Social media is the driving force of business. More and more people are taking full advantage of the benefits of using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to promote their business and engage with customers. Although social media is like a gold mine, there are some drawbacks. For example, let’s say that you own a bakery and an angry customer decides to tweet negative reviews on Twitter, this can be potentially harmful to your reputation. The good news is there are effective ways to combat against negative publicity online. Here are a few helpful tips:

Monitor Your Social Media Sites Daily

When you monitor your social media sites, this will help stop negative comments from getting out of hand. If monitoring your social media sites is taking you away from other important tasks, you may want to consider hiring a professional social media consultant to manage your Facebook and Twitter accounts. A social media consultant will answer customer inquiries when you are unable to.

Address customer service issues promptly

After Hurricane Irene, Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) received hundreds of complaints on Facebook and Twitter from angry customers who have been without power since August 28th. Their social media team handled customer inquiries via social media around the clock. They even temporarily closed their walk-in centers and referred customers to their Facebook and Twitter pages to receive updates. We can all learn a lesson from LIPA. If a customer posts complaints about your products and services, make sure you address the matter right away.

Show your customers you truly care

You can usually spot a company that is either too busy to respond to customer inquires via social media or they simply do not care. They are usually the ones who have a page full of inquiries and no responses. In order to maintain control over your online reputation, you must be willing to take the time out to engage in meaningful conversations with your customers. If you have a large customer base with a limited staff, obviously you can’t respond to every customer inquiry within a 24 hour period. If this is the case, provide people with another means of contacting you. For example, you can post your customer service number or you can leave an email address designated for customer inquiries.

There are several other ways to help manage your online reputation. The tips above will help you get started in the right direction.