Social Media Reputation: Stabilizing the Foundation of Business

Social Media Reputation: Stabilizing the Foundation of Business

In the honeycomb of social media the little hexagonal cell I place the most value on personally is reputation. You can start out with a good business reputation, which shapes your identity over time, but if you don’t maintain that good reputation where your use of social media for your business is concerned, there is the possibility of catastrophic consequences, number one, driving your customers elsewhere.

On a face to face, personal level when we have a problem we want, or need, to talk to someone about, and they blatantly ignore us, we tend to get a little “miffed”. Why should it be any different with social media? Just because we don’t have a visual on someone when they have a request or complaint doesn’t mean they are going to be any less angry when we don’t respond. I think that’s how we ended up with the social network site Divorce360 by the way. There is really no excuse to ignore customers today, because it’s just too easy to mark messages and track your followers.

Business, like individuals, can fall into the narcissism trap too.  We have a tendency to forget that it’s not “all about us”. Be helpful, if you have a customer post a request for something you can’t provide for them don’t be afraid to send them to a site that can, and don’t just make your social media site all about your “stuff”.  Sharing alone is a way of interacting in social media, but whether sharing leads users to want to converse or even build relationships with each other depends on the functional objective of the social media platform. (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, Silvestre, 2011)

Speaking of sharing, businesses need to post more than just text links on their social media sites. Visual cues get immediate attention. Just remember it’s not necessary to go all “Victoria’s Secret” with imagery to get attention. You can keep it decent and still get the attention desired. No need to ruin it with the imagery either.

Visual imagery aside, there are three more important reputation considerations that companies overlook when conducting business through social media that “bug” me, yes “bug” me.  The first is use of language. There’s no need to overdo it in posts, podcasts, or web broadcasts with language that’s inappropriate for the public at large. Second, is erratic posting. It’s not a good idea to bombard customers with multiple posts at one time. On a personal note, I think that it's just annoying when successive posts all dominate my screen in one huge block. And last, but not least, leave the debatable  topics of the day off your social media business site,  if it in no way applies. Don’t risk offending a loyal customer and send them clicking elsewhere in cyberspace.  

References

Kirtzmann, J.H, Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I.P., Silvestre, B.S. Social Media? Get Serious! Understanding the Functional Building Blocks of Social Media. 2011 <www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor>