Friday, November 22, 2013

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

Thursday, November 7, 2013

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