What you don’t know about your social media mentions can cause your business to falter in your social media marketing. I am reminded of the phrase… “You know what thought did?” What you think about how others are regarding you greatly influences how you will move forward in business. Here’s some stats to make the way forward easier to understand and act upon as a business in Halifax, Dartmouth, Truro, Toronto, new York, or elsewhere.
One of the concerns that I hear from time to time with business and social media is this… “What if people say bad things about us?” At that point I tell them that that’s what Tim Horton’s is for; and then I smile. Simply put, we cannot stop people from saying bad things about us and our business. People will talk and post on the Internet. The only control we truly have is doing great business that gets our customers talking and raving about us.
For some reason, people think that a lot of people are saying negative things about their business. Here’s is where the above chart comes into play. By the way, the data is from a company called Mention [mention.com]. They sampled over 1 billion mentions over a 2 year period.
From Mention’s sampling, they determined that negative comments only make up about 6% of all company mentions. THAT’S ONLY 6% OF ALL MENTIONS. Neutral mentions made up the bulk of all company mentions at 76%; while positive mentions came in at 18%.
So what does that mean to business? Simply put it is this, there’s a lot more positive and neutral comments about companies out there that negative comments. The information obtained from over 1 billion mentions should encourage you to get on social media and participant in conversations with potential customers. There are much more positive comments of social media than negative ones period. So don’t be afraid of thinking that all your mentions will be negative; unless you are going to purposely make people upset by offering bad customer service and offering awful products.
What I do see as an opportunity is the large amount of neutral mentions. This is an area where you can make an impact. By being a great business, you can move some of those neutral people into the positive percentage. This will take some work. You will have to train those neutral people to interact positively with your company/business. That’s going to take time and effort. But time and effort is what a great business expends to create great customers.
So what does these percentages essentially tell us? You can use social media marketing for your business and expect a good outcome. The negative numbers are not there in a great enough quantity to deter you from moving forward with social media marketing. Now that being said, as a company or business, you need to conduct yourself in the spirit of excellence. Don’t go out of your way to make customers mad.
So what are some actions steps you can take today to start creating mentions?
- Ask a question. Make sure you make it easy to answer with a short answer. One word answers are the best where possible.
- Get your customers to caption a picture. Let your customers have some fun with your company/business.
- Create a video that can generate interest and comments.
- Start having conversations with your customers throughout the day on what interests them. This will show them that you are approachable and engaging. This is the Know>Like>Trust process.
For example, what would you caption this?
I can come up with a few great comments right away. How about you? By the way, the woman in the picture is a super business owner who has a serious passion for building a great business. We had the pleasure to be in the same room as I delivered social media training to a group of businesses in the Dartmouth area.
Realistically, you will find it more challenging to get mentions in the first place. So don’t worry about the negative mentions. They are few and far between. Please keep this important point in mind: “Think before you post“; but get posting and begin creating those mentions that will help build your business and increase your visibility on the Internet.
Wishing you a great day in business.
