In this post, I’m continuing on with the Steps to Social Media Success. Last week’s post focused on what comments you should respond to, and this week we’ll turn our attention to who will be responding to consumer comments.
As you’ve likely experienced as you’ve been monitoring your company’s social media channels, Consumer Affairs is not the only department that’s involved in social media. If you have a company Facebook or Twitter page, more than likely your marketing department is in charge of it. Social media is widely used as a marketing tool, so it’s not surprising that marketing will be involved – their responsibility is to continue to attract new customers. However, social media marketing is nothing like traditional media marketing such as TV commercials and print ads. Consumers are now able to interact with your brand versus your message being pushed at them. And that’s where you come in.
It is the responsibility of Consumer Affairs to take care of the consumer and respond to their questions and comments. You have been their link to the company for decades, and this new communication method will be no different. It needs to be your responsibility to answer questions and take care of issues that are brought up via social media. You already have the agents experienced in talking to consumers, and the responses to their questions and issues.
Communication, cooperation, and clearly defined rules of engagement are key when you’re responding to a social media comment because there may be several people from your company involved. Some of the questions posed by consumers are going to be ones where you might need marketing or PR to provide you with an answer. Consumer Affairs is trained to handle all types of communication, which makes this department the most natural choice for responding to social media comments.
Next week: Finishing up the steps to social media success with Step 4 – Responding and capturing your social media conversation
If you’re already responding to consumers, feel free to share your learnings in the comment section!
