Social media is a great opportunity for small business owners looking to increase their visibility, reach, and leads. But, when it’s not used properly, it can actually harm your brand’s online reputation. Having an unsystematic social media strategy or no strategy at all can be a waste of time and resources. Not to mention that it could turn away prospects.
How much time do you spend every day managing your brand’s online reputation?
If you are anything like any other marketer with a myriad of tasks on your hand, you probably let your online reputation work slide. And that’s not good at all.
According to a Nielsen study, 54% of consumers decided not to do business with a company based on the information they learned about the way the company handled customer service, products, delivery and so on.
Back in 2010, an Icelandic volcano with a complicated name – Eyjäfjälläjökull – erupted. Heavy clouds of ash were thrown into the air, disrupting European air traffic. All flights in the area were grounded, and over 10 million travelers were stranded at different local airports.
At that time, the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, who was just beginning to experiment with social media, found their Twitter feed flooded with confused, desperate and often angry messages from customers seeking guidance.
Can you imagine a cigarette-maker not only openly acknowledging that their product is deadly, but also publishing a scientific study that shows the deaths provide economic benefit to the nation in which the decedents lived? When the Czech Republic decided to raise awareness about how much money the country was spending on health care for smokers, that’s exactly how Philip Morris responded.
No kidding! The tobacco giant tabulated costs associated with things like caring for people who became ill as a result of smoking or of secondhand smoke, and then determined cigarette-related deaths were saving the country almost $150 million.