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Ok yes… I’m married with children so apologies to all those who are not. Hopefully this will shed some light on what you have to look forward to-kind of the good, bad and ugly tour here.

Let’s start with why I am even talking about this and why you should care enough not to click the back button.

In talking with clients over the past few months, many things have surfaced around what they can expect using Social, not what they will get as benefits, but what they can expect from their audience. This is why I decided to write this post. One of the rarely discussed topics is what people can expect when they begin engaging people in Social and what they didn’t expect to happen.

The Situation: “What do we do when people talk negative about our Brand”?

This question comes with many answers, many of which I relate to the title of this post. I relate this to a Marriage here as well as dealing with children. In a marriage you often have very predictable patterns and conversations. You know when things might turn out a certain way. You know when your questions may spark a certain answer. I also relate this scenario to how children sometimes act up and do things that were not what you would like them to do (My 2 never do this . This is also an area you need to plan for-when things go way different than you planned and someone says something bad about you or your Brand.

Then there are the times when you start a discussion and things just take a completely different turn, unexpectedly. You think uh oh-what just happened. That’s the part that you need to plan for and prepare your Brand for and where your team needs to have some kind of response plan in place. A good place to start is looking at how others are doing this and determine what are the extremes your Brand will be able to withstand pressure points in the discussions-both positive and negative remarks or comments.

The Benefits: “What people say about you is what you are”

When you encounter this situation and have not planned a response, it can be very nerve racking. People today have a way of open expression that didn’t exist for Brands as a consideration, thus no need for a plan. A one way push marketing message that had no risks. Not so anymore as we all know. You are going to hear things from people, most of which have a valid point about issues facing your organization at some level. So why do so many Brands just ignore this and want nothing but the good news about their company? It’s called “Denial”.

Instead of looking away, deleting bad comments, pushing negative articles down the search chain, why not look at these as a picture of what could really be wrong inside the organization? Take a look at the frequency keywords within the comments and begin to say hummm… maybe our Customer Service has an issue in that area. Maybe that person handling this department has an issue and not telling the real Brand story. Maybe it’s a mix of things that if fixed could provide a much better experience for customers. What a novel idea.

So the question here is simple. Have you looked at the what people say about your organization, negative and positive? What’s been your response to these negative comments or posts? More importantly, have you been able to glean any changes to the organization that resulted in revenue increases due to this analysis? Bottom line is that every Brand has something that needs fixing. No one is doing everything right all the time. This just may be one way to realize ROI much faster than the Share of Voice Charts you are so impressed with.

My feeling is that the smart companies are doing this (or will soon be forced to deal with it very soon).

Post your comments below on how you have seen Brands do a great job and those who could improve below for all to see.

What’s your experience?

What changes have you made?

Are you doing everything you can to take advantage of this open channel of communication?

Is your company being perceived the way you want to be?

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• Open Thread: Dealing With Real-Time Negativity (readwriteweb.com)
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• Closing the Social Media Quality Gap, a Report from Siemens (socialmediatoday.com)
• All Things WOM ” Blog Archive ” Sentiment Analysis | Q&A with Margaret Francis (Scout Labs) (allthings.womma.org)
• Toyota: No Apologies For Safety Problems In Latest Ad Campaign (huffingtonpost.com)
• Social Media and Customer Service – Long on Promise, Short on Delivery. (vergenewmedia.com)
• What Are Your Beliefs About Marriage? (learning.blogs.nytimes.com)

Tagged as: Brand, Business, Communication, Company, Customer Service, Marketing, Marketing and Advertising