Friday, June 8, 2012

Conflict resolution skills for Social Media



Conflict resolution skills for Social Media


Lately I came across this great article about the importance of conflict management on Twitter.

Companies tend to hire marketing professionals to manage their social media accounts. They often think about the product and the selling and less what happens when there are crisis and conflicts on their social media platforms. If you hire a community manger make sure he or her has the skills to manage problems when they appear. Waiting and seeing is not the good strategy. Just like any conflict a misunderstanding on a social platform tend to get big very fast. The BIG difference is that is can get to thousands of followers in seconds and eventually take your brand down. 

First thing to do? Well be sure as a company that the person in charge of your social media accounts has some experience with conflict management, crisis management and understands the importance of great customer relations (even more on social media platforms). If not get them as soon as possible a class on how to manage crisis and conflict on social media. For more information you can go to our website erelations.info and contact us to discuss the different possibilities. Or find other crisis & conflict specialists that specialize in social media platforms.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Quality VS Quantity

Every worker, business or organization is at one point at the crossroads between quality and quantity.



- For a worker that gets asked to deliver more and more within an unreasonable time-frame it may mean sacrificing the quality he was used to be proud of in the past. Therefore it could mean a lesser degree of satisfaction pertaining to her or his career, more stress, a lesser quality of life, etc. It may be good for the organization, though, that could see profits increase.

- For a business it can mean offering products/services of a lesser quality in order to keep up with a market in which consumers ask for cheaper products & services. It can also help increase profitability.

- For other type of organizations (NGO/non-profits, etc.) it may mean helping more people but in a less considerable way.


We could be inclined to qualify this as a new “tyranny of numbers”, i.e. workers, products/services, organizations being judged on their performance exclusively through numbers, hence quantity over quality. Of course it is not a bad thing in itself, since a form of measurement enables control over activities. But quality is harder to judge; writing 5 tweets could be easier than 1 meaningful post, for example… There are no engines that can analyze a text, extract its meaning and rate its relevance and significance in a a particular context. Not yet. Some individuals or organizations are probably working on this as we write, though.

At eRelations we think that quality and quantity can be compatible but not necessarily in the same services. We focused on quality-oriented services up to now but will bring forth some new services soon that will be more aimed on quantity. Thus we will have 2 distinct branches of services, one more quality-oriented, the other more quantity-oriented. Both will be compatible with our business culture.

Tell us what you think!