In recent times, the attention in the marketing sector has shifted more to the digital space. As internet users are getting busy with activities online; businesses on the other hand, are utilizing the digital channel to sell their values and products.
From the look of things during this pandemic period, Social Media has been widely utilized by businesses for managing brand reputation online as well as marketing products and services to consumers.
Global web index report shows an average of 3 hours is spent on social media daily by individuals, a large percentage of these individuals are millennials; there lies numerous opportunities for small businesses to tap into.
As social media is taking the front seat in brand marketing, small businesses need to be cautious with regards to their use of the platforms to avoid costly mistakes. Even as more customers are engaging brands online, social media managers must not be hoodwinked into acting or reacting without second thoughts.
Here are things you should avoid when handling business social media accounts for small businesses.
- As much as possible, avoid using your business social media account to express your political preferences, opinions or affiliations. It may cause a dent on your brand reputation. Understand that you’re trying to market both your brand and product to your target audience who may have different and opposing political views and orientations. Therefore, do not be tempted to join political discussion or trends with your brand social media handle as much as possible.
- While it’s good to share an interesting stories about your business and its people, avoid passing demeaning, derogatory or sarcastic comments about your customers, colleagues or anyone else. Sharing about a bad experience with your customers may not be received lightly by your audience or customers even if all you are doing is to try tell a relatable. Last year on Social Media, a video of a fitness center went viral because of an altercation between the CEO and one of the customers. It engendered a lot of negative public discussion because the CEO obviously did not manage his emotion well. Your business can not afford to be practicing remedial PR and damage control during this period.
- Likewise, do not share your customers’ confidential information on Social Media or anywhere else as this may lead to compromising the security of the customers and cause a breach of trust. As businesses are welcoming customers back, building trust will be key to making your customers feel comfortable venturing out. Sharing customers’ names, pictures (without their consent), location, purchase details etc. results in breach of data policy and should be discouraged on your social media platform. Recently, Facebook has been in legal tussle with the government in what is tagged Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data breach. Ever since then, it has affected the turnover of the giant social media platform. As a small business, it is better to have in place a policy against sharing customers’ confidentiality on public domain so as to avoid big problems.
- It is equally important that you do not share contents that have not passed through several checks to avoid errors, copyright issues or infringement. Posting contents with errors can create a bad perception for your organization. Moreso, it is even more harmful to your brand if the content breaches copyright law or it infringes on the right of another person. Therefore, there should be a policy that puts in place content gatekeepers who must approve all posts before they go out in order to keep the business away from unforeseen issues.
In conclusion, as much as Social Media is beneficial to your brand marketing efforts, a brief moment of error and carelessness could wreak a lot of havoc on your brand reputation and perception.It is therefore necessary that all the tips above should be adhered to.
