Companies That Don't Embrace Social Media Might Be…

Drowning because they don’t have any real content or they are not engaging on social platforms. Does your client want to connect with you on LinkedIn? Probably not. 

That’s why you have Facebook and Twitter to engage and communicate with your clients get a better understanding of their needs and what products they are interested in. 

Trust ME!,  the water's fine in the social media pool, but many companies are still afraid to allow workers to dive in. Experts say employers should take the social media plunge to buoy their brand and improve productivity.A few of years ago, General Electric Co. wasn't satisfied with how it was bringing good ideas to life internally.

Like most global organizations, GE struggled to create connections and share corporate information among its 300,000 employees.

In just the past decade, social media has surged from a college student pastime to a full-fledged corporate phenomenon. Facebook was founded in 2004, but by December 2012, it had an average of 618 million daily active users. Similarly, LinkedIn and Twitter also have experienced skyrocketing growth.

On the other hand, companies should not adopt a complete hands-off approach, experts say. Improved productivity will only come when employees understand the right and wrong way to use social media on the job, and managers provide guidance on what's expected, Yates says. "Most people will respond appropriately if you communicate that social media at work is OK as long as it's used to get your job done and doesn't compromise your performance or that of others," she says.

Companies increasingly are getting that message. They are welcoming social media and weaving into the way they do work other companies waste their time with senseless reports that they try to measure with. When they take forever to upload content and when they do they still screw up and pass it along instead of taking responsibility for their own self absorbance or positon in the company.

In my personal experience loan companies haven’t decided whose responsibility it is to respond.
Is it marketing’s responsibility or perhaps the PR team’s job to reply? In other words your own boss may have no clue how to engage or turn on the social media button. If you have customers that are waiting for a response but these teams may be working hard to respond, but doesn’t know how to answer sales, support or service questions. If they see something that requires a response from another department, they may forward it on a “catch as catch can” basis, but have no automated way to identify and route things to the right person. And even if the post finds its way to the right department, which individual is responsible for replying? Fifty-three percent of respondents to the ICMI survey said that routing posts to the right person was a major challenge.

The best users and companies like Cyberhooked understand that social media is a conversation, not a monologue. More effective companies use social media to interact with customers by creating online customer groups and monitoring trends. They were twice as likely to use social media to research new products. And they met their customers where they already were, using four or more social media channels – including multi-media sharing, review sites, discussion forums, and blogs. How do you use social media to listen to – and engage with – your customers?

4 Level Headed Strategies for Responding to Negative Comments Online

www.Cyberhooked,com
By Robert Vaughan

Small-business owners spend good money on advertising, media relations and other promotional materials to increase brand awareness and control the conversation surrounding the business. Although these tactics can be effective, one of the biggest factors that sway consumers’ opinions is feedback from others.

Years ago, word of mouth was a very literal expression that meant one person shared their experience with their friends and colleagues and then those people shared with their network and so forth. These days, when a customer is upset with their experience, the first thing they do is announce their opinion on social media and web forums.

Related: Got a Bad Yelp Review? Here's How to Defend Your Business Online. (Cyberhooked)

So what do you do when you get a scathing Yelp! review about the terrible service and cold soup at your family restaurant or a horrible post on Ripoff Report about your gym’s cancellation policy? The tips below will help answer these questions and outline some of the best practices for handling bad reviews.

1. Know that time is of the essence.

To gain back trust after a scathing review, make sure you say something as soon as possible. A quick response shows that the business has nothing to hide. It’s important to note, however, that the messaging needs to be thoughtful and accurate, since the audience may already be aggressive and you don’t want to fuel an already existing fire.

Sometimes, the best response is something simple, such as “We are very sorry for the inconvenience and frustration that you've been experiencing. Please contact me directly and we’ll get this figured out.”

2. Admit wrong doing and just apologize.

If the complaint is legitimate and truthful, it’s important to step up and take the blame. People often respond negatively online to businesses that are trying to evade the blame or pass it off on someone else. Conversely, customers are more likely to forgive and forget if the owner apologizes sincerely and then tries to make amends.

Related: Don't Make These Customer Review Monitoring Mistakes

If the angry customer who received poor service and cold soup wrote on the local restaurant’s Facebook page, then the restaurant could respond back by saying that they truly apologize for the negative service, and would like to make it up to them by offering a meal for them on the house. A business owner should then go to their employees and pinpoint the problem, so the issue does not continue.

3. Don’t feel obligated to respond to everyone.

Often times, online comments can be crude or vulgar because people are more courageous when hiding behind a computer screen. If the comment is a personal attack or vague, don’t engage. Only respond to specific complaints about your service or the customer’s experience. Acting defensively or engaging in the foul play can make you and your business look petty and childish.

4. Ask yourself, do you want to be right or rich?

Even some of the most famous authors receive bad reviews on Amazon and elsewhere. It comes with the territory. And if you can’t bear the thought of someone criticizing you, justly or unjustly, then don’t publish.

Worrying about less-than-favorable reviews wastes energy that can be better spent writing another book or doing something fun.

Wait a day or two and see how you feel. If you’re still upset,resist the urge to keep going back to the bad review and reading it again, hunting for any inaccurate morsel.

Don’t send emails to your friends, relatives and fans telling them what happened and asking them to write good reviews to “push down” the bad one. Most of them probably won’t even know you got less than five stars.

Your objective is to have a successful business. Don’t sabotage yourself by turning current and prospective customers off with an emotional or defensive response to an online comment. Keep the big picture in mind and ask yourself if your response is going to help or hurt your business. Never respond out of emotion or argue over details, and always keep in mind that the best way to go about responding to negativity is to take the conversation offline.

4 Level Headed Strategies for Responding to Negative Comments Online.

Social Media Management In Just 10 Minutes A Day

Keeping up with key reporters and other influence's’ latest articles and social media posts is one of the most important things you can do as a PR professional. It’s a very simple, very effective way to know what’s on their minds from day to day, which will help you send better pitches, add more value, and stay relevant to media contacts.

Better still, it won’t take you much time at all. Here’s how to stay on top of your contacts’ blogs, articles, and social media posts in just 10 minutes a day.

1. Integrate their social streams with your email inbox.

Use a plugin such as Rapportive (Gmail only) or Nimble (Gmail and Outlook) to pull your contacts’ social media data directly into your inbox. Simply enter a contact’s email address into a new email, and these plugins will automatically bring up their social profiles and latest updates, which are perfect for weaving into pitch emails.

2. Follow Cyberhooked on social media. Read their updates every day.

Before you claim that this will take you more than 10 minutes, hear me out. It takes a little upfront effort, but it can be done. 

It’s not that hard, either. First, you need to gather all your contacts’ social data in one place. Then create a Twitter list that lets you see their latest posts in one view and in real-time.

To do this, locate the Excel spreadsheet you use to keep track of your media contacts. Next, add social media account information for each contact. You don’t have to do this manually. Use media pitching tool to automatically enrich all your contacts with social profile data. 

Once you have social media information for your contacts, add them all to a new Twitter list. This enables you to easily browse their updates via the Twitter website or via a Twitter client such as Tweetdeck. 

3. Repeat step two for your contacts’ online articles and blog posts.

You already know which blogs and publications to follow. Add your contacts’ articles to an RSS reader so you’ll get automatic updates whenever they publish something new.

4. Set a reminder.That’s it. Now you can easily go through your contacts’ latest tweets and articles. Set yourself a reminder, and make it a daily habit. Your contacts will thank you and your pitches will improve.

All, as promised, in 10 minutes a day.

Robert Vaughan is CEO at Cyberhooked, a PR and Complete Social Media Management and Website Design company. Discover your Corporation/ Business "Hook" Follow him on Twitter or connect with him on LinkedIn.