The Social Media Monster

Terrifying.

This may seem weird to those of you reading this blog, as I assume you are familiar with social media (how the devil else did you get here?), but some people are actually out and out afraid of social media.  They see it as some sort of horrendous million-mouthed beast that's going to turn around and bite them at any second and without warning.  Crucially, they fail to see that this brute will only become this horrifying creature if they don't tame it by engaging with it.

In its simplest form, social media is talking to people and you know how to talk to people, right?  Most of us will quite happily flap our gums at any given opportunity at any time, day or night.  People in customer service roles are usually more adept at this than most.  What we're finding with social media, however, is these people who have previously had no problem with interacting with their customers via the telephone, post, email or other forms of physical communication suddenly shrink back when you mention Facebook or Twitter.  These are evil, dreadful things that should not be touched or looked directly in the eye, lest they lose their temper and destroy you.  Heaven forbid you have to address your customers' concerns directly in real-time on a social network - they might ignore you and write nasty things about you on the internet!

Not pictured: reasonable customers.

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but no matter who you are - whether you're a cigarette manufacturer or a children's charity - people are already writing nasty things about you on the internet.  The propensity for a certain kind of person to baselessly complain has not disappeared by hiding them behind a keyboard, but has in fact intensified their vitriol as they have had the cloak of anonymity cast over them.  You are never going to escape these people, whether you are on social networking sites or not, but by not engaging with your customers on the web you are creating even more monsters by not addressing the complaints of your more reasonable customers.

Disclaimer: this is not a suggested social media strategy.

A negative customer experience can be easily turned into a positive one if your social media representative has any sort of social skills.  Ultimately, customers just want to be spoken to civilly, politely and by someone they feel sympathises with them and will solve their problem.  The excellent thing about doing this via social media that sets it so far beyond traditional mediums is that this good experience is viewable by anyone and everyone and, more often than not, a pacified customer will mention what good customer service they received from you.  This good word of mouth is then immediately passed on to their social graph, encouraging them to become future customers or to engage you with their own issues.

It could shock some of the fraidy-cat companies to learn that 78 percent of their customers trust peer recommendations over advertisements, which only 14 percent of people trust, and that  96 percent of Millenials (that's people born between mid 1970s - early 2000s to you and me) have set up at least one social networking profile.  That's 96 percent of over 50 percent of the population who are talking about you online without you being there to do anything about it.  Most of this 96 of 50 are not monsters - they are the same customers you've always had and are fairly rational, reasonable human beings - but the very nature of the internet means that whatever anyone says about you instantly spreads like a virus into their own social spectrum and often beyond.  Ignoring their complaints online is akin to not answering your complaints phone line or burning their letters - it's just inexcusable and will do nothing except lose you customers.

In closing, there is really nothing scary about social media unless you are scared of talking to your fellow human beings.  All basic, positive social media practice requires is for you to be able to empathise with your customers, verbalise yourself well and deal with complaints confidently and calmly.  That's it.  No fancy tricks, just treat them like real people and they will respond in kind.  You are always going to have people who will not be satisfied with any solution, but by using social media efficiently you limit their numbers and show them for what they are while creating gratifying experiences from unpleasant ones for your other customers.

Be not afraid of the beasties under the tweets!