Social Media Archives

One day I was having lunch with one of my entertainment clients. As we spoke of relationships she said, “My biggest fear is marrying someone like an accountant.” She then realized who she was speaking to and partially retracted the statement. Too late.

I write about 1-2 articles every week. People ask, “What do your write about in accounting? It is so boring!”

Well, anything can be boring, but Ekaterina Walter’s article, Content Generation for Small Businesses gives some good pointers on how you can promote your business through submitting meaningful content. She interviewed Ricardo Bueno and Lisa Horn, experts in this area.

Content as Customer Education: She quotes Ricardo that you must educate your audience. That is true, but you must be careful of the level of education. In my case, to quote tax code sections will lose my audience, so I display my expertise in common terms and analogies. Your audience can grasp your message if it taps into an experience that are familiar with. As seen above, I displayed points with anecdotes, little stories that illustrate my point.
Don’t Sell: Your web page should display your products, and your blog should display your expertise. Don’t be afraid to offer some tips in your industry.
Engage, entertain, and build a community: I agree with her point, but many might find it hard to entertain. The first step is to not take yourself so seriously. Poke fun at yourself by writing about awkward experiences, if it supports your theme.
Be consistent, and feed the monster: This is my suggestion. You must be disciplined. Once you established yourself as a noteworthy source for information, your followers will desire you to write consistently.

Any industry can benefit from content. Any business can benefit from content. The real question is whether you have what it takes to compete on this level in the 21st century.

Last week, I joined a conference call with an individual that can help my client’s entertainment business. What we found out after the call was that this individual and his company had two scathing unanswered criticisms reported online. Immediately, red flags went up.

Then yesterday, a client set up a meeting with another individual in the entertainment industry. When I looked up his name, guess what? In bold print was a scathing feedback on Yelp, it too was unanswered.

Courtney Rubin’s article, Why Every Minute Counts When It Comes to Social Media Complaints reminded me of the social media dangers in any industry. She wrote, “A whopping 88 percent of customers said that if confronted with unanswered complaints on a company’s social media site, they’d be either somewhat less likely or far less likely to do business with the company in the future.”

Any a small business, especially in the entertainment industry, must be vigilant about what is posted on line. If you grow to a size where the Twitter and Face Book comments become too numerous, you may have to hire a company to do this for you.

So, let’s say you are a small company and don’t have the resources to hire a company to find these comments. What I suggest is you do it yourself. Type your name, or your company’s name with the term, “scam,” “Ripoff,” or “review” and see what comes up. Make sure you go through a few pages and not just page one.

If you find one, address it professionally. Take the high road, and reply to the concern. Use the platform to state your company’s values like how customer satisfaction comes first. Don’t beat up on the complainer no matter how abusive they are. Give examples on how you remedied issues.

Another thing you can do is have some of your good customers write a response to the posting, along with yours. The positive comments should outweigh the negative one.

Any small business, and especially one in the entertainment industry, should be aware of what is said about them in social media. Don’t be a ostrich and ignore it.