Social Media and Business: Boom or Bust?

August 7, 2012

Now here’s a Gartner prediction which may not resonate with Olympic athletes kicked out of the games due to their social media activities.

In fact, according to EMSNow’s article “Gartner Predicts That Refusing to Communicate by Social Media Will Be as Harmful to Companies as Ignoring Phone Calls or Emails Is Today” lacking in social media skills can swiftly plunge a business into a downward spiral.

When companies do not acknowledge online customer complaints… well, hades hath no fury like the customer scorned. Ignoring one unhappy comment can evolve into a social media carnival where the company clown gets pie thrown in their face all over the internet.

According to the article, there are 3 easy steps to take to prevent an epic social media failure:

  • Participate. It is important that organizations don’t let a fear of someone saying something bad about them stop them from participating in social media.
  • Don’t assume all comments require the same level of attention. Develop an appropriate response for the different types of interaction your business faces.
  • Plan for an increase in social commentary and adapt communications practices to cope. This will require changes to job descriptions, performance metrics and business processes.

Deleting an angry comment may seem like the easy solution, but no good will come of it. Consumers want satisfaction and a polite communication can start paving the way to reasonable resolution in most cases.

This gosling does not need a crystal ball to predict that social media will continue to have a major effect on businesses in the future.

Jennifer Shockley, August 7, 2012

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

Comments

One Response to “Social Media and Business: Boom or Bust?”

  1. The Vital Role Played by Social Media in the Success of a Business — The Digital Connection on August 7th, 2012 6:53 am

    […] Social Media and Business: Boom or Bust? […]

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