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Media Temple, more than just a cool logo, it has a social voice, but does its voice matter? (Case Study)

26 January 2009 | social-media | 5 Comments

Downtime Plagues MT Users

mtAll afternoon today there have been numerous complaints across Twitter about Media Temple downtime- and yes, Media Temple (mt) more than just a sexy logo has a social voice, they even have a blog- the crazy thing is they even have a status update blog, and it’s fed to popular social media site Twitter to update users there.

Let’s Take a Look at Strategy

I’m not here to be harsh with mt, I like the guys at mt, but what I am here to do is point out why patrons of mt are still ticked even though mt has two blogs, and two twitter accounts.

The problem isn’t a lack of trying

I mean come on, they’re going out of their way to communicate- the bottom line is that server hosting is a bitchy business. When your websites are up, they’re essentially forgotten and rarely thanked, but when they’re down- you’d better duck…

The problem is that the appearance is that no one at mt wants to really deal out front on the issue, the complaint and issues seem hidden away- take a look at the main blog page: (as of the time of this post, there had been no updates on this issue) ah, there’s that pretty logo- but notice it has nothing to do with the outage…

mtblog

Get Authentic

The problem is that being present simply isn’t enough in the social media world, you have to be willing to be authentic- admit when things are wrong, and open about what you’re doing to resolve the problem, if in fact there is a problem. You want to relate to the consumer that you understand, but also that you’re not ducking the issue- it’s out front for the world to see.

Now why would you want to pull down your pants for the world to see? Because this is mt’s opportunity to really humanize its brand in the face of criticism. It’s their moment to really show off mt’s customer service dedication, and it’s the perfect time to front and center lay out exactly what options are available to customers, and yes, shopping consumers- what consumer doesn’t love to witness great human customer service? What consumer won’t want to work with a provider that has gone to this extreme to communicate with users, and what consumer wouldn’t brag about receiving such awesome service?

Being human and authentic is crucial, and mt has an opportunity to really take that human service to the next level, and so do you with your brand, or you may find things like this about your brand littered all around the internet…

mediatemple

Are they listening?

Now, we’re pretty positive that mt uses tools to listen to consumers (such as this New Media Labs article) and should promptly respond here to correct any misconceptions related to this event or post- so let’s hope they’re listening as part of their social media strategy.

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5 Comments for this entry

  • Jay Thompson
    January 26th, 2009 on 5:20 pm

    My blogs are hosted on MediaTemple. Much like Morgan, I sent out very similar Tweets during the outage. Some were directed specifically to @MediaTemple.

    Not a single response. Not an “I’m sorry”, no “we’re working on it”, NOTHING.

    What I did get a lot of responses on was the request I sent out asking others what host they are happy with…

    OK, so maybe Media Temple isn’t watching their twitter account, or updating their blog (and shame on them). But they aren’t even answering direct questions sent in through their own support system.

    One massive FAIL after another.

  • Benn Rosales
    January 26th, 2009 on 5:24 pm

    Jay, interesting that you pointed that out. We noticed that mt isn’t following many, but I’m sure they see @replies as they were responding to a few complaints random fire before excusing themselves.

    They had a need to really polish what they’re doing, and I’ll be completely honest, all hosting providers have outages, it really is about how you handle them and how often.

  • Genie
    January 26th, 2009 on 5:31 pm

    And, by contrast, I should note that I Tweeted today about my first use of yapta.com, which was pretty unsuccessful, and immediately got two Tweets in response from the Communications Director there, who apprised me of site issues, said they were working on it, and thanked me for my patience/invited me to try again. THAT is how to use social media. It’s too bad MediaTemple’s not paying attention, because right now, all I know about them is that they’re down and non-responsive.

  • Evan
    January 26th, 2009 on 5:45 pm

    If one uses their website to make money, they shouldn’t expect Dedicated Hosting from a Shared Hosting service like the Grid. Protect your investment and get Dedicated hosting. Grid users seem to think they are the only ones using the service let alone effected by a minor outage…

    From my own Network Systems Admin experience – Would you rather they spend more time responding to the thousands of users inquiries or focusing their time and energy on fixing the problem. Because I’d never get anything done at work if I spent my time responding to individuals individually about the same issue… Their blanket response is good enough for me.

    MediaTemple is light years beyond other web hosts that I have used where outages could last DAYS instead of a paltry 45 minutes.

    Sit back, relax and know that MediaTemple isn’t intentionally trying to steal food from your family’s dinner plate.

  • Benn Rosales
    January 26th, 2009 on 5:55 pm

    Hi Evan,

    We actually agree, engineers should be focused on the job at hand, getting service up and keeping it up. However, we’re asserting that mt has done a brilliant job of employing a social media strategy, and this is the area in which it’s lacking- it’s simply falling short in some pretty basic areas- which should be handled by a dedicated community leader that might put consumers at ease.

    As was mentioned in the post, this isn’t a flame on mt, it’s simply a case study.

    Best,

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