Responding to Buzz

(I unintentionally took a week off. But, now I'm back.)

I didn't know I was doing it, but some time ago I did an experiment in responding to buzz (both good and bad) in social media - including blogs and reviews. At the time, I drew up a list of guidelines to use when responding. The experience was fun, and the results were very positive.

As part of my "series" on responding to buzz, I did some poking around to update my list of guidelines. My research took me through a wide variety of business sites, consultants, educational, and miscellaneous sites.

To summarize my findings ... Responding to social media buzz requires an honest, polite, actionable and timely approach.

In general ... you must:

• Sell the idea ... Company culture will be tested - Determining that you are going to start responding to social media may test the culture of your company. Are the executives willing to let you respond to social media? Ensure you understand what you are setting out to do, and find a great way to sell that it needs to be done.
  
• Join the conversation - Get involved with social media. Search out good and back feedback about your company.
  
• Be responsive - Respond. Participate. Do something.
  
• Be honest - Make sure you tell the truth in your responses. If you say you are going to do something to research and follow-up on the post ... DO IT.
  
• Be timely - Find and respond to blogs and reviews quickly.
  
• Be human - Don't respond with legalese, process documents, and gobbledygook. Respond as if you are part of a conversation.
  
• Acknowledge Consumer’s experience - If the consumer says something happened. Believe it. Good, bad, or otherwise. Let the consumer know you believe it.
  
• Do not offer a bribe (e.g. a gift certificate for their post) - Keep things open and honest. You must not "pay" for a post either in advance or afterwards, regardless of it being good, bad, or otherwise.
  
• Give Social Media care and feeding - Social Media isn't something you should step into once and back away from. You have to get into and stay in it. That means that once you determine how you will respond to good and bad social media, you will need to set aside time on a regular basis to participate in Social Media. You may even need to have staff in place to keep up with it.
  

When dealing with positive feedback, the additional guidelines are pretty short and sweet ...

• Thank the blogger for the positive feedback - Say thanks. Keep it short. Reference your website with an actual link, and ideally deep-link to a page on your site that is relevant to the blogger's post.
  
• Remember that the blog or review belongs to the blogger - The blog isn't yours. Don't resort to using it as your advertising forum. Say thanks, reference your site, and get off the blog.
  

Now, for the tough stuff. Dealing with bad reviews in social media provides you with a make or break opportunity to build many new brand champions, or create many instant enemies. Good luck to you. Here's a short list of guidelines.

• Be careful - Be really careful about what you are wading into when you start firing responses out onto the internet. Escalation and communication expands rapidly online. Especially when your response ends up making you look stupid.
  
• Contest fraudulent / wrong comments ... If you have proof of inaccuracy - I heard of a hotel chain who had their pool lambasted on TripAdivsor.com, with a picture of a hotel pool full of slime. This was a surprise for the hotel chain, since they didn't have a hotel pool at that destination. So they were able to easily contest the review, and TripAdvisor removed it.
  
• Write a response - Let the blogger know that they've been heard. Acknowledge their feelings. Let the blogger know what action you are going to take (and really take it).
  
• Fix the problem & upload a proof (like a picture) to prove the fix - Imagine that it was really your hotel whose pool caused a wave for a customer. Your response should be to explain the problem, explain what the fix is, and describe that it's all better now (e.g. Our most humble apology ... Our pool filter was broken ... We fixed it as soon as we got the new part ... It looks great now and the water is crystal clear.)
  
• Report findings back into the company - Don't stop at your discussion with the blogger. Ensure you have the ear of your company through a well-placed executive who can help to take action in order to eliminate problems in the future.
• Participation becomes content - Remember, that whatever you write becomes part of the fabric of the web. It will start to show up in searches all over the place. You want to be sure that your content reflects your brand for the long-term.
  
• Bring in a professional - If responding makes you uncomfortable, or if the bad review is a really hot topic, then you should bring in someone who can handle it for you. Google it, and you can find lots of people who can help like Hill & Knowlton.
  

Finally, one thing you can be sure of is that someone on your Executive will demand metrics. Social Media Metrics are very hard to produce. Even if you can find some that satisfy a VP or an EVP at a point in time, that snapshot will likely not demonstrate full benefits of Social Media. On top of that, at the point where you manage to alleviate negative buzz with great, honest, polite, actionable and timely responses, the metrics won't ever reflect this.

Go and be social!

By the way, in the next few days I'll give you some hints on how to find social media buzz. Check back often ;^)