FEATURE STORY
piece of content is one that benefits both the community and your business. There are instances where deleting the comment and blocking the user is appro- priate. It depends on what your site guide- lines are. If someone is being obscene or attacking or insulting your organization or other community members, generally, that person isn’t going to add a lot of value to your interactions. Consider what your site guidelines should be and make them clear to the community. There are also those times that make every social media man- ager proud, when the community does the responding for you. Once you gain the trust and loyalty of the community, they will often address negative posts for you. As long as their responses are clean and within your guidelines, sometimes you can just sit back and watch.
Building relationships online
Social media is about relationships. One of the most difficult things for any organi- zation to realize in social media is that it’s
Sources and recommended reading
for anyone interested in social media: • Groundswell: Winning in a World
Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff • Social Media ROI by Olivier
Blanchard Evans
• Social Media Marketing by Liana “Li” • Social Media SmartBrief:
www.smartbrief.com/socialmedia
about the community. The community has the true power in social media. The audi- ence decides how the conversation goes, and you can only hope they will accept you and let you be a part of it. In order to harness the power of social
media, you need to be a valued, accepted member of the social community that’s talking about your brand and products. It’s hard work, and it takes time to build a suc- cessful social media program. A well- planned social media program will allow you to reach and listen to consumers in a way that you haven’t been able to before.
You will be able to provide information about your products and services to thou- sands with one post. Consumers will get updated or corrected information from an official source on their time. Maybe, most importantly, customers and potential cus- tomers will get to know you, and they’ll know that you care about them. Finally, remember to have fun with it.
Your passion for social media will come through in your interactions and, hope- fully, will rub off on the entire community. Social media is another place where con- sumers are. With a good plan and proper execution, you can satisfy your business objectives and provide content of value to those consumers and experience the true power of social media.
Les Robinson, a five- year veteran with social media, serves as social media specialist for Stihl Inc.
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