Lessons Learned: Mistakes and attacks in social media

by Serena Ehrlich, SVP Social Media on December 12, 2009

Editor’s note: This is the last post in the series of Lessons Learned:  Easy tips on how to create and grow a social media program.   This series includes a discussion on the following topics:

  1. Create a Social Media Policy
  2. Research your business
  3. Set goals
  4. Write an Editorial Calendar
  5. Create content
  6. Start the program
  7. Grow your social media program and overall web presence
  8. Handling mistakes and attacks

Mistakes and attacks

Everyone makes mistakes. In social media, mistakes are recognized and companies are rewarded based on how gracefully the mistake is corrected.

Determining whether to respond:

One of the smartest things companies can do is to ensure that they are prepared internally on how to handle complaints.  Many times online complaints reflect conversations sales and customer service teams already handle.  Use them to help ensure quickly and timely issue resolution.

If your brand is attacked online the first thing you should do is assess the situation/impact of this interaction:

Use Compete or Alexa to determine the visibility of the website, including:

  • Size of site – How large is the website?
  • Site visibility – How popular is this site in search engines?  How likely is it that your customers will come across the site?
  • Audience type – Look at the demographics.  Is this site frequented by your target audience?
  • Site tone  - Is your product discussed in the same tone as everything else on the site?

Use the data here to determine your response and method of response:

  • Update your blog with correct industry knowledge
  • Outreach publically responding directly on a blog or a micro blog platform
  • Outreach privately by asking the complaining party to discuss via phone or email
  • Don’t respond (some fights just are not worth the battle)

One note, while I do believe there are times when a company should not respond online, it must be done with care.   This is a terrific article from TechCrunch on FTD’s social media mistake which occurred when they chose not to respond to angry complaints online.  As you can see, if they had simply just outreached publicly asking to contact each person off-list, they could have avoided this entire mess.

Social media mistakes happen.  Use them to your advantage by handling them quickly and easily and you will find a happier, more visible vocal fan base.

This series has been a great journey for me!  I hope you enjoyed reading it in parts.  I would love feedback on this series as well as any topics you would like me to cover next!

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Lessons Learned: Starting and growing your social media program

by Serena Ehrlich, SVP Social Media on December 11, 2009

Editor’s note: This is part 6 & 7 in the series of Lessons Learned:  Easy tips on how to create and grow a social media program.   This series includes a discussion on the following topics:

  1. Create a Social Media Policy
  2. Research your business
  3. Set goals
  4. Write an Editorial Calendar
  5. Create content
  6. Start the program
  7. Grow your social media program and overall web presence
  8. Handling mistakes and attacks

Start the program

Once you know where to start and what to say, create your online accounts on determined platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIN, Facebook, Delicious and more.

  • Start posting your content
  • Respond when someone replies or mentions your company/brand
  • Test your messaging, modify messaging as needed
  • Watch your messaging to see what resonates with your audiences.
  • Time test tweets to see what time of day you receive the best

Reserve Your Name

There are more than 100+ social media sites/networks across the web.  Preserve your company name and reputation by registering for accounts across all relevant platforms.

Grow your social media program and overall web presence

There are lots of ways to use social media to build a reputation among your core users. Here is a quick lists of several individual ideas:

  • Include a link to all social network platforms within all employee’s email signature
  • Include a link to all social network platforms within all outbound email marketing
  • Create a Google profile to ensure people can easily find you within Google search results.
  • Ask all employees to update their LinkedIn with links back to your blogs, videos and more
  • Answer questions in LinkedIN to enhance company position as expert in their industry
  • Have your sales team determine who your prospects are, see if you are connected to any of them via LinkedIN
  • Search Twitter and other key platforms to find users by location or topic follow those key to your markets
  • Upload your mailing list into social network platform and invite your members to join
  • Follow your prospects on Twitter – it is a great way to get involved in the conversation, and a great way to see what is important to them
  • Set up RSS feeds to send you relevant industry info, share this info on all streams to show industry leadership
  • Reach out to smaller social networks and discussion partnership opportunities
  • See what else is being done online!  Check out wiki.beingpeterkim.com for a great list of social media programs
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Lessons Learned: How to create social media content

December 9, 2009

Editor’s note: This is part 5 in the series of Lessons Learned:  Easy tips on how to create and grow a social media program.   This series includes a discussion on the following topics:

Create a Social Media Policy
Research your business
Set [...]

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Lessons Learned: Write an Editorial Calendar

December 8, 2009

Editor’s note: This is part 4 in the series of Lessons Learned:  Easy tips on how to create and grow a social media program.   This series includes a discussion on the following topics:

Create a Social Media Policy
Research your business
Set goals
Write an Editorial Calendar
Create content
Start [...]

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Lessons Learned: Setting Goals in Social Media

December 7, 2009

Editor’s note: This is part 3 in the series of Lessons Learned:  Easy tips on how to create and grow a social media program.   This series includes a discussion on the following topics:

Create a Social Media Policy
Research your business
Set goals
Write an Editorial Calendar
Create content
Start [...]

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Lessons Learned: How to research your business

December 6, 2009

Editor’s note: This is part 2 in the series of Lessons Learned:  Easy tips on how to create and grow a social media program.   This series includes a discussion on the following topics:

Create a Social Media Policy
Research your business
Set goals
Write an Editorial Calendar
Create content
Start the program
Grow your social media [...]

Read the full article →

Lessons Learned: Easy Tips on How to Create and Grow a Social Media Program

December 5, 2009

I have been fortunate to spend the last year implementing and growing a wide variety of social media programs.   Over the next few days I will be sharing with you the steps needed to start your own program, including:

Create a Social Media Policy
Research your business
Set goals
Write an Editorial Calendar
Create content
Start the program
Grow your social media [...]

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UCLA Advisory Board Update

November 12, 2009

Startup Army would like to recognize our own Serena Ehrlich for her new advisory role with UCLA’s Marketing and Advertising programs.
UCLA’s Certificate in Marketing consists of four track concentrations focused on marketing management, sales and marketing account management, marketing communications, and a “create your own” (*hint* *socialmedia* *hint*) track. We are very pleased to know [...]

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Twitter for Families

November 5, 2009

I recently put together a blog post for the Social Media Club (Los Angeles) on the topic of Twitter for Families. This is a bit outside of my usual technology and startup-oriented posts, but I wanted to share some of the human side of emerging technologies.  Here is a blurb to get you started:
“So here [...]

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Becoming the company hero: How IROs can use social media tools to save time and stabilize their stock price

November 3, 2009

During the last year, I’ve spoken to numerous investor relations officers (IROs) on the topic of social media and investor relations.  IROs tend to be the last holdouts within a company’s communication teams to embrace changes in the communications process.  Holding out is usually blamed on two reasonable excuses:

Not enough time in the day to [...]

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