Social media doesn’t close at 5pm. Or take weekends off. Or go on vacation.
I’ve been watching today’s very successful Labor Day-only Chick-Fil-A promotion. If you wear any sort of sports team shirt or hat to a Chick-Fil-A today, you get a free sandwich, driving awareness of the company’s Chicken Wave fan group and contest.
“Chick-Fil-A” has been a trending topic on Twitter all day, and tweets about the promotion are rolling in at ~60 per minute.
Of course, Chick-Fil-A planned this promotion for Labor Day. I suppose you could argue the merits of that decision either way, but the fact that a LOT of people are talking about the same thing on a national holiday is the key takeaway here.
You Won’t Know What Hit You
Is your office open on Labor Day? Is your marketing team monitoring Twitter while away at the lake? Is your agency watching your Facebook fan page while camping?
Sure, your fans could be advocating vociferously for your brand while you’re offline. Or, a disgruntled customer could be brand-jacking you with a YouTube video while you’re covered in sunscreen.
Will today be the day that a social media crisis erupts for your brand? I doubt it. But what if it is? One of the hallmarks of a crisis is that you didn’t see it coming. And “the fog of social media” is getting steadily thicker.
Nights & Weekends?
If your company doesn’t generate a lot of social media chatter, perhaps this isn’t an issue yet. But, if you’re any sort of known consumer brand, or restaurant, or tourist attraction, is it time to consider assigning social media monitoring tasks on nights and weekends?
Google Alerts seems to be getting slower and less relevant, so that’s not the answer. As Twitter is the de facto real-time search engine (although I’d ultimately bet on Facebook), being able to monitor AND react to Twitter brush fires is critical, and it’s not a 9-5 gig.
Just as companies have increasingly moved to round-the-clock customer service call centers, perhaps one or two of those folks should be drafted to spy on Twitter during their shifts? Incidentally, this creates yet another tie between marketing and customer service, which is an increasingly important linkage as customer support and satisfaction impact brand perception more directly than ever before – thanks to social media.
Agencies Take Note
If you work for a public relations firm, interactive agency, or any other sort of marketing company, this question about who is watching social media when the lights are out is even more critical.
If you’re being paid to monitor social media on behalf of your clients, using Radian6 or Collective Intellect or Spiral 16 or some other system, how are you going to explain it when a crisis started brewing on the weekend, or while your team was sleeping?
Should agencies hire one person to monitor on weeknights, and another person to monitor weekends? Should agencies band together and form a collective to rotate and share off-hours monitoring responsibilities, like on-call physicians?
What do you think?
Excellent point! Monitoring the conversation (even when the lights are off in the office) is one step at cutting through the social media fog. And it is not just the crisis that one needs to be prepared to address. You bring up the Labor Day promotion. Monitoring is also a great way to gauge return! Thank you for including us in your list of monitoring tools.
Lauren Vargas
Community Manager at Radian6
@VargasL
.-= Lauren Vargas´s last blog ..March of Dimes® Selects Radian6 for Social Media Monitoring =-.
Lauren – Thanks for the comment. Great point on gauging the positive, not just the crisis. Do you and the Radian6 crew have any insight into content creation on nights and weekends versus weekdays? Would love to see a follow-up guest post from you guys on that.
Not sure if we have that info off-hand, but I am looking into it right now. Agree that would be a great topic for follow-up post. Thank you!
.-= Lauren Vargas´s last blog ..March of Dimes® Selects Radian6 for Social Media Monitoring =-.
Booyah! Right on, Jay.
Now that ‘online reputation management’ is becoming a necessary (and overdue) service offered by savvy PR firms, guess what, companies (and said firms) need to understand that this is indeed a 24/7/365 endeavor.
People don’t stop talking about you after 5pm. The weekend isn’t a conversational black hole. Social monitoring and online reputation management require that someone always be listening. As a matter of fact, to echo the old sales expression: “Always be closing,” this field’s mantra should be “always be listening.”
And that’s just the beginning: The listening part. Part two is responding. Even with the best monitoring in the world, just knowing that a crisis is looming isn’t enough. You have to respond as well, and fast.
Does your PR/monitoring firm have a plan? Are they empowered to respond for you? Are you prepared to respond in Social Media? Do you know how? Have you been trained, drilled and tested? Or… are you going to try to wing it?
Incidentally, asking them and getting a “yes” isn’t enough. Make your PR partner SHOW you what their plan is. (This plan that they somehow crafted without you. Ahem.)
The thing about responding to problems online, and particularly in the social space, is that you rarely have 24 hours to craft a response. You have less than an hour, if that. So you a) have to know what you’re doing, and b) have a plan. You don’t want to find yourself in a situation in which you don’t know who has the authority to respond, what the response should sound like, and how to manage the ensuing dialogue. This is stuff you have to figure out before a social media crisis turns into a black eye.
A lot of things to think about as you learn the ropes of online reputation management: Presence is the first. Response is the second. Having neither is pretty bad. Having only one of the two isn’t much better.
Thanks for shining a light on this topic, Jay.
.-= olivier blanchard´s last blog ..Why R.O.I. Best Practices for Social Media might just save the world as you know it. =-.
Olivier – Great comment, thank you. Looking forward to interviewing you for Twitter 20 on September 17. Meanwhile, I totally agree about crisis management. The other big wrinkle is that social media crisis requires responding at the flashpoint. If it breaks on Youtube, you have to respond on Youtube. That brings to bear a whole issue of on-the-fly content creation that is inside the comfort level of most PR firms today – even clients.
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RT@StartupProRT @tweetmeme Who’s Watching Now? | Social Media Marketing | Social Media Consulting – Convince & Convert [link to post]
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Who is watching your Social Media back nights and weekends? Should agencies be on call like Doctors? [link to post]
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RT @tweetmeme Who’s Watching Now? | Social Media Marketing | Social Media Consulting – Convince & Convert [link to post]
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@jaybaer Brings up awesome point about company listening while lights are out today [link to post] BTW-we got a sandwich.
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Who’s Watching Now? | Social Media Marketing | Social Media … [link to post]
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Who’s Watching Now? | Social Media Marketing | Social Media …: Social Media Strategy Blog Social Media Con.. [link to post]
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~ Who’s Watching Now? | Social Media Marketing | Social Media … [link to post]
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RT @tweetmeme Who’s Watching Now?– Social Media [link to post]
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Interesting blog looking at how social media is impacting corporate reputations – ‘Who’s watching now?’: [link to post] -Tough one…
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Is your agency/consultant listening on the weekends? @jaybaer raises some very interesting questions: [link to post]
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Awesome point. It’s too easy to let things go on the weekends or at night but that’s exactly when a company should be vigilant. Hiring someone to monitor your brand is an excellent way to remain vigilant, while still having that much needed time off.
.-= Shelly Cone´s last blog ..Crime fighting with social media =-.
Hi Shelly, thanks as always for the comment. I agree that nights and weekends might be when social media crises are MORE likely to occur. I’m going to ask Lauren about that.
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@arikhanson The post brings up good questions but I wish there were high level solutions addressed. RE: Jay’s post: [link to post]
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@LenKendall I think the idea of a rotating sked has merit, don’t you? Billing-wise tho, this gets real expensive quickly for brands.
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@arikhanson Agreed. And outside of crisis management, I don’t see the point of this at all from an investment perspective.
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RT @arikhanson: Is your agency/consultant listening on the weekends? @jaybaer raises some very interesting questions: [link to post]
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RT @SparkySparkler: Interesting blog looking @ how social media is impacting corporate reputations – Who’s watching now? [link to post]
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Monitoring the conversation (even when the lights are off in the office) [link to post]
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Social media doesn’t sleep or go on vacation. Your customers watch even when the lights are out: [link to post]
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Social media doesn’t quit on weekends & holidays, so what does this mean for monitoring? (from @jaybaer) [link to post]
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@EstrellaBella10 professional social media is paced very much like a TV newsroom.. Short stories, along with working late hours & weekends.
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@digitalvision Good analogy. That’s especially true when a crisis strikes.
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Because social media doesn’t shut off. ‘Who’s Watching Now’: [link to post]
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Jay,
What may soon happen is social media monitoring will be outsourced to India. If social technographics have anything to say about it, this part of the globe is more participatory and more alert when it comes to social media prowess. Hmm…
.-= Tim Otis´s last blog ..@-Kissers of the Social Media Kind =-.
Tim – Interesting point. Outsourcing the basic elements of monitoring could in fact have some potential. Not sure you’d want to outsource sentiment scoring or crisis response, but for listening only – Hmmmm indeed.
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Who’s Watching Now? Social media doesn’t close at 5pm. Or take weekends off. Or go on vacation. [link to post]
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WHO VACATIONS ?~ RT @BethHarte: RT @jaybaer: Social media doesn’t take a vacation. Who’s watching your brand? [link to post]
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RT @sonnygill: RT @jaybaer: Social media doesn’t take a vacation. Who’s watching your brand? [link to post]
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RT @Hammarstrand: RT @JayBaer: Social media doesn’t take a vacation. Who’s watching your brand? [link to post] (via @BethHarte)
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Active social media presence? Read this: Who’s Watching Now? [link to post] (by @jaybaer, via Commentz)
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RT @jaybaer: Social media doesn’t take a vacation. Who’s watching your brand? [link to post]
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RT Nor do I @jaybaer: Social media doesn’t take a vacation. Who’s watching your brand? [link to post] (via @BethHarte)
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Social media doesn’t take a vacation. Who’s watching your brand? [link to post] (via @jaybaer)
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RT @JayBaer: Social media doesn’t take a vacation. Who’s watching your brand? [link to post] (via @BethHarte)
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RT @jaybaer Social media doesn’t take a vacation. Who’s watching your brand? [link to post]
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RT @BethHarte @jaybaer: Social media doesn’t take a vacation. Who’s watching your brand? [link to post] Once in it, a 24/7/365 job
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I don’t think agencies/co’s need to hire someone to monitor just on weekends, I think we have to understand the evolution of this space and be willing to go above and beyond in not only paying attention to what people are saying on the weekends/evenings/holidays, but taking that next step in communicating and taking action.
These are great reminders and something that those on the job hunt or in social media roles need to understand also – that our jobs are no longer 9-5, holidays included.
.-= Sonny Gill´s last blog ..Relationships and Trust in the Offline World =-.
Sonny – You and Eric need to team up! I’m not sure we have to staff it yet, but based on the trends, I don’t know that we’re that far away from needing to cover off hours.
Sure, it would be nice to have someone available to monitor our brand presence every second of every day. But, is that setting the bar for expectations too high? I just had a quality experience with my phone/ISP via Twitter and email and they had posted an “out of office” on their Twitter account which let me know that were going to be off over Labor Day. They then responded to to me first thing this morning, which I was completely ok as they set my expectations appropriately.
I guess my point is, are we expecting too much in terms of monitoring and customer service with social media? Pretty soon, if a brand doesn’t respond in a minute are they not “paying attention”?! I don’t know the answer, but I sure hope it doesn’t become a race to #FAIL!
.-= Eric Hoffman´s last blog ..10 Things I wish I’d done this Summer =-.
Eric -
Interesting. I like the out-of-office concept for Twitter customer service provision. Just like “live chat offline.” Not sure that’s going to stop anyone uploading their irate YouTube video, but it’s something. I’m not sure if we’re setting expectations too high or not, but I do know that speed kills in social media, and we’re going to have to adjust to that.
Customer service (and SM media) should never sleep. I’ve always marveled when hotels, hospitals, etc. only have reps on call M-F, 9-9 but the doors (or website) are open 24/7. Same true of SM; it’s often during the nights and weekends that people are out shopping, buying, visiting and chatting about your brand the most. Time to pay attention is always. BTW I wore my LSU shirt, got my free Chik-Fil-A.
.-= Davina K. Brewer´s last blog ..My Twitter Rules: I won’t tweet about lunch. =-.
Davina – Thanks so much for the comment. I agree that off-hours staffing is an issue. Some good ideas in the comments on how to do that potentially. Sadly, no Chick-Fil-A in my town anymore. Love those guys though!
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RT @BethHarte: RT @jaybaer: Social media doesn’t take a vacation. Who’s watching your brand? [link to post]
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RT @jaybaer Social media doesn’t take a vacation. Who’s watching your brand? [link to post] http://url4.eu/ObNW
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RT @spiral16: No vacation for social media. Chick-Fil-A’s Labor Day promotion: [link to post] (via @jaybaer)
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Social Media Doesn’t Close at 5PM [link to post] (Jay writes a good post for Biz to consider)
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@jaybaer “Social media doesn’t take a vacation” good read Jay, thanks
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Social media doesn’t take a vacation. Who’s watching your brand? [link to post] (via @jaybaer @sonnygill)
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RT @rosskimbarovsky: Social media doesn’t take a vacation. Who’s watching your brand? [link to post] (via @jaybaer @sonnygill)
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Social media doesn’t take a vacation. Who’s watching your brand? [link to post] (via @rosskimbarovsky @jaybaer @sonnygill)
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Does your company have an off-hours social media monitoring policy? http://twurl.nl/ykd6pu @amandala
With mobile technology being what it is, it’s already pretty easy for one to login to a web-based monitoring system on off hours and check on things. I guess it just comes down to however vigilant (and/or ambitious) your social media manager is!
Eric – Good point. Where’s the Spiral16 iphone app?
We do not comment on experimental projects!
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Who’s Watching Now? Social media doesn’t close at 5 pm. Or take weekends off. Or go on vacation. [link to post]
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RT @EstrellaBella10 SM doesn’t quit on weekends & holidays, so what does this mean for monitoring? from @jaybaer [link to post]
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Who’s Watching Now? – @jaybaer – [link to post] Do companies need to monitor social media 24/7?
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RT @jaybaer: While you’re sleeping, social media is awake. Who’s monitoring your brand during “off” hours? [link to post]
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