You end up wearing a lot of hats in social media, which can range from content curator to community manager. As deep into the creative side of the coin as you may be, there are often times where you’ll be face to face (well…screen to screen) with an online community.
Here are some lessons I’ve taken from the experience.
1. Expect the unexpected
You never know what a new day will bring when you work in any form of tech. Glitches, crashes, bugs, payment errors – the list goes on.
I’ve dismantled situations involving everything from angry AT&T customers to angry Miley Cyrus fans. Throw in a few more issues with offerwall partners, server outages and a social media contest where an ineligible winner was announced because a coworker managed to choose someone who hadn’t actually entered. I’ve seen some things.
2. It’s a 24/7 gig
When I worked at Beats Music on the community team, I had Mondays off instead of Saturdays. That’s because our team was scattered by day and hour in a way that ensured someone was manning our social media channels from 7 AM to 11 PM.
When I worked at Talenthouse, we had a London-based community manager as well who answered questions from our community on UK and European time (no amount of Adderall and Red Bull would make me capable of that). As Hubspot reports, 72% of people who complain on Twitter expect a response within an hour. 60% of respondents cited negative consequences to the brand if they didn’t receive timely Twitter responses.
On the flip side, if a customer receives great service via social media, they will spend 21% more. 71% of consumers who’ve had a good social media service experience with a brand are likely to recommend it to others.
In a crisis or anything resembling one, be prepared to give updates as you obtain information. This may involve liasing with a PR or engineering team depending on the size and type of company you’re working for.
3. Always be transparent
Always tell the truth. Your audience will appreciate it, even if it’s not the news they want to hear. If you’re lying, delivering inconsistent messages, or uploading and deleting posts, they will catch onto it and you will lose their trust.
Thanks to my time at Covet Fashion, I know that trust is incredibly hard to gain back once lost. And don’t feel obligated to say anything if you’re unsure!
4. Sometimes the bad is low key good
As nerve-wracking as it can be to have twenty angry tweets coming your way every minute, when you step back and get some perspective you may realize that it’s not actually that bad of a thing. Let Leslie Knope of Parks and Recreation explain.
“What I hear when I’m being yelled at is people caring loudly at me.”
At Beats Music, I once had a Twitter conversation with a would-be user who was very upset the app wasn’t available yet in Canada. I also had a guy who was upset he couldn’t get it in Puerto Rico, because it is technically part of the US.
At Covet Fashion, users would frequently get so angry when the game was down that they’d hurl obscenities via our Facebook wall.
But in the end, what I realized is that these were people who were actually huge fans of our product and were frustrated that they were not able to access it at the time. And though it was disguised as a temporary thorn in my side, it was actually quite an endorsement. I don’t think many people experience that love-it-so-much-you-can’t-stand-it feeling aside from U2 in “With Or Without You.”
Grain of salt, right?
Leave a Reply