Negative Publicity & Bad Press: Coping as a Small Business

With limited resources, small business owners face the unique challenges of avoiding bad press coverage and handling negative publicity. These challenges can seem daunting, but managing them isn’t as hard as you think.

Preparing ahead of time makes all the difference when limiting bad press. Simple steps can be taken to lower your risk of receiving undesirable media attention. In this day and age social media gives everybody a voice, and even the smallest businesses are likely to receive negative publicity. Learning how to deal with this is critical to your livelihood and longevity.

 

Bad Press

Fake news. We’ve seen a lot of it lately, and for a small company it can be absolutely devastating. When it comes to bad press coverage, being ahead of the curve is crucial. Having a policy in place for social media usage is key. Training your employees in media relations is necessary. Every employee has a voice that can negatively or positively impact your business.

Be forward thinking. Instead of allowing bad press to occur, generate your own good press. Go into the community and present what your business has to offer. Share the positive and progressive values which you represent. 

Word of mouth is also a great resource for small businesses with a limited marketing budget. The idea here is to turn your customers into brand ambassadors who will promote your brand to their networks. 

Negative Publicity

 

Whoever came up with the saying “There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” probably wasn’t a small business owner. Large firms like Volkswagen or United Airlines have faced a boatload of negative publicity recently. And they’ve been able to bounce back from this with relative ease due to their extensive customer service and marketing budgets. Small companies simply do not have these luxuries, and must use alternative, more cost effective methods to cope with negative publicity.

Used well, social media can be a primary tool for representing your company and responding to customer complaints. Today, over 81% of Americans have a social media presence. This is an over 3x increase from ten years ago, and this huge market can be tapped for little to no cost. Spreading your message through social media content or low-cost paid ads are proactive ways to generate good publicity. However, as a business owner you’re likely to face some sort of backlash online. Knowing how to deal with this is very important.

Be Responsive

 

When it comes to responding to negative publicity on social media, you must learn how to distinguish genuine criticism and complaints from trolls trying to get a reaction. If the issue is not very serious no response is necessary, but that doesn’t mean not responding is the best option. Not responding won’t actively bring negative publicity to your company, but negative comments from customers can spread like a wildfire online. And speaking of fire, you don’t want to start a flame war with a customer. If you’re going to respond be decisive, transparent, and have the customer’s interests in mind first and foremost. Your response to it is a great opportunity to show the world what your company’s really about.

As a business owner, bad press and publicity can be difficult. Being prepared and knowing how to respond is essential in order to avoid a PR nightmare. 

For more information about dealing with bad press and negative social media experiences, contact Spotlight Publicity for a free consultation today.

We love your feedback and comments- please share your experiences with positive and negative publicity in the comments below.

Customer Service via Social Media

As we progress further into a world dominated by social media, businesses are adapting it for not only marketing purposes, but also for customer service. Engaging with customers has always been the best ways to grow and develop, and social media is the tool that allows you to easily engage and keep tabs on consumers for the purposes of improving open communication.

According to a JD Power survey of over 23,000 online consumers, 67% of the respondents claimed to have contacted a company for customer support through some form of social media. Not to mention the users not directly contacting the business for support using social media. It is important that as a business you do your part to give your customers a clear line of communication to address their issues.

When you receive a request via social media, take action immediately.

It is crucial that you know where the majority of your customers are. The target audience you use for marketing and advertising will be the same audience coming to you for customer service. Knowing this demographic will help you find which channel of social media your business will thrive off of most. Keep in mind the platform that you use on your own time may not be the best for your company. Just because you spend time using Tinder, doesn’t mean your consumers use the same one.

If you are not sure what social media forum a majority of your consumers use, you can also utilize a customer service survey via email. Another option is to utilize all possible social media platforms in order to avail your services to a larger consumer base.

Now that you have the social media platform set up and familiarized, you need to monitor the traffic your company receives through the app. It is recommended that you review your feeds and check the search engines for any mentions of your company at least three times a day in order to take swift action when called for. It only takes a minute, and will benefit your company’s image greatly. Although your customers are trying to reach out to you, they may make a few spelling mistakes while doing it, for example, a customer looking on Twitter for @SpotlightPubNH instead types @SpitlightPubNH. By monitoring similar handles you can make sure your not missing out on those opportunities.

Do your best to interact with customers in the most personalized way as possible. Provide alternate contact channels to facilitate one-on-one communications. The difference between a positive customer service experience and a negative one can be seen on your bottom line.

For more information about customer service via social media, or for any similar marketing needs, contact us at SpotlightPublicityOnline.com.

Is Twitter Still a Viable Tool to Sell Your Project?

Twitter viability comes down to user behavior. How likely are you to spend time scrolling through tweets these days? Similar news feed/social media sites have so much more to offer with instant gratification - Facebook offers direct chat and games as well as specially targeted content - Instagram provides images tailored to your search - Twitter, well, Twitter is text and link heavy, tries to send you things you might be interested in, and reminds you constantly about that obscure Gerbil Christmas tweet stream you agreed to follow while waiting for a blind date at a bar last November.

What tweets stop you in your tracks and call out for your attention?

How can you replicate that interaction for your own benefit?

Back to the point at hand - why did you decide to follow a Gerbil Christmas feed? Was it an engaging and thought provoking statement or famous quote? Was it based on one post, or perhaps hanging singularly on the hope the originator might follow you back? For independent authors, this falls into the camaraderie concept of helping each other out. You follow them, they follow you. You buy their book, and hopefully they will buy and promote yours... but did you do your part and buy their book like you hinted you would?

This is where the Twitter model fails for those unsure of how to utilize their media stream.

How Twitter Works

In a nutshell, the Twitter platform allows users to post messages to groups and followers for free, using 140 or fewer characters. Many entrepreneurs use the platform to get the word out about their projects, letting subscribers/followers know of an upcoming event, a reaction to current events, and to provide links to more detailed information such as websites and online reviews. In theory, Twitter reaches interested parties in a streamlined, direct marketing manner. In practice, however, this often is not the case. A reasonable Twitter feed is spam followed by spam followed by 'What the hell was that?"

It is estimated that over 350 million subscribers interact with Twitter each month. It is a salivating number for a self-promoter to tap into, and if utilized properly, can be a boon to a current project getting off the ground. However, few users take the time to understand the system, relying only on the ease of creating/buying a massive follower base that, at the end of the day, hasn't garnered a single penny. Without a viable strategy on how to disseminate a message, it simply becomes more static on an internet that doesn't ever reach the targeted audience.

Organic Versus Artificial Followers

Though it is important to understand how your Twitter programming algorithms work, it's not the 'end all, be all' in our case. What is more important is the management of followers on your account.

This is truly where the follower count comes into play. Knowing who your audience is and focusing on that, rather than how many you have, is how to gain interaction and impacting growth with your project.

Twitter for business can be a convoluted concept, with countless home-based cottage entrepreneurs relying on numbers to boost their message. Unfortunately, this creates an unrealistic economy online where the presumption that high following numbers translates to an equally high percentage of sales. It simply doesn't work that way. Upon close inspection, the majority of followers are artificial - meaning they are accounts that follow to boost their own ability to increase their own follower status. Hence the Twitter contingency of the more accounts you follow, the more accounts that can follow you. It's a vicious cycle, and left to it's own devices, will simply gum up your message to a point where it falls upon deaf ears.

Fine Tuning Your Customer Base

This approach is best done on a laptop, though it can be accomplished rather clumsily using a handheld device. Log in to your Twitter account and review who you are following, and the value they bring. If it's a Tweeter who sends daily updates on the industry you're in, you can presume this is a valuable addition to your feed. On the other hand, if the user you follow Tweets erratically or decays into repetitive sales calls, it's time to trim the fat and un-follow.

By continually updating your Twitter account for usable connections, once a week is recommended, you will be fine-tuning what feeds cross over yours, and increase the value of the re-tweets you provide to your followers.

For original content, tag only those few Twitter feeds that you believe will truly benefit or enjoy your post. Don't throw a @tag on just because - it gets you nowhere and constitutes spamming. By trimming your message and sharing it with specific feeds, you will be placing your message only with those who wish to interact with it, thereby impressing Twitter users with what you are selling, and gaining usable followers at the same time.

Cross Platform Social Media Blitz

Twitter can certainly act in conjunction with other social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, but many small businesses and entrepreneurs see different audiences on these very different venues. One message that speaks to Twitter followers might not necessarily speak to an Instagram crowd, and may actually fall on deaf ears on Facebook. Focusing on Twitter's 140 characters allows you to micro-target to a specific audience, controlling exactly how they receive your message.

Managing Your Message

In order to best utilize Twitter, each update should be considered a well-crafted elevator pitch. Get straight to the point with the relevance and a call to action. Making the mistake of tweeting something off the top of your head is simply presuming your followers want to know everything about you - this certainly is not the case. Organic followers want information about your project and teasers on upcoming events and sequels.

Free Consultation

At Spotlight Publicity, we help clients fine tune their message and get to the heart of the matter - creating revenue. For more information, please contact us for a free consultation. Your project is too important to leave to chance - let us help you target your revenue audience today by specially crafting your social media campaign.

Social Media Trends For the Savvy Author

Social media is without a doubt the single most effective tool a content originator has in their arsenal to spread the word about ongoing and future projects to build steam. Combining SEO tactics with targeted advertising and chat-group insertion, a message can be broadcast to millions with the click of the Share button- and the great thing is, it doesn't need to go viral to be effective.

Viral is nice, of course, but not necessary. As long as the project is reaching the targeted audience it is designed for, a worthy message will find traction. This relies on wording, imaging, and overall approach.

And, it goes without saying that it should be something your audience would like to interact with. To do this, here are a few tips on social media trends to get the ball rolling -

1. Start a movement. A solid, creative angle will have your readers engaging before you know it- think of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, or the recent Straight Outta - " from Dr. Dre. It can be silly, or contemplative, or just plain weird, but allowing your readers to engage in your message in creative ways will help move your project along faster than you can keep up. 
2. Use genuine feedback from genuine readers/subscribers/fanatics. By letting your dedicated audience share your message in their words, either through video, text quotations, or imagery, you can spread the word that you're not just a flash in the pan, and that others have found value in your project. Fans love to share why they're fans, and try their darndest to convert new believers. Use your social media to help them reach their goal.
3. Use video when ever possible, and even when there's no conceivable way to do so. Many folks are visual types- the message needs to be placed graphically in their face in order for them to interact with it. Ronald Reagan was a firm believer in this- he often had his briefings via video in order to connect more closely with them. Think of it- the Cold War in 3-D each morning with his jellybeans and coffee.
4. Speak plainly when only speaking plainly will do. When converting new followers, understand that they may not have the experience or lexicon to fully comprehend your message. Limit the insider jokes and hoity-toity vocabulary and speak clearly. More potential followers can be lost to over-the-top dialogue than from slow loading speeds on a website.
5. Think globally, act mobil-ly. Make sure your online content and social media platforms are optimized for mobile viewing. Most followers will engage during the work day, and using their company laptops is not the way they will connect. Instead, the personal device revolution is at hand, and if they can't read your message on their phones, then they simply won't.
6. Lastly, be the first. Be active in your social media interactions by being a trendsetter when new applications come out. Most social media trends and apps will die by the wayside, but others may prove a boon. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram- all of these started small, and look at them now. Just imagine if you were one of the first users of Snap-chat or MySpace? You could be ruling the world by now...

Share your experience below with social media platforms- we love to hear our readers stories!