How to handle negative posts.

Because of the nature of Social Media, it is impossible to control everything posted in your page and therefore, negative criticisms is hard to avoid. According to Helen Leggatt, there are 8 effective ways a brand can handle negative posts on their Social Media sites. The most important thing to remember is that the way Administrators reply to these messages will be public and reflect the business and the brand.


1) Create guidelines and rules around commenting on your page (be clear about the use of bad language and inappropriate content).
2) Keep calm and cool. Think before writing anything.
3) Reply publicly. This will show you are in control of the situation.
4) Keep replies concise. Stick to the facts, avoiding emotions and personal views.
5) Reply immediately. Often silence is taken as acceptance.
6) If necessary, reply privately. If after replying publicly, the person insists with the negative commentaries, you should consider dealing with the person privately.
7) Monitor the conversation and keep in touch with the customer until he/she be satisfied.
8) Ditch the trolls and spammers. 


WHAT ABOUT YOU?
Have you ever been in any similar situation? How did you handle it? 

Social Media for disabled communities.

I'm always amazed by the power Social Media has to change lives and make a better world. From helping civilians to communicate in Egypt and Libya and begin a social revolution to helping Japanese families to find lost relatives in the recent earthquake.


Disaboom Inc., a recent start-up is working to solve some of the problems that the disabled face. It was founded by Dr. Glen House, who is a physician and a quadriplegic himself. Disaboom is based on his firsthand knowledge of the challenges faced by the disabled community, which inspired him to provide a comprehensive, evolving source of information for disabled communities.


Like many online communities, such as Facebook and Twitter, Disaboom is a free community and combines a social environment, providing online dating (www.LoveByrd.com), forums, and blogs with practical resources pertaining to living with disabilities, such as medical information, classifieds, and job posting. 


Some segments of the population are almost always overlooked and find it hard to get the services and the products they need. More than 54 million Americans live with some form of disability today. The U.S. market for goods and services specific for disabilities is greater than $300 billion, and the discretionary income of people with disabilities exceeds $135 billion. 


WHAT ABOUT YOU?
What's your opinion on that? Have you seen any online service that positively impact minorities and is able to change peoples' lives?

New Social Media Trends.

While Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare are popular and powerful marketing tools today, they nay not be in a near future. This is how fast technology evolves, especially when related to Social Media.

These are five emerging Social Media tools that I highly recommend you to explore and get familiarized with:

1) AMPLIFY:
Amplify is a social media tool that allows you to bookmark and share all or parts of what you find on the web. It helps you find and share content more quickly. The best part is that your contacts are most likely to be there, so without any promotional effort you will have users selecting you as a source (following you).

2) ONE TRUE FAN:
It's like Foursquare, but where are you now is virtual and not physical. It allows you to check in to websites and blogs you visit. The person who checks in the most becomes "the one true fan" of the site.

3) QUORA:
It's a question answering site with a social element (you can link it to Twitter, Facebook, and more). It's goal is to become the best online resource.

4) FLUTHER:
Is another question answering site with a social element. But this company is linked to Twitter through its development team (from Mashable).

5) MOBILE INTERFACES:
Mobile computing is growing exponentially. Even tough many Social Media platforms already exist in Mobile Interfaces, most of Social Media utilities will be available as mobile apps.

WHAT ABOUT YOU?
What Social Media technology do you find promising?

ACUVUE BY Johnson & Johnson

I attended the Social Ad Summit on October 2010 at The New Yorker Hotel and was amazed how ACUVUE successfully created a Facebook campaign to create awareness about its products between teenagers girls and their parents. 


There was a great agency partnership to create the content and experience between Royce Carvalho who is the Associate Product Director - Digital Marketing for Johnson & Johnson and by Michael Lazerow who is the Chairman and CEO of Buddy Media. 


They faced a tough challenge: How to advertise contact lenses on Facebook?


The campaign objectives were to crete demand among consumers considering contacts (teenage girls between 12-17) by demystifying the process of getting contacts and eliminating parents and doctors barriers. 


They decided to create demand through content by creating a conversation calendar and stressing the benefits of the products and the brand. The content development was based on the fact that contact lens are awesome and empowering (freedom), then they started a dialogue with the target audience and continued the conversation by answering comments. They also created compelling video content showing how to put contacts on, how to clean them, etc...


This is an example of a conversation generated by ACUVUE in their Facebook page: 
"When you asked to get contacts for the first time, did your parents get it or did you have to talk them into it? Share your experience on the “Stories” tab."


The demystifying process was made by giving free contact lenses and coupons so the target audience could change their perception that lenses are unsafe and uncomfortable. They created a slogan called: Set Yourself Up With Contact Lenses. 


Finally, they had to reach the parents and the doctors who are not the primary audience but the decision makers in the purchase process. So, they creatively produced a 3 minutes video presentation to show girls how to argue with their parents and doctors that they are ready to use contacts. They suggested girls should make a deal with their parents and connected girls with another girls with the same problem so they could exchange ideas and suggestions.


Results: 173 % fan growth in 10 months, 31% increase in fan interaction, and 220% increase in page view until october 2010.


WHAT ABOUT YOU?
What's your favorite Facebook page? What's the best Social Media campaign have you ever seen?