A recent survey says that over 75% of consumers say companies that use social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are more worthy of their trust than companies who don’t. The same survey found that the majority of respondents use the internet to research companies and products before making purchasing decisions.

More and more, tech savvy consumers are using social media to publicly complain when a displeased with a company. Too often this just results in a lot of bad publicity for the company if they are not quick to respond. For example, a local towing company found themselves the target of a negative news article when a disgruntled customer took to Facebook to create a group page for people who wanted to complain about the companies practices. Within a few hours the page already had hundreds of “fans”, just on word of mouth from the page’s admin and his friends, making it sweet bait for the local news media to provide even more bad publicity for the company, which then lead to a criminal investigation of the companies practices.

By contrast, another tech savvy customer recently used her phone to tweet about a rude employee at a live nation event. Live nation then used the opportunity to reach out to the customer and help her with her issue, resulting in some very positive publicity for themselves.

The days when a simple tweet can make or break an company’s reputation for millions of consumers are here, and business better take notice.

Consumers say: “In tweets we trust” (Reuters)

As always Connections is happy to answer questions and assist you in any way we can to get your e-business up and running over the competition. Contact us at service@ConnectionsIS.com.