Social media marketing has introduced a wonderful way to connect with millions of consumers through one easy platform. Just as radio and television were revolutionary to the world of advertisement and marketing, so are Twitter and Facebook.
What sets these social media platforms apart from other marketing methods is that they provide a space for a two way conversation between customer and product. Print and broadcast are completely one directional, permitting the conversation to only be from the product to the consumer.
With social media, consumers can reach out to the product marketers and voice their opinions. Of course, this can be a beneficial thing and a destructive thing. Open communication between business and customer allows for a more personal relationship to be forged. However, in an open communication forum, businesses must also be prepared for potentially negative criticism of a product or company. The first step in managing negative feedback in the social media world is being able to distinguish what type of feedback you’re receiving.
Genuine Problems
Sometimes the negative remarks made about your company, product, or service on social media are useful. Obviously, negative remarks are a problem, but if someone has laid out a genuine problem and explained the problem evenly and coolly, you are able to respond for the better.
This type of remark is negative in that it says something negative about your business. However, you can use this opportunity to respond to their problem and try to solve it. Other consumers will see your genuine concern with your customer’s problem and will admire that. Negative feedback like this exposes real issues that need to be addressed.
Warranted Attack
This type of negative feedback can be some of the most difficult to manage. These attacks are tricky because they are usually more enraged or upset than they need to be, but they are also typically warranted. The attack itself may be overkill or unnecessary, but the complaint is typically founded on genuine grounds.
The issues that are at the foundation of these types of attacks are things that need to be addressed by the company. In this way, these criticisms can be constructive. However, comments that are angry and loud have to be dealt with carefully.
Reputation is an important aspect of managing a business in today’s society (especially with social media). Respond to these comments reasonably and quickly. Try to address the real problem at hand without displaying any emotion.
Spam/Trolling
These are the least productive and most obnoxious types of feedback companies get through their social media marketing campaign. The difference between troll posts and warranted attacks is that trolls have no reasonable or valid reason for being upset.
For the most part, these types of posts won’t cause too much of an issue because most readers will recognize it as a false claim. However, it is important that you address trolls or spammers. Try to bury the post or establish that it has no grounds, but do not pay it too much attention. You don’t want to fuel the fire.
About the Author:
This is a guest post from Jacelyn Thomas. Jacelyn writes about identity theft prevention for IdentityTheft.net. She can be reached at: jacelyn.thomas @ gmail.com.