ISOs and agents should provide meaningful information instead of aggressive sales pitches when using social media – such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter – to communicate with customers, experts agree.
“Smart brands recognize they are part of a river of conversation,” said Andrew Nelson, a spokesperson for New Orleans-based Peter A. Mayer Advertising.
But holding up your end of that theoretical conversation can pose a challenge.
In a typical week, First Data Corp., for example, uses its Facebook and Twitter accounts to share industry news. A recent typical week’s discussion ranged from how grocery-store purchases are still slumping to tips for avoiding phishing scams.
“We’d like to see more conversation between our customers and our subject-matter experts, and we anticipate we’ll see more of that as the programs mature,” First Data spokesperson Glen Turpin said.
Stephanie Clements, CEO of Louisville, Ky.-based Veritas Merchant Services LLC, said she also strives to offer access to information about industry trends and upcoming educational seminars through Facebook and LinkedIn. “We will post different security tips or talk about whatever the hot topic is,” she said.
According to Nelson, three pitfalls can destroy a company’s social-media credibility: inappropriate messages, not listening and ignoring social media altogether.
As an example of inappropriate messages, Nelson pointed to shoemaker Kenneth Cole’s tweets that suggested excitement over the company’s new line of shoes fueled the Egyptian uprising this spring. “It provoked an enormous hostile reaction,”he said.
While avoiding the taboo of bragging about the company, some firms become too quiet online and ignore customer complaints voiced through social media. Experts say few things torpedo a company’s reputation faster than a viral campaign complaining about a product or service.
The best practice many companies use is to monitor so-called “hash tags” and actively monitor search engines, such as SocialMention and WhosTalkin, to see what consumers are saying. Hash tags are used on Twitter to organize keywords. Twitter users can identify the important elements of their posts by putting the # sign in front of the key parts. For example, a post could have #CreditCards as a hash tag.
When customers complain, smart companies step in with customer-service intervention. But perhaps the worst thing a company can do is ignore the social-media space altogether, Nelson said.
He pointed to London-based BP PLC’s lack of social communication following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. For weeks after the spill, BP’s Twitter feed carried descriptions of food in the company’s cafeteria instead of information about the disaster, Nelson said. “By the time it woke up, there were dozens of mock BP Twitter sites slamming the company.”
