Does Social Media Fuel Business Unrest?

My January edition of Wired Magazine arrived early last week and the cover headline caught my attention – #RIOT – How Social Media Fuels Social Unrest.

The cover headline triggered the memory of a recent conversation that I had with a corporate communications specialist.

The corporate communications specialist was telling me that it was essential for big business and corporations to have a social media manager to monitor and respond to what’s being said about big business and corporations on social media.

“You have to know what people are saying about you online.”

But what if you don’t know what people are saying about you online?

Recently, I was told a story about an entrepreneur who didn’t have an online presence and their business dropped significantly because one unhappy customer expressed their dismay in their personal blog. In the absence of an online presence, the unhappy customer’s dismay became the only social media message about the entrepreneur’s company because of an absence of current posts on their website.

Past studies show that a satisfied customer will tell 2-3 people about their experience with your company. A dissatisfied consumer will share their dissatisfaction with 8-10 people and some will push that number to 20.

With social media, one dissatisfied customer could tell hundreds of thousands of people and put you out of business.

That’s if you don’t have a strong social media presence by way of a website that can include coaching testimonials and speaking testimonials with current posts by way of a blog or e-newsletter … you could call this social media 1.0. The next step is having a page on FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter which are included in social media 2.0 and participating in conversations on the big three of FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter are included in social media 3.0.

As an entrepreneur all you have to do is the first step of social media 1.0 having a website and quarterly blogs and an e-newsletter. Your commitment to these will guarantee that your posts will be the first that come up on search engines … not one post of an unhappy customer.

Having said this, it sounds like social media fear mongering doesn’t it? Meaning the reason to participate in social media is because an unhappy customer will write something negative about you. This is the absolute worst reason to be involved in social media.

The best thing about social media is it will help you to find your voice and in doing so, you will add value to others.

What you practice in private will be rewarded when posted in public.