Social Media Marketing

Article first published as Social Media Transparency in Crisis Management on Technorati. A social media marketing crisis management plan is crucial to success for small businesses on social media.

If you’ve not already watched the YouTube video “Burning My Hair Off -ORIGINAL VIDEO- (Hair Tutorial Gone Wrong),” you should, it’s something we all should watch.

Not because I think it’s funny; I don’t. I love my hair and would be much less than pleased if this happened to me, but to view the way Tori Locklear handles herself post catastrophe. That’ the part that deserves to go viral.

We all make mistakes and when I watched this, my first reaction mirrored the look on her face when she realized her hair was still attached to her curling wand, and my initial thoughts were ‘how on earth did this end up on the internet?’ because I certainly don’t think I would have published this.

Then I thought about all of the social media crisis that happen to businesses and how terribly they are handled. TRESemme and whoever the maker of the curling wand is for example, had better get ready to take some Social media managers and PR directors need to take Tori’s lead on crisis management.

What’s fantastic about the video and its unintended outcome, is that she is still able to accomplish her initial goal of offering beauty tips only it turned into a what-not-to-do instead of her intended, how-to video.

This personifies “teachable moment”.

Here are three great social media crisis management lessons small businesses could learn from Tori:

Be the first to laugh at yourself

No one likes a crybaby. She published the video and laughed at herself thus stealing the thunder of anyone who wants to make fun of her misfortune. Her openness turned what could have been ammunition to harm her reputation and/or image into positive exposure and a general sense of support. What’s really great is the way she jumped in front of the criticism.

Businesses who go out of their way to protect a brand and appear perfect, are deceiving themselves. Your brand becomes more relateable when consumers know that the people who work behind the brand are human. Let your humanness show.

Take proactive measures to find out what the heck really happened

It’s not like the lock of hair was down the middle of her head; this could have easily been hidden, but life is too short to take yourself that seriously and it’s an even worse offense not to learn from the mistake. To avoid an even more embarrassing ordeal, let’s get to the bottom of what really happened.

Posting her video allowed her the luxury of showing the problem and not having to repeat it a million times to someone in hopes they could help . She now is being given hairstyling tips from styling experts who are falling over themselves to help her. Because of her proactive response, a mistake that could have been costly to fix, will most likely not cost her a thing.

Businesses should focus energy on creative problem solving rather than creative cover-up.

Capitalize on your exposure and use misfortune to help others

By not only publishing her video, but also creating a Facebook Fan Page for herself, she’s getting great crowd engagement and as mentioned before, help finding out where the mistake happened. She’s been on the Today show, spoken to Inside Edition and her video has already spawned a few parodies–some way better than others.

Kudos to this middle schooler for keeping her composure and not burning her bathroom down in a rage. Not one single expletive escaped her lips immediately post hair-burning realization.

Composure under fire, sometimes literally, in and of itself is a lesson that many leaders should learn. How you handle a crisis both during and after, speaks volumes about your character.

Thank you for the courage and transparency to teach others by showing your mistakes.

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Communication Is Key In Any Small Business Relationship

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[dropcap type=”simple”]W[/dropcap]hether you are in a romantic relationship or a small business relationship (they’re not all that different) you need to have solid communication from both parties involved. From the beginning of the relationship it should be as interactive as possible with clear and concise motives.

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[one_third]As you can see from the video above, the message was not entirely clear to the poor girl, aka the client. Even though the intent of the “business” was clear to outside parties, the customer is putting full faith into letting the “business” guide them.
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original video can be found here: http://www.keepbusy.net/play.php?id=girl-doesnt-understand-trust-falls
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In this hilariously pitiful video, our business never tells the  client the one crucial word that sets up this whole video. Our business needed to say “fall back”, instead of “fall down” even though it was implied to everyone else, the client is “blindly” listening to every word and when you are not completely clear with your intentions of the relationship, things can get messy. Undoubtedly, there were some harsh words exchanged once the camera stopped rolling, both sides were most likely defending their own and neither was right nor wrong. But, because the business knew what was happening and the one giving the directions, they needed to make sure the client understood exactly what was about to happen.

[subheading_6]We do not own this Video it is located here and is named Girl Doesn’t Understand Trust Falls. She’ll never forget after this…[/subheading_6]

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Track How Far Your Content is Going

After you have written a dashingly good blog, the next question is: Now what? Mediocre bloggers think  as long as you are pushing out content people must be seeing it. If you are getting solid feedback from comments or reblogs then that is a safe assumption. But, if you feel you are not reaching as many readers on your blog as you would like, and if you are using social media to share your blog, you can track how far it is traveling.

Many sites offer different forms of short code to show how many clicks you receive once posting on a social media account. Sites like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Bitly take your link and make it a much more viewer-friendly to users as well as social media platforms. Accounts are easy to set up and take less than a minute to link with your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

After sharing your blog on Twitter to all of your dedicated tweebles, the next step is to see how far that tweet traveled. Regardless if another person retweets or not, if the link is still used in the tweet to make it seem more like their own, it can be tracked on Tweetreach.com. This site allows you to enter in your original link and see how many times it was tweeted about or reused.

Similar to Twitter, Facebook has tracking analytics as well; Facebook Insights.  Insights can only be used for Business Pages and not personal posts, but assuming that your company has a Business Page, Facebook has made it very simple to track where your posts are going with the application. Facebook gives you a detailed look at demographics per click, how many people talked about the post, and how many potential users saw your post.

With all of these great tracking tools it is easy to see what content is more popular among your readers. If you do find your hot topic spend more time talking about it to further engage your readers.

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3 Ways to Support Local Business

[heading_3][dropcap type=”simple”]A[/dropcap]s small business owners we are sometimes the most hypocritical buyers. We want everyone to buy from us, but how many of us support local business ourselves? We need to make it a point to buy more of our office products and business services from local providers. If we all supported local business the way we want others to support our business, we’d all be growing rapidly.[/heading_3]

[subheading_2]Buy Local[/subheading_2]

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  • For every $100 spent in a locally owned store, $45 stays in the local economy as compared to every $100 spent in a Big-Box Chain store, only $15 stays in the Buy local Louve Notes Media Group. Smart marketing.local economy.
  • Local businesses are more accountable to their own communities.
  • Supporting local businesses contributes to a community’s character and economic diversity. One-of-a-kind businesses are a distinctive part of the character of a community.

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[ddownload id=2065] the Buy Local infographic for more information on Buy Local Campaigns.

[subheading_2]Review products and services for your favorite places[/subheading_2]

[dropcap type=”simple”]D[/dropcap]on’t just tell your friends about it, tell other people about it too. Sites like Yelp are great, but  a public post on Facebook where you share you experience and share it on the Fan Page of the business that you’re giving props to in order to share the louve with them as well. Instead of giving big business all the publicity when you click like on Facebook, Share the Louve for your local small businesses as well.

[subheading_2]Support Crowd Funding Campaigns[/subheading_2]

[dropcap type=”simple”]I[/dropcap]f anyone knows how difficult it is to get funding for a small business expansion or start-up, it’s small business owners. Banks are not doling out funds no unless you have tons of collateral, wads of cash tucked away in your seat cushions or your wealthy uncle has decided to give you your cut of the estate before he dies, funding your new business venture, or even an old business venture for that matter, can be a little discouraging if you’re still trying older methods of finding start up capital.

This is why crowd funding has taken off. Companies like Indiegogo, Kickstarter and FunderHut have created a platform that allows you to raise the money you need without the financial pressure of a small business loan because it’s not a loan. Other benefits of crowd funding are:

[dropcap type=”square” bg_color=”#39ce63″ text_color= “#ffffff”]1[/dropcap] You don’t have to part with equity. You can incentivize contributing to your campaign by way of rewards, perks or kudos depending on your platform.

[dropcap type=”square” bg_color=”#f255d6″ text_color= “#ffffff”]2[/dropcap] It’s a great way to see if your idea is a business or a hobby. As a start up crowd funding allows you to see who your early supporters are and who will become your brand evangelists, or if you need to go back to the drawing board.

[dropcap type=”square” bg_color=”#994cd7″ text_color= “#ffffff”]3[/dropcap] You can build a great fan club. If contributors really believe in your venture, they will share it with others and your list of brand evangelists just grew.

Indiegogo and Kickstarter were both nominated for TechCrunche’s 6th Annual Crunchies Award  in the “Biggest Social Impact” category. Congratulations to Indiegogo for the runner-up finish–Reddit won this category. Campaigners have nothing but great things to say about the awesome effect that Indiegogo has had on the success of their small business dreams.

The major challenge for a small business promoting a crowd funding campaign is reaching beyond the personal network and driving organic traffic via the social media platforms and finding the best part of the story to tell; the part that encompasses the crucial elements that speak to why we do what we do and why we need the help that we need. Check out our crowd funding campaign on Indigogo to see the types of campaigns you can run.

[subheading_2]Volunteer [/subheading_2]

[dropcap type=”simple”]C[/dropcap]heck out the small businesses in your area and see what causes they support. If it’s not listed on their website call them and ask. If you’re participating in a marathon or any charity event, talk with a local business and discuss a potential partnership. This has the potential to be mutually beneficial and from a business owner perspective you’re sure to land a loyal customer with this kind of support.

[subheading_4]What are some others ways you can see yourself supporting local business? Chime in below and let us know.[/subheading_4]

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Twitter’s New App: The Vine Review

Last week Twitter announced the launch of their new app, Vine, via their blog. The app has undergone early hiccups and scrutiny for some “human errors” but has since removed the problem. The app features looped six second videos that users can post about everyday activities and label them with the Twitter hashtag. The setup is similar to Twitter with followers instead of friends, and the bonus is you can link your accounts to convert your followers to the new app. Even though this type of app has been introduced for some time now with Viddy and Socialcam, the Twitter-based video app is likely to gain more of a following because of its parent platform. In the first 24 hours of the launch the free app reached No. 14 on the iTunes App Store and is likely to keep rising with its most recent publicity. With everyone starting out as a “beginner” to this looping video app, I thought I would share my top 5 tips and experiences after the first week of testing out the app. (Why wouldn’t I use hashtags for their original purpose?)

#1. Even if you don’t hear the video, others will.

If you’re like me your phone is almost always on vibrate and you hate to turn on the volume. After realizing when you unmute the phone the videos fill with sound, I felt a bit sheepish re-watching my horrible edited videos. (Who would have thought right?) If you are wanting to make a video with no unwanted noises attached, it is best to film in a quiet place. Turn your sound on while filming to be sure its quiet during the playback.

#2. The more likes you give, the more likes you receive!

Browse the “Explore” tab on the drop down screen and go smile crazy! People are extremely creative and it is shown through this app with good loops, StopArt, and funny animal posts. Give them a “smiley face” (the Twitter “Favorite”, Facebook “Like”) and you will likely see people reciprocate the generous act.

#3. Follow Khoa.

I don’t know this guy personally, or if he is a developer of the app, but his Vine posts are PHENOMENAL. I don’t want to think about how long it takes to make each and every frame, but the final product is awesome. He has some serious talent at StopArt and if you’re looking for inspiration he’s a good place to start.

#4. Identical to Twitter and Facebook: The more people you follow, the more your “Home” feed fills up.

The title is pretty self-explanatory for this one. If you follow more and more people, the less likely you are to see most of their posts. Since this app is still so fresh you’ll find random people following each other. It’s pretty cool to see people’s posts from around the world, but if you are looking to only see your friends nifty posts its best to play it cool on the follows.

#5. Similar to SnapChat.

No your posts will not be deleted right after being sent you conniving users! Similar in the sense that, to record a video your finger must be on the screen. The longer you hold the screen the more fluid the video becomes. To become a StopArt master you will have to repeatedly hold and release your finger for the allotted six seconds.

Above all else have fun with the app! Its fun to explore and test your creative video making talents. I hope you found this review entertaining as well as informative and that you give the Vine a shot, I did and I really enjoy it!

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