“Things can go viral in seconds online. Companies that aren’t upfront about accidents or incidents that show up on social media can find it comes back to haunt them” she said. “The big thing with social media is video, and you can’t deny that an oil spill is dangerous and then have videos of dead birds posted on a blog. That would really catch you out.”
Leaders need to respond immediately, even if they don’t have all the answers, agreed David Alston, chief marketing officer of social media monitoring software company Radian6 Technologies Inc. in Fredericton, N.B.
“On social media, there is a growing expectation that you are listening and that you will respond and try to help them. Without that, the impression is you just don’t care,” he said. Individuals and companies alike need to acknowledge the comments and criticisms, and indicate that they will respond to the posting. “That doesn’t mean you have to answer their question off the cuff. You can still take time to think through your answer.”
When it comes to comments on blogs, you have about 24 hours to respond and stay credible, Mr. Alston said. “Obviously the sooner the better, because you want to have a comment early to be high up on the conversations trail, before a lot of people pile on and your message gets lost in the stack.”
On Twitter, the critical response time can be reduced to minutes because of its immediacy, he stressed. “Conversations tend to move on very quickly and if you want to be part of it, you want to be in on it,” he said.
“You could decide to ignore it and hope that it goes away, but Google and other Internet sites archive conversations and a critical post will keep coming up when people are doing a search about you. Literally, the whole world is watching.”
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ONLINE TIP SHEET
What to respond to
Mentions of your company as part of presentations or events
Compliments or criticisms of your product, service, or people
Recommendations of or referrals to your products and/or
services
Customer service/support issues or inquires
What you don’t need to respond to
Mentions without any positive or negative commentary
Sarcastic, snarky comments intended to inflame an issue
Retweets of postings you have already responded about
Discussions between individuals that refer to your company in passing but for which your involvement could be perceived as intrusive
Examples of effective Twitter responses
Thanks for the mention!
I’d be happy to talk to you more about this.
Feel free to pass along any feedback you have.
Let me introduce you to our support/training team. They’ll be in touch to help you out.
Source: Radian6 Social Media Playbook
