Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Don't Be Afraid of Social PR

At the AO conference in NYC today, I saw a fascinating panel on Social Commerce. An interesting statistic came out of the panel discussion from Lance Neuhauser, CEO of The Echo System: 95% of Facebook wall posts from companies go unanswered while call centers for the same companies are packed with customer service reps taking phone calls. Most large companies do not have any employees focusing their time on interacting through social networks to improve their image.

Most companies have in place response strategies for the media, but what about negative comments about your business through social networks.

Based on this presentation, here are a few tips for rapid response social media PR:

1) Have someone within your company (or at the PR firm that represents you) constantly monitor your company's FB pages, Twitter handle, YouTube channel and every other social network for any comments.

2) Respond right away to either negative or positive comments by either re-tweeting, commenting in a thread or posting how your company corrected the wrong that you were called out on.

3) If possible, directly message the person that negatively commented about your company and apologize for any inconvenience and make it right through a discount, refund, etc.

4) DO NOT try to fight back and challenge the person unless you are ready for a possible social media comment war. In some cases, this kind of publicity could be a good PR stunt but make sure you have thought through all the possibilities

Remember: Social media is the new social interaction medium for businesses. Stay ahead of the curve by paying attention to and interacting within your social networks.

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