WEB 2.0 SOCIAL MEDIA How to Say
Sorry
on Social Media MINCHAN BAE
J412 Mid-Term Project
Intro Most people know that when you make mistake to someone, you should apologize to them. However, many people want to pass trough without any apology. Those cases are made especially for friends, family members and colleagues, even though it is not hard to say that I始m sorry. The reason is that many people are worry about getting hurt on their feelings and pride, before worry about others始 feelings.
What about in business world? What if the person you make mistake on were customer? What will you do if the person were familiar with using social media?
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How to Say Sorry on Social Media
Before the Web 2.0 began, conversation with customers had been made through call center, agencies, or customer service sections in retail stores. However, todayʼs customers actively express their reputations and
Sorry in Business World
complaint of the products and services on the Internet, such as BBS, forums, blogs, and the companiesʼ websites, and many posts have been issued among customers widely. The issues are often grown seriously and extended largely when the company did not announce the apology. Compare to saying, “Iʼm sorry” in person-to-person conversation, there are many considerable factors when corporations or other organizations apologize to their customers. It also takes longer time because of formalities in the organization. However, if the organization takes proper
action to its customersʼ negative reputations, the organization can build stronger connection with its customers, and customers will have higher credit on the organization.
J412 Strategic Social Media
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Understand Characteristics of Online
Blog is a one-person-media. However, from the perspective of the online issue making, blog does not only have a characteristic of the one-person media, but also the characteristic of the public
media. Ordinarily, most bloggers are connected to other bloggers indirectly via links and RSS reader. However, if they realize that any blogger were received terrible treatment from a corporation, they react very emotionally to the blogger始s post and help to find and spread more cases and information of the improper treatments from corporation. Because of this characteristic of an online community, one complaint become quickly spread through the Internet and finally reported by major news media.
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How to Say Sorry on Social Media
Dell is well-known company that quickly reacted to their negative reputation on social media. In 2005, one of their customer Jeff Jarvis, associate professor of City University in New York, started to blog complaints about Dell始s poor customer service on his blog BuzzMachine. His post was rapidly spread throughout on the Internet. It affected Dell始s reputation and stock price directly. Dell launched its corporation blog Direct2Dell in 2006, and continued to launch its widely successful site, called IdeaStorm, which allows customers post their opinions and adopt the best requests to its products. This case shows that a corporation should constantly monitor its customers始 conversations about its products on social media to catch their needs for its products, and it has to react fast and properly to its customers始 demands.
J412 Strategic Social Media
Catch Their Conversation by Monitoring Social Media
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Decide the way to solve the problem depending on the responsibility
When the corporation decides the reaction to the problem it faces, the corporation should watch the situation from an observerʼs
perspective, but from the corporationʼs perspective because most observers take side depending on whether it is the corporationʼs fault or just the discontented personʼs personal dissatisfaction. The corporation has to decide the reaction depending on the observerʼs side on the situation.
Amazon Fail is the best example of showing power of the observerʼs decision on the social media. It was started on April 9th. Alex Beecroft noticed that her books were removed from sales ranking on Amazon.com, and then more authors noticed this situation of removing ranking of gay-lesbian related books. Many people post and reply about the situation with the hashtag of #amazonfail. Some people catch that Amazon was preparing this project since February. Finally, this situation was announced by most major news media. However, any reaction was taken by Amazon.com. Its reputation was largely damaged.
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How to Say Sorry on Social Media
Strategies
Ways to Solve the Situation
Accommodation
Accept the responsibility, and take action quickly
Defense
negatively react to the discontented customers and avoid the responsibility
Neutrality
Showing interest on the situation or giving simple explanation without clear answer
No Action
No response to the situation
J412 Strategic Social Media
Decide the way to solve the problem depending on the responsibility
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Announce the message from Discontented Person始s Perspective
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Factors the Corporation Has to Consider for the Apologetic Message 1. A 2.
detailed account of the situation
Acknowledgement of the hurt or damage done
3. Taking 4.
responsibility for the situation
Recognition of your role in the event
5. A statement 6. Asking for
regret
forgiveness
promise that it won始t happen again 8. A form of restitution whenever possible 7. A
http://www.perfectapology.com 8
How to Say Sorry on Social Media
When a trouble issue is happened in business world, for a customerʼs perspective, the issue is a problem that should be improved, but in many
Provide A Guideline for Using Social Media
not a big deal from a corporationʼs perspective, thus a corporation often says “Donʼt think lightly of our corporation” to its customers. times, the issue is
When the issue comes from outside of the corporation, the corporation should
share the complaint inside of the corporation first
before it shows its opinion to the public easily. Social network connect every customer tightly. Thus, it is getting more difficult to avoid its problems. A corporation need make
guideline
for social media for its employees and itself to reduce expose of its problems to the public.
J412 Strategic Social Media
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Conclusion
Web 2.0 is like a table tennis. Media, corporations, governments and all individuals send and receive each other始s messages on Today始s
time and all around the World. In business world, more complaints will be issued, and those messages
power over corporations and organizations. To achieve positive Images and continue the good relationship with will gain more
the customers, a corporation and an organization have to catch the current situations on
social
media and to participate to communicate with its customers. Advanced apologetic strategy is crucial for today始s Web 2.0 communication.
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How to Say Sorry on Social Media
references http://www.beingpeterkim.com http://www.perfectapology.com http://birdbrainbb.net/2009/04/13/amazonfail-timeline-of-wtf http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/brandautopsy/2007/04/re_negative_wor.html
Pictures Web sources
flickr
Digg.com (P6)
Sean McColgan (P10)
Sarah Gibbons from valleyadvocate.com (P6) Dell’s IdeaStorm 11
bronwynmaye (P6) Dave Gorman (P10) How to Say Sorry on Social Media