Web Development Tips

Today I had lunch with John Heaney,
a local Cleveland entrepreneur, marketer and social media advocate who also blogs
about marketing at Orange Envelopes. One of the topics we discussed was
the hesitancy some organizations have about implementing social media strategies.

Issues about controlling the message, intellectual property, firewalls, time
commitment, return on investment (ROI), measuring results and goal setting
are all common concerns, but in particular John raised a point that I’ve been
hearing a lot about lately: negativity.

Specifically we’ve both heard from individuals and companies who worry that
if you’re participating in social media, you run the risk that people will
say something bad about you. This is true, but the risk is there whether you
are online or not. No matter how ethical or clever you may be, someone, somewhere,
will be ready to disagree. There’s no getting around that. None of us is capable
of pleasing everyone all the time. But if we’re participating ourselves, we
can:

Listen:

People will talk about you or your organization whether or not you can hear
them. Ignoring them won’t keep the criticism at bay, so you might as well pay
attention. If you set up Google alerts on
your name or brand, subscribe to
Yahoo and Google
news search feeds, Twitter searches,
etc. you can find out what they’re saying about you—be
it good or bad—immediately. If we know what
others are saying about us on their blogs, our blogs, Twitter, Facebook,
online media, discussion forums and elsewhere, we have the opportunity
to take advantage of that knowledge and use it productively.

Learn:

Criticism comes in many forms. Some people (trolls)
like to leave rude blog comments or make nasty remarks about your brand just
because they’re angry or they like to stir up a bit of controversy. But other
comments can be more constructive. If someone complains about your customer
service or your product, this points out a potential problem. You can now determine
if this is something you need to fix or if it was just a one-time issue. Someone’s
product problem could also give you a great idea for a new product or a new
version of an existing one. If someone’s critique can lead you to build a better
mousetrap, then it’s worth a listen.

Evaluate:

What was the context of the criticism? Does it have a bearing on your reputation?
Your customer service? Your product design? Should this information be passed
onto others in your organization, or can it be safely ignored?

Rebecca Kelley, Director of Social Media for 10e20,
recently wrote a critical
blog post about a panel discussion she attended, Black
Hat vs. White Hat Social Media and the Battle for Common Sense. In the
original post she had made some negative remarks about Beth
Harte who is the Community Manager at MarketingProfs and
very well regarded for her knowledge of social media marketing. (I read her
blog, The
Harte of Marketing and follow
Beth Harte on Twitter.) Beth evaluated the situation
and chose not to respond. As it happened, other people reacted for her.
Readers responded in ardent support of Beth. Rebecca read their comments.
She then toned down her blog entry, documented the change and contacted Beth
directly to arrange to discuss the panel more thoroughly. Beth and Rebecca
each listened and evaluated the situation so that the matter could be peacefully
resolved.

You don’t need
to act on every mention that is made of you, but if you listen regularly you
can develop a system of triage in which you determine which mentions deserve
which reactions. If you do this regularly and establish a policy, you’ll be
prepared for the big nasty—that
seemingly harmless negative reaction that will get you bad international press
if you don’t respond in the right manner.

Act:

Once you’ve evaluated a comment—and deemed it worthy of a reaction—it’s time
to use that knowledge productively. Can the comment help you improve your widget
design? Send it to your product development team. Has it shown a weakness in
your customer service department? How can you fix it? Frank
Eliason of Comcast became the international poster boy—for using social media to enhance customer
service—when he start solving people’s problems on his Twitter account, Comcastcares.

Respond:

Let the person who made the comment know what you intend to do. As I recently
wrote in Here’s
how one web designer deals with negative comments, I like to take a deep
breath and step back a bit before responding. If during your evaluation you
decide that a response isn’t necessary, then you can get back to other matters.
But if a response is warranted, then one wants to react clearly and tactfully.
Did the person point out a problem that you are going to solve? Explain how
you will solve it. Was the comment the result of a misunderstanding? See what
you can do to clarify the confusion—while allowing the commenter to save face.
If you take the diplomatic route then you both have a better chance of coming
out with your reputation in tact. If you respond in anger you’ll just make
the problem worse.

If you can’t solve the problem, do your best to explain why in a manner that
will let the commenter know you really did your best. Share the situation with
higher-ups in your organization, find out if there is a way to turn the
problem into an opportunity, and keep listening.

Establish a baseline reputation via social media NOW.

I’ve been telling people for years that they need to establish their online
presence before someone else does it for them. It behooves us all to take control
of our own message. If I’m a small business without a Web site or other online
presence, then the only things people will find when Googling my business will
be reviews from others, media mentions, social media comments and other opinions
written from an external perspective. If I build a site (or hire
Heidi to build it for me), start a
blog, create a Facebook
page, share tips on Twitter, etc. then I can share
my expertise and let people know what my business stands for.

What John cleverly pointed out, during our lunch, was that this social media
presence also serves to establish your baseline reputation for providing good
customer service, offering educational content or whatever else you might be
communicating through social media. If you’ve been doing this regularly, then
next year, when customer X blogs about your lousy information resources, he
won’t have as much clout. Other readers will see that most customers love your
blog, enjoy using your customer discussion forum, follow your Tweets, etc.
Customer X isn’t speaking for the masses, but is instead in the minority.

And, since you are already listening, you will now be ready to respond to
customer X in a timely and appropriate manner. If all goes well X can join
the majority of your other happy customers. This is a far better outcome than
you’ll have if X writes a song—extolling your failures—that just happens to go viral on
YouTube.

Related Social Media Resources

• A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media
• Biggest Mistakes Made by Social Media Gurus
• Chicago Domino’s Gets Social Media Right!
• My biggest social media mistakes by Mack Collier
• Top 10 Twitter marketing blunders in photos
• United Airlines Online Public Response to Dave Carroll YouTube Video: 9 Tweets

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