Monitoring & Engaging
Social media does not represent a 'set it and forget it' marketing platform. The benefit that these channels provide us with is the ability to engage with our customers. By having two-way conversations, we can develop positive relationships and even turn negative situations around.
However, unless we're monitoring interactions and managing our communities, potential opportunities can be missed whilst negativity can quickly get out of hand. What people say can be good or bad, but it's the way that we listen and engage with these social media posts that dictates how those opinions influence our online presence and brand sentiment.
Remember, just because you may not be active on a social channel, that doesn't mean that customers aren't using it to talk about you. You must monitor all social channels for mentions of your brand.
Hootsuite is an excellent tool for monitoring, engaging and managing your social presence across all channels.
Surprise & Delight
Often, users will write a complaint or comment, click post and think nothing more of it. They rarely make the connection that a real-life person is listening. By monitoring, some fantastic opportunities can be leveraged to surprise and delight our customers.
Imagine you see a post of Alosra Janabiya from a follower called @foodmonster_bh on Instagram saying "I love @AlosraSupermarket's new nut butter bar! I just wish they had an organic option." You could just leave that post thinking "Ah that's nice and positive, nothing for me to do here". Their comment gets seen by 20 of their friends and that's that.
Now, imagine you are proactive. You speak to the team and find out that you can offer an organic choice for 500fils more. You get one of the guys at Alosra to pick up a bag of organic almonds and churn out a jar of organic almond butter. You take a photo of the jar with the bag of almonds in the background. You post it on Instagram, tagging the original customer with something along the lines of "Hey @foodmonster_bh, your wish is our command. We've got a fresh jar of crunchy almond butter made with @Davert organic almonds ready for you! Send us a direct message with your address and we'll deliver it to your door!"
Once you get @foodmonster_bh's address, you deliver it and give it to them free of charge. In an ideal world, you'd get a picture of the delivery taking place so that you can post this too.
Not only will @foodmonster_bh be delighted but you'll have raised awareness of the nut butter service, the delivery service and Alosra's ability to provide fantastic customer service to all of your followers. Of course, @foodmonster_bh is unlikely to keep this to themselves, telling people on social media, who will in turn tell their friends.
By being proactive, you'll have created positive and authentic content and connections - all through listening and reacting and putting the customer at the centre of your decisions.
There is value in negativity
No advantage is gained by censoring social media. Brands that delete negative comments run the risk of turning consumers off or worse, escalating a situation. Users interpret the removal of negative comments as fear-based attempts to hide shortcomings in customer experience. In reality, this interpretation is correct. At the end of the day, if you have the resources available and have considered how to approach negativity, you can use these opportunities to show your wider community that you take their concerns seriously.
In 99% of cases, we do not delete negative comments. However, some posts do warrant removal if they:
- Are political in nature
- Use profanity
- Single out individuals
You must ensure that you have a 'page usage policy' clearly published either on the social channel itself or easily accessible on your website before taking action. There are plenty of examples online that can be used as a framework however, do pass these over to the legal department for them to check over before publishing.
As an organisation aiming to "win the hearts and minds of our customers by providing exceptional service", we take this customer service very seriously. If you don't have the resources available to manage the communities you are aiming to develop, you must seriously consider either shutting down existing social channels or, ideally, appropriately investing to ensure you do.