With all the talk, all the brouhaha about social media, it's grand to find a simple, practical appraisal of it. Read Eric Fletcher's post about social media and Bob Garfield's new book, The Chaos Scenario. Eric is the CMO of McGlinchey Stafford PLLC.
Word of mouth has been coveted as a favored means to drive new business and new audiences to for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Today's social media references about a person, theater play, law firm or lawyer risk being unfavorable as often as favorable, and as Eric points out, every opinionated person has access to global distribution channels. If we want to carefully manage our online (and therefore, our offline reputations), as Eric and Bob Garfield say, we have to listen to what people are saying about us.
Referencing my earlier post this morning, however . . . it's easy for us to discount the online grumbling of disgruntled associates, unhappy clients and staff. But the raving posts and videos do linger, whether published by fans or lunatics. It's hard to predict what the shelf life is - but assume it's very, very long.