There’s much to learn when managing social media accounts and webpages. Although it’s often easy to get started, maintaining your presence and good customer service can be perilous. So, here are some common problems many people have already encountered and how they can be avoided.
- Offending the Audience
One thing many companies risk nowadays is offending their audience. Although there are a plethora of obvious things that needn’t be said in regard to basic social conduct, such as not insulting customers or using abrasive language, sometimes it’s not possible to pre-empt when an innocently-meant message will be taken out of context or warped into a PR disaster.
The way to prevent this issue might seem unclear given the unknown nature of the problem, but the solution is surprisingly more clear: choose your method of message delivery with care. For example, if you run a company offering information technology training, it would be easy to offend potential customers by alluding to their real or imagined deficiencies on the topic in a newspaper advertisement. In this exaggerated case, both methods of delivery and message could be seen as insulting.
- Over-Sharing
Some social media and SEO services experts warn that customer relations can easily turn sour by simply committing too much information to conversations. Although it might be tempting to answer customer questions and comments with links to other products, information, and recommendations for future purchases, it’s more prudent to answer whatever question they may have had as succinctly as possible. This way, they don’t feel exploited and interpret the experience as far more positive.
- Assuming Audience Values
Author Dan Kennedy discovered that making any assumptions about the personalities of each discrete member of your consumer base is simply a recipe for disaster. In his case, he found it was most often the case that Baby Boomer women from the United States point Oprah Winfrey as a hero of theirs, yet appealing to a love of Oprah universally may not necessarily be the right answer if that’s your target audience. Granted, it’s hard to imagine someone disliking Oprah. Yet, in the event they don’t, they’re more likely to widely communicate their displeasure with your business. So to be on the safe side, be as neutral as possible, be it politics or something like favoritism for a particular sports team. Only last year, famous YouTuber ‘PewDiePie’ found himself in a hurricane of contempt for the usage of Nazi iconography in his comedy program. Not only does this firmly come under the category of ‘offending the audience,’ but also assuming the entire audience would be ok with this frivolous use of black humor.
- Neglecting Audience Interaction
Digital Marketing firm ‘FifteenDesign’ states a seemingly obvious hazard, but one of great importance: consistent audience interaction. When a customer asks a question, although I’ve mentioned previously it ought to be succinct, it must also be quick or they’ll take their business elsewhere. After all, nothing is more effective in souring an experience than feeling ignored. Fortunately, the solution is as simple as it is obvious: make sure to be engaged and available to respond to your platforms. Keep Twitter on your phone, or Instagram login details on your tablet with notifications turned on. This way, you’re always ready to easily avoid this hazard.
