We pride ourselves here at Galaxy Multi Rides on the way we market our business using our Social Media Accounts. Since Social Media has been such a strong part of building our business, we thought we’d share some of our tips with you! Certainly, Mechanical Bull owners and Party Rental companies can improve their business by the correct use of Social Media products.
Social media is truly essential for your rodeo bull business. It gives you a direct link to your customers and really helps you to find new ones. However, if your social media presence isn’t managed correctly, it can be a disaster for your company’s image. Actually, NO social media is better than mismanaged social media. Here are a few of the most common mistakes that we’ve seen companies make and ways you can avoid them.
Slow Response Time To Customer Interaction
Social media works well to help establish your good reputation but it can also destroy it. You are setting up and utilizing a platform where your customers have a voice. What if one of them is unhappy with your products, services or practices? They can publish their complaint so that everyone can see it. The question you need to ask yourself is “is this a good thing or a bad thing?”
In our experience, it’s a good thing. You can’t make everyone happy. We all understand that…BUT if a customer is unhappy, there’s no telling what he’ll say and where he’ll say it. If he posts his complaint on your Facebook page, at least you know what he’s saying and you can deal with it accordingly.
Damage control isn’t really a big deal; it’s just part of social media. It’s not disastrous when someone complains about your company, but it is when you respond too slowly or even worse…don’t respond at all. Monitoring your social media sites is a 24/7 responsibility. When someone complains on your page, you need to be there to address the issue.
Responding the Wrong Way
You can easily turn a slight bump in the road into a complete wreck by responding the wrong way to comments. If someone is rude or insulting, you may be tempted to respond negatively or be defensive. Even if the comment is completely out of line, a negative response makes your business look bad. Your response should always be positive and constructive.
You’ve probably considered that you can simply delete comments that you don’t like. This can actually be more damaging to your reputation than leaving them on the page. To people who saw the comment before it was deleted, this looks very bad. You should only delete comments that are obscene, spammy, or excessively rude.
Selling, Selling and Selling
While the overall purpose of your social media presence is to boost your mechanical bull business, one of the biggest mistakes businesses make is to overly self-promote. If you do this, you’re misunderstanding the real purpose of social media. Your customers are there to socialize, meet people, and share common interests. They’re not interested in being constantly subjected to info on your business. If you blatantly promote your business too much, you’ll lose them. You also risk having people complain to the whole world about your social media tactics. Instead, think of social media as a way to build a stronger connection between your business and your customers. When you are making posts, consider that you are sitting in a restaurant drinking coffee with some friends. It’s ok to talk about yourself and what you’re doing, but you need to show an interest in what’s going on with others too. If you check out our FB page, you’ll see that we actually talk quite a bit about what we’re doing….but we interact with our customers. A lot of what we share is to keep people informed about what’s going on. If you’re nervous about posting too much about yourself, a great way to start is to ONLY post something directly about your business 2-3 times per week. The rest of the time, post other things….entertainment tips, info on the mechanical bull and even funny quotes. As you build up a following, you’ll get a better feel for what your followers like to see.
The Wrong Spokesperson
To handle all of your social media tasks and maintenance, you should assign someone from your company to be the manager. Try to choose someone who is social media savvy and has experience on those types of sites. Keep in mind that one of the deadliest mistakes you can make is assigning the wrong person to this job. The wrong person is someone who might make the job too personal, talking about himself too much, or might make political, religious or other touchy comments. Your social media manager should know that his or her job is to represent the company in a positive way, and that is all.
Social Media Disaster Prevention
The key to managing social media disasters effectively is to have a solid plan. Long before a disaster strikes, make sure that you know exactly how to handle it. Talk to everyone in your company who is involved in social media and make sure they understand the protocols and rules.
For more information on marketing your mechanical bull business in 2013, please visit the Galaxy Facebook page, or feel free to subscribe to our Galaxy Multi Ride blog posts!
by Cheryl Pierce - Google+Related posts:
