By Sean Ashcroft
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE the power of a peeved customer who packs social media savvy. It can be terribly bad for business.

Duncan Bannatyne, the entrepreneur and business angel from telly’s Dragon’s Den, has done just this and has had his rear – if not savaged – then at least nipped by the file-honed teeth that lurk behind so many smiling social media profile snaps.

And to think it all started with a complaint about shower gel -- or the alleged lack of it -- in one of Scot Bannatyne’s London gyms. The unhappy customer was Matt Egan, a Leeds-reared journalist who had the temerity to share his ire with his 332 Twitter followers.

His tweet read: "Shower gel [allegedly] in only two of eight showers, two of which are [allegedly] broken. Truly, Bannatyne's gym in Tavistock Square, you are a piss poor establishment [sic]."

Now, if you were the owner of this particular chain of gyms would you:

A) Ring Matt Egan’s office to discuss UK libel law?; or

B) Turn a negative into a positive by resolving a customer complaint in the full glare of the social media spotlight, so communicating a brand message that croons ‘connected and concerned?’.

Bannatyne went with A).

And here’s the danger of such an approach: the flurry of negative exposure that followed Egan’s tweet will make no difference to Bannatyne’s bottom line. Yet.

But Egan is a journalist, and writes an engaging and popular blog for the readers of his magazine, PC Advisor. Here, Egan laid bare the whole Twitter-triggered Bannatyne soap opera, and his blogpost triggered further negative comments concerning Bannatyne-run gyms.

Egan then went on to share his story on Facebook, and now I’ve picked it up, and a link to this blogpost will feed automatically into my Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. Where it goes from here is anyone’s guess, but one thing’s for sure: the exposure won’t be positive.

Which is why all businesses engaging with social media should brand the following words on their cerebrum: ‘Social media is all about making positive connections’.

There’s no doubt Bannatyne was justified in his anger over the unwarranted ‘piss poor‘ reference, but he would have been well advised to have take it on the chin. If he had opted instead to publicly resolve Egan’s complaint, Egan would now be an evangelist for his brand, and the social media circle would be virtuous, not vicious.

Memo to all businesspeople: Social media is like being in a pub full of people engaged in conversation. If you walk in bellowing or hectoring, then folk ain’t gonna cosy up and buy you some suds. 

So, if your business monitors social media sites for mentions of your name, make sure that you do so in order to fight fires, rather than spark fresh conflagrations.

Or, as one respondent to Egan’s PC Advisor blogpost brilliantly puts it: “Mr B needs to think less about spending money on lawyers and more about spending money on public relations, and, by all accounts, shower gel.”

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