Every day, business owners give me their reasons for not using social media. Quite often, they say: “What if they say something bad about my business?”
I respond: “They may be already. Don’t you want the opportunity to be part of the conversation and try to resolve the issue?” What I don’t say is: “That’s right. Bury your head in the sand but it won’t make it go away.”
Your customers are on social media – whether you’re there or not. And even more importantly, they may be posting about their experiences in working with you, both positive and negative.
There is, however, a more egregious mistake that I see every day: a business has a Facebook Page, a Twitter account, etc. but they don’t pay attention to it! Personally, I’ve posted messages on Facebook Pages, basically saying “I want to do business with your company” and they never respond. Do these companies also ignore email requests and voice mail messages?
What’s worse is when someone posts a negative comment that isn’t responded to. I recently was considering working with a business and I went to their FB Page. There were several negative (and ignored) comments. The worst one was from someone who was in the military. They tried to cancel their contract when they were deployed and they were told they couldn’t. They were complaining profusely on the Page – and others jumped in, too. Not a good situation.
Here’s an even worse example of an ignored comment, for an antique store:
Scumbags galore. Claim to be family business, but their main auctioneer is in an adulterous relationship with a married woman. The owners not only know about it, they encourage and tolerate it.
Yoiks!
While ignoring negative comments is bad, I think it’s even worse to ignore positive compliments. We recently had our carpets cleaned and I looked at the FB Page for the company. Post after post was glowing, but there wasn’t a single response from the company. It would only take seconds for them to respond, but they could have taken it farther. What if they responded with something like “Thanks for your kind words. It’s our goal that our customers are 100% satisfied. To show our appreciation, the next time you call to schedule our services, please mention this post to receive 10% off.” Talk about spreading goodwill!
When I asked the technicians about this, I was told that they outsource their social media efforts. While it’s certainly okay to outsource, it still needs to be monitored! And they certainly should have given direction to the company who is (or should be) monitoring the Page on how to respond.
So, what do you think? Would you ever decide to do business – or not do business – with a company based on their social media activities? Comment below!
