The Negative Effect of Social Media

May 24, 2012 By 14 Comments

negative effects of social mediaOne bad tweet on Twitter or a negative comment on Facebook can lose your business up to thirty customers, a survey by Convergys Corp revealed.

Typically, a negative review by a customer on one of these major social media sites reaches forty-five people. Of these, thirty people will not purchase anything from a company they’ve heard bad things about.

So what does this mean for your business?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: social media

Facebook is Bad for Business

May 8, 2012 By 8 Comments

Be very careful of Facebook. It can be a real time suck and, what’s worse, it can really mess up your marketing.

What?

A blog post warning you against the dangers of Facebook ?

You bet!

So here’s why you should be careful of Planet Facebook.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: social media

8 Guaranteed Ways to Ruin Your Social Media Reputation

March 29, 2012 By 18 Comments

1. Broadcast Spam

The easiest way to ruin your company’s social media reputation is to tweet spammy links or Facebook updates related to selling your stuff. Constantly. Frequently. Everyday. In no matter of time at all people will close their ears to what you have to say, letting your avatar drift by in the twitter stream. At worst they’ll block your account and unfriend you.

Oh, and as a bonus tip: sign up for as many apps that blast out those spammy “Hey, I just signed up with NAME OF SERVICE” messages. People hate those, so they’ll definitely help you ruin your reputation.

2. Do Anything to Get Likes

Yup, it doesn’t matter who, just follow anyone or anything all the time. A robot, a porn site, a spammer, collect them all. You just want other people to see that you have a bazillion online followers and friends.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: social media Tagged With: , , , ,

The One Thing Swedes Can Teach Your Business About Social Media

December 28, 2011 By 2 Comments

social media sweden

The results of a study here in Sweden by Viasat and SIFO reveal that every other Swede who uses social media like Twitter, Google+ and Facebook follows a business. The figure is even higher for Swedes who follow a business on Facebook with them on average liking four companies.

Despite these striking figures, less than half of the Swedes surveyed know that you can get customer service through social media, and instead see a company website as the main channel for getting customer support.

This still reveals though that 50 percent DO know that social media is a route to content businesses for customer service. [Read more...]

Filed Under: social media Tagged With: , , , , ,

8 Things to Get Your Staff Prepared for a Social 2012

December 14, 2011 By 2 Comments

Although social media has got a lot of traction in 2011, there’s still such a long way to go. More and more companies are asking questions about it and what it means, not just for marketing and communications, but also employees across the board.

For companies that have decided to go down the social route in 2012, you might want to start thinking about how you are going to:

  1. develop an action plan that shows exactly what they plan to accomplish with social media in 2012
  2. get staff thinking creatively about what they can share on social media that might benefit the business
  3. make staff aware of some of the things that can go wrong with social media
  4. identify the person (or people) on your team who are responsible for handling a social media firestorm should something go wrong
  5. improve staff’s creative skills; for example, why not start the New Year with a training day looking at how video can be used to build better connections with customers
  6. pinpoint the social platforms you’re most likely to connect with your target audience
  7. decide on the metrics you are going to track to ensure you’re investment in social media pays off
  8. agree on a social media policy to ensure you’re all set on what’s acceptable and what’s not

[Read more...]

Filed Under: social media Tagged With: , , , ,

Facebook Attacks: Social Media Crisis Management

December 7, 2011 By 7 Comments

Last week I had to manage a social media crisis for a school. Students were using the popular social media site to post and share material that upset other students and staff. Although possibly meant as a bit of fun, the “Hot or Not” page was anonymously taking personal pictures of students and publishing them. The school wanted to deal with this as soon as possible but didn’t appreciate how difficult it can be to get Facebook itself to react.

So instead of keeping quiet about the whole thing and hoping it would go away, I put my best social media crisis management hat on and convinced the school management to let me make a quick video with the help of the school counsellor and Yazan, from the third year.

Drawing on a strategic social media crisis plan that I’d thankfully prepared last year, I zipped around the school and got students and staff to tell me what they thought Facebook was for and what it’s not for.

Managing a Social Media Crisis Takes Preparation

The biggest takeaway for me with managing this crisis was not just how dangerous or unpredictable social media can be for your brand; it was more about the necessity for businesses to have a crisis management strategy and have fire-drilled for a quick response.

As a business you always need to be prepared to handle a social media crisis. In this case, the video was shot in less than half an hour, edited and quickly posted to YouTube and the school’s website and Facebook page. [Read more...]

Filed Under: crisis management, social media