Page 37 - Tracy Anderson Issue

How Social Media Can Make Or Break Your Brand

By Marsha Friedman

Often – much too often in my view – I talk with CEOs who are still resistant disgruntled customer is going to show up on Twitter with an angry tweet.”
to getting involved with social media. It’s as if they view sites such as Face- Brittany and Jay say there are at least four ways social media is
book and Twitter as little more than pesky annoyances that are irrelevant to transforming the interaction between businesses and consumers:
what they do.
They fail to recognize just how powerful social media can be as a tool that • Quality of communication. The rise of social media and various
allows them to promote their brands, communicate with customers and social media tools, such as Facebook Messenger, has made
handle damage control when complaints come tumbling in. communication much quicker and much better. Anyone now can dash off a
What they don’t realize is that abstaining from social media really isn’t an quick comment or question at nearly any time. The same speed of
option any longer. Social media carries on with or without you, and if you communication goes for you as a company for whenever you have an
own or manage a business there’s a chance you are already a part of important or timely message to share.
it – through people’s reviews and comments – whether you like it or not.
Recently, I was thinking about the changing ways in which businesses and • Variety of audiences. Social media isn’t something that only young
customers interact, and I asked Jay York and Brittany Vaill, two social
media strategists at my company, for their insight about the role social

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media sites play in that interaction. people use. Every generation is represented. Name a demographic and
“One good example is how Facebook is being used as a customer-service you can target them and reach them through social media.
platform,” Jay says. “Customers can go to a company’s Facebook page
and send the company a message, instead of making a phone call or
sending an email. People want to talk to you on social media and they • Responsiveness. You can respond quickly to customers’ questions,
expect you to talk back.” concerns and needs. That helps you build one-on-one relationships with
If you don’t have anyone managing your social media accounts, though, customers who become loyal and spread the good word about your
those consumer questions and complaints are met with silence – and that’s company on their social media sites.
not good.
Jay encountered such a situation not long ago when he began handling • Transparency. The whole world can check in on how you handle
social media for a client. Previously, no one had monitored the company's those consumer questions and complaints. “If you go on a site and see that
accounts. Ill will had been building with customers who had issues with the a company is responding quickly to its customers, then you are more likely
company’s product, but were getting no response to their complaints. to want to do business with them,” Brittany says. Of course, the opposite
One of Jay’s first tasks was to begin responding to those unanswered also is true.
social media posts. He was able to start building good will as a result. Never before have companies had to compete in quite this way. Years
“You have to be there,” Jay says. “If the only way to contact you is through ago, consumers had no quick and easy way to gauge the reputation of a
email or by phone, then that takes away a quick means of communication business, unless perhaps a neighbor or a cousin happened to have done
that many people want and expect.” business with you.
Brittany reminded me that many daily newspapers traditionally have had Now they can see what the world thinks about you. And you certainly want
restaurant critics, movie critics or theater critics whose opinions could sway them to think only the best.
an audience. That’s why social media is not just a pesky annoyance anymore. It’s an
“But today everybody can be a critic,” Brittany says. ““That means you important piece of your marketing that should command your attention in
need to step it up and be on your game because you never know when a as professional a way as every other piece of your business.