Social Media Fears Among Corporate Execs
Social Media Fears Among Corporate Execs
While social media networking has its obvious perks when it comes to connecting with the masses, spreading your message, and branding, there are potential hindrances that lie below the surface.
These impediments are a cause for concern among bigwigs in the corporate world, especially in regards to losing control over their company’s marketing message according to a recent ZDNet article.
Where does this fear come from? The fact that people listen to what the community has to say, not necessarily the company is what’s scaring employers.
The old saying goes, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” but how true is this statement in today’s social media-ruled world?
Here are CEOs’ top 5 fears regarding social media marketing according to ZDNET:
1) Negative banter: what to do if your company is mentioned negatively on the internet? Listen and respond to your costumers’ needs. If your consumers are complaining, pay attention.
2) Negative online video spoofs: The best response is no response in this case, getting angry only adds more ammo to the fire.
3) Masses of Angry online community members: Listen to their problems, and fix them. If there are that many unhappy consumers, there is an underlying quandary.
4) Loss of control over the work force: Hold your employees accountable, encourage social media usage in the office so that they become online company representatives. Members of the work force have been finding ways to distract themselves for years, whether it be AOL, AIM, MySpace or Facebook. Tale as old as time.
5) Harmful effects on company reputation: create social media guidelines so that employees do not shed negative attention on the company through their individual profiles. Seek to achieve corporate objectives, and protect your image.
While these ideas may seem simple, and merely require some damage control, the fact that these fears have arisen show how much of an impact social media now has in both the corporate world and our personal worlds.
By positively incorporating social media into our daily lives, we can create better images for ourselves, and also for our respective employers.
