Navigating your social media marketing can some times feel like you are tip toeing through a minefield. Social media can be a great weapon in your arsenal designed to drive traffic to your site or your place of business. However, if you aren’t careful, your actions out at your social media platforms can blow up in your face and cause serious damage to your brand and to your reputation.
If you have a social media manager, or an independent outsourcing firm, you need to be extremely diligent with regard to who you put into place. If they don’t have the professional mindset for the position, you can run afoul and alienate your audience. Two quick examples come to mind. When the actress Carrie Fisher died recently, the Cinnabon social media management crew decided they would pay tribute. What did they do? They took the actress’ iconic likeness of her playing the character Princess Leia of the Star Wars films and superimposed their product on each side of her head stating that Fisher, “has the best buns in the world!”
Needless to say, this did not go over well at all and the company found itself scrambling to clean up the considerable damage their social media crew had done. Another example is of American Apparel who thought they would welcome in a Fourth of July sale and celebration. Turns out their social media manager posted a picture of the space shuttle Challenger exploding. Apparently, the social media manager was born after the 1986 disaster and thought the photo was just some fancy fireworks display.
Training and monitoring the people who are controlling your social media marketing is one of the most critical things you must do if you are to succeed out there. You can’t afford damage control. Many small businesses never recover from such blunders. Margins these days are generally slim to none so a word to the wise should be sufficient.
This leads into yet another serious blunder that many businesses make. They tend to ignore negative feedback or comments. Doing so will sink your proverbial ship faster than anything else. Your social media marketing people must immediately address the negativity and resolve it to the customers satisfaction. Having someone in place who understands sales and negotiation would be ideal. People skills are critical out on social media and, sadly, they are not as common as they once were.
Don’t be everywhere. Decide what social media platforms will serve you best and just be on those. Buying likes or followers is another blunder too often made. Also, mix up your content and stop the constant promotion. Posting the same old tired content will suggest to the audience that your company is as exciting as dirt. The hard sell is out. No one responds to it out at the social media platforms. They expect to be persuaded, engaged and fired up about your products or services. They want to like you. They want to go to your site. They want to buy what you are selling.
Are you making that easy for them?
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
SearchPro Systems
2024