Is your social media helping or hurting your organization’s public relations?
Here’s the problem…
Many brands treat social media like a virtual promotional billboard.
Post the promo.
Post the product.
Pray nobody asks a question (because you’ve not committed resources to answer in a timely manner).
Meanwhile, your customers carry millions of retail options in their pocket.
They read reviews before they buy. And they expect you to value their business and their feedback.
And if you don’t monitor and answer questions and concerns posted on your social media channels, your competitor will.
Create True Participation
This week’s lessons come from a chapter in “Strategic Social Media” about social media engagement that my Capstone in Brand Communication class read. Its big idea is something called true participation — which means “working with and by the people, not working on or working for the people.”
Translation: Stop broadcasting. Instead, start a conversation.
And listen more.
Do that, and your social media will give your business great PR.
8 Keys for Quality Social Media PR
Here are eight steps to turn your social media into a strategic PR tool:
1. Are you selling or talking? Don’t use your social media space to sell products. Instead, ask questions, update often, share your expertise, and prompt users to share information that’s useful and speaks to them.
Your social media isn’t primarily a place for you to talk to your customers. It’s a place for your customers to talk to each other — and for you to listen. You’re the host, not the headliner.
2. Are you painfully transparent? Tell a story that clearly outlines what makes your brand authentic. Be as transparent as possible about production, product distribution, and price.
The theory of social penetration explains why this works: The more you disclose in an open and honest manner, the more people trust you. If it appears you’re hiding something, then you’ll lose credibility and trust.
3. Do you delete bad reviews? Your knee-jerk reaction will be to delete them. Don’t.
Let consumers share reviews directly on your social media pages, and don’t filter or censor them. A few negative reviews can actually benefit a brand, provided the majority of comments are positive.
Say you sell a shirt that runs small. Better a reviewer says so than a customer learns afterward. Maybe they order a bigger size. Maybe a different shirt altogether. Either way, they stay — because you were honest with them.
4. Are you answering questions? The chapter calls this a dialogic loop — the ongoing back-and-forth between your customers and your organization. It’s one of the most important features people now expect via social media.
Not coincidentally, the definition of public relations is essentially effective two-way communication between an organization and its stakeholders.
If customers have a question about your product, they shouldn’t have to leave your social media platform to ask it via your website contact form. Give them useful information right on your social media channel. And offer more than one way to reach you: replies and messages for people who can wait, live chat for people who can’t.
5. Do you ever leave your social media audience hanging? Don’t offer quick responses unless someone can respond in a timely manner. There’s nothing worse than taking the time to contact an organization and never hearing back.
Assign someone to monitor your social media activity who knows the product and the brand well. Set a policy for handling common situations and stick to it. And don’t give one customer special treatment over another. Remember, they can all read each other’s comments.
6. Do you have a plan for angry customers? In his book “Unmarketing,” Scott Stratten lays out five steps for handling upset customers on social media.
First, have a strategy in place before you need it. Implement consistent policies that are transparent and easy to find on your website. Second, acknowledge the customer’s dissatisfaction. Let them know you got the complaint and you understand the frustration. Third, clarify your policy and why the bad experience happened. This isn’t the time to blame the customer. It’s the time to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Fourth, present a resolution that satisfies both the customer and your policy. And fifth, check back afterward to make sure they’re satisfied.
No one expects every customer to be happy. But you’d better have a plan for the ones who aren’t.
7. Are you building a community, not a billboard? Make your page a place people are happy to associate their identity with. Start conversations so people want to come back even when they’re not buying anything. If a regular hasn’t been around in a while, reach out and let them know they’re missed.
IKEA gets this. During the back-to-school season, it ran a Pinterest campaign encouraging college students to find ideas for making their dorms stylish on a budget, with keywords like “dorm creativity” and “dorm ideas” to make the content easy to find.
IKEA didn’t tell anyone what to talk about. It built a place for students to share their own projects with each other — and then got out of the way.
There’s a bottom-line reason, too. It’s smarter (and WAY more cost-effective) to nurture the customers you already have than to spend time and money chasing new ones.
8. Do you seek out conversations? Don’t just watch your own pages. Search for what people are saying about your business everywhere. Then, be sure to respond. Just because they didn’t talk to you directly doesn’t mean they wouldn’t want to hear from you.
And here’s the free market research nobody talks about: If the conversation keeps heading in the wrong direction, something is probably wrong with the product.
A focus group can cost $4,000-12,000. Your customers will tell you the same thing for free — before you produce more of what they don’t like.
The chapter puts it bluntly: “Do not try to change your consumers. Instead, change your product until it meets and exceeds their expectations.”
Period.
Social media marketing was never only about building an audience. It’s about building and maintaining relationships. It’s about creating a community. The tools are already there.
Now knowing this, will you use social media to only talk at your audience, or to listen and talk with them?
3 Big Takeaways
- Talk less. Listen more. True participation is a two-way street.
- Honesty builds trust and credibility. Keep the negative reviews, be transparent about price and production, and let customers tell each other the truth.
- Responsiveness is vital. If you open the door for questions, someone competent had better be standing by. And have a plan for angry customers before you need to create one on the fly.
What changes are you going to make to your social media? Or does it already have great PR? Do share!
Stay authentic and mindful of your social media’s PR.
Jeffery E. Pizzino, APR (seen here in a vintage photo circa 1983 serendipitously doing a Clash impersonation in a since-forgotten location) is a spin-free public relations pro who is passionate about telling the why of your story with clarity, impact and authenticity. He began his PR career in 1987 at Ketchum Public Relations in New York City but has spent the majority of his career as a solopreneur. He’s the Chief Authentic Officer of the Johnson City, TN-based public relations firm, AuthenticityPR. He also functions as the fractional CCO for his clients.
Jeff has an MBA in Management from Western International University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications — with an emphasis in PR — from Brigham Young University (rise and shout!). He’s also accredited in public relations (APR) and an adjunct media and communication faculty at East Tennessee State University. This Milwaukee, Wisconsin native holds an Italian citizenship and plans to live and work there someday. Jeff and his storyteller wife Leticia have four children and five grandchildren. In his extremely limited nonwork hours, he studies Italiano, practices guitar, writes songs, gardens, works out, plays pickleball, disc golfs, reads, listens to New Wave music, serves as an assistant communication director in his church, watches BYU football, watches the original Mission Impossible TV series, and plays board games (mostly Dominion and Seven Wonders). No, this guy’s never bored and looking for something to do. Email Jeff.
