The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success, 3rd Edition

Reputation Management

Another reason to engage in social media is that you have responsibility for reputation management. As I stated earlier, people are talking about you, your company, your products, and your brand. You need to be aware of those conversations and you need to engage in them. You need to encourage good behavior (to get good press) and you have responsibility to defuse negative press.

If someone writes something good about your product or service in his blog, don’t you want to know that? Don’t you need to know that? Don’t you want to encourage that? Drive customers and prospects to that unsolicited rave review?

If someone says something negative, don’t you want to know that, too, and feel a responsibility to engage with that person? Unlike conventional media (press), it’s okay to engage. It’s preferred. Many times the author of the negative press is only looking for engagement, but your customer doesn’t know that.

Rule Number One: Always take the high road. Never condescend, get snarky, use inappropriate language, or belittle the writer. Everyone has a right to one’s own opinion, even if it’s an idiotic one.

Engage with “I understand your point of view, however, . . .” and state your case. If you do it correctly, the reader will side with you and discredit the writer. Set the book aside for a moment, think about this, and let it permeate your thoughts. This is a completely different wisdom from what we’ve used in the past. It works.

The same is true for Twitter. ...