdain over acquisitions, announcements of product releases, etc.
100% of Surbiton’s Tweets were negative (well, not counting the ones where they glorified their self-pursuit of torpedoing the all-evil Zillow).
The day I started at Zillow, I was told: “Never engage with Surbiton.”
This “no engagement policy” was implemented for several reasons, all of which provide suitable lessons in responding to critical brand feedback.
Reach
Surbiton had, at most, 101 Twitter followers (many of which are bots or fake accounts). This means that when they Tweeted rants, at most 100 people saw them. Their average engagement hovered near zero. If I (with 15,000 followers) had engaged with them by responding, it would have greatly amplified that reach.
Reach is worth considering when deciding whether or not to respond to anyone, especially in the social space. Reach is platform-dependent. For example, their reach was very small when Surbiton posted on Twitter. They could have reached many more viewers if they had commented on a New York Times piece, for example. On Twitter, they were screaming into the void.
Low reach alone is not a valid reason to ignore someone. A consumer or customer with a valid issue should always be responded to, even if their reach is zero. You may want to amplify their conversation, especially if you can satisfy their concern. Responding to one-off issues shows others that you care and strive to do the right thing, even for the “little guy.” But someone with little to no reach, who will likely never stop no matter what you do or say, is just wasting your time.
Hopelessness
Nothing anyone at Zillow could have said or done would ever change Surbiton’s attitude toward the brand (short of caving to their repeated requests to either remove the Zestimate from their home or remove their home altogether from Zillow—both untenable requests). As such, there isn’t much point in wasting time and energy responding.
No one wants to admit a situation is hopeless. You want to try to influence brand detractors, ideally to convert them to brand advocates, but at a minimum, quell their desire to blast your brand across the internet. But some situations are hopeless. The sooner that is recognized, the sooner you will save time, energy, and sanity.
Sooner or later…
Eventually, everyone tires. They either have their say or move on to some other issue. Life happens for every human. Surbiton was obsessed and quite possibly clinically disturbed. Even they eventually tired and moved on, though it took eleven years. But that’s the extreme. Most brand detractors will move on in a matter of days or months. Some will continue off and on for years, but very few rant multiple times a day for eleven years. Sooner or later, however, everyone stops. Even Surbition.
Taking the high road
One could argue that a company-wide non-response policy isn’t taking the high road. Maybe it’s chickening out, giving up, or not defending yourself.
Or maybe it’s doing the right thing—not just from a time and money-saving perspective—but also from a high-road perspective.
After all, engaging with Surbiton would have required plunging off the high road into the abyss of endlessly battling an obsessed (in an unhealthy way) person. Given the absurd number of hours this person spent raging on Zillow when no one was listening, imagine what would happen if we did engage? They would have been consumed. They may have doubled or tripled their daily hours, possibly skipping meals, showers, and normal social interaction.
One could argue that taking the high road by ignoring them did Surbiton a favor.
Comments
4 responses to “Who Spends Eleven Years Raging On Twitter?”
Just testing the comments on single posts. Does this work? Will it go straight to spamatory, or actually publish correctly? We’re about to find out. . .
Ha! I like it when things work the first time.
Thanks for sharing this. Good advice for anyone or any firm serving consumers.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Stuart!
You’ll forever be the first commenter on this site (mine above don’t count). There’s no prize other than my appreciation, and the glory…