In the campaigns and social media programmes I have run for clients there have been alot of barriers that have been raised to engaging or testing these areas. The majority of clients know they need to be there and want to be there but raise barriers to entry. However, I believe these barriers can be classified into two areas:
1) Risk
2) Time
1) Risk:
In my eyes and trying to think like a client, risk comes in many forms. The main risk that I hear everytime I talk about social media is – “what if we get negative comments and it spirals out of control”. Fortunately, mitigating against risk and “over-exposure” is all in how the program is set-up.
As a pessimistic man, I fortunately plan for the worst when it comes to this sort of thing and therefore we have found a working template of how to make sure comments don’t spiral out of control, it also enables us to work as the bridge between the PR, Legal and Marketing teams. (Something essential for social media success) This pessamism has allowed us to develop great tools that anyone can use to moderate comments, understand how to respond, know what the point of view is, and know what tone of voice to use. It also pays to categorise any commentary to give an understanding of which to respond to and which to ignore.
A simple rating system of 1 to 3* ratings for positive, neutral and negative comments, enables anyone engaging within the social media programme to understand how to avoid risk. It also pays to have the right people on hand, trained and engaged in social media. This should be the Head of PR, a plethora of people within Customer Services (who actively go out and find negative or positive commentary), and of course those engaged in the advertising of the brand. Again to repeat myself, taking the time to plan this all ahead of schedule will enable best practice social media programmes.
Other risks I have heard or tried to respond to are:
- what if we announce something but it is too early and our strategy changes? – I don’t see any problem with this as long as you are open to exposing yourself to the commentary and discussing why things have changed.
- what if we say the wrong thing? - Again, proper planning alleviates saying the wrong thing. You wouldn’t say this in your marketing campaigns or in your PR releases, so you shouldn’t do this in your social campaigns. Knee-jerk reactions simply should not happen and you should aim to remove anyone who appears prone to this from your social media teams.
- how do we know what to say? – This comes down to the clever use of social media tools. The insights that this brings from a strategic perspective can be golddust and should be used prior to all entries into social media. Plan around these insights as they can help improve business, PR, Marketing, product strategies.
2) Time
“There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing” A common complaint from clients is that social media takes alot of time. Tied into this is also the notion that you cannot see results immediately. I disagree on the latter but agree with the former.
Social media is effectively a 24hour commitment to engage with consumers. Its not something that can be turned off and if brands want to turn it off, they really shouldn’t be engaging in the channel in the first place. We actually have people that could work “24hours” if we wanted them to, but as yet we haven’t seen the need. Consumers expect full attention during work hours, but also understand that during evening hours they may not always get a reply.
With regards to the immediate results? Immediate results can be seen through real-time search, but actual immediate effect on the business is likely to much longer-term. Building a community around your brands and products isn’t something that will happen overnight, so its best to plan alot of time into your social media schedule.
In reality, these are the only two barriers I believe we need to overcome to convince clients to try social media. The costs are low and therefore this shouldn’t be prohibitive. It really does come down to how we plan and mitigate against risk upfront, plus its about making sure that we allocate the right amount of time internally and externally to the programme.
If you want more information about moderation and planning against risk, just drop a note into the forum.
