By Julie Rambali
October 23rd, 2013 Edition
Are you not involved with social media? You know you should be but you’re hesitant to dive into it due to not knowing the difference between a twitter handle and a hashtag and worried about all the time social media will take. Maybe you’re discouraged or worried about the potential negative reviews from customers.
The easiest answer is to just dive into social media and see the type of response you get. There isn’t much to learn about social media features as they are pretty basic and very easy to use. It just takes a few minutes out of your time to click on their documentation and read up a little on it. Don’t be afraid to ask your friends/family who may already be active on social media.
The easiest way to fail at social media marketing/communications is to be too derivative. It’s the material that has the strongest emotional content that will cause content to go viral. Post interesting facts about your industry and products/services but also don’t be afraid to post “quirky stuff” because that’s what will cause your website traffic to spike. Dare to be snarky, witty and just plain weird when you’re using social media to promote and share your content. It will make using social media for your business fun for you and it will also humanize your business to your potential and existing customers.
Don’t worry about the negative reviews from customers because they can post that anywhere on the internet. Use their negative reviews as a way of improving your product/service and reply back to them with a thank you message for their feedback and inform them that you will be looking into the matter to get it addressed ASAP. Take it a step further if possible and follow up with an apology if necessary and a solution of some kind with a discount on their next transaction. This is a positive message for your potential and existing customers because we all know that no business is perfect but we all appreciate it when businesses go out of their way to correct their issues so it never happens again.
Start using social media and you’ll notice that you’ll be up to date with all the latest news and entertainment from around the world. It will enrich your real social life as well because it will make your level of conversation more fascinating as you’ll be able to relate to almost everything that’s current. So go for it and start posting and tweeting. You won’t regret it.
