Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much!
I had lunch with some friends last week who shared with me that they often get asked to just “do some social media” for their clients.
Oh, if it were only that simple.
I think a lot of businesses think this way. They believe that simply throwing some social media icons on their website is enough or that they need to have profiles on every single social media site because “everyone else does”.
As much as we might not want to admit it, something negative about our brand will be said sometime by someone in a social network. It might be due to a change, or something out of the brand’s control or only one little misstep in many months, but chances are, that unfortunate experience will be shared. Such is the nature of information-sharing through social networks.
But it’s that same nature of social media that also gives us a powerful antidote to negative commentary – ENGAGEMENT.
We might be tempted to cover any negative feedback with a huge push of positive messaging, stating and re-stating how wonderful our products and services really are. This attempt at damage-control, however, does little if anything to protect our brand reputation. Whether or not our products and services are usually terrific doesn’t matter to the person who had a different experience with our brand, nor to those closest in their social network. What matters to them is the one unsatisfying experience they had.
This is where engagement becomes vital. We can stay disengaged and pretend nothing negative was said, but ignoring those comments won’t keep them from spreading quickly through various social networks. If we choose instead to engage with the consumer(s) making those comments, we have a huge opportunity to help positively change the perception of our brand.