How can you prevent social networks from doing your brand a disservice?
Social networks have become the place to be. For a company, not being on one means running the risk of being forgotten or considered non-existent. On the other hand, being only half there, or doing so little that your e-reputation escapes you, can be risky. So how do you go about it? Read all our advice on using and managing social networks.
Social networks have become essential
Be there for visibility
Having a company page on professional social networks (Linkedin and/or Viadeo), and non-professional ones: Facebook, possibly Twitter, Google+, or even Instagram and Pinterest depending on your activity, is basic. What are the risks of not being listed?
- Being less visible than your competitors.
- As a result, you'll have fewer customers and orders.
And this applies whether your business is BtoB (Business to Business) or BtoC (Business to Consumer).
Be there to stay informed
Beyond visibility, social networks are a valuable tool. For the good reason that "it's where it's happening". And for you, keeping abreast of trends, your competitors' prices and industry events is an advantage. Without an account, it's hard to keep track of what's new, to be aware of the launch of a new offer from your supplier, or the countdown buzz orchestrated by your No. 1 competitor.
Be there to meet and unite your target audience
In that case, why not make do with a private account, linked to an individual profile, designed to remain anonymous, rather than a company page? Of course, this will allow you to be seen without being seen. But not giving your brand a status means depriving people of the opportunity to show their commitment to it. As soon as your company has a page, they can like it, rate it and comment on it. It's an opportunity for you to meet your target audience, get to know them better and bring them together.
Opportunities tinged with threats?
Yes, you may say, but what can you do if people express themselves in a way that castigates the brand or is derogatory?
When buzz does you a disservice
Fear of bad buzz is commonplace. And it particularly affects SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises), which often have insufficient internal structures to deal with it. But first let's put things into perspective. While cases of bad press do exist, they represent only a tiny fraction of the gigantic number of existing e-reputations.
Being present AND vigilant
Now, even if this is a rare occurrence, you don't want it to happen to you. So what can you do about it? Take care of your e-reputation. Don't leave people hanging. Whether it's praise, a reported problem or criticism, you have to show that you're there.
Time-consuming, but also laborious
OK in principle, but in practice it's time-consuming. And even if you allocate dedicated resources, by hiring a community manager for example, he or she can quickly find themselves overwhelmed by the scale of the task.
How do you manage your e-reputation?
Dedicated tools...
There are various social network management platforms. The idea is to simplify your day-to-day communications. They allow you to :
- track users' interactions with your brand,
- adapt and relay your posts across the various communication channels,
- programme alerts or future actions,
- etc.
... but not all are created equal
From one to another, there are differences. Firstly for reasons of ergonomics and fluidity, as well as functional aspects. And this difference becomes decisive when you use advertising on social networks. An advert on Instagram, for example, is treated as a dark post. In other words, it comes from an unpublished, phantom page. And because it's not your account that's linked to it, you don't receive the associated notifications. As a result, user comments can be posted on the web without you even knowing about them.
THE right tool
To date, the only tool capable of managing user comments properly is Agora Pulse. It's a global management platform that makes your communication actions run more smoothly. Its inbox means you can quickly read new content, both for monitoring and for responding to users. Extensions for the various networks reduce the number of operations you need to carry out on your side. Finally, a catalogue of turnkey competitions is available to inspire you and support your successful campaigns.
Refine your actions for greater impact
Armed with the right tool, you can fine-tune your actions more effectively. Because each network has its own way of reacting, its own user profile and its own type of interaction. Treating your Facebook and Instagram publications identically, for example, would be a shame and could even be counter-productive. To optimise your target's engagement on each channel, it's up to you to adapt the message. If you don't have the right tool for the job, it's a gas factory. But with the right application for managing social media, such as Agora Pulse, it becomes easy and fluid.
Social networks are a formidable lever for visibility and conversion. As a meeting place for your customers and prospects, you can't afford to ignore them. To avoid falling into unmanageable or incomplete use, the least you can do is to equip yourself with the right management tool, so that you can make ever finer and more effective use of them.
Article translated from French