how to say sorry on social media
DESCRIPTION
J412: Strategic Social Media E-BOOK AssignmentTRANSCRIPT
WEB 2.0SOCIAL MEDIA
MINCHAN BAE
How to Say
J412 Mid-Term Project
Sorryon Social Media
How to Say Sorry on Social Media 2
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 Iʼm sorry. The reason is that many people are worry about getting hurt on their feelings and pride, before worry about othersʼ 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?
J412 Strategic Social Media 3
Sorryin
Business WorldBefore 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 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.
How to Say Sorry on Social Media 4
UnderstandCharacteristics
of OnlineBlog 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 bloggerʼs 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.
5J412 Strategic Social Media
Catch Their Conversationby MonitoringSocial MediaDell 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 Dellʼs poor customer service on his blog BuzzMachine. His post was rapidly spread throughout on the Internet. It affected Dellʼs
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 customersʼ conversations about its products on social media to catch their
needs for its products, and it has to react fast and properly to its customersʼ demands.
How to Say Sorry on Social Media 6
Decide theway to solve the problemdepending
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.
7J412 Strategic Social Media
Accommodation
Neutrality
Defense
No Action
Accept the responsibility, and take action quickly
negatively react to the discontented customersand avoid the responsibility
No response to the situation
Ways to Solve the SituationStrategies
Showing interest on the situation or giving simple explanation without clear answer
Decide theway to solve the problemdepending
on the responsibility
How to Say Sorry on Social Media 8
Announcethe message
fromDiscontented
PersonʼsPerspective
Factors the Corporation Has to Consider for the Apologetic Message 1. A detailed account of the situation
2. Acknowledgement of the hurt or damage done
3. Taking responsibility for the situation
4. Recognition of your role in the event
5. A statement regret6. Asking for forgiveness7. A promise that it wonʼt happen again
8. A form of restitution whenever possible
8
http://www.perfectapology.com
9J412 Strategic Social Media
ProvideA Guideline
for Using Social MediaWhen a trouble issue is happened in business world, for a customerʼs
perspective, the issue is a problem that should be improved, but in many
times, the issue is not a big deal from a corporationʼs
perspective, thus a corporation often says “Donʼt think lightly of our corporation” to its customers.
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.
How to Say Sorry on Social Media 10
Conclusion
Todayʼs Web 2.0 is like a table tennis.
Media, corporations,
governments and all individuals
send and receive each otherʼs messages on time and all around the World. In business world, more complaints will be issued, and those messages
will gain more power over corporations and
organizations. To achieve positive Images
and continue the good relationship with 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 todayʼs Web 2.0 communication.
How to Say Sorry on Social Media 11
referenceshttp://www.beingpeterkim.com
http://birdbrainbb.net/2009/04/13/amazonfail-timeline-of-wtf
Pictures
Sean McColgan (P10)
bronwynmaye (P6)
Digg.com (P6)
Sarah Gibbons from
valleyadvocate.com (P6)Dave Gorman (P10)Dell’s IdeaStorm
Web sources flickr
http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/brandautopsy/2007/04/re_negative_wor.html
http://www.perfectapology.com