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 The Dangers of Social Media

According to a survey conducted by MarketingSherpa, lack of knowledge is the number one barrier to social media adoption. This means the organizations that do try to play in the social media realm are at the risk of creating an atmosphere that can backfire on their marketing strategy if not done correctly. 

You might have heard starting a conversation online is important – but listening to what users are saying is not something that should be overlooked. 

Social media is not one of those ‘set it and forget it’ strategies. You need to monitor, listen to and participate in what users are saying about your brand, product or service. 

The challenge for most organizations is finding the time to respond to every thread, every comment and every tweet. The more social networks you are on, the more resources are required for tracking the activity on those channels. 

A lot of organizations fear opening this channel of conversation also calls for opening a can of worms for users to post their frustrations, complaints, and bad experiences. What most organizations fail to realize is if they do not start that conversation in the first place, where they do have control over what is being said, that is not going to stop anyone from creating that Facebook Group, or YouTube Channel, or blog that focuses on the negative experience with your brand. 

The image on the left is a Facebook Page that is dedicated to those users who hate Microsoft. There are over 50,000 websites, 5500 blogs, 200 Facebook groups, and 500 videos online, and dozens of tweets on Twitter hourly that have some reference to ‘Microsoft Sucks’. 

Now most small to medium sized businesses do not have to worry at such a large scale about brand protection, but remember even 1 website, 1 video, 1 Facebook page or 1 tweet can be enough to do some serious brand damag