It is impossible to deny the power of social media. It not only had a hold on people looking to find out things about their friends and enemies, but it also provides companies a way to interact with their customer base. While social media can be a great way to build your online reputation, it can also destroy your online reputation in the blink of an eye. That is why we are going to take a look at the ways social media can be hurting your business and the steps you can take to prevent that from happening. Take a look at the examples below to help avoid the many pitfalls of mismanaging your social media accounts.
Spam
If you have been on the internet for more than a minute, you already have a concept of what spam is. If you happen to have not come across that terminology, spam is inundating someone with unwanted information. A lot of people think there is spam everywhere on the modern internet, and they are not entirely wrong. Anytime you have to be subject to information that you didn’t ask for on the internet can be considered spam. However, this can apply to television and radio ads as well. Those are paid advertisements and you have the option of navigating away from those ads. In recent years, people have been cutting the cord on the cable television companies and opting for an ad-free experience. Additionally, those same people are starting to turn off ads everywhere. They have plug-ins that will remove ads from all over the internet. So, when you decide to make your social media pages, try to avoid spamming them with unwanted content. Also, keep your posts relevant. There is nothing worse than following a cooking page and having them make political posts. There are plenty of political pages on the internet that they can follow if they are interested in politics. People consider this spam and will either unfollow or unlike your page as a result.
Complaints
In the past, a business could get by with a rude owner or cashier. However, those days are long gone. People now have access to the internet. They will not be afraid to tell others about their experience at your business. Heck, people even review the Atlantic Ocean and local police departments. If they are willing to write silly things about those places, don’t think for a second that they will not write something about your business. There are a number of third-party review sites that let customers tell others about their experience. A lot of people visit these sites prior to doing business with a company or buying a product. In fact, up to 87% of customers will conduct an extensive research campaign on products or businesses. If they don’t like what they see, they will simply move on to the next product or business. It is for this reason that you need to maintain your social media interactions. If a customer has a complaint, you need to address it and address it quickly. If you are unresponsive, they will assume that you do not care. We know this isn’t the case, but it is the signal you are giving them. If you look through our other blog posts, we have provided you with ways to interact with customer complaints. Therefore, we will limit our solutions to what we already said. That is you need to respond to your clients as if they are standing in front of you in your place of business.
Timing
Customers understand that you don’t operate your business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Now, you need to know that you cannot do that as well. There are a time and place to conduct business. At 2 AM on a Saturday is not that time. Especially if you have been drinking. Save all your responses for when you have had the appropriate amount of sleep and have not been drinking. There are as many things that can go wrong with sending a tweet when you are intoxicated as there is drunk dialing your ex. Nothing good ever happens after 2 AM. If you remember that, then you should be just fine. When you do get the chance, address your customer with the respect that they deserve. Additionally, if you have taken the weekend to respond, apologize for the delay in your response. They will understand that you have a life outside of work. They will also be grateful that you took the time to respond to them.
Over-Exposure
Another way that phone in your pocket can put a bad taste in people’s mouth is by taking pictures that they don’t want to see. Certainly, they know that you have a life outside of work. They assume that you are not sitting around your house with a suit and tie on every day of the week. That doesn’t mean that they want to see you at the beach wearing next to nothing or partying with your friends on a Friday night. While it is important to show them that you have other interests other than the company, you need to choose better options than the ones described above. Instead of showing them those pictures, show them pictures of you helping out at the local food bank or on the side of the road on a clean-up crew. This will be more than enough to show them that you have other interests and are doing something useful with your time off.
Conclusion
Social media can be a wonderful way to interact with your customers. Just remember, there are a time and place for everything. Keep in contact with your customers but do it in such a way that it is beneficial to your business. The internet, and more specifically the internet, can be a wonderful thing. It can also be the thing that ruins your reputation faster than you can even know what happened.