We talked about this a little bit in another one of our blogs on social media here. Ryan brought up a good point. There may be a time where you have to deal with an uncomfortable situation with a customer, donor, or volunteer when they use social media to try to get something they think is wrong fixed.
There are lots of solutions, but, in Ryan’s experience, the best thing to do is point them to a process outside of social media platforms. It might look something like a response that gives them a direct email to customer service or giving your business number to them to contact you about the issue.
By addressing the problem with a solution that will grant an avenue other than social media for resolution, you have also documented, publicly, your attempt to make things right.
Once you make your decision on how to handle things: stick to it! The thing that usually causes bad online interactions is inconsistency in responses!
What do you mean ‘did I read the Terms and Conditions when I signed up to use the site’? Of course, I didn’t! Who does that anyway?
So, on Facebook, it is a violation of their terms of service to offer any sort of giveaway that requires a contestant to share something on their timeline, share something on a friend’s timeline, or tag a friend in any manner in order to win. Those are just three examples.
All social media platforms have rules about doing giveaways. You should always check before running a giveaway promotion regarding those rules for any social media platform.
And…can we talk about SEO for just a moment? Yes, you can gain followers on Facebook or other social media by doing giveaways, but, isn’t your goal to get them to your website? That seems like a really good place to do a giveaway and promote on your social media! You know what else? No headaches about violating rules with the social media platform. Now, instead of people only being able to find your promo on your social media, you are actively driving traffic to your website.
By the way, for every rule about
Okay, we’re just going to address the elephant in the room. Ready?
People get on social media and complain about your business or non-profit. And you…are…LIVID!
Take a breath.
Ryan recently started watching the new Gordon Ramsay show on Fox, 24 Hours to Hell and Back. This show features restaurant owners who are losing money and get Gordon’s help to restore their establishments, all within 24 hours. In some of those episodes, when online reviews are left, some of the management or staff hops on and, frankly, just as viciously as they were attacked, attack back.
Gordon is never happy about that. It’s odd.
Or is it? Listen, sometimes people get upset and they say things they didn’t mean. On the other hand, sometimes they absolutely mean it. However, it’s a lot harder to restore an average rating and reputation than it is to go the route of handling things off of social media. Just so you non-profits aren’t left out of the conversation, that’s true for you, too.
Again, take a breath. There you go! In through the nose, out through the mouth…right? Yeah, that’s it.
If you’re managing your social media and you want to verbally lay the smackdown on that person that posted that thing about…get up, walk away from the keyboard. Bounce a response or two off of someone you trust and go back to the keyboard and type your response like a sane person that wants to make a bad situation better.
If someone else manages your social media for you make sure they know you have an open door to discuss these things before they respond and, if there is ever a question about what to say or what to do, they should talk to you first. This should always be before anything is ever posted or shared.
