I was meeting with a client the other day, and they had some interesting misconceptions about social media. Some of them were worth covering here.
1. Locking down a Facebook page is a good idea
Company policy mandated the company Facebook page be locked so no one could comment on it. I strongly advised against it.
I do understand the temptation. No one wants to see a spammer or troll leave something obnoxious like “1 to 1 Discovery sucks” on your page. If that happens, definitely delete it.
If you lock down your page, however, your customers are going to wonder why. We tend to assume the worst, so a locked-down page will make us think you have something to hide. Don’t give us the excuse to think that.
And what if someone complains on your page? Address it promptly. Do what you can to resolve the situation. That’s the way to turn an angry customer into an asset. Leave the exchange on your page. Other people will see it and know you are a company that responds appropriately. That’s a good reputation to have!
2. Following someone on Twitter will allow them to tweet to your profile
I’d never heard this one before. Nope, not true. Neither your followers nor the people you follow can tweet from your profile.
They can use your user handle as an @Mention to talk about you. So it’s quite possible for someone to say “@1to1Discovery has lousy service and is ridiculously overpriced”. It doesn’t matter whether they follow you or you follow them. Anyone can say anything they want. That’s why you want to monitor both your @Mentions and set up a search on your company name. If someone blasts you, at least you know about it and can start damage control.
3. Following back your competition is a bad idea
No! No! No!
My client told me a competitor had followed them, and they hadn’t followed back. Bad idea.
If your competitor follows you, they can learn about you and what you are doing. Nothing you can do to stop them. It’s a free country in the Twitterverse.
But not following them back is insanity. Then they are getting information about you, and you aren’t getting any information about them.
I suggested my client take it one step further. Follow the competitor and then follow their competitor’s followers. Many of them will follow back. If my client can do a better job, they can potentially take market share from their competitor. What’s not to like about that?
Anyone else have social media misconceptions to share?
Tags: social media
Well, something I hear a lot is this: social media is worthless for my business. It is, if you think strictly in terms of making money. Yeah, it’s totally worthless for that most of the time.
The other thing I hear is social media should make me $$$$. No. That’s not what social media can do for you.
So it’s a education process, one heart and mind at a time. Great post, thanks for airing these out!
My favorite is when I come across a company (and there are many of them) that advertise their services as helping you create a viral video.
Uhh, no.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dannelle Shugart and Juli Monroe, Andrew Huynh. Andrew Huynh said: RT @1to1Discovery: Social media misconceptions exposed! http://bit.ly/fdM0fL [...]
Ari, yes, I agree. Not someone I’m going to hire.
Nancy, social media can make you money. It’s all in how you position yourself and use it. I just got an inquiry from my LinkedIn profile. Based on what she saw there, and on my website, she saw that I knew what I’m talking about. That can certainly lead to money.