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One of the benefits of social media changing the nature of brands' conversations with their customers is the increase in many companies' philanthropic efforts. In this conversation, I speak with author Rachel Armbruster, known for her work as director of development at the Lance Armstrong Foundation during the iconic yellow wristband campaign. We look at the landscape at the intersection of brand marketing and corporate giving, starting with reasons why companies should be motivated to develop deep partnerships with charities.

Este es el primero de una serie de artículos que nos permitirán conocer mas detalles acerca del programa de Google Analytics, sus funciones y porque debemos utilizarlo para conocer y entender nuestra página web

Without careful consideration and strategy, a great wave of stream fatigue, social blindness or far worse, customer unlikes and unfollows in will befall unsuspecting businesses en masse in social media. It will come down to a vital, but fixable disconnect.

So why, then, is it imperative for healthcare professionals to break into social media? Because the risks of not being involved far outweigh the risks of being part of it. Not understanding this space or refusing to engage with it is no longer a valid reason for ignoring it.

One of the first things that people usually ask Foursquare users is ‘why do you care?’  In fact, this is what people usually ask people that play FarmVille or CityVille, or even Tweet.  We live in a digital world where people usually have to eat their own snap judgments within a few weeks because they delve deeper into the technology and find some interesting use.

So, in that vein, while location-based services and check-ins may not have been a big deal to Google before, it is now — they just released a Google+ check-in leaderboard with their newest version of Google Maps for Android.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

As if television and radio weren’t distracting enough, social media sites on mobile devices have made it possible for die-hard sports fans to take the game with them anytime, anywhere. This infographic explores just how far the fans will go to keep up with their favorite teams.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

How are you responding to upset customers?

No matter what you sell or what industry you’re in, you’re going to experience negative word of mouth.

You know, those customers who are expressing their complaints on social media.

It just happens.

Things break, problems come up and employees have bad days. But it’s how you handle it that separates you from everyone else.

Remember: Negative word of mouth is an opportunity.

A great response strategy can convert angry and upset customers into loyal, raving fans. The rule of thumb is that while unhappy customers talk to 5 people, formerly unhappy customers you win back talk to 10.

So get out there and embrace the negativity. Start responding. Here are 10 steps you can take to stop the negative, earn new fans and generate a ton of respect.

#1: You Can’t Respond to Conversations You Don’t See

Great response starts with great listening.

• Set up Google Alerts for your brand and industry keywords.
• Keep a close eye on your Facebook page.
• Listen on Twitter.
• Depending on the type of business you have, read reviews on sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor and Zagat.
• Make a list of any forums or communities where your customers congregate and regularly check in on them.

Whether you’re paying attention or not, the conversations are happening. But a great listening program makes it easier for you to catch negative buzz and spot issues before they build momentum and become much harder to turn around.

Google alerts are free, easy to set up, and instantly help you keep an eye on key conversations.

#2: Determine if it’s Worth a Response

Not all negative comments are worth a response, and not all critics are worth trying to win over. Sometimes, as hard as it can be, it’s best just to move on.

Avoid these situations:

• The criticism is on a really small blog or forum, and your response will only bring attention and credibility to an issue nobody saw in the first place.
• It’s a blatant attack that’s clearly rude and outrageous—and anyone who reads it can see the critic has a personal problem.
• A known crackpot who is only looking to pick a fight.

There’s just no way to win in these scenarios. So stay out, move on, keep your head up and focus on the wrongs you can right.

#3: Act Quickly

When you’re facing negative word of mouth, time is not on your side. The longer you wait to respond, the angrier the customer will get—and the more likely others will pick up on the issue and spread the negative buzz.

At the very least, say this:

“Hi, my name is ____ and I hear you. We’re looking into it now, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. If you have any questions, contact me directly at _____.”

A message like this does two things:

• The ranter knows he or she has your attention—there’s much less incentive to keep spreading the anger and
• It makes a real person with real contact info available, so if the person is still angry, you’ve at least specified a place to vent other than online.

#4: Speak Like a Human

The only thing worse than ignoring upset customers is to respond with a canned corporate response. If you thought they were mad before, wait until you see how they react to an excerpt of your policy terms and fine print.

Show empathy, communicate in a friendly tone and use your real name. And if the forum supports it, it helps to include your actual photo.

It’s easy to yell and scream at an anonymous company. But when someone shows up and says, “Hi, this is Emily and I’m so sorry for the trouble…” it changes everything.

The critic now realizes he wasn’t yelling at a giant, faceless company. He was yelling at Emily. Quickly, the anger fades—and you’ll often get an apology.

Check out how Zappos replies to this fan. It’s human; it’s friendly. And even though they couldn’t immediately fix the problem, you can bet this fan will be back.

Check out Zappos’ Facebook page for a real-time guide on how to respond in a personable, friendly tone.

#5: Offer a Real Apology or Don’t Apologize

A strong, direct apology will always earn more respect than a flimsy, “kinda-sorta” apology.

Consider the difference between an apology like “We’re sorry you feel that way” to “Absolutely, positively unacceptable”—which was the headline to FedEx’s blog post after a delivery driver was caught throwing a package over a customer’s fence. The post included this straightforward video from Matthew Thornton, a senior vice president at the company:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ESU_PcqI38

And it doesn’t get much better or more direct than Jeff Bezos’ apology for how they handled pulling copies of 1984 and other novels off Kindles:

This simple, straightforward apology from Jeff Bezos drew more than 750 overwhelmingly positive responses.

#6: Offer to Make it Right

Apologizing is part of turning around negative word of mouth, but to actually fix a problem is how you really win over critics.

We all make mistakes. It’s how we fix them that people remember.

At burrito chain California Tortilla, making it up to customers is part of every response they send when someone is upset. It’s this simple:

California Tortilla replies to every upset customer with a simple, straightforward offer to make it up.

#7: Never Get into a Fight

Any time you win an argument online, you’re losing. All anyone really remembers is that you’re combative.

This doesn’t mean you can’t respond, explain your side of the story and start a conversation. You just need to be in the right mindset:

• Don’t get emotional.
• Remember, it’s a real person. Just as they see you as a faceless company, it’s easy to see them as just another complainer.
• The critic is actually doing you a favor. They’re helping you learn to be a better company. For every person who actually speaks up, many more walk away quietly, never to return.

For more on how to reply, check out this quick explanation from Jeff Diamond of Oakland’s Farmstead Cheeses and Wines:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ_DJGDIIMM

#8: Keep the Discussion in the Open

When a negative issue comes up, a common gut reaction is to ask to move the conversation offline. But when you do this, the world can’t see all the effort you put into fixing the problem.

Nobody sees the private email where you give that sincere apology. We can’t search for that phone conversation where you politely explain why the situation happened in the first place.

But when you do it online, in public, you earn word of mouth. For the same effort and cost, thousands more people see that you actually care about customers. Plus, you save on all the people who now don’t need to call in (or write a similarly angry post) to find an answer to the same question.

Graco’s quick and transparent use of Twitter during a recall of more than 2 million strollers, for example, helped get an important message out much more quickly, showed customers how much they cared and it just might have saved some lives, too.

Customers were thrilled with how Graco kept them updated and informed during a product recall.

#9: Use Fans and Third-Party Sources to Help Tell the Story

What you say about yourself isn’t as powerful as what others say about you. It’s true when people are promoting you, and it’s true when people are calling you out.

When their brand was under attack from a competitor-led PR campaign, UPS’ Debbie Curtis-Magley and her team pointed to third-party content from news articles and industry experts to help explain the full story.

And even more powerful than experts can be the voice of your fans. You never want to put them in an uncomfortable situation, but it’s OK to ask for help sometimes.

For example, a blogger might share how he’s frustrated with a particular product feature. In which case, you might turn to your Facebook or Twitter fans with this message:

“Hey guys! Chris over at [blog name] is having trouble with [feature]. Can anyone share how they’re using it?”

#10: Involve Them in the Fix

If someone’s criticizing you, it’s often just a form of tough love. They’re doing it because they care. They see potential, and they want you to do better.

So instead of seeing them as critics, start looking at them as frustrated fans that might have some worthwhile ideas.

On one hand, Dell’s IdeaStorm is just a big list of things people think they’re doing wrong. But it’s actually a release valve—a proactive community that gives people with ideas, suggestions and complaints a place to share and vote on their favorites.

Every idea on Dell’s IdeaStorm can be voted up or down, and Dell keeps everyone updated on progress.

A platform like IdeaStorm isn’t right for everyone, but giving your biggest critics a way to get involved is. Try inviting yours to customer advisory boards, beta tests of new products and brainstorming sessions.

See! Negative word of mouth doesn’t have to be so bad after all.

How do you handle critics? How are you making the most of negative word of mouth? Leave your questions and comments in the box below. Tweet

The thought of blogging terrifies many of my clients. Not too long ago, it terrified me too.  Just like anything new or different, it’s the fear of the unknown that often gets the best of us.  Some of the top blogging fears include: being unfamiliar with technology, having enough time, developing interesting content, and not knowing how to get started. These fears are conquerable. Here are some tips for overcoming them.

Since it’s a new year and many of you have made New Year’s resolutions to really use your LinkedIn profiles this year, we thought it would be a good idea to go over what NOT to do.

There you sit in the executive conference room watching everyone nod their heads about the latest idea from the new executive on the block. He or she has a new idea that is going to “save the company.” It could be anything from a random LinkedIn group, social media campaign, planned “go viral” video” or who knows what.

I remember when I first visited Japan in 1997.  Our group of North Americans were shocked at how even teenage girls had their own cell phones, complete with dangling bells and ornaments.  What surprised us more was their use of “SMS” messaging to send chat messages to one another.  After I’d returned from the trip, I did some research and found that the phenomenon was also spreading all over Europe — Brits in particular sent millions of text messages per year.

It would be a few more years before we had it over on our continent, but once it hit, it hit big.  That’s what it’s a bit of a changing of the guard to see that social media messaging (Facebook, Twitter, etc) is costing mobile operators billions of dollars in SMS revenue.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

With the 2012 Presidential election on the horizon it is clear that more politicians, parties and causes have turned to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to promote their platforms and converse with constituents.  I had the opportunity to interview Corey Gottlieb, Managing Partner at Socialitical to find out more about how politicians are using social media to engage with potential voters, and what sorts of trends are popping up in the political social media scene.
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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Over the past year or so, YouTube has launched a number of initiatives aimed at helping creators make better content, learn to market themselves and maximize their YouTube success.  Last May they launched the YouTube Creator Institute, in October they launched programs through YouTube NextUp to reward top cooking and fitness video creators with training, equipment and more, and now they’ve launched YouTube Next Cause—a program designed to help nonprofits use online video more effectively.
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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

You always want your best content on your blog. But you also want it to be linked to on your Facebook Page. Write your blog posts and then use the Facebook App, RSS Graffiti, to have your posts show up on your Page. That way, even if you don’t do anything else, you will have content on your Facebook Page.

What’s worse than completely irrelevant and slightly embarrassing Internet ads? Nothing. Nothing is worse than seeing an ad for how “Telikin is the easiest computer!” or ads about platform beds two days after you just bought one. What’s better than these useless ads? Facebook’s new “sponsored stories” section.

What follows isn’t a horror story. It’s not even foreboding. Hell, it’s not even a sad story depending on how you look at it. It’s just…well…a result.

 

Most people thought that Facebook links would have longevity; they don’t – they have a few hours of virility but little in terms of longevity. Whereas Stumble links actually have a longevity of not just hours but days and weeks (months in some cases).

Did you know Pinterest is generating more referral traffic to websites/blogs than YouTube, Google +, and LinkedIn combined? It is no question that marketers are increasingly turning to Pinterest to generate traffic to their sites and find new customers.

We at ShortStack wanted to know how companies show their customers the love, so we conducted a survey asking businesses and brands to rate their own customer service. Turns out, most see their efforts as the kind of stuff George Gershwin was writing about when he penned “S’Wonderful.” A whopping 76.9 percent of the 1,403 companies polled said they give at least “great” customer service, while 30 percent rate their service as “stellar.”