Utilizing social media is important, but there’s a lot to consider before you make the leap. We’ll help you prepare, monitor your company’s reputation online and avoid negative publicity.

1. How To Jump Into The Social Media Pool Without Drowning

While you’re hearing all the success stories about companies participating in social media and wondering how you can join in, there’s a lot to consider and prepare for before making the leap into the pool.

• Participating in social media just for the sake of participating is a waste of your time and money.
• Although the platforms are typically free, effective social media marketing requires a significant time commitment – and time is money.
• In order to have word of mouth online, everything needs to be in top shape off-line. If your company isn’t in order, there’s a chance that word of mouth about your company will be negative.
• Jump in with a specific plan. You need to have content and have something interesting to say and share.
• You need to have an infrastructure in place to monitor various social media communications and respond to online comments, particularly negative ones.

2. Everybody’s Talking ‘Bout You; I Don’t Hear A Word They’re Saying

It’s easy to monitor what people are saying about your company, your service and product with these top tools:

• Google Alerts: Automatically notifies you when your selected keyword phrases appear in blogs.
• Technorati: Search blog posts using Technorati’s blog search engine.
• SocialMention: SocialMention is an aggregator of everything social media.
• Twitter: Use Twitter’s search engine, http://search.twitter.com
• FiltrBox: This real-time social-media monitoring program uses filters to weed out junk messages.
• Monitter: Monitors Twitter search phrases in real time.

3. Power To The People, But Make Sure You Don’t Break Any Guitars

We recently witnessed one of the largest and most devastatingly successful online reputation attacks on a corporation. A major airline was brought to the ground, humbled, shamed and reprimanded by a passenger for damaging his guitar during a flight.

Finally, after 12 months of the airline refusing to take his request for compensation seriously and exhibiting poor customer service, the passenger – a singer/songwriter – recorded a whimsical video and uploaded it to YouTube. After 4.5 million views and negative publicity nationwide about the airline’s customer service procedures, an embarrassed United Airlines finally took notice. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo)

Companies of all sizes should learn lessons from this incident:

• If your customer service is substandard, the power is now in the hands of the consumer to use the Web to embarrass you.
• Viral marketing has the ability to strongly promote the positive side of your business, but it can also rapidly tell the negative side.
• To prevent negative publicity, respond quickly to any incident, question or complaint so that customer frustration doesn’t accelerate to the point of taking the issue to the Internet.

4. The 60 Second Close: How To Harness The Power Of The People

The power is in the hands of the people – your customers. We can show you how to harness that power to your advantage and increase your sales and profits. Ready to start? Call us. We can get you there – faster than ever.

Defining Social Media – Is It The Next Marketing Gold Rush?

Regardless of which business sector you’re in, it’s hard to escape the news – and hype – about social media. Is it the next marketing gold rush? No, it’s just another element that may fit into your sales-building marketing plan.

Social media is simply defined as utilizing online tools or sites that allow social interaction. The interaction may be through conversations, photos or videos. You can also interact with others through blogs, polls, forums, ratings and reviews, testimonials, discussion boards and online events.

There’s a good chance you’ve already participated in social media in one form or another. There’s also a chance that your company, your service or your product has already been talked about in various forums.

Social Media Is Not Just About Facebook, Twitter Or LinkedIn

Although Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are the social media platforms you hear about the most, there are countless other channels available to you based on specialized interests and specific industries.

One of the important elements of social media is finding a group that is made up of your potential customers or of those who have the same interests as you. In his book, “Social Media Is A Cocktail Party,” Jim Tobin uses the analogy that social media is like a cocktail party and “not every cocktail party is a must attend.” Once you decide which parties to attend, you then want to get comfortable at the party and be social.

Five Reasons Why Participation In Social Media May Be Right For You

• 1. Your competitors may already be participating in social media through blogs LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.
• 2. Your vendors and manufacturers may be using it. If so, you want to be there as well.
• 3. Your customers are participating. Each one is a publisher, writing blogs and reviews and participating in discussion groups.
• 4. Participation in groups can increase interest in your company’s service or product and lead to more web site traffic.
• 5. Social media puts a human face on what could otherwise be an impersonal company.

The 60 Second Close: Ready To Join The Social Media Party?

We could have easily written more on social media, but we wanted to give you an “appetizer” on what it’s really all about. Now that you know, are you ready to get your feet wet? There’s a lot to consider before jumping in, such as a discussion about your objectives, your commitment and your content.

Is social media right for you? Should it be part of your marketing plan? Are you ready to start a blog or video about your product? Let us know. We can help you get there — faster than ever.