Week 2 Part A

Businesses these days have opportunities to advertise and interact with customers like never before. Social media has made it easy to communicate and problem solve with clients and future customers by using platforms like Twitter and Instagram. For more independent brands Etsy is a huge player, though I'm unsure if I would call it a social media platform. Social media makes brands easier to access; in the past one would have to either send a letter, email, or make a phone call to communicate with a brand (at least in my experience). For younger customers or for people too intimidated to either call or make a formal email it was hard to ask businesses simple questions! I remember being in elementary school, dying to ask American Girl a question about their products, and writing a very silly letter that today could have been answered by an intern via Twitter. There was nothing wrong about sending snail mail but it's so much quicker to send a direct message or tweet. 


When I review things on Yelp, Etsy, eBay, Depop, etc., I tend to keep it short and sweet for bigger sellers and be more thorough for smaller businesses. When I look into a small restaurant or small brand I like reading longer and honest reviews because I'm more hesitant to take a chance on newer or smaller brand as there's less information available about them. For example, I recently bought clothes from a brand new sustainable brand that only had about 3,000 followers on Instagram. It's just one girl creating a small collection of cotton gauze clothes! It currently has very, very few pictures that aren't official product images, making it harder for someone who might be of a different body type than the models to see how the clothes might fit. There also aren't many reviews to let me know whether or not the clothes are comfortable and worth the high price (I acknowledge and respect the complexities of how independent brands price things - a different story for a different time). Now that I have these products I'll definitely be leaving a review to let others know my experience with this small brand, hopefully encouraging others to buy from her and encourage sustainable shopping. 

When it comes to being on the other side of things, I know the importance of customers leaving good reviews. I've sold on Etsy, eBay, and Depop over the last few years and I always get a little nervous when someone leaves a review. Generally they've been positive and never truly negative. I always go out of my way to address any issues as politely and timely as possible. I've seen some people respond very personally to negative reviews and it's always impossible to read - too much secondhand embarrassment. If someone were to leave me a scathing review I would apologize and acknowledge the issue in a way that doesn't seem to brush off the issue. If something ends up going wrong and they said my brand was terrible, I would ideally hope that they would add something like, "but at least they were good about the return", you know?  



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