If a potential customer reads a negative review, they’re more forgiving if you’re a part of the conversation.

Your online presence is bigger than you think. It’s certainly bigger than your website. People are talking about your business all over the Internet — whether you like it or not.

Maybe you’ve never visited a review or social media site, but guess what? They’ve probably visited you. Someone stopped in for a bite, bought a new car or was simply in the neighborhood and voila! Your online listing was born. And yes, it can happen without your blessing.

We’re not talking about angry customers who had a bad experience and spend their time venting in a blog post that six people will read. We’re talking about reputable, heavily trafficked sites where people go to check in, read reviews and sometimes offer up a piece of their own mind.

So what, you ask? Well, you may be losing clients and sales without even knowing it. It’s pretty simple: Online reviews pack a punch. According to Inc.com, 89 percent of consumers trust online product and service reviews. Whether it’s spot-on or wildly out of whack, your online reputation may be a customer’s first touchpoint with your business.Read full post...

Don’t be known for having a short temper and being unprofessional.

The Internet has made it easy to complain about anything at the drop of a hat. Whether or not the complaints are justified, it’s important to know how to handle them without offending the complainer or the rest of your customer base. So here’s what not to do:

1. Make the person feel like an idiot.

I recently participated in a company’s event that was very poorly run. After hearing several complaints, a friend of mine sent the organizer an email relaying the group’s frustration. The organizer responded by posting the message on the company’s Facebook page and picking it apart line by line. He essentially tore my friend a new one. What a great way to alienate a paying customer and anyone with similar opinions.Read full post...

Think of social media as a piece of the brand engagement puzzle. To be effective, it needs to fit into a strategy aimed at the right audience.

Well, you can — if you don’t mind it ending or taking on an entirely different tone when the next semester starts.

Social media has become the latest stepchild in the world of digital marketing campaigns. At least it has good company. When Quark and Pagemaker came out in the ’90s, everyone was an instant print designer. With the dot-com bubble, everyone’s nephew was a web developer. Digital cameras turned the world into professional photographers. Now, interns can manage social media campaigns. Why not? They spend their whole day on those sites anyway.

It’s easy to think of social communities as the realm of kids hanging out with their friends and boomers sharing cat videos. In reality, the social networks are one piece of what has become the omni-channel. Read full post...

It can take you years to build a good reputation, but just one knuckleheaded social media post to destroy it.

Those of us in PR know that social media is a force to be reckoned with. We use it for the good of mankind, quickly (and inexpensively) getting important messages out there to millions of people and creating a sense of community.

Other folks, not so much.

Cyberspace is being polluted more and more with images of fast-food workers shoving food up their noses or licking a stack of taco shells “behind closed doors.” Luckily, companies can fight this reputation-damaging lunacy by harnessing the power of the very source of this chaos — social media. Here are a couple of recent examples.Read full post...

It’s not easy staying cool — just ask the Fonz, the Rolling Stones and the CB radio. Since dethroning MySpace five years ago, Facebook has reigned supreme in the social media world. But don’t look back, Facebook — something might be gaining on you. Many teens, twenty-somethings and even thirty-somethings are turning to Twitter. If that age group factors heavily into your customer base, please read on.

It’s not easy staying cool — just ask the Fonz.

When you were young, did you (willingly) spend a lot of time at your parents’ haunts? Probably not. So when mom, dad and Aunt Edna joined Facebook, Millennials (and a lot of Gen Xers) started looking to other platforms for some breathing room. They turned to Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram among other social sites. But before you chase them all around the Internet, start with Twitter.

For everything from national broadcasts to local activities, Twitter has become the go-to site for younger social media users. Sure, Facebook still has a larger user base. But just as with your business, the goal isn’t to rack up followers, it’s to add engaged followers — people who love your brand. Facebook has double the users, but it doesn’t translate to double the fun for Millennials.

Maybe your business already has a Twitter profile. Maybe you’re late to the party. Or maybe you couldn’t care less. Whatever camp you find yourself in, here is a quick rundown on Twitter use and why it’s here to stay, as well as some tips for tweets.Read full post...

After enough pushing, prodding and hearing the “But everybody’s on Facebook” argument, you finally decided your business needed a page. About 90 percent of small businesses are on it, so welcome to the club. Whether your page is brand-spanking new or a couple of years old, you want to know how you’re doing. As with any other aspect of business, you have to check your figures, right?

Before we get started, make sure your Facebook page represents a business, not a person. If it doesn’t  the Facebook FAQs can take you through the transfer. Once you’re all squared away, you’ll find your business page equipped with free analytics (yes, free) called Facebook Insights. Not only is Insights complimentary, but it’s also fast and relatively painless. Managing your social media pages can be time-consuming, so the last thing you want is to spend more time crunching numbers. No worries. Insights spits out the important information, giving you just enough not to be overwhelming.

Carve out some time to check your figures. It doesn’t have to be every week — maybe the end of every month or quarter.

Read full post...

It can sometimes be intimidating to come up with the perfect blog post. Here are 5 tips for creating a blog post that will leave ‘em wanting more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5ymk61BzNA

A mix ’n’ match approach allows you to mimic costly reporting tools, stay on budget and still find meaningful data.

At some point, your boss or client has probably asked for a social media report. Unfortunately, there is no quick way to create one. Like many other communications efforts, the evaluation stage is the first to fall victim to the mortal enemies of a PR team—tight deadlines and even tighter budgets. In an ideal world, you would always assess your progress. Regrettably, the demands of managing hospital communications usually spell sayonara to any thoughts of reporting.

But don’t let dwindling hours and a tiny budget stop you. With a little self-coaching and practice, you can craft social media reports for your hospital or service line without using up all your time or allowance.

Read full post...

More of your social media for small businesses questions answered.

Someone posted a negative comment on my business’ social media page. Should I delete it?

No. Deleting negative comments does more harm than good. Instead, think about the most common customer complaints towards your business and develop a general response to each. If a negative post appears, take the appropriate general response and tailor it to specifically address the complaint. Additionally, get the conversation offline. Read full post...

Social media has become a powerful marketing tool.

So you think you’re ready to take the plunge. No, not marriage, kids or swimming with those Polar Bear guys. We’re talking about social media here. Like those other plunges, you might not quite be sure what you’re getting yourself into.

There’s no denying it: Social media has become a powerful marketing tool. Read full post...

Engage visitors in relevant conversation to bolster existing client relationships.

The top 35 banks on Facebook reach a mere 0.6% of their base, according to a study by Retail Bank International. “If you exclude the three top-performing banks, the average drops to one in every 525 customers – only 0.2% of their base.”

The numbers point to three interesting challenges financial institutions face in crafting their social media outreach. First, not everyone who “likes” your page is or will become a customer. Second, measuring your outreach effort is more complex than counting friends. Third, lenders are missing countless opportunities to engage valued audiences.Read full post...

Accidental tweets are easy fodder for journalists.

Have you ever posted something you regret on your Facebook or Twitter? Maybe you posted an inside joke on someone’s wall that was supposed to be for their inbox. Or you tweeted a quote after a long night out that wasn’t as funny in the morning. Or — my personal favorite — you searched for someone on your Blackberry Facebook app, without realizing you posted his or her name as your status?Read full post...

Part 3: The Leader of the Facebook Pack

The first three posts in my Facebook news feed this morning were:

• A video of my neighbor’s new puppy (cute!)
• A picture of the beach in Greece where my best friend is vacationing (jealous!)
• A rant on the morning commute from a high school classmate (unintentionally hilarious!)

On the surface, these posts have nothing in common. So how did Facebook decide they should be in my “top news” feed? In a word: EdgeRank.Read full post...

Part 1: Your Facebook cheat sheet

Facebook. One out of every 13 people on earth is on it. More than half of all social media traffic in the United States comes from it. It’s no wonder that it has become a component of every good PR strategy.

But unlike traditional media outlets, with their long histories of best practices and protocols to follow, Facebook and other social media outlets change the rules often by the day. The whole process of setting up a page, recruiting fans and interacting with them — not to mention making the whole thing valuable for the client — is new territory for many PR professionals.Read full post...

The AB&C Twitter Team

The AB&C Twitter team recently went to the #deltweet event at Firestone, a quarterly (ideally) networking event for Delaware tweeters. Nine of our tweeters attended the event, one of whom attended virtually via tweets, following the team and the deltweet hashtag. We kept @ChrisMarts updated and entertained while he lay sick in bed. “Oh @ABCadvertising twitter team, I feel like I am there (#deltweet) reading all your tweets,” he replied. Sure, we wished he were there — “hey @ChrisMarts The tweet team will miss you at #deltweet” — but it was nice to be able to include him via the channel that brought us all together.Read full post...