With the 2010 election campaign being touted as the election when social media is really going to come to the fore, it was only a matter of time before some prospective parliamentary candidate made, for want of a better word, a twit of themselves on Twitter. Read more…
The above quote came from Kevin Eyers, MD of LinkedIn Europe, on the opening day of the Social Media World Forum at London’s Olympia.
Eyers also warned of an information overload – 76million emails are sent every day, and a quick search on the term “future of social media” provided him with 150million results in Google. How many people, he asked, would go beyond page one? But, importantly, he posed another question: “Just because it’s on page one, is it the right result for me? Or have they just got great SEO?” Read more…
Look before you tweet...
Social Media – everyone’s talking about it. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube make the headlines on a daily basis – for positive and negative reasons. The vast majority of businesses, organisations and community groups have Twitter feeds, Facebook fan pages, LinkedIn profiles or other forms of social media engagement.
However, social media strategy is still somewhat baffling for many businesses, big and small, and social media campaigns remain complex to analyse – the concept of achieving positive ROI from investment in social media is quite alien to many brand owners. The ‘now’ factor of social media is also something many businesses have yet to master – recently Vodafone were forced to apologise, profusely and repeatedly, after a homophobic tweet was sent on their official account by a member of their team.
As soon as it was spotted, the tweet was deleted, but not before it had been screengrabbed, retweeted and repeated across the internet. With social media, someone, somewhere, is always watching, and it’s impossible to cover something tweeted or blogged by mistake because the chances are, someone will have seen your errant message and, especially if it’s juicy, inappropriate or downright offensive, chances are, they’re going to repeat it.
The most important thing when using social media to interact with clients and potential clients is to take a moment to think. Like sending a drunken text message to an old flame, what seems like a good idea in the heat of the moment may not in fact be as fabulous/funny as you think. So before tweeting, pause a moment. Would you say what you’re about to say if your client was sitting in the office in front of you? Would you stand up and say it to a room full of people? And is it on brand with your company’s profile?
Of course, whoever is looking after your social media campaign is only human, and mistakes will happen. Whether it’s in the form of an innocuous typo or missing link, or tweeting to the wrong account if you manage more than one, or if it’s something a little more serious, such as a disgruntled employee, bad joke or hacked account, there’s only one thing you can do: acknowledge that the mistake has happened.
Trying to cover it up will, in the long run, have a more negative effect on your brand or business. If necessary, apologise. Like Vodafone, if the breach is serious enough, issue a short statement distancing yourself from the offensive message and reassuring your followers that the matter is being dealt with.
Vodafone were also subjects of a – slightly less reported – positive social media story last month, which showed how companies can use social media to interact with customers, investigate and help solve their problems. Popular Conservative blogger Iain Dale went straight to his blog to report his horror when he received a monthly mobile bill of £2,500 from Vodafone. The blog post was instantly tweeted and repeated to friends and followers of Iain on Facebook.
Iain’s tweet was spotted by Vodafone’s web relations team, who undertook a month long investigation and, after concluding that UberTwitter was the most likely culprit, Vodafone waved the charges – totaling £5,400 after the same thing happened for a second month. They even changed his tariff to a better deal, saving him more money. Result? One very satisfied customer, who promptly blogged, tweeted and Facebooked his gratitude.
Social media platforms enable you to interact with your clients like never before. Complaints, queries and praise can be handled in real time, and if the result is a positive outcome for your client, the chances are you’ll get some positive publicity across the social networks in return.
The key things to remember are to reply promptly to queries, offer to contact customers with problems directly to resolve them, to acknowledge any mistakes as soon as they are noticed and apologise if necessary, and above all, think before you tweet – and make sure your employees are doing the same.
Click the following link to read Iain Dale’s positive social media customer service experience.
Tweeting from work... for work, of course.
US troops are being allowed access to social networking sites including Twitter and Facebook, it was reported on Saturday. According to officials in the US Defence Department, the benefits of using social media far outweigh threats to security.
Like many companies and organisations, the US military are using social media for recruitment, public relations and communications between troops. Military personnel also use such sites to communicate with their families back home.
Until now, the military’s approach to using social networking sites had been inconsistent. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has a prolific following on Twitter, while the US Southern Command gave updates on relief work in Haiti through the microblogging site. But the US Army and Marine Corps banned access to Twitter, and other social networks.
Now it seems the Defence Department is embracing the positive benefits of social media. But the question faced by the department, like by many organisations across the world, is how to use social media effectively, how to take advantage of the possibilities provided by the technology, and how to avoid being taken advantage of.
Just a day before the BBC reported the US Defence Department’s decision, the Daily Telegraph carried a more negative social media story when it revealed that Greater Manchester Police officers had been accused of spending too much time on Twitter whilst on duty – Tweets on the beat were not entirely the PR friendly exercise it was hoped they would be.
During a crackdown on alcohol-fuelled violence, police officers were permitted to tweet their progress to keep the public up to date with their actions. More than 90 tweets were sent, but instead of being impressed, the police force’s followers thought that the tweets were too frequent, and commented that the officers should be more concerned in doing their job than updating their status.
Twitter has also been frowned upon by a number of local councils. Swansea Council banned tweeting during council meetings, followed closely by Salford Council, whose ban extended to journalists covering the events. Iain Lindley, a Conservative councillor for Salford, told ConservativeHome that he disagreed with the ban because Twitter “allowed residents to see democracy in action.” Further, he argued, the tweets brought “more transparency and openness” to local government.
The forthcoming General Election is going to be the first of the Social Media age. Barack Obama proved just how beneficial social networks could be to an election campaign during his run for president, and the battle lines have already been drawn by UK parties, who are embracing the likes of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in their campaigns – with varying degrees of success. (Remember Gordon Brown’s creepy smile when discussing MPs’ expenses, which got him all the wrong kind of publicity?)
Social media is something that must be used wisely and well to get the results you want for your business or organisation. I think David Wennergren, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Information Technology in the US, sums it up perfectly.
“We need to take advantage of the capabilities that are out there…” he told the BBC. “The idea is to be responsible and use [social media] to help get the job done.”
This is sound advice for any business, large or small. To find out how LexisClick can help with your social media strategy, contact us today.
Read the full BBC story.
The Daily Telegraph’s story about Greater Manchester Police.
And Iain Lindley’s comments on ConservativeHome here.
