EDIT: My col­league and social net­work expert, Lau­rel Pap­worth, has pub­lished her own response.

My friend, Cheryl Gled­hill, from molt:n has alerted me to another big busi­ness — National Aus­tralia Bank and their new UBank brand — who appar­ently hasn’t talked to a social media/​social networking/​communications spe­cial­ist. Or at least one of the ones who will give them good advice.

That’s twice this year that NAB have crapped in their own nest on social media issues — we remem­ber the AFL blogs thing, right? Take a look at Google if you don’t. That first link’s a doozy!

Who’s advis­ing them, I won­der? Who­ever it is needs a solid toe in the back­side. And their con­tract terminated.

Cheryl’s com­menter, Frank, obvi­ously has no clue that the com­mu­nity can iden­tify pretty accu­rately where he’s com­ing from, if not exactly who he might be.

UGC and social media efforts will be seen through by the com­mu­nity as man­u­fac­tured and arti­fi­cial if there’s even a sniff of fake about them. Big (or any) brand beware! It’s crit­i­cal you talk to some­one who under­stands this stuff. It doesn’t need to be me, but I’d be glad to help.