Lara McCulloch

Lara McCulloch

On Posted on by Lara McCulloch to Social Media Marketing, Social Media Strategy

The 2 most important words in social media

social media strategy

The 2 most important words in social media

In this new era of Social Media, words like engagement, community, relationships, listening all feel a bit like a tune playing over and over again from a record stuck on repeat . And for good reason…but these aren’t the words I’m referring to.

I’m not sure if you’ve seen the recent firestorm surrounding Price Chopper. It all began when someone tweeted the following message about Price Chopper:Price chopper social media

Now, let’s face it. This is not a remarkable tweet. In fact, I’d wager a guess that Price Chopper gets quite a few of these sorts of tweets every week. But what happened next was remarkable.

A Price Chopper PR Associate (originally reported as the Price Chopper PR Team) took it upon herself to look up the author of the tweet, identify their employer through their Twitter Bio and call the employer directly to complain about the employee. The fact that a corporate employee would address a negative comment in such a way has resulted in a lot of heated conversation – specifically around liability and ethics.

Alright, alright…what are the words already?!?

Risk & Mitigation

I hope that every single business who reads this post will not only take the time to read the original report as well as the flurry of comments that ensued, but also sit down with key employees within your organization to discuss the potential exposure your business has to similar experiences. Small businesses do not spend enough time talking about risks as well as what to do to mitigate those risks.

  • What will your business do if an employee goes rogue via social media channels?
  • What will you do if an employee mistakenly releases proprietary news or information about your or your client’s company?
  • What will you do if someone exposes something negative about your organization?
  • What will you do if someone talks about a bad experience with your company?

No one can predict the future. But, we can learn from other people’s successes as well as their mistakes. Many, like Comcast and Dominos have been able to turn similar negative situations into opportunities that turned their businesses around. But if you ask them, they’ll likely say they wish they had learned their lesson the easy way.

So please do yourself a favor and spend time thinking through risks and mitigation.

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