How can Facebook ruin your business?

There is no denying that social networking sites have taken the world by storm. This popular branding tool is also a great way to drive tri-branding that can lead your company towards great success. Tri-branding on Facebook occurs when your customers promote you on your behalf. But, if this powerful marketing tool is used in improper way, it can have a negative impact on your business. It is a great way to build up a business, but it can also tear it down again just as quickly. Let’s understand how. Negative feedback or opinion on social media If a company gets more appreciation or positive feedback from its social networking sites, it builds good reputation of the company among customers. But, its reverse is also true. Read following statistics: According to a survey conducted by Convergys Corp, one bad tweet on Twitter or a negative comment on Facebook can lose your business up to thirty customers. A Business Insider article revealed that over 70% of consumers trust the reviews of others people more than any form of advertising. In comScore survey, it is reported that reviews generated by online consumer have significant impact on offline purchase behavior. All these statistics clearly shows negative feedback or opinion can easily ruin the reputation of company. Social networking sites have become a major outlet for customer dissatisfaction and complaints. It is quite easy to voice dissatisfaction about any product or service with a tweet or status update. Further, if companies are not responding complaints on social media quickly, the situation can become worse. News travels quickly Many moons ago, if an important news or story broke often it would not get any detailed coverage until the day after, which gives a company the time to develop a good plan without any unnecessary public attention. But in this era of social media, the news or story can travel around the world in a matter of seconds. This means that the organizations have to react quickly before letting it get out of control. Nothing dies on Facebook In the world of social media, nothing ever seems to die or vanish. Once a conversation or thread starts, you are going to be handling it or battling it forever. Furthermore, if you manage to put a particular topic behind you, it may resurface at any time. Desperate company There are various companies who use Facebook only for selling their products. These desperate companies do nothing but spend all the day flooding your News Feed with their advertising. No one wants to deal with those businesses which care more about making sale of their products rather than building engaging relationships with their customers. Great transparency On Facebook, everything is transparent. From the way you handle your customer service to your personal thoughts and feelings, social media shows everything. Therefore, if you are not handling your customer in a proper manner or giving harsh replies, it will be visible to your other followers and this will badly affect your company reputation. Due to the transparency on Facebook, any argument with your customer is visible to all customers, and it may take a long time to recover if you become defensive on social media and sometimes it is hard to recover at all. The ‘Silent’ type companies Facebook badly affects the “Silent” type companies, who do not care about concerns, feedbacks and complaints of their customers. If you are not taking care of customers in front of your hundreds, thousands or even millions of fans, your other fans can get the impression that you are just going to ignore their problems as well. No customer wants to deal with a company which refuses to address customer service issues. Facebook always keeps changing Another Facebook aspect that could be considered negative for businesses is that it is always changing. Social networking sites keep changing from day to day and become more updated with new features. If a business is not staying up to date with these changes, it can badly affect their reputation and brand value. For example, when Facebook made its big switch to its Timeline format, the companies had to learn this new interface and adapt with the update. Failure to do so could eventually lead to the companies’ Facebook account no longer being a credible way of attracting new customers. Therefore, if you want to take advantage of social networking sites, you must stay up to date with the latest social media trends. Conclusion: A business can easily set-up its presence on multiple social networking sites; however, none of these platforms will help them in gaining customers without an investment of time, proper planning and effort. An unattended Facebook business page can leave a negative impression on potential customers and cause your business to lose fans and followers. Therefore, businesses should have effective social media marketing strategy and experienced social media experts to ensure that they can earn high ROI from social media and lead their company towards success. Sandeep Sharma is a Project Manager with a prominent digital media marketing company TIS India and has been for the last 10 years. He loves to create aesthetically appealing websites & eye-popping user interfaces for international clients. You can follow him on Twitter and Google Plus.

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How can Facebook ruin your business?

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