How to Deal with your Haters via #SocialMedia

The first company I did social media for had a lot of haters. I mean, A LOT. Not just 9-5pm haters, either. These haters loved making inappropriate 2AM comments, and leaving disgusting photos on our wall around, say, 4AM. The advice immediately given to me by the executives of the company was, “Block them, or say something even more clever back.” WHAT?!

Fortunately, this was when the public relations half of my degree proved its worth. I scheduled a meeting with the CEO and VP of the company, and explained to them that I believed the best way we could respond is to always validate the ‘haters’ feelings and at least try to make it right. ‘Cuz guess what? Every hater has loads of other hater friends that are more than willing to take their place on your Facebook wall. You don’t want to be blocking others just for the hell of it.

It took more than that one meeting, but eventually they both saw the value in responding to EVERY post/comment/tweet, even if it was negative. If it was a complaint about a product, or our company, we would try to solve it through private messaging. If it was a complaint we were getting from many people, we would address it visibly in comments. If it was someone making an inappropriate comment, sometimes we would hide it, but other times we would make some joke in a comment to let them know that we were trying to keep our page clean.

Now, obviously the ‘block’ button is there for a reason. I highly discourage using it, but if someone is constantly using profanity and being downright disgusting on your page, then you need to use it. I was forced to use it at points, because, believe it or not, competitors of this company would actually pay others to go onto our Facebook page and slam it. Those types of haters will not go away, no matter how diplomatic you are.

Today, I am super grateful for that first social media job, because it prepared me for the worst of the social media haters. Through trial and error, I was able to discover a pretty solid system for managing negative engagement, but also for using those negative comments and posts to better the company. You’d be surprised how much you can learn about your company from those negative nancys.

The number one thing to remember about the haters is to not take it personally as the social media manager. As the saying goes, “You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there’s still going to be somebody who hates peaches.” (Although, sometimes it is the social media manager’s fault for just not thinking some posts through, but that’s a whole other blog post entitled, “What were they thinking?!”.)

-Marji J. Sherman

Stop the Blame Game --> Yes, I'm Talking to You, #SoMe Pros

    A couple of weeks ago, I gave a solo presentation to a group of top executives. I was confident, as the metrics and analytics for my latest social campaign proved I blew it out of the water. The company had the highest engagement number ever, and saw the largest increase in quality likes and followers since its formation. So, you can imagine my surprise when the president was less than impressed by the end of my energetic presentation. In fact, her exact words were, “Why does it matter if the engagement number is that high?”

    Now, if I was one of the social media pros I’ve been quietly observing on Twitter lately, I would have just blamed the president for not ‘getting’ me. I mean, it’s ‘social’ media. Get on the bandwagon, lady! Engagement is everything! Engagement means you are being ‘social’, the very essence of the profession.

    However, in that moment, I realized that it was not the president’s fault she did not see the value of a high engagement number; it was my own. After all, I am the social media professional. I am the one who knows every in and out of the field, and it’s my responsibility to teach my clients the value of social media to their marketing efforts.

    You want to stop seeing articles floating around the web that attack the ‘credentials’ of social media professionals, or the value of the field? Then prove your own value! Start writing blogs, Tweets, Facebook posts, etc. that show the value of social media, and back it up with research, metrics and analytics. You want that CMO or CEO to ‘get’ social? Make your case, and present it to them.

    After that meeting, I put an entire presentation together for the company, explaining even the simplest aspects of social media. I gathered charts from various programs that offer analytics, and explained why each number was important, and what I did to increase it. My presentation was well received, and the president ended it by saying, “Use Marji to your advantage. She knows what she’s talking about. It may have taken all of these charts and graphs and her presentation for me to understand it, but I definitely get it now, and we need social to move forward with our goals.”

    It’s not everyone else’s job to find the value in social media, it’s our responsibility, as #SoMe pros, to prove our own worth, and become so valuable that companies can no longer ignore us. End of story.

-Marji J. Sherman

The Best of the Halloween Social Campaigns

Companies went all out this Halloween to engage with their consumers, but we have to give first place to Crest for popping up the most as we scoured the internet for the best Halloween social campaigns. We have to give them extra credit for being a cavity-fighting brand endorsing the cavity-provoking holiday. We included a photo of our favorite Tweet of theirs below, but first check out this beyond cute video we found on their Facebook page:

Michael Kors threw one of their iconic purses in a pumpkin patch:

While Kit Kat stuck to using their candy to create fun images:

Taco Bell let consumers pick between Trick or Treat:

And, of course, we can not leave out Twitter superstar, Oreo:

Which is your fave? Know of others that could even supersede these? Comment below!

-Marji J. Sherman

Chili’s --> At least they are doing social media right

    Lots of people travel alone, right? I mean, you can’t take your family on every business trip you go on. So you can imagine my surprise when on a busy Monday afternoon, a Chili’s in the Milwaukee airport refused to seat me in order because I was by myself.

After waiting twenty minutes for a nonexistent hostess to show up, a waitress finally decided to take seating tables upon herself. She asked if there were any three tops (random?), in which case the guy behind me delightfully raised his hand. So, she sat him and his two friends around a tiny table in the back meant for two. Then, she sat the couple that had cut in front of me. By now, my patience was running low as I stood in my heels, coming straight to the airport from a meeting. Still, I waited.

    Then, the waitress pulled my last straw → she sat the couple behind me and, in the most unauthentic manner, apologized that I would have to wait longer to be seated. To which I responded, “This is not how you seat a restaurant. I am not eating here”, and left.

    There are many problems I have with this greedy waitress seating tables based on how much tip she would get out of them (who knows, my bill could have easily surpassed the two top’s). However, that is for another post.

    Usually reluctant to be negative on social media, I decided this was an issue worth reaching out to Chili’s about. I immediately Tweeted this:

And I was pleased to see them immediately Tweet back this:

As if this instant response from a large restaurant chain was not enough to impress my social media self, I received a response to my email by 9AM the next morning apologizing and asking me to send my address.

    This is how social media should be used, as an extension of customer service that allows the customer to feel like they are being heard right away. Now, it will be interesting to see what providing my address gets me, but also to see if Chili’s actually reaches out to this specific restaurant location in Milwaukee.

    If a coupon sent to me is the end of the line, then they are still missing the crucial step of using social media to improve the quality of their business. The location mentioned also needs to know what happened, and needs to know that it’s not okay to ignore travelers by themselves. You never know who that lonesome person might be. Next time, it could even be the CEO of Chili’s himself, and I would hate to see the reaction on his face after a waitress applies the same treatment.

    Kudos for now, though, to the extremely efficient Chili’s Social Media Team. If Chili’s can respond this quickly, any company can. 


-Marji J. Sherman

Want to Reach Various Generations via Social? Stop Segmenting and Start Listening

One of the most prominent questions on social right now is how to bridge the gap between the seniors, baby boomers and millennials. We’re all on it, right? Seniors are checking up on their grandchildren, baby boomers are reuniting with friends from high school and millennials are trendcasting. Or, at least, those are the stereotypes. Which leads us to the first problem with how companies perceive methods to reaching multiple generations on the same social platforms.

           Here’s the deal → Yes, each generation has its own unique set of identifiers. Seniors are more conservative, baby boomers have the money to spend, millennials are more liberal, but also have less disposable income. Yet, for every unique identifier, each generation also shares the same traits. For example, everyone on social wants to be ‘social’.

          Think of the cliche cocktail party often used to explain social media. You can have a cocktail party with an array of generations in attendance, and still have a passionate conversation. Just because a millennial is discussing the newest trends doesn’t mean a senior is disinterested and leaves the conversation. As the senior discusses healthcare and family, the millennial and baby boomer remain interested and engaged. Different generations add different perspectives to the conversation. Sure, some topics can be alienating, but, for the most part, every generation can find something relate to in most topics.

          As a brand, you should be less concerned about segmenting the messages you are sending out, and more concerned with the responses you are getting in return. A lot can be learned from a baby boomer’s comment on a post, versus a senior’s. Not only can it help you guide future social posts, it can also give insight as to how products are being received by different generations.

The important thing to remember is we are all human, and most topics touch all generations, just in different ways. So do not limit your posts to only one generation. Instead sprinkle a variety of multi-generational posts throughout your content strategy, and see how surprised you are over what generations respond to what posts.

          Millennials often times want to feel more adult and grown up, baby boomers want to feel young again and seniors want to relate to their grandchildren and remember their youth. If you feed only senior-related posts to seniors, they are going to feel stereotyped. So stop freaking out about how to reach segmented generations, and start understanding that a stellar post is one that not only relates to your brand and is relevant to online conversations, but also one that every generation can relate to on some level.

-Marji J. Sherman

Approach Social Media Like You Have Nothing To Lose

A few months before my college graduation, I had nothing to lose. Everything I planned for my life had been derailed by a breakup and the realization that maybe I did not want to live in South Beach the rest of my life. There I was, twenty-two and single, wanting nothing to do with the post-college life I spent four years planning for me and a plus one.

So, I scraped up the remaining money I had from my job as a public relations associate, and flew to Manhattan one frigid weekend in December, weeks before my graduation. In twenty-four hours I found an apartment on the Upper West Side, and prayed that some job somewhere would work out. The first week of January, I made the (very cold) move.

When I reminisce on this time of utter, complete freedom, I think of what an incredible experience it was. However, if I really think about it, I was scared to death. I was scared that it might not work out, scared I might not find a job, scared I might not like NYC after telling all of my friends how great it was. I was especially scared to fall prey to all of the judgments cast upon me by family and friends. I spent my layover in Chicago debating whether to call my grandparents in Madison to come pick me up, before I made the terrible mistake of moving to NYC.

However, just as everyone was lining up for the Southwest flight, I made the decision to push through my fear. Two days later, I found a job where I discovered my passion for social media and communications research. More importantly, when stripped down to bare bones in a city where I knew absolutely no one, I found my own voice. In the intimidating silence that comes from no plans, no advice, no clue what the future held, I could finally hear myself, and understand what I wanted.

           So how does this apply to social media? Take a look at the most successful campaigns out there. They are not the campaigns that follow the step-by-step instructions, but rather they are the campaigns that risked something and hit the consumers from out of nowhere with something completely awesome. Consumers want something that shows a company put some thought into them beyond a seven-step social media strategy.

           Step through your fear of social media judgement, and find your own social media voice. Try every tone and type of content out there, until you find what registers with your consumers. Act like you have nothing to lose. The beginning of a social media campaign is the most exciting, allowing for experimentation. There is a type of freedom you will have at the beginning of your social media strategy that you will never have again, once you find your voice. So enjoy that time in the unknown, and embrace the blank slate. You will be surprised at what goes viral, and what messages resonate with your consumers, once you stop listening to the noise and follow your intuition.

               As the saying goes; when you have nothing to lose, you have everything to gain.

-Marji J. Sherman

How to Create Useful Content that People Will Share

    Social media content designed to promote your small business reaches its full potential when it is both useful and shareable. Useful content acts as a free service to your audience that is valuable enough for people to pay for it. Content becomes valuable when it generates lots of retweets, Facebook shares, and other forms of buzz in the social media universe. If you consistently post content that is both shareable and useful to your audience, you will see a greater return on investment from your social media marketing efforts.

    How can you create content that people want to share? In his New York Times-bestseller Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger explains his 6-step framework called STEPPS, which includes several principles that are satisfied by shareable content. One of these principles is the utilization of triggers: anything in the environment that triggers another thought in our minds. Berger stresses the importance of the context in which you post in order to make this principle work for you. The perceived benefit of choosing one product or service over the other can increase tremendously if it that product is connected to an idea that is already accepted in a specific context. One example Berger provides for this principle is the restaurant called Barclay Prime, a steakhouse in Philadelphia that recognized the already overwhelming popularity of cheesesteak sandwiches in the city and decided to become the first sandwich maker to sell their products for 100 dollars a piece. It is essentially guaranteed that visitors of Philadelphia will think of cheesesteak sandwiches at some point during their stay in the city: these sandwiches are a strong trigger in the given context because they are so often identified together. The concept of a 100-dollar sandwich implies a very special treat, and as such, residents of Philadelphia are happy to bring their visitors to Barclay Prime because they want their guests to feel special to them. The restaurant has done an extremely good job of identifying a common trigger in their specific context and finding a way to relate their product to that trigger in the minds of their consumers.

    You can learn how to create useful content by understanding the principle of “youtility,” outlined by Jay Baer in his new book, which presents the argument that successful marketing is about “help, not hype.” One story Baer uses to support his argument is the success of Taxi Mike, a cab driver in Banff, Alberta, who writes a guide about the best places to visit while in his town. Called the “Taxi Mike Dining Guide: Where to Eat in Banff,” it is a must-have pamphlet for tourists looking to make the most out of their visit. Baer explains that at the end of the night, when visitors are looking for a cab back to the hotel, their first move is not to walk down to the corner in hopes of finding a ride; instead, Taxi Mike is the first one they call because all they need to do is find his number, which is printed on the “Dining Guide” they’ve been carrying in their pockets all evening long. Taxi Mike gets a huge return on investment from his development of the guide by using the concept of “youtility” in his marketing.

    There you have it: a few examples that should help you understand how people create shareable and useful content to be used in their social media marketing efforts for their small businesses. For more help on your social media strategy, don’t hesitate to contact Sherman Social!

- Richard Moriarty

Who is Sherman Social?

We all had great ideas about our first blog post. We could blog about the new Facebook hashtags, or Google's issues with the IRS-- But here's the thing- You have Mashable for that. You have Social Media Today. We don't feel the need to regurgitate the news back to you-- sorry. And, since you are probably wondering what differentiates Sherman Social from any other social media agency out there, maybe even your own, we thought explaining ourselves would be the best place to start. So, here it is-->

We are about being a little rebellious in an industry that thrives on conformity, and making sure everyone 'likes' them. Sometimes, the people that dislike you can be your best advocates. We don't care about the cool kids out there, with the 50K Twitter followers (that are most likely all bought). We care about engagement- actual conversations that spark ideas, and build true fans of a brand that will be with you until the very end. We care about reputation, and preserving it. We care about YOUR reputation, and YOUR ideas and what YOU want for YOUR brand. We have no intention of pushing ideas that do not fit the vision you have for your own brand. We certainly don't want anyone coming to Sherman Social and telling us how to run our ship-- No way.

We also care that you know what the hell social media is, and why you are paying to have it created and managed. We offer a variety of training programs from a basic introductory course to a full-on comprehensive course on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and strategy creation.

We also care about being there for our clients. You have a question at 11pm, we'll have an answer at 11pm.

So now that you have a feel for who we are, give us some insight into you! Email us at info@shermansocial.com , or Tweet at us @ShermanSocial.