SEO Hosting Blog

The line between personal and professional lives has been blurred greatly thanks to social media. Many of my friends use the same Facebook and Twitter accounts to communicate with both their close friends and their clients. They believe that mixing everything together and just being who they are is more authentic, thus helping to build deeper relationships with clients and colleagues.

But while that might work for some people, I prefer to keep my personal and professional social networking accounts separate. It’s not that I’m hiding who I am or being a phony with my clients and colleagues, but I just think there’s a danger that comes with being too authentic.

The way I have it setup right now, I use Twitter and LinkedIn for all professional social media communications and Facebook for my personal social networking.

Why do I keep them apart?

• I don’t like censoring myself—My Facebook page is where I can relax and say whatever I want. If I want to post a picture of myself being a drunk idiot, I can do it without having to worry about looking unprofessional and damaging my brand. If I want to post my opinion about a sensitive subject (e.g. religion, politics, etc.), I can do it without risking my business.
• I don’t want to annoy my friends by posting work-related content—Let’s be honest. My friends and family don’t really care all that much about my professional life. They don’t want to see status updates with marketing and copywriting tips or links to business-related articles that I find interesting. They just don’t care about that, and if I clog their feed with that type of stuff, they’ll get annoyed with me. It’s two different audiences, so they require two different types of content.
• It’s just healthy to have a distinction in your life—Working from home, it can be very difficult to create a line between my personal and work lives. But I learned long ago that it’s something you have to do. It’s not healthy to let your work consume your life. You need to do your best to keep the two separated from each other so you can maintain your sanity.

Do you have separate social networking accounts for personal and professional purposes?

Facebook is a great way for companies to stay connected with their customers, build stronger relationships, increase their visibility, and improve their customer service. Of course, like every relationship, customer relationships can occasionally hit rocky patches, leading to anger and resentment. In the world of Facebook, this could lead to angry customers posting harsh things on your Wall.

So, what can you do when an angry Facebook fan attacks?

• Always respond quickly—You can’t ignore a post from an angry fan. It will only make them even more upset. You have to respond, and you have to do so in a timely manner. As soon as a complaint is posted to your Wall, try to respond to the customer to let them know you’re sorry for any problems they might be facing and that you want to resolve things.
• Don’t get overly defensive—You’re close to your products, services, employees, etc. So, it’s only natural to get a little defensive when a customer attacks, but you have to take a step back and try to see things through that customer’s eyes. Never be defensive. It makes you look petty, guilty, and unsympathetic.
• Take the conversation out of the public eye—Don’t go back and forth with the customer right there on your Facebook Wall for everyone to see. Let the customer know that you’ll be sending them a private message so you can work things out.
• After resolution, consider asking for post removal—If you’re able to come to a peaceful resolution with the customer, you can consider asking them privately if they would be willing to remove their initial angry Wall post now that everything is okay. In most cases, the customer will oblige.
• If post isn’t removed, respond positively about the resolution—If the customer doesn’t remove the post or you’re just not comfortable asking for them to do so, you need to at least respond publicly on the post saying that you’re happy you were able to come to a good resolution. This shows the public that you take all complaints seriously and are committed to keeping customers happy.

Have you ever had an angry Facebook fan post on your wall? How’d you handle it?

Let me start by saying that this isn’t one of those posts meant to bash social media marketing. I’m not someone who believes that Tweeting and Facebook-ing is always a total waste of time for companies. I think social media is very important, isn’t a passing fad, and offers an incredible opportunity for companies to connect with their customers, improve customer loyalty, improve the quality of their products and services through user feedback, and generate more sales.

However, I do believe that a lot of companies are wasting a lot of time and money on their social media marketing. Look, there are a million ways to skin a cat properly, but there are also millions of ways to do it wrong.

Whether you manage your own social media activities or you’ve hired a marketing company to do it for you, it’s important that you regularly take a step back and analyze the effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts. Are you achieving your goals? Hell, do you even have any goals, or are you just doing this because it’s what everyone else is doing?

Simply put, if you don’t see any measurable gains from social media marketing, you’re wasting time. If your goal is to make more sales, and you haven’t seen an increase in sales from your Twitter and Facebook efforts, you’ve been wasting time and money, and you need to think about tweaking your strategy.

If your goal is to improve customer retention by building better relationships through social media, you need to be tracking your customer retention rates and verifying that they really are improving. Otherwise, you’re just wasting time and money.

The point is simple. Grade your social media marketing campaign on a regular basis to ensure you’re heading in the right direction and getting the best possible return on your investment.

Chances are, your customers use Twitter. And that means there’s a chance they could Tweet about an experience they’ve had with your company. Sometimes, that might mean that they’re Tweeting something negative about your company, complaining about your products or services.

How should you handle complaints on Twitter? Here are a few quick and easy tips to guide your responses to customer complaints on Twitter.

1. Respond in a timely manner—Twitter is a fast-moving platform. If you don’t stay on top of the conversation, it can spiral out of control. Responding quickly shows customers that you’re actually paying attention to them. It shows them that you really do care, and that can go a long way to resolving a dispute.
2. Communicate as a person, not a company—Social media is a really personal medium. People want to feel like they’re actually dealing with a real person, not some faceless company. Be personable, and try to connect with the customer on a personal level.
3. Take the conversation elsewhere when necessary—Sometimes, you’re not going to be able to resolve the dispute within the confines of 140 characters. In cases like this, get the customer’s contact info so you can shoot them an email or give them a call.

What are some of your tips for responding to angry customers on Twitter? Share them by leaving a comment.

Social media marketing was the buzzword of 2010 for small businesses, musicians, large corporations…you name it. Chances are, your business jumped on the social media bandwagon and has been feverishly Tweeting, posting Facebook status updates, uploading YouTube videos, connecting with clients on LinkedIn, blogging, and making your presence felt in any other social media space you can find.

But did you know there’s such a thing as too much social media marketing? There’s effective use of social media for building your brand, and then there’s overkill. And that happens when you spread yourself too thin across the social media landscape.

How can you make sure you’re not spreading yourself too thin?

• Have clearly defined goals—What do you want to get from your social media marketing campaign? More sales? More leads? Better customer loyalty? Improved brand perception? Identify your goals and make sure that everything you do is designed to help you reach them.
• Only go where your audience goes—It’s doubtful that the core of your audience maintains a strong active presence on more than a few social media sites. Identify the handful of sites where your target audience is most active and focus only on those. Everything else is a waste of your time and energy.
• Track your results—At the end of the day, the only way to determine if your social media marketing efforts are paying off is to track your results. One thing you can do is look at your website’s analytics to see where you’re getting the highest quality traffic from. You can also pay attention to which social media platforms are giving you the highest level of engagement with your audience and the most useful information. Any social media space that isn’t providing results should be dropped.

Be honest. Are you spread too thin on social media?