Responding to Feedback: When Negativity Fails & How To Fix It

Negative Feedback(NSFW language coming up. You’ve been warned!)

You’re a restaurant owner or chef, and a critic or customer totally throws your establishment under the bus. Or an artist, and somebody you’ve never met bashes your work. Or… you get the idea. How do you react?

It reaches you on a personal level, so you feel the urge to fire back. Right?

Just this week, a San Francisco chef did just that via a window sign, saying, “Yes we use MSG, we don’t believe in organic food, and we don’t give a sh*t about gluten-free.”

That’s what you want to do, but definitely not what you should do!

Unfortunately, this type of reaction is not uncommon, and it’s occurring far more often thanks to chefs and restaurant owners venting on very public social media platforms. The outrage gets picked up by news outlets, goes viral, and ends up in articles like this explaining how NOT to handle customer service.

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Social Media Tips From @MidEastClub + @ZuZuBar

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Clay Fernald (@claynferno) is the brains behind the Midde East and Zuzu’s social media. From running the actual venue to running the venue’s social media (which includes keeping guests, artists, and followers constantly informed), we bet Clay had a lot of advice for businesses looking to get their big toe wet in the somewhat murky waters of social media. And we were right.

 

1. Music Monday! #mm
Even if you aren’t in the music business, put your favorite artist in the spotlight on Monday! Have you Heard Aretha Franklin sing Adele? Wooooo! Hashtag #mm means “Music Monday.” Everyone likes music!

2. Follow Back! #ff

In 2012, we got the blue checkmark next to our @MidEastClub Twitter handle? What does that mean, we’re clear for smallpox? No! We’re a recognized professional entity by the almighty Twitter herself! Thanks, birdie!

Anyhoot, we got there by slowly building a great ratio of followers to people we followed. And also we made sure not to follow jerks. Us the #FF hashtag on Friday to engage with your peers, your friends, your competitors and see how fast your list can grow. If you get a #FF notification, follow them back (after checking out their profile, of course!)

3. Report Spammers!
Are you followed on Twitter by a lot of egg icons, or is someone spamming one-of-a-kind Marty McFly sneaker sales on your Facebook Page? Unless it’s Doc Brown himself, use the appropriate buttons to report to Twitter and Facebook that these are spam accounts! Keep the B.S. to a minimum and those news feeds clean for all. It feels like a citizens arrest!

4. Meme it up!
Bored on a Thursday? Send your intern to MemeGenerator to make a clever joke about what you and your team are working on.

See, look what my intern did! She’s a card.

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5. Speak in your own voice!
There are lots of conflicting words of advice about this, but as a brand, you are still a person, or hopefully, a team! Sign your tweets if you need to express who you are.

For example. nerd musicians @PaulandStorm share a Twitter account and they simply sign tweets this way: [P] = Paul, [S] = Storm.

In the MidEastClub Twitter bio, we are a collective team, but we post as “The Box Office, Jill&Steph&Jamie&Clay.” This puts at least a name to the company (four names, in fact!) that people can relate to!

6. Acknowledge your mistakes.
If we make a mistake or update set times, we say “oops” or “updated set times.”

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Social Media Tips From @Lyft

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Catching a Lyft may be as easy as opening an app on your phone, but Zach Cole, Lyft’s social media manager, doesn’t have an easy job. From mastering Lyft’s “cool dude next door” voice on Twitter to handling Lyft’s responses to the numerous red-tape it faces in many states across the country – Cole has a lot to handle, but he makes it look effortless! We asked him for some advice for businesses looking to emulate that kind of organic presence.

 

 

1. Find out what your audience likes.
Brands that don’t constantly talk about themselves often find great success. Knowing what your audience is truly interested in can help inform your content strategy, so that you’re able to share more content that isn’t centered around your brand, but still communicates your brand values.

2. Create a content calendar.
Brands with strong content calendars do two things really well: they have a regular posting frequency per social channel, which helps brands understand when they can best reach their audience, and they post a variety of content. Content calendars are great tools for bucketing content into categories so that brands can share a balanced variety of content.

3. Set goals.
Talk with your marketing and brand teams to determine your brand’s goals for social media. This way, you can have an idea of what matters most when working to improve your social strategy. Goals vary from one brand to the next — some brands (media and e-commerce) will often measure website traffic from social, while others may want to focus on reaching a target demographic with a specific message.

4. Experiment.
Try new things! The world of social media is still relatively new, so there’s always room to experiment. Try sharing new types of content, playing with copy, working with influencers, etc. You sometimes never know just where you’re going to find the most success until you give it a go — and generally social media lets brands do this at minimal cost.

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