Why on earth would you teach your staff and public relations strategies? Well, consider this. What if every member of staff had access to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of your potential customers? What if your staff was mistaken as representing your company because they work for you? Well, guess what, that is exactly what your staff has thanks to social media. You need to teach your staff the importance of PR (Public Relations). Simply adding no-social-media chatter into your contracts isn’t enough. It may help protect staff from tearing down other staff online, but you can’t monitor all your staff’s social media accounts for references to your company. You can’t monitor their behavior, even if that same behavior reflects on your company. Your staff needs a baseline understanding of PR and how it affects their jobs.
Do Not Respond to Negative Criticism
Boy howdy is this something you should really have your staff take to heart. The issue is that even if a member of staff completely hates your company and their job, they may still take umbrage with other people who try to tear down your company. The problem is that your staff don’t have PR or marketing training and may handle the criticism poorly and in a way that damages your reputation in the eyes of a few (or maybe in the eyes of many).
Be More Positive In General
Telling your staff to smile and be more positive is not really that effective, but you really need to stamp out any negative behavior. When staff is always negative, they make happy and positive people feel silly for enjoying their best life. It is very easy to get into the habit of enjoying misery and always seeing the bad side of things, and you need to stop those habits because they seep into your social media marketing.
Do Not Argue with Anybody Online
Even if people are not arguing about your company, you have to remind your staff that they are representing your company. They are ambassadors for your brand, even if they don’t feel that way. When they argue online, they open themselves up to various types of bad press and reputation damage. The worst part is that these arguments happen online where they are recorded. Even if somebody doesn’t say anything bad or negative, what they say can be snipped and taken very much out of context. It isn’t worth the hassle or the potential risk to your reputation and your jobs.
Convert All Complaints into Positives
This is not a very easy thing to do. It is why you need a marketing company to come up with a few public relations strategies to smooth things out and keep things positive. However, it is very possible to turn complaints and negatives into positives, especially if you can express intended changes as potential fixes to problems. Find ways to be proactive and fix the problems rather than trying to apologize for them. Take on the advice of a professional company like Star Media PR Group and start building a better reputation through smart marketing decisions and clever PR marketing.
