Comments on: Should companies fear Social Media?

By: Sean Lloyd

Sean Lloyd — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:00:57 +0000

“Don’t Look For Shit! (this is Afrigator’s corporate motto and we stick to it, religiously! We learned our lesson the hard way.)”

Could you elaborate? You may not be able to, I’m just very curious!

By: Harry

Harry — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:22:24 +0000

Well, companies should not fear social media…they should embrace it and use it for their advantage… I am doing a project on that and when I am done..I will let you in on the results

By: Candice

Candice — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:42:48 +0000

Social Media gets blamed for things that would naturally have come up because of something that might be fundamentally wrong with the company/product/service – when really it is just an amplifier which finds these unhappy sounds and directs them into your ear.
As previous comments suggested, people make mistakes and when a brand is concerned, especially a well established and loved one like Apple, if you just deal with it correctly those customers will forgive you and keep coming back.
The real issue here is are companies ready to really hear what people are saying about them and are they ready to fix/change/modify things to deliver what is being asked of them?
If the answer is no, then stay away from social media but then also risk falling behind your competitor because guaranteed, they are brave enough to listen and respond! Ignoring what is already out there is NOT good business practice.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 07:56:42 +0000

“In fact not only do they care about you but they’ve taken the time to write something about you in the hope that you will respond. Most of the time, no one ever does.”

I could name a few large companies in this list

By: globalcc (Global Comm Class)

globalcc (Global Comm Class) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:24:49 +0000

via @SixthStreetGirl: Justin Hartman, co-founder of Afrigator, on social media in South Africa ^AG: http://tinyurl.com/lbt73q

By: Johann du Plessis

Johann du Plessis — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:06:58 +0000

I agree that companies should engage people in the right way, rather than ignore or antagonize them. If a company (or any person for that matter) does something which disadvantages me, I always first look at how they respond to my complaint before I get angry. If the company ignores me I simple assume they don’t care, and I never make use of their services again. If the company fixes the problem properly, I forget about the incident and will make use of them in the future. It’s as simple as that. Everyone makes mistakes, its how they fix those mistakes that matter. Responding to problems and fixing them using social media means they can leverage this effect, exposing their good will to many more people. If however a company doesn’t do this properly, then social media really is something to fear.

By: SpokesMarketing (Spokes Marketing)

SpokesMarketing (Spokes Marketing) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:23:53 +0000

Should companies fear Social Media? by Justin Hartman: With the advent of the Internet and more recently the ado.. http://tinyurl.com/lbt73q

By: pat carmody

pat carmody — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:45:39 +0000

great post/article justin. sometimes we lose perspective on how much damage social media flareups can do – especially when the storm is directed against a monopoly of sorts.

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:23:41 +0000

I don’t think it’s respectable how the SA’s twitteratti starter a smear campaign and started cyber-bullying via the stopcore.co.za and other sites.

Sies people, have you no self-respect putting your names to such a campaign.