We view social media as a critical aspect of our marketing strategy and focus a good deal of time and energy implementing our social media plan. This has generated new business for us, helped us make new friends, meet local business leaders, and is an enjoyable part of our day.
Social Media has become an inexpensive way to reach hundreds, thousands, and in some cases, even millions of people in an instant. This is great when you are broadcasting a new blog post to generate traffic to your website or announcing a new listing.
What happens when someone is dissatisfied or has a gripe about a business or service - or worse yet - about your business or service? It too, can spread quickly across the world wide web.
There have been several examples of this recently, including the disgusting Domino's Pizza video on how not to make pizza that was made as a joke by some employees and posted on YouTube and was broadcast across social media sites to a huge audience, causing quite a headache for the pizza franchise.
In social media, it is possible for a single individual to have a greater reach than even a large established news organization as demonstrated by Ashton Kucher in his race to a million followers on Twitter with CNN. In case you missed that story...Ashton won hitting a million Twitter followers before the CNN. One single person can have a big impact on the brand of a business or an individual - good or bad.
Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff's recent book Groundswell points out that in any social media situation 18% of the participants are creative and contributory while 25% are critical (thus, there will be more critics than contributors).*
So, what can you do to protect your brand and image on social media?
1.) Have a Plan and be prepared to respond quickly to criticism if it appears online.
2.) Monitor what is said about your name and your company name on social media sites. You can set up free alerts through Google and Twitter alerts and should monitor blog comments received to your posts on a regular basis.
3.) Be Transparent - if you are genuine it will come across in your social media efforts. No one likes a phony in real life, or in social media.
5.) Stay on the Battlefield * - If you receive a negative comment on Twitter, respond to it on Twitter.
Guy Kawasaki, a leader in technology recently said that, "Twitter is the best thing to happen to marketing since television, It's cheaper, it's fast and it's free." I believe this statement applies to all of social media, you just also have to be aware that there is another side to that sword.
*Resource: "When Social Media Turns Hostile: A Guide to Brokerage Self Defense" by Jeremy Conaway.
