Handling Negative Comments Sm

Best Practices for Managing Negative Comments on Social Networking Sites – What Communications Executives Need to Know for 2011

Alex Romanovich, Founder – Social2BMaterial in this webinar is for reference purposes only. This webinar is sold with the understanding that neither any of the authors nor the publisher are engaged in rendering legal, accounting, investment, or any other professional service directly through. this webinar. Neither the publisher nor the authors assume any liability for any errors or omissions, or for how this webinar or its contents are used or interpreted, or for any consequences resulting directly or indirectly from the use of this webinar. For legal, financial, strategic or any other type of advice, please personally consult the appropriate professional

Material in this webinar is for reference purposes only. This webinar is sold with the understanding that neither any of the authors nor the publisher are engaged in rendering legal, accounting, investment, or any other professional service directly through. this webinar. Neither the publisher nor the authors assume any liability for any errors or omissions, or for how this webinar or its contents are used or interpreted, or for any consequences resulting directly or indirectly from the use of this webinar. For legal, financial, strategic or any other type of advice, please personally consult the appropriate professional

Best practices for Managing Negative Comments in Social MediaAlex Romanovich, Social2B

www.ExecSense.com © ExecSense, Inc.

About the Webinar Speaker• Alex Romanovich, Founder – Social2B, CMO –

EuroSpaClub International, Advisory Board Member – The CMO Club

• Unique blend of technology, marketing andbusiness development skills and experience (IBM, SGI, Bertelsmann AG, Unified Technologies, Global AdvertisingStrategies, Social2B, EuroSpaClub Intl.)

• Frequent speaker and advisor on topicsof International and Multi-Cultural Mktg. (CNBC, CNN International, Forbes, Crains, Voice of America, etc.), Social Media

• Social Media Marketing, Social ValueChain, and Social Media Scalability Expertise

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What is this presentation is about?

• It’s about your online reputation

• It’s about trust and building trust

• It’s about SEM Public Relations

• It’s also about SEO

• It’s about Social Media in general

• It’s about tools and techniques

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Overview – Why Social Media is important in 2011

• 4 out 5 US businesses over 100 people will use Social Media Marketing in 2011(eMarketer, 2011)

• Social Media Marketing spending is increasing and Social Media Advertising (Ad spending on social media destinations) will cross $2B in 2011(eMarketer, 2011)

• 85% of Marketers indicated that Social Media Marketing generated exposure for their business (‘Social Media Marketing Report, 2010”)

• There are over 4,700 Social Media Jobs available in NY market area alone (Source: www.indeed.com)

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Negative Responses may start at the very top – be ready• Causes of Typical Negative

Sentiment

• Management: executives, individuals

• Negatives: suck, hate, lame, poor

• Service: poor service, bad experience, lack of knowledge, lack of care

• Legal: sue, litigation, lawsuit

• Situational: spill, union issues, dispute, labor laws, crash

• You may want to think about buying a XXXXsucks.com domain

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Negative Responses may be a channel for an individual• Causes of Typical Negative

Sentiment:

• Immediate reaction to frustration

• Hope that ‘things will get fixed quicker’

• Belief that negative comments will cause action, especially online

• Attracting attention of others, or hoping to go viral

• Irrational, sometimes unjustified behavior

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Immediate action. Or not.

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• Review and Weigh the comments FIRST

• Listen to the message. Read between the lines

• Simulate empathy first. Empathize second

• See if you can take the conversation out of public view (you may need another channel for that), if necessary

• See if you can address it immediately, without delays



Making responses public. Or not.

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• No reason to make every response public

• Connecting on a ‘one-on-one’ basis may be appropriate

• A group response may be appropriate (GoDaddy)

• Keep your cool, if provoked – stay formal and provide factual information, link to facts on website or blog

• Protect your brand and your intellectual property – do not disclose inappropriate information



Do not REACT!

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• A combination of reaction and poor communications skills can cause more problems

• Owners, Managers, CEOs, and other executives can be emotional – you need to train them, the same way you trained them in ‘media training 101’

• If you feel that your brand is being assaulted for no reason, step back and weigh the options – sometimes silence can be therapeutic

• BUT, don’t be silent to direct feedback, you may be silent to a tertiary comment from a third party



Do not REACT! Use facts – educate!

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• Sometimes, you can’t control the outcome of the performance of your product under various conditions – educate, be consultative

• Sometimes, you just goof up (product and service) – accept it! Publically, if all the facts are verified.

• Admission of imperfections can be a positive display of caring and community engagement

• Take it offline, if the problem is unique or personalExample: “We are sorry to discover this. Please send us your email and we will remedy the issue immediately.”



Be in sync with your brand and your marketing message!

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• If you are a motor shop, ‘hey, man’ may be OK, but not if you are Citibank

• Note the tone of your client’s or contributor – you can either deflect it or amplify it, if constructive

• If your ‘brand speak’ is casual, explore the same tone, but beware of the level of ‘negativity’ – formalization of negative comments is more appropriate when someone is seeking a quick resolution



Turn negative and constructive into an opportunity!

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• Easier with integrated business – physical and virtual (online) locations

• If you engage with the client, make sure you make the ‘positive’ outcome public

• Remember: most consumers may not be deterred by poor comments – they are interested in outcomes

• Negative response to a comment – turn-off

• Resolution resulting in a positive outcome – turn-on



Conclusions

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• Consistency and formal behavior, when necessary

• Have an escape route or a ‘disaster recovery’ procedure planned well ahead of time

• Media training of all management or client interface personnel

• Empathy, constructive self-criticism, pro-active problem solving, and engagement are key

• Listening and evaluation of every comment against every situation is key



Some of the tactical, technical and proactive steps

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• PR and Social Media Strategies

• Build a PR 2.0 News Room• Blogs, RSS Feeds, webinars,

podcasts and social profiles

• Optimize all content

• Releases, FAQs, backgrounders, articles, blog posts

• Syndicate press releases and articles

• Integrate Metrics and Measurements

• URLs, tracking samples, unique #800, promo codes

• Augment Social Media with targeted PPCs



Some of the tactical, technical and proactive steps

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• Emergency Procedures

• Red Cross Study – one in every five web users turn to Social Media in case of emergency

• In the event of website or blog ‘denial of service’ – use social media (Basecamp as a recent example)

• Instant communication – response time is cruicial



PR versus Social Media – is there a difference?

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Public Relations Activity Social Media Activity

A single publicity ‘hit’ can make a difference

Sustained effort to generate activity, sentiment and client satisfaction

Relationship with a few Relationship with many

Needs an angle, a theme Needs a voice (and many voices)

Mainly passive Can be active

Can be turned on and turned off A sustainable effort

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Used to be PR activity



Monitoring Tools

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• GetSatisfaction – customer service application

• Google Alerts with Keywords – easy and free monitoring

• Hootsuite, Butterfly Publisher – Twitter Management

• KnowEm – reputation management service

• PitchEngline – PR ‘social pitch’ platform

• Social Mention – free, social monitoring tool

• Radian6 – expensive monitoring tool

• Trackur – free, quick and easy monitoring

• Trst.me – PageRank for Twitter Profiles

• Twitalyzer – elaborate Twitter profile analysis



Top 10 questions to ask yourself before you get out to Social Media World• Is my organization and my

executive management team ready for Social Media Marketing and Branding?

• Does everyone treat Social Media as a strategic effort or as an offshoot of marketing or PR/Communications?

• Where in the organization will Social Media reside?

• Will I be able to allocate sufficient budget to Social Media efforts in our company?

• How will Social Media discipline be aligned with HR, Technology, Customer Service, Sales, etc.?

• Is my organization and my executive management team ready for Social Media Marketing and Branding?

• Does everyone treat Social Media as a strategic effort or as an offshoot of marketing or PR/Communications?

• Where in the organization will Social Media reside?

• Will I be able to allocate sufficient budget to Social Media efforts in our company?

• How will Social Media discipline be aligned with HR, Technology, Customer Service, Sales, etc.?

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• What tools and technologies will I need to implement SM campaigns?

• Will ‘social’ also include ‘mobile’?

• How will we integrated SM marketing campaigns with existing, more ‘traditional’ marketing efforts?

• How much organizational training will we need to implement in integrating ‘social’ within our Enterprise?

• Are we going to use ‘social’ for advertising and PR/Communications? What about ‘disaster recovery’ and ‘reputation management’?

• What tools and technologies will I need to implement SM campaigns?

• Will ‘social’ also include ‘mobile’?

• How will we integrated SM marketing campaigns with existing, more ‘traditional’ marketing efforts?

• How much organizational training will we need to implement in integrating ‘social’ within our Enterprise?

• Are we going to use ‘social’ for advertising and PR/Communications? What about ‘disaster recovery’ and ‘reputation management’?



10 common misconceptions about negative comments handling (Social Media)

• If you ignore negative comments they will go away

•

I don’t really need to train everyone – just customer service and social media people

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Negative comments are not related to bottom line really

•

All we need to do is find someone with strong PR background to handle negative comments and we should be all set

•

Our new SM Director will manage all social media profiles and keep track of all conversations

•

There are so many easy to use and cheap/free SM tools – we should have a good handle on metrics

•

Our C-Level team is very client centric

•

SM Technology and Tools should be easily integrated with our communications and PR process

•

We have a good handle on how our clients and customers relate to our products

•

We are ready for a disaster, if it happens

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Q&A• Alex Romanovich

• Twitter: @social2B and @alexromanovich

• Google Voice: 1-917-815-1151

• LinkedIn: alexromanovich

• [email protected]

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Handling Negative Comments Sm

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