Social media marketing campaigns aren’t ready for negative responses

A recent survey has shown that less than half of marketers know how to handle unwanted attention.

According to the results of recent research conducted by eMarketer, over 88 percent of all businesses are using social media marketing as of this year, and yet the majority of them are still struggling to be able to properly use this channel and measure their campaign successes.

Moreover, almost half of those marketers don’t know how to handle negative posts.

According to Social Media Marketing University (SMMU) a training firm for the use of this channel, one in four marketers do not have a plan for handling negative posts against them, but they are trying to develop one. Nearly that many, again, have absolutely no plan for dealing with negative social media attention and have no intention of trying to create one.

That said, despite the lack of negative social media marketing plan, the majority will still respond.

SMMU’s stats showed that even though more than half of marketers don’t have a set strategy for dealing with negative posts in an effective way, the majority will respond to it. Moreover, many will create their response within an hour of the appearance of the negative post, in the first place. Another 52 percent said that they will respond within the first twenty four hours following the negative posting. Only five of all of the respondents to the survey said that they either hardly ever, or never, respond to negative attention over social media.

Among the respondents, Walmart was one that had previously taken a rather passive strategy when t comes to what its critics are posting over Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and so on. That said, it has since changed its tune. In the past, it simply used these channels as a fast, easy, and affordable way to help to create a push for its messages. However, this direction changed considerably last year as it began to provide rapid responses to negative posts, with a special effort to keep up positive posting and by providing information to correct misunderstandings.

This is a common evolution in social media marketing strategies as companies slowly begin to understand the way in which they can not only share their news but also interact and engage with consumers.