Todays post looks at the role of Social Media within the small and medium sized business. I had the pleasure of working with a number of MSc students over the last year and a number of them have taken various aspects of social media as their research topics.
The project looked at the risk of social media and not listening to the market. Social media is there and growing and companies need to understand that not listening is the biggest mistake they can make. This actually raise a fee issues, probably along due to the fact that the risk to a small business is not listening but not taking action.
In reality listening without action is as bad as not listening at all. Both routes mean the business does nothing about bad customer service and reputation. This will ultimately give rise to a negative impression within the market place and a reduction in sales and business.
If you’re looking at Social Media within your business it’s essential that you identify the correct channels and make sure your listening to your customers. Once you’ve started picking up customer messages it’s at that point you can begin to engage, both with the positive messages as well as the negative ones.
Always ensure that your handling the interactions correctly and not in a defensive and attacking manner. This will have a worse effect than not listening and ignoring.
