(24-Aug-11) It wasn't until a man diagnosed with measles ate at her New Jersey diner that Connie Correia Fisher, co-owner of The Pop Shop, discovered that the only thing that spreads faster than an infectious disease is bad news.
"We had every major TV station here. All the papers were here, and people were freaking out," said Fisher, who co-owns The Pop Shop with husband and professional actor Stink Fisher. But that's not all. Within no time, parents and restaurant regulars alike had taken to the Internet, voicing their health concerns on public platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
But while Fisher couldn't stop the television crews from hanging outside her six-year-old restaurant, she was able to "constantly beat back down" the fear-mongering flooding social media channels, thereby saving her company "thousands of dollars" in lost business. That's because Fisher subscribes to Sprout Social, a social media monitoring tool that, for $50 a month, helps her keep tabs on every single online conversation mentioning The Pop Shop.
Welcome to the world of social media where 140 characters can cause irreparable damage to your company's reputation -- and bottom line -- in seconds flat. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn -- each one is a digital grapevine, letting consumers air their grievances to millions with the single click of a mouse.