I have been reading a book on the power of social networks called “The Whuffie Factor”  by Tara Hunt.  Its a great read so far and I recommend anyone interested in harnessing the power of social networking to pick it up.  Whuffie is a gage of how well you are using social networking, if you are using it well then you have a positive Whuffie factor.

While I was reading it 2 people (who will not be named) asked me what I was reading and when I told them that the book was about using the power of social networks to build your business, they both laughed and made a joke about trying to meet new friends online then doing business with them.  Holy crap, lets wake up here and see the opportunity.

There are are a lot of elements to social media and one of the reasons companies do not get involved in social networks is they feel they need to be secretive to be successful.  Its true social networking does put your company out there but there are so many other advantages of using social networks that I feel far outweigh the concerns.  One of the items Tara talks about in her book is turning the blow horn around.  In other words listening to your customers needs and suggestions instead of preaching to them.  Then once you learn from them and satisfy their needs the positive word of mouth advertising from the satisfied customers is extremely beneficial to your company.  They will talk to others about  the changes in your product and discuss the fact they enjoy dealing with a company that listens to customers.   An important element of improving your whuffie is listening and responding to customer feedback properly, here are 8 tips on doing this correctly that were provided from Tara’s book

1. Get advice from the experts but design for the broader community.
2. Respond to all feedback even if you do not agree with the feedback
3. Do not take negative feedback personally
4. Give credit to those whose ideas you implement
5. When you implement a new idea make sure that you highlight it, asking for feedback on whether it has improved their experience.
6. Make small continuous changes rather than waiting to implement everything at once.
7. Don’t just wait for feedback to come to you, go out and find it.
8. No matter how many people like you, you will always have someone who doesn’t; don’t let the high you get from receiving positive feedback come crashing down when someone criticizes you.

Until next time thanks for listening.

This entry was posted by John McDonald on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 9:15 pm and is filed under Online Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.