Comments on: 7 Common Misconceptions that Business Owners have about Social Media

By: Amy

Amy — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 18:25:07 +0000

Leslie,
I agree about the blather that populates most personal blogs, facebook and twitter streams. Most of the chatter is dull, just as most of the chatter in real life is dull.

But I see social media as an AWESOME business tool, and much more than just a forum to hedge complaints. It’s also a way to grow and develop your business from listening to what your clients like and don’t like. It’s a way of cementing loyalties.

By: Leslie Bass

Leslie Bass — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 18:30:44 +0000

With regard to FB and marketing, yours is about the only reason I can think of using it for business, i.e. hedging complaints. Lots of young people use it as a life line for everything.

Mostly I find people spewing out notices of their very boring life as if we are interested as to what and where they ate every meal. Better yet, what they are cooking tonight. Love it when they share pics of their half-eaten plate of food. Gourmet mag they are not.

Sometimes I even get announcements of naps, grocery store forays, headaches…etc. Such fun. Can’t figure out the reason for these posts. They can’t actually think people are that interested in their every thought? Or maybe they do!

Leslie

By: Amy

Amy — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 21:01:19 +0000

Thanks, Michelle!

By: Michelle Golden

Michelle Golden — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 13:51:07 +0000

An excellent post, Amy! Particularly loves this quote: “Social media merely reflects what’s already there.” Well done!

By: Amy

Amy — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:10:56 +0000

You’re right, Dawn. It’s interesting how Facebook in particular has supplanted e-mail for many types of conversations. My client is particularly concerned about opening a Pandora’s Box by becoming active on social media. They are afraid they won’t know what to say, or that visitors may use it as a forum to complain. Here was an excerpt of my response:

“Bad reviews, whether it happens on Facebook, on someone’s blog, on Yelp, on Twitter, through e-mail, in a newspaper, or even in person, can be very damaging. If someone has a complaint, they already have dozens of very public ways to complain to the world about it. And if the complaint is real (not just a troll looking stir the pot), and steps aren’t taken to remedy the both the immediate customer service problem and the underlying cause of the problem, then that can indeed lead to a loss of business.

By mantaining an active Facebook presence, you’re actually REDUCING your risk of negative PR. You’ll never be able to block people’s ability to complain wherever they please, or even keep track of where a complaint might be taking place, but you can create a venue for customers to complain directly to you on your Facebook page. If a complaint happens on your own turf where you can deal with it and control the management and visibility of it, then you have the ability to publicly turn an unhappy customer into a happy one, and create a lot of good PR for yourself in the process.

It’s actually riskier to ignore social media than to participate in it.”

We’ll see… I feel very much in the same situation as I did in 1992, trying to convince clients why they needed a website and e-mail!

I think the key to business owner’s adoption of social media is getting them to see social media as a logical extension of their existing marketing, customer service and PR efforts, not as some complicated and frightening new bag of worms.

By: Dawn Westerberg

Dawn Westerberg — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 13:42:17 +0000

Great summary. I too was a late 90s adopter of the cell phone – I used it as a “tracker” for my teenaged son.

I love the accellerated networking aspect of social media. There aren’t enough hours in the day for just priority emails and phone calls – Facebook and Twitter provide a great way to touch base in short but timely way.