Dealing with a Social Media Crisis

The RMS social media team recently attended a Social Media Breakfast presentation by Greg Loh, Managing Partner at Eric Mower + Associates. Aside from the great coffee and pastries, our team received an information-packed 90 minutes of social media crisis management gold. Although our social media team prides itself on staying up to date on the latest trends (it must be the researchers in us… we’re curious by nature), Greg provided insightful tips that any reputation management professional would find useful. Social media has been known to fuel fire under public opinion, and the popularity of this communication medium seems to be here to stay for the foreseeable future. The presentation touched on two main types of social media crisis situations and how to deal with them – crisis + social and social = crisis.

• Crisis + Social

The influence that social media plays during a crisis has heightened over the last decade, with everyday people (not journalists) commonly breaking news stories via social media outlets. A prime example that Greg gave during the presentation was the US Airways plane landing on the Hudson River in 2009, later dubbed the “Miracle on the Hudson.” The news of the plane landing on the Hudson River instantly became worldwide news when Janis Krums posted a picture of people entering life boats from the plane. Greg noted that the online world “amplifies and accelerates” a story to make it big news. Given the unpredictable nature of crises, it’s imperative to be cautious about automated social media or any communcation. Even if the crisis is not directly related to you or your company, if your social media activity or automated survey seems insensitive, the public backlash could create a firestorm of bad press for the company. Listening is critical for companies engaging in social media activity.

• Social = Crisis

When a crisis surrounding your organization originates on social media, Greg recommends that in some instances you should wait before reacting immediately. Of course this does not apply if there is a safety concern or an issue (e.g. a chemical spill) that must be addressed immediately to avoid further damage. For less serious public relations issues, Greg recommends monitoring social media negativity to determine if the content is gaining steam. Often minor social media crises self-regulate through what Greg called the “social media washing machine,” where one story is replaced by the next. When addressing a social crisis, it’s best to focus on incontrovertible facts and third-party support. Unless social comments are highly inflammatory, derogatory, or defamatory, resist the urge to remove critical commentary. By addressing the issue, you have the opportunity to turn a critic into a supporter by finding a solution to their dissatisfaction or disagreement.

To close the presentation, Greg provided a crisis management survival strategy. Essentially, it boils down to figuring out what people want, need, and/or expect in a crisis/emergency situation. The public generally wants to know:

1. That you have noticed the problem.
2. That you care.
3. That you are in control of the situation.
4. That you are doing something about it.
5. That you are minimizing damage.
6. That you are taking steps to make sure it does not happen again.

RMS is a full-service market research firm located in Syracuse, NY. If you are interested in learning more about our research capabilities, please contact Sandy Baker, our Senior Director of Business Development & Corporate Strategy at SandyB@RMSresults.com or by calling 1-866-567-5422. Visit our website at www.RMSresults.com.

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5 Tips to Get Started with Social Media for Business

Social media is a great method of outreach if you know how to use it.  Many businesses utilize social media because it is a cheap and easy way to connect with consumers. However, some companies do not know what they should and should not include on their social media pages. As a result they decide to never start on social media, or start but stay away as much as possible. Put these five tips in your social media tool kit before you aim to get thousands of likes and followers.

1. Set Goals

This sounds simple, but it helps you understand what expectations should be. A lot of your success with social media would depend on the audience you are trying to target. For instance, you should know what the most popular social media website for this specific audience is, how many times would they visit this website, and what type of messages work best for that audience.  A social media assessment can help you with that.

You could arbitrarily set a goal. For example to increase “Likes” on Facebook by 20 percent by the end of this month.  Or, you could analyze competing business’ social media efforts and set a more feasible goal. Once you have set your goal, check out Facebook Analytics. This will help you understand what times are best to send out messages to the users, what messages received the most coverage, as well as other useful information.

2. Increase Credibility

Credibility is particularly important in social media. In order to present your business in a viable manner make sure everything on your page is business related. All posts should connect with your professional efforts. However, this does not mean you cannot have fun and be creative. Some ways RMS has done this is by:

Posting fun photos of employees:

Participating in trends:

Posting about events happening in the area:

 Efforts like these help add a “face” to your business and often generate the most hits.

3. Pull Responses

The prep work for this is easy to complete, but actually getting responses is difficult to achieve.  All you have to do to get started is to give users an opportunity to start a conversation. For example you could do something like this:

4. Follow Up

Once you open the lines of communication respond quickly with accurate information. Furthermore, consider sending direct messages to users who like your page, like posts, or follow you by sending them a simple thank you note. This is also a great opportunity to include a quick plug about your business, and to provide them with resources to seek out additional information. Even if issues come up on social media, it provides you an opportunity to address it immediately. Even more importantly, others can see you were reasonable, responsible, and professional. Below is a review on Facebook from a ViewPoint Panel member, which RMS quickly responded to.

 5. Reward Customers

You may be wondering why many people have not liked your page or posts thus far. One way to increase your numbers is to create an incentive to come to your page. Many businesses offer exclusive coupon codes that give customers a reason to visit its page. For example, you could offer a code for 10% off an order.

Another way to reward customers is to create your own contest or challenge by having customers complete a task in order to get a reward. This could be as simple as asking customers to post a photo of themselves using your product or service to your page. Then, the customer with the best photo wins $50. This is an easy way to get awesome promotional efforts out to current and potential consumers. Below is an example from a post on RMS’s Refer-A-Friend Challenge.

Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS) is a market research firm located in Syracuse, NY. If you are interested in learning more social media tips contact our Director of Business Development Sandy Baker at SandyB@RMSresults.com or by calling 1-866-567-5422.

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The Research Bunker Blog Reaches 300K

This blog article was written by Lori Lichorobiec, Communications Coordinator at Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS).

The RMS Research Bunker Blog hits 300,000 views! Thank you to all of our readers over the years.

To celebrate, enjoy this 300,000 hits gif courtesy of alternatehistoryweeklyupdate.blogspot.com

When it comes to a blog, any views are good, but for Baldwinsville based RMS – Research & Marketing Strategies, 300,000 blog views means they’re moving fast through the blogosphere!  Just a few years old, the “bunker” staff at RMS has been churning out enough great content on “The RMS Research Bunker Blog” to receive hundreds of thousands of views.  It’s a lofty goal for any blog to reach. “The RMS blog has done wonders for our company. We’ve gone from the days of being excited about breaking 10 views in a day, to now receiving upwards of 800+ hits per day. The blog has provided us with training opportunities by researching new topics, kept staff informed on the latest industry trends, and provided us with leads from decision-makers across the globe.”  George Kuhn, Director of Analytics.

Keeping readers wanting more is not an easy task to achieve.  Continually posting fresh, informative, engaging and compelling content is the most important job of any successful blogger; the second most important job; being persistent. “I don’t think too hard about what to write. Blog posts should not cause “paralysis through analysis.” Ask a question and answer it in a blog post, re-use old newsletter articles and add a fresh perspective, sit down with a colleague and talk out loud about a topic and recap your conversation on the blog. Some of our most highly viewed blogs took less than 30 minutes to put together and post. Persistence is also important. You have to consistently post fresh and original content using SEO-friendly terms and publicize it through all social media platforms. If you are patient, persistent and commit yourself to posting relevant content, leads will roll in.” George Kuhn.

RMS presented B2B Small Business Blogging Tips at a regional conference a few years ago.

About The RMS Research Bunker Blog

The main authors are George Kuhn, Director of Research Services, Vance Marriner, Senior Research Analyst, and Chris Coville, Senior Research Associate. Topics include Education, Financial Services, Focus Groups, Healthcare, Market Opinions, Market Research Insights, Strategic Planning, Survey Tips, Video Blog Posts and other intriguing subjects.

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Social Media Assessment | Consultant in Syracuse, NY

In today’s social media world of Blogging, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (to name a few) it can be easy for your business to fall behind.  With local businesses all across Central New York adding Facebook pages and blogs to their advertising campaign, it can often seem overwhelming at times.  We talk to a lot of businesses in the Syracuse area who don’t know where to start their social media plunge while others have already made the attempt but don’t understand how to generate business from it.

The importance of having a web presence cannot be understated.  Websites became a must-have a long time ago, now the same can be said about having a presence on social media websites.  Search engines have become a major driving force for finding information about businesses.  More often than not a person will first jump to Google if they are looking for restaurant reviews, product feedback, or store hours.  Blogs have become absolutely vital to improving your Google rank on search terms.  A website alone will not set your business apart from your competition.  Through social media, you can make your business readily found on Google for any number of search terms.  The key is if you are an Italian restaurant here locally – you want to be at or near the top of the search results when someone searches “Italian restaurant in Syracuse.”  RMS will create that presence for you.

We see situations all the time where a business should have put more thought into their decisions on which social media outlets to choose.  For example, Facebook is the most used social media website, but creating a profile for your business on it may actually harm your reputation more than help it.  Think in terms of a business like a healthcare office, family therapist or pest removal.  All three businesses have aspects that would either compromise personal information or might embarrass the people publicizing their “friend status” with those organizations.  In those situations, the business is not likely to garner many friends in their network so efforts might be better spent through other venues.  The social media assessment through RMS will accomplish that for your business.

From there RMS will work as a social media consultant to your business.  In addition to the social media assessment, RMS can create your accounts and work with your team to generate blog posts that focus on search engine optimization, which will put your business on the front page of Google for key search terms.

Interested in working with a social media consultant in Syracuse, NY?  Contact GeorgeK@RMSresults.com or contact the Analytics team at 315-635-9802.

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