The power of social media is without a doubt groundbreaking! If you’re wanting to boost your business’ brand and expand your influence, there’s no better way to go about it than doing it via social media (and I’m a VERY STRONG believer in this).
With how social media posts can go viral and reach millions in a matter of minutes, it can surely give you the exposure and the business boost that you need. While this is in fact a good thing, there’s a catch!
If you aren’t careful, these social media sites can also be responsible for ruining your business and bringing it in rubbles!
How you might ask? Allow me to share with you some reasons (with infographics) why social media can make or break your business.
Reputation management vs. Reputation ruined
Here’s a scenario that you might want to think about. If you’re company did feeding programs and your pictures or even just regular “text” posts somehow went viral, you’ll get a reputation of being compassionate and having the reputation of a company that SINCERELY CARES.
On the flip side…
If your CEO was caught in a video bad mouthing an innocent civilian and that video was posted and went viral in social media sites, you can bet your family jewels that your reputation as a company will suffer some serious consequences.
For small or large business, social media reputation management must be their top priority. This infographic created by Digital Firefly looks at how your internet reputation lives forever and how you can manage your online status.
Customer feedback put to good use vs. Negative customer complaint gone viral
If you’re in the know, then you’re probably harnessing the power of social media to gather customer feedback. The thing with these feedbacks is that it helps point your business towards the right direction.
As an example, if you’re getting a lot of negative feedback at how late your delivery system is, then you’ll know based on REAL information that you need to improve your delivery system.
On the flip side of it…
If you have a customer complaint that isn’t handled well by your social media manager, chances are these negative complaints can go viral. The dissatisfied customer can keep on posting about how he/she was wronged by your company spreading VERY BAD PUBLICITY about your business.
Also have a look at infographic from Desk highlighting which industries get the most customer service complaints and which industries are using social media the most effectively.
Gaining an unfair advantage over your competitors vs. Your competitors using fake social media accounts to ruin you
Now that we’re clear on the kind of advantage that your business can get through having a social media presence, can you imagine what would happen if your competitors aren’t capitalizing on those advantages? Yep. You’ll TOTALLY gain an unfair advantage over them.
Now let’s talk about the flip side of the coin…
I’d hate to say this but just like there’s negative SEO, there are also people who’ll try to use social media to UNETHICALLY bring you down.
It’s just a matter of creating fake social media accounts, then bashing your company’s reputation through these fake accounts. Others would even go as far as outsourcing this task to someone else so the bashing and the negative posts made about your company is done full time OR if you competitors are that cruel 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Building a strong network of connections vs. An entire community/group bashing your company
Its common for these social media sites to have “groups” or community. This can bring you a huge advantage because these groups usually have “like-minded” people who’s constantly sharing their ideas with each other thus forming a sort of “brotherhood” within themselves. Being a part of this brotherhood or alliance and getting their support can boost your business’ reputation (let alone sales) TREMENDOUSLY!
Now the flip side is…
If you somehow manage to anger that entire group, you’ll have not one, not two but TONS of people within that group going for your head.
I know that this doesn’t usually happen with groups that houses professional people but it DOES happen once in a while. Don’t ever let this happen to your business. Its for this reason that you need to be VERY CRITICAL with whom you hire as your social media managers.
Easy communication with your prospects/existing customers vs. Your prospects/customers getting distracted with their other connections.
Social media sites are so easy and effective to use that you can do almost anything on these social media sites. Let’s take Instagram for example, though Instagram is known to be used in mobile devices only, getting Instagram on computer is actually possible because of how easy and customizable these social media networks are.
Its because the social media sites are such an effective tool for communication that business owners, entrepreneurs and the regular people just like you and me tend to spend most of our time logged in.
Now that can be a good thing for business owners because that means that their prospects are almost always online and they can easily communicate with them.
The flip side is that their prospect’s friends/family are almost always online as well. This can be a HUGE distraction for business owners when wanting to get their prospects attention.
It may even leave your marketing efforts useless despite you spending thousands of dollars if your followers are easily distracted.
Also take a look at this infographic - Top Social Media Mistakes of 2013 - by masters-in-marketing. These mistakes are not to scare you, but to learn from them and try not to make these mistakes either.
Conclusion
I hope after reading this guide, you now understand how the social networks are a force to be reckoned with. Using them for your business without taking special care and strategy can actually ruin you.
That said, you ought to be very careful in hiring your social media marketing team or managers to make sure that your business DOES NOT face unnecessary yet very destructive repercussions.
About author:
Jimmy R. likes to spend his time sharing his ideas through the internet. You talk to him about anything from food recipes to health problems. He’s definitely more than willing to hear you out.
