Social Media Marketing Clean Up

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Have you found yourself with a reputation management or social media disaster mess? Don’t worry, these things happen to companies large and small. Social media is a new place and many businesses are still trying to learn the ropes and grasp the concepts in order to leverage the space to build their business. Do some companies take the wrong approach? They sure do, and some pay the ultimate price for it, but that is OK because there are ways to clean things up. You just have to roll up your sleeves and get the ball rolling.

Here are 6 ways to clean up your social media mess and get your business back on track:

Social Media Mess Clean Up #1 – Make A Video
If your company is large enough and you have a big enough following, a company representative or even the CEO can come out and make a video talking to your audience. What the message should say is really up to you and your business in association with the magnitude of the social media mess that your business has found itself in. Remember the Domino’s pizza mess a few years ago? Well, if the CEO did not come out and make a video I think things would have become much worse for the brand.

Social Media Mess Clean Up #2 – Put Together A PR Campaign
This should be done online and offline depending on how big your company is and how wide the mess spreads. An aggressive online press release writing and distribution campaign could help soften the blow. Depending on the frequency of your press release writing you could quickly fill up your search results with new positive press before any negative information just suffocates it. The best way to prevent this is to really be proactive so that when a situation does occur there is already a buffer to prevent some of the negative press from making its way into the search results for your specific branded keywords.

Social Media Mess Clean Up #3 – Be More Social
Don’t hide from anything because that will make things worse. Take the steps to clean things up, but as they say; the show must go on. Your social media mess is water under the bridge and if you sit around and dwell nothing good can come from that. Take the time to put together a safe, aggressive communication plan for your social media platforms and stick to it. Eventually your audience will not even remember what occurred. As long as nobody got hurt the headlines might just be around for a short time and eventually people move on to the next juicy gossip story.

Social Media Mess Clean Up #4 – Admit You Were Wrong
If you were clearly in the wrong don’t try to deny it, because it will back fire and drag on much longer. Admit to your wrong doings publicly, either on a video or through your networks, because once you admit to what occurred your audience will not have too much to throw back at you. If you, however, claim that your audience is wrong then expect some serious backlash coming your way.

Social Media Mess Clean Up #5 – Don’t Make The Same Mistake Twice
Whatever it is that you do, you have to be 100% certain that you will not make the same mistake twice because you will be in a world of hurt online. If you thought the chatter on round 1 was bad, wait until you see round 2 because it will cause everything from the first batch to be stirred up while adding more on top of the fire.

Social Media Mess Clean Up #6 – Do Something Remarkable
You don’t want to be too obvious about this attempt, but shortly after the dust settles try and make a story impact with the same strength but be positive. Maybe make a donation, or do something to that effect that can make the headlines surrounding your business. Don’t do it while the negative press is fresh because your online audience will see right through that attempt and whack you for it through more negative online chatter.

Social media mishaps do occur from time to time and it is up to your business to be able to handle the backlash with the up most professionalism possible. Social media has given everyone a voice and the ability to hide behind that voice without being seen, so people’s opinions are flowing more than they ever have before in the business community. Take the time to think about everything that you put out online and always think twice before any promotion, article, or comment is published.