Permission is the Enemy of Speed

pbehnia AND, what is "knowing Social Media?" Is it knowing how to use Twitter, FB & Hootesuite? They are just TOOLS. The knowledge to make Social Media successful is: Marketing, Sales 101, Customer Service & PR. I could teach you the tools in a couple of days. All of them. It takes years of experience and education to know how to make them work for you.

pbehnia I used to hire lots of web designers when I owned a digital marketing agency. We always hired people that had core design education (BFA from a university, usually), who could sketch and draw and knew design theory. Consistently turned out to be better and more thoughtful designers than the speciality school designers that basically knew how to make Photoshop do magic tricks. The same is true in social media today.

maddiegrant True, but inexperienced means needing to ask permission or get a question answered by someone else in the firm. That's not a pejorative, it's just reality.

JayBaermaddiegrant I agree. Young does NOT mean anything negative, but it does mean lack of experience. I know that as a young, college educated, 'mature for my age' worker I definitely could not have handled difficult PR issues the way I can now. Experience matters, especially in these issues.Obviously every individual is different... but experience and decision making ability (power) are important to keep pace with Soc. Media.

maddiegrant Very, very fair point. There's a stigma to the word, but I think that has more to do with how many small businesses tend to approach it (or really cheap out on it). Someone who hires someone like you is already taking their attempt seriously. In this case I think we are talking about that breed of local business owner who is looking to hire his cousins kid... you know, the weird twenty year old who likes to play with the magnifying lens but is a wiz with that computer thing and gets the facebookings and twitters. They don't want social to be a company priority, they want it to go away and therefore offload it to the lowest common denominator.

MSchechter I agree that that is what we're talking about. But I think it's a cliche, not to say a myth (and of course I have heard of people actually doing that) - and I feel like we need to change this conversation and treat it from a different angle. Such as, for example, this excellent post by CV Harquail - http://www.socialbusinessnews.com/too-many-wrong-messages-on-social-media-try-leadership-not-control/.

I also think it's dangerous to perpetuate the idea that social media management needs all these strategic cooks in the kitchen, and no dishwashers. The daily work of social media is NOT strategic, it's tactical. It's about implementing the strategy. I know several orgs who hire at the director level only to find themselves stuck with expensive hires who refuse (eventually) to do any of the tedious grunt work.

maddiegrant Depends on where you are sitting. From the sessions I'm often in, it isn't the cliché, its the assumed best practice. They often come in asking exactly how much to hire the teenager to do this. I want to take a second and be clear here, I'm not speaking in hyperbole, that is a direct question I've faced multiple times.

I also 100% agree on the strategy side, although I think smaller businesses almost always benefit by getting that help at the onset to help create the plan. In the long run, a good grunt is going to get you a hell of a lot farther than a high paid director, especially if they are working from a sound strategy from the onset.

Off to check out that link! Thanks Maddie.

MSchechtermaddiegrant I have to say that my experience, which is primarily with small business, is like MSchechter s. IF the company has already hired you maddiegrant , then they are away that Soc. Media is a VITAL part of their marketing AND customer service. I'm not advocating AGAINST interns or inexperienced employees being ON the Social Media team, I'm against them BEING the Social Media team.

AmyMccTobin agreed :)

maddiegrant Agreed. I like what MSchechter says below in that if a company has you on board, they are already the 1%. Look at it from a 1-10 scale of experience and expertise. If you are a 10, and the super interns are a 3, the average is 6.5. That's perfectly okay for most social media tasks. But the vast majority of companies are putting threes on the front line, with no 10 holding the rudder. That slows response time, and creates the potential (not a certainly, but the potential) for negative outcomes. All of this is risk tolerance vs. expenditure at some level. That's what I'm trying to point out.

Chris_Eh_Young LIKE LIKE LIKE!

Chris_Eh_Young I concur on the notion of hiring for something other than social media skills, which breeds short-term, tactics-only thinking. Great comment Chris. Thank you.

mthompson55 Excellent point. You don't have to always answer the question immediately, just make sure that people know they've been heard. I appreciate you underscoring that reality, as I glossed over it too much in the post.

JayBaermthompson55 No worries. Love the post.

SteveSanders24 No question about it. I'll be writing a post next week on that subject.

aeklund Good to hear from you Andrew. Doing great. Thanks for the smart comment. What's new with you?

kathysacks Really good point Kathy about having your front line people (Joe in your case) having a line in the water to the executive level. Harder to do in truly large organizations, but there's no question in my mind that community management and duties of that nature are easier and better done if you can see the forest through the trees.

DannyBrown If you need to ask permission to reply to any comment on Social Media then I think you should avoid the space. I have Financial Consultants, Attorneys, and just plain Control Freaks I've advised to avoid it. You can't bend Social Media expectations to fit your model. And as much as you may want to change your audience's expectations of speedy customer service, you WON'T. What I love about Jay's post is that he is 150% correct about the importance of WHO should be managing your Social Media voice.

AmyMccTobin Not necessarily, Amy. Think of any celebrity faux pas where they're offered a comment or opinion and it's blown back at them. Ashton Kutcher and the sex scandal at the college, for example. Just because you can use speed doesn't mean you should.

Additionally, if I'm quick to accept blame as a company for something, and then find out it's user negligence, the impact of the blame acceptance could have made major damage to my financials or brand.

There's more to consider than "social is fast, you should be too".

DannyBrown Danny - Ashton Kutcher's wasn't about Speed at all, but about Ignorance. He was actually LATE to the game in tweeting about Paterno's firing by Sports Addict's standards. Anyone following sports avidly knew JoPa's firing was possibly coming and knew what it was connected to as soon as they heard he was gone.

AmyMccTobin "Speed" as in "without thinking". If you don't measure what you're going to say, you create more problems.

DannyBrown I don't think "Speed" = "Not Thinking" If the right person is there they can make the decision FASTER. No permission needed from the higher up.

AmyMccTobin DannyBrown

1) Just because you may want to consider your answer, doesn't mean you shouldn't use it. We consider our response all the time as each situation is somewhat unique.
2) They are not control freaks, they have restrictions that need considering.
3) You absolutely can bend social media to fit. That's why we seek out the networks and tactics that work best. You cant break it to you, but you can certainly bend it to your needs and the needs of your customers.
4) I'm not looking to change my customers expectations of speedy service, I'm looking to change their expectations of good service and good service isn't always speedy.

The reason you wan't a good person and not an intern isn't necessarily only faster service. It's having someone with the good sense to know when to answer and when to consider. I'm damn empowered in what I say on behalf of our company and how much I can spend to fix a problem, but there are often moments where I stop, think and perhaps even ask someone what possible repercussions could be from an answer.

There are too many people looking to slam brands left and right for them to always give the first answer that comes into their mind to meet some imaginary ideal response time. This is why there is one skill that needs to be above all others in whoever you have on your front lines. Common sense.

MSchechterDannyBrown Michael, I'm not disagreeing with you, or rather, my point isn't simply about SPEED, it's about putting the right person in charge so that speed is inherent in your Social Media response time... AND, so that you don't have a PR disaster.I do not agree that you will be able to change the masses expectations of faster, better service. And I'm not advocating that you be "on" all the time... My point, and I think @JayBaer 's point is that by having the RIGHT people (i.e. not an intern or inexperienced person) in your Social Media team you WILL speed up response time.

AmyMccTobin DannyBrown There are two points here and that in mixing them it's become a more challenging conversation. The first is what is a reasonable response time and the second is who you put in charge of said that response. I don't think anyone is arguing the who portion. Where I think we disagree is in what the customer expectation is. I think they crave excellent service. Speed matters, but a satisfactory resolution will often forgive and outshine a quick response. I do not believe the average consumers expectation is measured in minutes when dealing with most businesses.

MSchechterDannyBrown You're right Michael - minutes is absurd. I THINK this timing conversation started regarding the Ragu issue and I believe (and I think mackcollier did too) that 15 hours to respond to bad PR is TOO long. And there HAS been debate on the WHO, although perhaps it wasn't with you two.... I am an advocate against inexperienced, young employees/interns being in charge of your Social Media Voice.

AmyMccTobin DannyBrown MackCollier

You know where I stand on Ragu, but I 100% agree on the who.

AmyMccTobinMSchechterDannyBrown Hey guys, I think Jay's main point was about empowering the people that are on the front lines to respond appropriately. That reduces the friction throughout the entire process dramatically.

Still, I don't think the speed of the response should be the top goal, it should be having the 'right' response as quickly as possible.

MackCollierMSchechterDannyBrown Well Amen to that: "I don't think the speed of the response should be the top goal, it should be having the 'right' response as quickly as possible." Speed is relative. Red tape, and by that I mean UNNECESSARY permission requirements, is the problem.

AmyMccTobin MackCollier MSchechter So, on a separate yet related note, can't help but notice it's been 14 hours and counting since "dissent" with Jay's approach, and no response from "the brand" (Jay). Gotta love irony...

DannyBrownMackCollierMSchechter Ha... not like Jay though.I know you disconnect sometimes Danny - who mans your stuff when you're doing that? I know my answer is NO ONE, so there could be a time when I didn't see a comment for 15 hours. But I'm a small, small biz.... different expectations for larger companies.

MSchechterAmyMccTobinDannyBrown It's not about speed of response, it's about speed of resolution. Not always the same thing. I agree that today, customer expectation isn't always minutes. But it will be. I firmly believe that.

MackCollierAmyMccTobinMSchechterDannyBrown Not only empowering those people Mack, but having seasoned enough employees that empowering them isn't a risk to the organization.

DannyBrownAmyMccTobinMackCollierMSchechter I know! Ironic indeed. Insane day yesterday that left me without Internet access for most of it, and unexpectedly staying the night in a hotel in rural Kentucky at 3am.

You're right that I have am faced with the same issues that companies and real "brands" must think through. To whit, process, choices, and tools.

On process, I have made a conscious decision to not write and publish in real-time. I write blog posts one or two weeks in advance, and have done so for years. I do not immediately jump into Wordpress when inspired, or when I find something I want to write about. My schedule is too packed to make that viable now. That's one of the reasons I don't do much "news" content here. I can't be that timely (and other people do it way better than I ever could). Thus, C&C is more of a magazine than a newspaper. At least that's how I think of it.

Because of my travel schedule, there are times (like yesterday) when I publish a post when I am unlikely to have Internet access for large portions of the day. This is of course not ideal, because it prohibits me from answering comments quickly. I suppose I could have someone else on my team handle comments, but per the original post I am not comfortable giving someone else "permission" to write comments on my behalf on a post I wrote. I'm not quite ready to go full Ashton! Typically, this approach has not been a huge issue. Of course on this post it does seem somewhat absurd, and I should have been smarter to recognize that yesterday was going to be crazy, and I should have posted it today.

(Part 2):

On choices, I spent the little amount of Internet access I had yesterday responding to client needs in real-time. I made the decision to address client issues instead of addressing blog comments. I suppose that is a distinct and specific choice I made and value system I applied.

On tools, something is jacked up with my LiveFyre settings lately, and I'm not getting ANY emails when comments are left here. This is of course a problem for the highly mobile blogger. It's a pathetic excuse, but I probably would have found a way to jump in here last night somehow if I'd seen all the comment emails. I need to find a minute to get that fixed, and the fact that I haven't found that minute lately is also a value judgement.

Your comment got me to recognize that while I had some extenuating circumstances in this particular instance, the reality is that I have CHOSEN to make blog comment answering less than my first priority. Just like a brand must do with balancing the demands of Twitter, Facebook, blog, reputation management in other places, and many other things.

I very much envy you and ginidietrich. and markwschaefer. (among many others) for the incredibly robust comment communities you have built on your blogs. I often wonder if I could build that level of community here if I placed additional emphasis on doing so. But then I think about what I'd have to do less of to make that happen, and I end up right back where we are today. Which is that I want interaction here. It makes me happy and it makes me better. But it's not the most important thing to me. I'm doing the best I can within that framework, and maybe I'll change that framework down the line.

Sincere thanks for making me think deeply about this issue.

To be continued.

JayBaer Anyone running a small business has to make these choices Jay, and I think our 'community/customers' will understand, even if it's only after explanation, if we're 'out of touch' for a 24 hour period.I think expectation is different for larger corporations, and that's why you get the Brand Bashing on Social Media. IF these situations are handled quickly and with grace they can become positives. I think our real debate is "What is Timely?"

AmyMccTobin What makes it hard is that "timely" and "satisfactory" and related issues vary based on the expectations of the plaintiff, not the defendant. If we had codified expectations for what is viable on Twitter, blogs, etc. this would be a lot easier for brands (and even me). But we don't yet. The cake is still being baked. We have those for the most part in legacy communication modalities. 30 minutes on hold is irksome, but acceptable. 24 hour response time via email, etc. We just haven't decided as customers - not businesspeople - what is right in social media (yet). And it will be the customers that make that call, not the companies.

AmyMccTobinMackCollierMSchechter No-one. The whole point of disconnecting is to disconnect and be with my family. But then I'm not a business. ;-)

JayBaerMSchechterAmyMccTobin "Speed of resolution" - *now* we're talking. ;-)