New Brand Analytics put together this great guide, "How to Apologize on Social Media." There is some great advice here.

1. How to Apologize on
Social Media
An eBook for Marketing, Operations,
and Customer Service Professionals
Brought to you by newBrandAnalytics
Never Ruin An Apology
With An Excuse

2. Executive Overview
2
Authenticity is the golden rule when
apologizing for a bad customer
experience. It is also the golden rule of
social media. In the fast paced, constantly
growing world of social media, apologizing
is critical in order to maintain your online
reputation. However, social media
apologies are not always easy. You want
the largest possible audience to see your
apology but you have limited space to
really voice your regret. This eBook
provides you with the strategies to make
the most genuine and impactful apologies
on Twitter, Facebook, and review sites in
order to maintain your online reputation.

3. Why Is Apologizing
So Important?

4. Social Media Minimizes Damage
Every day thousands of reviews, tweets and comments are
posted about your business on social media and not all of
them are complimentary. Responding to negative mentions of
your business can be intimidating, especially in a forum as
public as social media. But research shows that 4 out of 5
people will revise their purchasing decision after looking at
online reviews. That means that publicly apologizing to
negative reviews is more critical than ever in order to increase
revenue and customer loyalty. With social intelligence, you
can compile all of your negative reviews in one place.
Now you’ll never miss the opportunity to recover
from a customer’s negative experience.

5. Social Media Intelligence for Online
Reputation Management
Marketers and Operations use Social Intelligence to
improve their brand’s reputation and drive increased
revenue and brand loyalty. Unsolicited customer
feedback can give you real information on where your
business needs to improve. And when you make
these changes, you’re taking the first step
to creating the best possible
customer experience.
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6. 68% of users say the presence of a management response to negative
reviews sways them towards purchasing from that company.
34% of customers delete their negative review, or write a revision, after the
company reaches out to them with an apology.
Between one and three negative reviews is all is takes to deter the majority
of shoppers from purchasing a product or service.
Now is the time
to correct bad
experiences
Take advantage of this information
and recover from negative reviews
now. Don’t let a competitor’s
apology outshine you.
The Numbers Speak for Themselves
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7. 7
Different Strokes for Different Folks
• 140 Character Limit
• Usage of Hashtags
• 175 Million tweets posted
daily
• Brief, quick chats
• Communicating with
people you don’t know
well
• Nearly unlimited
characters
• Usage of Hashtags
• 699 Million daily active
users
• Directly engaging
people you know well
• Best for sharing media
• Long form
• Online reviews
• Communicating with
influencers
• Unsolicited feedback
Differences amongst social sites mean that your strategy for
apologizing needs to be specifically tailored to how the site is used by
your customers.

8. Social Media
Apologies for Twitter

9. 9
Don’t Miss What MattersTwitter
While this tweet had no
reference to the brand, it
depicts a tweet with a
serious complaint.
Fortunately, Pier 1 was on
the ball and seized a great
opportunity for customer
recovery.
With nearly 3,200 tweets sent every minute, it is critical that you don’t let your
customer’s complaint get lost in the shuffle. Use social media intelligence to
monitor for certain words or hashtags on Twitter that mention your brand.
Additionally, since Twitter is updated at a rapid pace, it is important to use
alerts to help you quickly find any negative mentions of your business.

10. Once you’ve found the negative reviews, you need to make sure that you
grab their attention as well as the attention of other users on Twitter. Click
reply to reply directly to the tweeter who left the negative comment. To get
more viewership on your apology, put a character or extra word in front of
their Twitter handle. If you do not do this, Twitter will think it is a personal
conversation and will only make the tweet readily available to your
account and the user you tweeted at.
Don’t Get Lost in the Noise
10
Extend your reach by
apologizing first and then
mentioning who you are
apologizing to in the latter
half of the tweet. This
provides significantly more
exposure.
Twitter

11. The art of fitting an apology into 140 characters comes from harnessing
maximum readability and maximum retweetability. Eliminate any overly
emotional words that are extras. While they may feel more genuine they are
actually just taking up valuable space that you could be using to show how
you’re fixing the problem. Also shoot to get the customer’s contact info.
The Art of 140
11
As you can see, this tweet was cut
off due to its length and the
included photo. Not only that, but
because it was cut off, the message
takes a mildly inappropriate turn. To
avoid this, Marissa should have
removed the “Photo” at the
beginning of the tweet as well as
other extraneous words in this tweet.
She could have written: “Yahoo to
acquire Tumblr! Customers delight.”
To learn more about how to write the perfect apology tweet,
Twitter
visit us here

12. Now it’s time to
make sure you
follow up. Open a
case with your
support team or if
you are the support
team, make sure this
task doesn’t get lost.
An apology without
follow through is as
good as an empty
promise.
Follow Up and Follow Through
12
It’s better to follow up
excessively than not at
all. Zappos takes the
time to respond to a
customer who is in
need of service. While
this customer was
already helped, this
effort by Zappos was
obviously appreciated.
The customer was so
satisfied with the help
she received, in
response she paid
Zappos a public
compliment.
Twitter

13. Social Media Apologies
for Facebook

14. 14
Reach Out Publicly,
Then Take It Offline
After publicly promising a resolution, reach out to the customer via a private
Facebook message. This message should include a phone number or email
address where they can contact customer service. With this method, you
publicly demonstrate that you care about customer service and take the next
step to solve the issue and create a happy customer.
One important part of a social media apology is to make sure as many users as
possible can see it. On Facebook only people who like your page will see an
apology from your brand that you write as a comment. To extend the reach of
your apology use a hashtag and like additional comments that users make on
the original comment.
Once you and the customer have found a satisfactory resolution, write a post
on their Facebook wall thanking them for their input. This shows that you
appreciate customer input while bringing recognition to the fact that you took
their feedback to heart and resolved their issue.
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2
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15. Keep Issues Visible
It can seem like negative reviews will damage your brand. But, on a Facebook page,
where numerous comments are visible, a page that only has positive comments looks
unrealistic. Furthermore, you run the risk of increasing the anger of an already
disgruntled customer if you delete their comment. Instead, look at this as a PR
opportunity. When you apologize to a customer’s comment on Facebook you’re likely
addressing people who are already loyal customers and, therefore, you must show you
care to maintain their loyalty. This is your chance to change the tone of the
conversation to something that favors your brand. If you ignore it, you’re only letting the
anger grow.
15
ChapStick angered a large
group of their customer
base after they deleted
many Facebook
comments on their page
complaining about an
offensive ad. Their
customers were already
upset about the ad, and
this action only made a
bad situation worse.

16. Social Media Apologies
for Review Sites

17. 17
Keep It Positive
Star ratings can be misleading. Statistics show that almost three quarters of one star ratings
contain positive comments. When you’re apologizing for a negative experience on review
sites, be sure to call out the positive aspects of the negative review. Now, when a user sees
your apology, they also see that there were positive aspects to the customer experience.
This tactic demonstrates the strengths of your business, turning a negative into a positive.
Review Sites
Social media intelligence
will help you find and
respond to the positive
comments in a negative
review. This review, while
only one star, contains
complimentary information
about the hotel. This is a
great opportunity to make
the positives shine while
going into recovery mode
for the remainder of the
review.

18. Face The Negatives
Head On
18
After you highlight the positives, make
sure you acknowledge the negatives.
Stress that this is an atypical
experience at your location. Since
engagement isn’t as seamless on
reviews sites as it is on social media
sites, you should have already
researched the root of the issue
before commenting. Tell the customer
you know where the problem came
from and what you’ll do to resolve it.
Keep in mind, when you respond to
negative comments on review sites
that helps to increase your ranking.
If you suspect that a
review is false or if the
information mentioned is
blatantly false, you can
try to contact review sites
and ask them to remove
the false review.
Review Sites

19. Don’t Be ‘Defensive Guy’
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This example is exactly what
NOT to do. The restaurant
owner is offensive to the
customer and likely has
offended countless others as
a result. The restaurant owner
should have apologized and
vowed to work with his staff.
Additionally, the owner
missed the opportunity to
thank them for the positive
compliment about the food.
The owner should have
thanked them and
acknowledged that there is
always room for improvement
when it comes to service.
Review Sites

20. Apologies
Make a Difference:
Examples of
Social Media Apologies

21. 21
Garces Restaurant Group reached out to her to
apologize for her negative experience and uncover what
was driving it. After this conversation, the operations
team at Tinto discovered that they were preparing the
red Sangria incorrectly. With this apology Garces was
able to catch and correct a recipe error, ultimately a win
for the guest and for Garces. Furthermore, the guest was
extremely happy that someone responded to her, and,
with that, another loyal guest was created.
Turning Yuck To Yum
Garces Restaurant Group, located in Philadelphia,
used social media intelligence to uncover an error in
preparation. They had a guest who had previously
dined at their Amada location and loved the red
Sangria. However, her experience at their other
property, Tinto, with the same drink, was less than
satisfactory. The guest mentioned on an online review
site that they didn’t care for the red Sangria and that
they preferred the one at Amada.

22. Make No Apologies, Keep No Customers
22
On the 12th anniversary of September 11th,
Esquire Magazine made a noticeable mistake
of placing the infamous “Falling Man” image
next to a headline about making your morning
commute more stylish. Needless to say, this
received a very negative reaction from social
media. Although this was likely just a glitch on
their website Esquire made this apology.
With this response Esquire was likely trying to follow its brand image of a hip,
snarky tone that is normally present in its tweets. However, the tone of the
apology was not well received, to say the least. Viewers took the apology as
condescending and completely insincere. This was especially bad when the
apology related to a topic that users have a reaction to that is incredibly
emotional. If Esquire had simply explained the technical glitch, with a genuine
apology, they could have moved on from this bad PR situation. Instead, they
added fuel to the fire an angered a significantly larger number of people and
made the situation last longer than it needed to.

23. 23
JCPenney Makes a Social Media
Apology Tour
JCPenney lost a third of its customer in 2012 due to a failed
revamp. In an effort to win back customers, JCPenney publicly
admitted its wrong doing and used social media as a main venue
to apologize. JCPenney actively noted that they didn’t listen to
the desire of their customers and want to change.
They started with the hashtag #JCPListens. Now they are using
social media to stay in constant communication with
customers to demonstrate that they are listening and ask
customers what they want to see in store. They are making
these efforts across a variety of social sites, and customers are
voicing their appreciation that they’re being heard.
JCPenney asked fans with Facebook polls what their
favorite brands were, many of which were cut in the
revamp. Once they determined that St. John’s Bay was
most popular they took action and brought the brand
back in store.

24. Key Takeaways

25. 25
Universal Rules For Social Media Apologies
1. Authenticity is the golden rule of apologies both online
and offline. Be genuine in what you say and don’t give
a cookie cutter apology.
2. Resolve the issues brought to your attention by the
customer. Don’t just say you’ll fix it, actually do it.
3. Give the person who left the review something to look
forward to for the next time they visit you. Get their
contact information and send them a personal
message.
4. Encourage your team to learn from customers, fix
problems quickly, and ask for more online reviews.

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newBrandAnalytics offers free trials of
our Social Intelligence solutions,
allowing you to monitor your online
reputation and engage directly with
your customers. Start reaping the
benefits of a proven social
engagement strategy today.
www.newBrandAnalytics.com/freetrial