Do Not Respond to Negative Feedback Online

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There is plenty of advice out there about how to respond to negative feedback on blogs and other social media outlets when people speak out against you, your company or your products. And you’ll find plenty of tips on what not to do too. Despite that, I see one mistake go almost unchecked with very little said about it — cookie cutter responses. Let’s change that today.

But first…

The Latest “Don’t” – Brought to You by the Creative Community

I don’t want to delve too deeply into the recent issue with self-published author Jacqeline Howett, but due to the timing I think it’s worth mentioning. Short story: someone reviewed her book; the review wasn’t “bad” but pointed out technical issues with her writing; she blew a friggin’ gasket, and publicly at that.

First of all, you never respond to negative feedback until you’ve cooled down. And if it gets you that riled up you might be better off not responding at all (and not responding can be a problem all its own). Telling people to “f* off” however is a new low. I’d like to think most people active in social media don’t need to be told that. But if you’ve missed that story, go give the article and author’s comments a quick read. It’s a shining example of what not to do.

The Problem of Cookie Cutter Customer Service

We all know that posting insane-sounding, furious responses is usually not the best approach. So let’s move beyond that. One of the biggest problems in dealing with negative feedback in social media is actually not responding at all. That’s not to say you have to post a response to every comment out there. But you should acknowledge the general feedback you’re getting — either directly to individuals or by fixing the problems.

Do you respond to negative feedback when you feel like this? - Credit:BigStockPhoto.com

Not responding isn’t nearly as bad as another popular approach though — the cookie cutter response. Social media folks keep telling companies to “engage, engage, engage!” And they are. They’re just ignorant about how to do it. They hire supposed social media managers to come in and interact with customers. But many are beyond clueless. A quick trip toAmazon will show you that.

Find a product from a fairly well-known company, but one with a significant number of bad reviews. And look for one where company reps actually respond to those comments. Bravo to them for responding at all. That said, when I was recently searching for some new software for my business there I was shocked to see a popular trend in those responses. Someone would respond to every one or two-star review with a generic comment along the lines of:

“We’re sorry you weren’t satisfied with your purchase. Please email me at *insert email address here* and I’d be happy to assist you and try to address your concerns.”

Aww. That company cares about their customers, right? Wrong. That company (or their rep) is lazy, end of story. Copy-paste responses are not responses at all. They’re spam. They do not make you or your company look good.

What would make you look good? How about reading the actual reviews and addressing the specific comments? Telling them to email you the story you supposedly already read is not only poor customer service, but it makes you look like an illiterate dolt.

So let’s end with a quick tip: If you don’t have the time or money to adequately address negative feedback in social media, either work to get to that point or stay away. Ignoring that feedback is bad enough. But responding in the “wrong” ways can be infinitely worse for your reputation. When you have the time or staff available, then give it your all by interacting on an individual basis or finding larger communication channels to address more widespread concerns and issues your customers have.

Have you come across these kinds of cookie cutter responses from companies in social media outlets? Have you used them? If you have tips on how companies can transition away from this approach into something more effective (and less insulting to their customers’ intelligence), leave a comment below to share your thoughts.

Sorting Through the Noise: Social Media Impact

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You can’t escape from social media these days, at least not if you work heavily on the Web like I do. Social media is great for marketing, business networking, staying on top of personal connections, and finding new and interesting information. But with that information comes a serious slap to your productivity.

The problem? There can be too much information; too many people vying for your attention; too many messages bombarding you from all directions. Social media can be as much a distraction as a valuable tool. So let’s explore that today — social media noise.

What is Social Media Noise?

Social media noise is all of the social media information and interaction that distracts you from the information or connections you really want or need.

For example, let’s say you like to access Twitter through their Web platform. You follow 5000 people. You can’t possibly read every tweet from every person nonetheless respond and share your own. All of those tweets that you don’t really care about are just noise. Social media noise just means you’re getting hit with too much — more than you can realistically process and respond to in a way that would keep you actively involved in those conversations.

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Staying Engaged While Eliminating Excess Noise

Weeding through the noise in social media doesn’t have to be difficult. Here are a few ideas:

1. 

   You can't keep up with everything all the time. (Credit: BigStockPhoto.com)
   Stop using every social media tool that comes along. Narrow it down to the best places to reach your target audience or market. That might not involve using the biggest social networks, but sticking to a niche focus where the conversations are more targeted.
2. Decrease the size of your network.Bigger isn’t always better. If you can’t stay actively engaged with your network, it might be time to trim the fat. Sure, you can’t stop other people from following you, but if you can’t keep up with those you’re following, it might be time to get more selective.
3. Set aside dedicated social networking time. Use that time to check your Twitter account, Facebook account, blog comments, or whatever you want. And then stop. That’s it. You’re finished until tomorrow (or at least until you complete whatever other tasks are on your plate for the day).
4. Make the tools work for you. On Twitter for example, you can break your network up into lists. So you can focus the conversations you take part in throughout the day (perhaps following up with colleagues during work hours and personal contacts later on). Feed readers do a similar thing by helping you sort through noise in the blogosphere.
5. Search. If you’re looking for something specific, search for it. Don’t manually dig through information cluttering your network.

Sorting through the social media noise is just that — sorting. You’ll sort through millions of profiles to decide who to friend or follow. You’ll sort through countless messages every day to decide what’s worth reading and responding to and what’s not. You’ll sort, you’ll aggregate, you’ll follow, you’ll unfollow. That’s just life in the social media space.

How do you stay on top of all of your social media connections without becoming lost in the noise all day long? Share some of your tips for more productive social media use in the comments.

20 Tips To Launch A Best Blog

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If you’re thinking about launching a new blog, there’s more to it than just slapping some content up and saying “Hello world, I’ve arrived!” That said, a blog launch doesn’t have to take a long time either. You just have to think things through and be prepared for the different types of work involved. I hope I can help you do that.

Here are 20 tips that can help you experience a more successful blog launch, taken from my own experience of launching more than two dozen blogs over the years. I hope you find some of the tips useful in your own blog launch (note that some of these references are specific to WordPress bloggers).

Design / Branding

jBlog Theme - Sample Blog Template Design

1. Choose a domain name that is easy to remember and that will resonate with your target audience. Do the same with your slogan.

2. Then create your logo based on your site name (and sometimes slogan as well). This should ideally also be memorable given that it’s one of the first things your visitors will see. Precious little screams “amateur” like visiting a new blog and seeing a default text-based header no one put any thought or time into.

3. Choose a theme to use or customize, or find a designer to create a custom theme for you. While free themes might be tempting, it’s better only to use them if you can heavily customize them. Your design becomes a part of your brand, and it can influence the image the blog portrays to visitors. Give them a good first impression.

4. Make sure your navigation is, well, easy to navigate. One of the biggest turn-offs for me as a reader is not being able to find links to your categories, archives, or your About page to learn more about you and the blog. Make sure your subscription links are easy to find too.

5. Think about features and design elements you want that aren’t built into your blog theme already. Find and install plugins that let you add them — related posts, Twitter subscription buttons or feeds, etc.

Content

1. Create a blog content plan including categories, post ideas for coming months, and a post schedule so you can worry less about coming up with new ideas early on and more time on other aspects of the blog launch.

2. Skip the “welcome” post and get right into the meat of the blog with a capstone piece of content that will attract readers, subscribers, and backlinks from the get-go (more important in a niche blog than a personal blog). Also, try to have three to five posts up already by launch day — not just one. If people like your first post, they’ll want to get their hands on more immediately.

3. Write and pre-schedule at least a few weeks’ worth of posts before your launch date so you have new content going up no matter how busy you are with early blog promotion. You can also write some extra articles early on for use later as guest posts on others’ blogs.

4. Contact noteworthy people in your niche or industry and get them to sign on for a series of interviews — fresh content for you, interesting material for your readers, promotion for the interviewee. This is an especially useful tactic if you’re not an authority source in the niche yourself yet.

5. Set up your non-post pages of content carefully — your detailed About page explaining what the blog is going to cover and who you are, a contact page so people can reach you, sidebar or additional homepage copy, etc.

SEO

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1. Change your permalink structure to make them search engine friendly (include the post name for example rather than just the post number).

2. Install an SEO plugin (like the All-In-One SEO Pack for WordPress blogs). These will let you add site, post, and page meta details that can help you rank higher in search engine results. Do some basic keyword research before choosing keyword phrases to emphasize here.

3. Install an analytics program that will let you see what search terms drive traffic to your site (so you know which ones need more of your time and attention because they’re not bringing in enough traffic as you move forward).

4. If you own other blogs and websites that are somewhat relevant to your new blog launch, use cross-promotion to build some initial backlinks.

5. Remember those extra articles you wrote earlier? Start submitting them to other relevant blogs as potential guest posts for the backlinks (guest posts are for much more than SEO, but there’s no denying the credit links can help out a new blog). You can also comment on others’ blogs in the niche with a link to your new blog when appropriate — don’t spam. Not all will be do-follow links, but even no-follow links have value if they drive visitors who like your content enough to link to it themselves elsewhere.

Promotion

1. Get setup with social media. Start a Twitter account tied to your blog. Launch a Facebook or LinkedInprofile if they’re relevant to your niche and type of blog. Start building a well-rounded social media presence (but don’t feel like you have to use every social media tool).

2. Make your content easy to share. Add a plugin like Digg Digg or Tweet This or Sociable so readers can quickly share your content within their own networks online.

3. If there’s something newsworthy about your blog launch (you or your company are already extremely well-known, it’s completely new in some way, there’s some other event tied to the launch, etc.), issue a news release online.

4. Put emphasis on subscriptions. Offer a nice big RSS button that can’t be missed. Offer special perks for subscribers (like exclusive content). Give people an easy way to subscribe not only to posts through a feed reader but also via email, and make it easy to subscribe to comments too (either via RSS for the whole blog or via email for comments on specific posts using a plugin like Subscribe to Comments).

5. Consider a contest. Launch contests can bring in a nice flow of initial visitors and links as people spread the word. The bigger the better, but if you can’t afford much see what you can come up with anyway — a gift card, a signed copy of a book in the niche donated by an author you know, free services you offer outside of your blogging work, etc.

By no means is this an exhaustive list of everything you could (or even should) do when launching a blog. These are tips to help you have a more successful blog launch experience. Do you have any other tips you’d like to share with new bloggers — things you don’t think they should forget? Leave a comment below and tell us about it. 

1000 Tools for SocialMedia Marketing and More

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It doesn’t make sense to jump in and use all new social media tools that come along just because everyone else is or because you think they’re “cool.” No one can really afford to be that unproductive with their time (or if they can, that alone speaks volumes). At Social Implications, we’re big advocates of cutting through the noise by narrowing down the social media tools you use to the ones best suited for your target market or audience.

That said, you can’t choose the best social media tools for your business (or even personal networking) unless you know what’s out there. With that in mind we’ve put together a list of 101 social media tools you should know about. We’ve broken them down for you by category below. Note though that we’re notincluding some of the biggest staples in social media — Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Rather we’ll focus on tools to help you get more out of the sites you’re already using or social media tools that you might not have heard of yet. Links in each section are in no particular order. Enjoy!

Social Networking

There are countless social networks on the Web today, letting you do everything from network with old classmates to joining communities with likeminded folks who share similar hobbies or business interests. But what happens when existing social networks don’t really serve your needs? You can start your own! Whether you’re interested in building a niche social network or one around your brand, here are some tools to help you do that.

1. Ning — As of July 20th, plans range from $2.95 – 49.95 per month.
2. GoingOn Community Platform — Emphasis on educational use
3. BuddyPress — Create a social network on the WordPress platform
4. Elgg.org — An open source social networking platform
5. Boonex Dolphin — Feature-rich and free; Prime option also available
6. SocialGo — Setup a free social network or purchase premium access to monetize your site.
7. Crowdvine — Build a self-hosted or professionally set up community around your conference or other event.
8. KickApps – Add social networking capabilities and other social media elements to your existing website.
9. Snapville – Social networking solution focused on employee and customer engagement
10. Cisco’s Eos Platform — Social networking and content management platform for the entertainment industry

Blogging

Blogging is one of the older aspects of social media, around even before the “social media” label really took hold. Blogs allow you to keep your customers up-to-date on company news. They allow you to have conversations with your audience. They serve as platform elements for professionals looking to build exposure and gain a solid reader base. They’re used in PR. They’re used in marketing. They’re used as private journals. They’re used to host content sites. They’re even used as business models all on their own. So let’s take a look at some blogging platforms you can use to set up your own new blog. The list below includes both hosted and self-hosted (you need your own hosting account) platforms.

1. WordPress.com – Free hosted solution
2. WordPress.org – Free self-hosted blog platform
3. WordPress MU – Create a multi-user blog network using WordPress.
4. b2evolution
5. Blogger
6. Typepad
7. Vox
8. Moveable Type – Commercial
9. Moveable Type – Open source
10. LiveJournal — For more personal blogging in most cases
11. Posterous
12. Serendipity

Blog Comment Management Tools

Sometimes the comment management tools built into your blog platform just aren’t enough. Here are a couple of extra options you might want to look into either to help you manage comments or encourage more of them.

1. CommentLuv – WordPress plugin
2. Disqus
3. Subscribe to Comments – WordPress plugin

Microblogging Services and Tools

Chances are good that you’ve already heard of Twitter (and are using it). But there are other microblogging options out there, and plenty of tools to help you more efficiently manage your Twitter account to weed out some of that social media noise. Here are some of those tools and services.

1. Tumbler – Microblogging service
2. Jaiku — Microblogging service
3. TweetDeck
4. HootSuite
5. TweetStats
6. Seesmic
7. Twitterrific
8. Group Tweet
9. Friend or Follow — Find out if the people you follow also follow you back.
10. TwitPic
11. Tweet Backup

URL Shorteners

Speaking of microblogging services and their limited character counts, let’s take a look at some URL shorteners currently available. These can condense your long URLs (that might not fit in a Tweet or other post) into a much shorter form. Some even allow link stats tracking.

1. Bit.ly
2. TinyURL
3. Cli.gs
4. Is.gd
5. doiop.com
6. SnipURL.com

Forum Software

Like what we traditionally think of as social networks, forums allow us to build communities around a niche, company, product, or anything else we’d like. If you think a forum would be better suited to your audience than a social network setup, then consider one of these forum software options.

1. vBulletin
2. PHPBB
3. Simple Machines Forum (SMF)
4. Vanilla Forums
5. MyBB
6. Invision Power Board
7. bbPress

Social Bookmarking / Sharing

Social media is about more than conversations. It’s also about empowering members of your community to share what you have to offer, or “vote” if you will. There are several sharing, aggregation, and social bookmarking tools available to let them do that. Here are a few you might want to use or somehow incorporate into your website or blog.

1. Delicious
2. Digg
3. Reddit
4. StumbleUpon
5. Sphinn
6. Slashdot
7. Newsvine
8. AddThis
9. ShareThis

Document, Video, and Photo Sharing Services

Social media encompasses all types of media. Users want to be able to share information, videos, photos, and other images in addition to their thoughts. If you’re one of those users, you might get some use out of the following social media tools.

1. YouTube
2. Flickr
3. Vimeo
4. Scribd
5. Picasa Web Albums
6. DocStoc
7. MetaCafe
8. Blip.tv
9. Daily Motion
10. PhotoBucket

Online Collaboration

Sometimes being able to share documents online isn’t enough. You need online collaboration tools like the ones listed below where your work group can collectively edit and save documents while you collaborate on projects.

1. Zoho
2. Google Docs
3. BaseCamp
4. WriteBoard
5. ReviewBasics (Disclosure: ReviewBasics is a former client of SI’s Jennifer Mattern.)

Podcasting

Podcasting is a sometimes overlooked area of social media. But if your audience could be effectively reached through a podcast or other type of audio show, you might be able to put these podcasting tools to use.

1. PodBean
2. BlogTalkRadio
3. Audacity – Free recording software
4. Podomatic

Wikis

Love it or hate it, we’ve probably all heard of Wikipedia. But why not create your very own wiki on your company site or related to a niche you love? Pull people together with some of the following wiki software options.

1. MediaWiki
2. Confluence
3. TWiki
4. BrainKeeper

Online / Social Learning

Social media goes far beyond personal and even business use. It can also be used in education. If you’re with an educational institution or organization, or you’d like to add online courses and other learning materials to your site, these social and online learning tools could come in handy.

1. Moodle
2. Blackboard
3. Articulate e-Learning Software
4. Joomla Learning Management System (LMS)

Social Media Search

There is a lot of noise in social media that you have to sort through on a regular basis if you want to stay productive. These social media search tools can help.

1. Technorati
2. Google Blog Search
3. Google Alerts
4. Yahoo! Alerts
5. Bing’s Social Search
6. SocialMention.com
7. Google Social Search
8. SocialSearch.com SearchWiki

Social Media Monitoring and Metrics

There’s rarely a way to completely and accurately measure social media. Most tools have their faults and most metrics can be manipulated. That doesn’t mean you should ignore the information you canaccess though. Social media monitoring and metrics-related tools like the ones below can give you a solid snapshot of trends resulting from your social media work.

1. Twitalyzer
2. Feedburner – Track RSS subscriber stats.
3. PostRank
4. Omniture Site Catalyst
5. Performancing Blog Metrics
6. Google Analytics
7. Compete
8. Alexa

By no means do these represent all social media tools currently available. Do you have favorites not in this list? Share them in a comment below!