Nowadays you can’t go anywhere without someone talking about Facebook or Twitter and what they read or commented on. Social media has blown up, very quickly at that, in today’s culture. It is a new outlet to communicate to the masses, gossip about outrageous posts, and share with one another personal views on a variety of matter.  For businesses and individuals seeking to market themselves reaching out to a social media can be a great start. It is quick, effortless, and most importantly, can reach a large audience through the web.  Promoting to an online community can lead to a word-of-mouth focus and subsequently provide free advertising for the product. However, many do not think of the negatives that can be posed by such a wide spread phenomenon. Because the public can be exposed to both Twitter and Facebook just about anyone can grasp information once posted and use it to their advantage, which in turn may harm you. Here, I provide a few points to consider the next time you feel an urge to Tweet and/or Facebook to your heart’s content.

• Avoid talking about your personal views on sensitive topics. Clients may read strong controversial opinions and not agree. This could threaten your good relationship with your customers while also affecting your reputation.
• Be open-minded. Many companies fear the capability to comment freely on their sites without their control. With the freedom to include one’s own attitude and outlook on things, they may not always be positive feedback. Embrace disapproving messages as an inside look at what your audience truly desires. Let there be an open discussion on issues and you may even make a few changes to benefit the company. If left unnoticed, it may develop into an even greater off-putting situation. 
• Take Time to be Personal. Do not rely too heavily on the social mediums to do all your work. Being personal with your customers goes a long way in demonstrating how much you not only care about them, but also the product you’re behind. This means arrange meetings with clients and picking up the phone; not hiding behind a computer screen. 

I found “5 Potential Negative Effects of Your Social Media Obsession,’ written by Mickie Kennedy, I great source and insight to the problem at hand. Check out his blog at http://www.ereleases.com/prfuel/social-media-obsession/

In addition, I found this very fascinating: Here is a video of Korean children singing a song in school about maintaining Internet etiquette. Being careful of what you write online isn’t crucial to solely adults anymore. This video is very entertaining and a must see. http://boingboing.net/2009/03/26/cute-song-by-cute-ki.html

By: Courtney Bomkamp

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Blogroll. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.