Category

Social Media

Nov 04
Love0

Entitlement and the Culture of Social Media

By Social Media

I’d like to tell you that social media is all about butterflies and rainbows but you probably already know that’s not true.

A great feature of social media has been the advocacy action – the grassroots community building initiatives that have toppled the bad and uplifted the good.

Stories of these incidents are of a sort that (wait for it) go viral.

It’s become a custom amongst the social media set, when confrunted with truly terrible customer service to Tweet, post on Facebook and publish blog content chronicling dastardly customer service deeds.

BEWARE THE BUSINESS THAT DARES NOT LISTEN.

It’s true; we have come to expect that businesses — particularly larger brands, are at least listening online. We hope (and I believe, have a right to expect) that brands are responding to their own accounts. If you’re contacting a brand to complain on the brand’s Facebook page or with an @ reply message on Twitter, they should contact you to see how they can help.

Right?

I’m concerned about this — I’m concerned that maybe we’re an overly entitled generation, demanding superior customer service not just from big brands but all the way down to small Mom and Pop shops that may not have the resources to respond to all vehicles of  communication.

Now, should these companies be setting up Twitter accounts or Facebook pages if they’re just going to ignore or abandon them? Should they have an 800 number if no one is ever going to answer it? Probably not.

What do you think? Have customer satisfaction stories in which social media plays a role made us more demanding? Is that fair?

Nov 02
Love0

Come for the SEO, Stay for the Relationships

By Social Media

I’ve been at this social media bit for awhile. Longer, in fact, than we called it that. Long enough ago that the word blogger was whispered, like it was cancer.

I’ve adapted to new tools and the updates of existing tools and every day I’ve learned something new. One thing hasn’t changed through all of it though and it’s this: what really matters here are the relationships.

Sure, I might focus my content in a specific area to generate new visitors. I might narrow the focus again to try to attract people who might be interested in my help. But I guarantee it’s the relationship that is formed from the interaction between visitors and content producers that keeps people involved in the conversation.

I read the blog posts of people I’ve talked to on Twitter. I have followed the blogs of people I’ve met in person or heard speak at conferences. I’ve struck up conversation with people because others follow them and talk to them. I’ve been thrilled to pieces when one of the big guys in my industry have replied to something I’ve said.

When there’s something geographically, philosophically, politically, etc. I see that I think will be of interest to them, I share it. They often do the same for me. When there’s something that will benefit them, I reach out. The favor is often returned.

I’ve made real, true friends in this online space, some of them I’m closer to than my own colleagues at work (or at least interact with more often). People I admire and respect — people like Ken Mueller, Matt Ridings, Stephen Bolen (who totally had my back during kayakgate), Eric Kelley (who is totally getting some Gooey Butter Cake from me this week!), my BFF Gini Dietrich and my newest friend Paula Berg.

Today’s food for thought? Don’t lose sight of the big picture when you’re mired in SEO and content development. It’s the people you meet along the way that make all the difference.

Nov 01
Love0

No One Cares About Your Blog

By Social Media

Here’s the deal: no one cares about your blog. No one cares about your status updates or your Twitter feed. No one.

The fact is, people care about you.

Once again I’m reminding you that social media is about relationships. No one has a relationship with a website; they have a relationship with the person who updates it, the person who posts the content that is the tweet or the update or the photo, the video or podcast.

It’s true, no one cares about your blog, but a lot of people care about you. Think about that before you post. Are you posting as a person or as a corporate bot? Are you posting as a friend, trying to make the world a better place, or as a content generator trying to boost SEO.

People do business with people.

Oct 29
Love0

Six Ways to Change the Conversation Using Social Media

By Social Media

As part of the social media presentation I gave to a nonprofit organization recently, I said: “prepare for the negative.”

It’s a good line; it gets attention and more importantly it encourages thought and preparation before engaging in social media. Whether you’re a small company, a large for-profit entity, a nonprofit or an individual practitioner you need to prepare for the negative and decide what you’re going to do about it when it happens.

Where there’s something to criticize, there will be a critic. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to have critics; valid feedback and constructive criticism can help you make your service and your business better. As an example, see how Domino’s Pizza has used customer feedback in a constructive way to improve their business.


“You can either use negative comments to get you down or you can use them to excite you and energize your process.” — Patrick Doyle, President, Domino’s Pizza.

Here are six ways you can take back lost business by changing the conversation:

1. Listen and respond. Learn what’s being said about your business by using social media monitoring tools, customer surveys, secret shops and focus groups. Find out what the negative is so you can develop a plan to address it.

2. Allow visibility. It’s a huge leap from where we were as a culture in using public relations and the dreaded “spin” to allowing the public to see your downfalls, your weaknesses and mistakes. It is critical to the current culture of customer service that you allow comments on your blog, that you allow customers to interact with you in the places they are online (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

3. Reward feedback by thanking those who provide it and include them in the conversation of how you can make your service or your products better.

4. Respond to everything – let the public know you’re listening — we often find that people are more polite when they know you’re in the room.

5. Be accessible. Make sure you’re actually available on the social networks you’ve set up — if you have a Twitter account, you must be managing it.  Provide your phone number and answer the phone! Provide an e-mail address or a contact form and make sure you’re following up.

6. Share the story of how you took a negative conversation and turned it around. Did you get a bad score on a customer service survey? What did you do to improve? Share the differences with your audiences and they will respect you for making the honest effort.

Oct 26
Love0

Social Media Tour of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport

By Social Media

The Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport has built an excellent community of engaged passengers and customers in Central Virginia. With hundreds of Facebook fans and Twitter followers, the Airport wanted to offer a special opportunity to bring the community together, on-site at the Airport.

Using Twitter and Facebook to reach out to people in the community who are already interested members of the Airport’s audience, the Airport offered a special, behind-the-scenes runway tour of the Airport on a beautiful fall day.

The event was an opportunity for an online community to come together in real life (as they say) and participate in a shared experience. The Airport’s executive director Barbara Hutchinson was able to connect with customers and future customers of the Airport on a personal level, continuing to develop relationships on behalf of the Airport and making herself available to answer any questions the community had about the runway extension project or Airport operations.

If you’d like to know about future events at CHO, you can follow the Airport on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/CHOAirport or become a fan of the Airport by clicking “Like” on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/CHOAirport

Special thanks to Steinar Knutsen for the fantastic video of the day’s tour.