I placed an order with a well known computer company and thought it was taking a tad long to ship. I found them on Twitter, followed them and sent them a very polite “@” message. Something along the line of “Excited about getting my new computer, 2 wks now with no update, can you help?” No response and the bastards never followed me back. Not very sociable and it started our relationship off on a bad note.
PS Their Twitter account is supposedly there to act as a customer service arm for the company.
It made me really think about how brands are being diminished each and every day simply because of a lack of sociability in a (get this) Social Media venue. Kind of makes for an emphatic cry of “Irony” but lets stay on topic.
How about the people who have 16,000 followers and are only following back 300? There’s actually an author of a well known Social Networking book who is one of the many who make this mistake. I understand not following back all those “teeth whitening” hucksters and pornstars, but think about the message you’re sending to the rest of us.
I’ve seen, have experienced and have been guilty of not responding to an @ message. Yep, kind of makes me that dude living in the proverbial “glass house. Things happen, we’re all busy, but what about the chronic abusers of this form of “Twitter Snobbery”. One might ask “how many disses does it take before you lose brand equity?” Methinks as few as 1!
And a timeless classic . . . bloggers who don’t respond (at all) to the comments they receive? You know what? I’ve even seen blogs that didn’t allow comments at all. I recently attended a seminar with Kodak’s Tom Hoehn where he defined that as a website. Man am I with ya on that one Tom!
So where’s the disconnect?
1) In the words of Gary Vaynerchuk, (creator of Wine Library TV and author of the awesome book Crush It) “What you do after your blog is the whole game” So let’s not get so hung up on our content or spewing rapid fire tweets of “stuff” that we fail to interact with those who have honored us by reaching out to us!
2) Understand that people want to interact with a brand. One of my Twitter buds Jeff Friend received this on Twitter a few minutes after he said that he was going: @Lucilles_BBQ for lunch
“@JeffreyFriend Let us know how ur 1st time visit is!”
Jeff promptly sent the word out about how cool it was that Lucille’s was listening to their customers:
“They’re paying attention. Well done Lucilles BBQ!” A very simple act on behalf of Lucille’s BBQ but they sent a clear message to Jeff. You know the awesome kind that says “We’re listening, we value you and we care”
3) “Community” is the key. I don’t believe that Starbuck’s Twitter success comes from tweeting content. I believe its created (actually earned) when they are having real dialogue with real people. People who dig when the Starbucks dude/dudette tells them how they like their Frappaccino or when they compare a cupcake recipe with a customer. And just how valuable is it when our relationship ascends from a bunch of “one way tweets” to the point where we’re hanging out and start bringing our friends to the community? Oh and they’re bringing their friends and so on and . . . Can you say “Word of mouth”?
4) It’s too time consuming to be responsive! For me that’s like saying “I don’t have time to breathe”. Quoting Gary Vaynerchuk again “There’s plenty of time for this between 7 and 2 in the morning and if you have kids, 9 and 2” Or maybe we should follow the lead of companies like Marriott & Coca – Cola who have “Chief Blogging Officers” Perhaps we can take a lesson from Kodak who now has a “Chief Listening Officer” to seek out the good, bad and the ugly comments that are being made and then do something pretty brilliant . . . respond!
Just know that engagement is not an entitlement, nor is it something you are ever to ignore. The person who get’s that and embraces that in your absence, gets top of mind with your audience.
Oh . . .
The first word of Social Media is “Social” . . . there’s your sign!
Please weigh in with your comments!
Paul Castain trains organizations & individuals to be lethal! For more information on the specific jedi like services Paul offers, by all means click here dude!
The best example of how to do things right with social media is Chris Brogan from http://www.chrisbrogan.com. I’m not sure how he finds the time to do all that he does, using all of the channels that he does, but it is not uncommon for him to take the time to respond to a tweet or to reply to a comment on his blog.
Sociability? Paul, get your head out of the clouds. Social media is about marketing, selling, primping and pimping. Even the so-called experts do it.
Just kidding, of course – and you couldn’t be more right. Right now, the people making money off of social media are the ones selling you on the idea that you should waste hours, days and weeks of your precious and short life staring at a computer screen.
The real, honest to goodness experts like Chris Brogan, David Meerman Scott and others interact with their followers – they don’t just pitch them.
Here’s the future – we’ll get smart one of these days and we’ll pitch the pitchmen. Then, we’ll get really smart and pitch the entire Zuckerberged, Twitterized social media landscape and start doing things like taking hikes in the outdoors, listening to the birds sing and watching the clouds. That’s when we’ll begin to recover our soul – and stop selling it out to the latest version of Pie in the Sky.
I asked my late 30 something daughter and her best friend if they we’re on Twitter and they both gave me a resounding “We don’t Twitter!” in two part harmony. They do Facebook like mad. And so does the rest of my family children and grand children alike.
So, I wonder, does Twitter bridge from the Boomers to the Y’ers and Z’ers if the X’ers don’t Tweet? I met you on LinkedIn before I stretched out and began to Tweet, I’m not sure if we are Facebook friends and I’m sure we’re not Myspace friends because I haven’t been there in months. I like to share my daily inspirational message more as a voice in the wilderness, I’m more of a morning bird in that I send out a tweet and if another bird should hear and tweet back all’s right with my world, and I’m sure to write back. So help me out here are Twitter and LinkedIn the acceptable social media for business and Facebook and Myspace the social media for the rest of the world or am I losing touch? Just do me a favor when you all jump over to the next thing would you look back once in a while and see if I’m still keeping up?
@ Don I’ve been following Chris since I first started and I can’t say enough awesome things about him. As a matter of fact, everyone needs to stop what they’re doing right now and run out to their nearest book store to buy Chris’s book “Trust Agents” He does more than walk the talk. He lives it!
@ Michael: Great points. And truth be told, Social Media is still in its infancy. I’m quite certain that new and exciting mistakes are still waiting to be made. At least we have progressed (somewhat) from the needless play by play that was going on a year and a half ago.
Thank you Don & Michael for taking the time to contribute.
Respectfully,
Paul Castain
I admit I tend to use Twitter (MktgROIorDIE) as an ‘out’ communication form to share news and stories that are of interest to marketers. I am testing a new service, Tap11, on a trial basis to monitor whether anyone is retweeting or responding back to me. I’m not sure, when they begin charging for their service, if this capability will be offered for free as they have other more advanced features they could charge for, but I hope so. If I didn’t have it I would not know when someone is interacting with me!
LinkedIn – on it constantly as a B2B tool (linkedin.com/in/rebekahjpaul – rpaul@cawalker.com).
Facebook for me is more personal (facebook.com/rebekahpaul) and those who connect with me there get to know the real me, the topics that matter to me and topics that may matter to you on a personal level. I do accept connection requests from people I don’t know, but I put them into a “business” list in the event I want to share something too personal for my business connections. If they start pitching me on MLM businesses, I just hide them in my feed. Only in one case have I removed someone who was completely annoying.
Rebekah
Paul,
I’d love some clarification because I haven’t figured out how to do this yet…If I’m following 160, 1600 or 16,000 people on Twitter (just because they follow me) how in the world do I have the time to read all their tweets? Is their a way to follow without seeing evertything they write? I gotta tell ya…if I was Lucille’s BBQ I’d surely be looking for people tweeting about me but, personally, I don’t much care where Jeff Friend is eating. Am I missing the boat?
Thanks,
Jeff
@ “Herb” I think the answer to your awesome questions lies in several things: Twitter is misunderstood and many don’t know how to use it properly. I was certainly one of them. Quite frankly I wanted to ditch it at least a dozen times during the first year. Then I learned how to use it properly and things changed dramatically. More to come on this Herb!
@ Rebekah: Let me know how that service works out for you.
@ Jeff: Fair question. The easy answer is you don’t. Its impossible. That’s why you create Twitter lists to zero your attention in on key people. The following back is courtesy with the exception of people that are not a fit for you. As far as responding, its simple, when you get an”@” message, its time to respond. As to your final question “Am I missing the boat?” Yes and No. I’m right there with you with regard to play by play. In fact I un friend people all the time for that, but by the same token its a “Social” venue and we should expect some of that. That’s where the lists come in and even better something like “Tweetdeck” If I want to remain friends with someone and want to filter out the BS, I can set up topics that will be the only things that appear on my screen. For example: I have #salestip, #printing, cool dudes/dudettes (that’s the list I created) and several others. All the other noise is eliminated from my screen and I can focus my attention where it matters.
Thank you all for taking the time to contribute. Much appreciation!
Respectfully,
Paul Castain
In the book, Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion, the author, Robert B Cialdini, PH.D says “People say YES to those they like and know.” That means you must be likeable. I’ve witnessed a lot of “unsociable” people on social sites and I wouldn’t even say MAYBE if they tried to sell me something. If you get to know someone and you’re likeable, they will get to know you and someday they may just buy what you’re selling.
@Paul – I was evaluating what you said about building lists and thought even that a bit overwhelming – to take a look at everyone I’m following to decide if they offer value to me and place them into a bucket. I then came across this site: http://manageflitter.com. Under “Recommend” on the left it recommends people you may want to unfollow based on their database of others who have. While not a perfect tool, it did help to see what the last thing they posted were and remove people that were unnecessary. It also helps you to see the people you’re following who aren’t following you back. Helpful to cull my list down to something more manageable, but I hope I don’t end up on their list 🙂
Interesting read Paul. 🙂
Being “unsocial” among “socialites” isn’t the way to be. If you want to be heard, you need to socialize with people/brands. You gave some good examples of how companies are able to rebuild their brand image, simply by listening to people who’re talking about them.
Technology can only go as far, one has to step up and take time out to interact with the community that they’ve chosen to be a part of.
Hi Paul,
A couple of things in your post trigger me to disagree 🙂
To me it doesn’t necessarily seem very “social” in this situation to use Twitter as a service medium. Your vendor of choice probably provided you with several service channels like e-mail and a phone number. In this case using Twitter with the always present “social leverage” to get information seems a bit heavy on the social. If I buy locally and have a question, I place a call or maybe send an e-mail. What’s different in this scenario?
Also, I follow you, you have to follow me back? I don’t see that. Seems very much the game 10 year olds play around birthday parties. I don’t see what’s not sociable about not following people back, especially in a service scenario. Even with lists and other tooling, following everybody back is just about the numbers. And what about old fashioned quality over quantity?
What I do agree on though: If you’re present in the “social” playground, play along or move along.
Cheers,
Nico
@ Richard Morris: Very true and those people (in both cases) have always existed. The difference is that now it plays out in front of 10’s of thousands of people. The process is now on steroids.
@ Rebekah: I need to check that out. Sounds like a good tool. Building lists doesn’t have to be overwhelming. In fact, I suggest you start with Tweetdeck and set up a few topics you want to get tweets on. Whenever you come across someone who is posting meaningful information you can make a decision at that point to follow them, connect with them etc. I put this off for the better part of a year and once I did it I realized that up until that point I had been complicating the whole thing. It’s one of those things where I wish I jumped on sooner!
Your final point is what its all about. Having the followers, the connections and the “friends” is meaningless until you have that interaction.
Thank you both for stopping by!
Respectfully,
Paul Castain
@ Nico: To your first point. One of the purposes of their twitter account is to handle service issues and their not alone. Companies like Kodak, Linkedin and numerous others are doing the same. I believe it was Jeffrey Hayzlett who said it best (and I’m paraphrasing big time) that these discussions are going on with or without us and its better with us. With things moving at the speed of light, there are some who prefer a venue like Twitter to get a quick answer over email or waiting on hold for the next available rep. Doesn’t mean we have to like it or agree with it but understand that its quickly becoming the new standard. I want to be careful how I say the next part because it isn’t my intent to be sarcastic or appear that I’m taking a shot at you; the same argument could be made for why you chose to reply publicly instead of shooting me an offline email. You could argue that this is a blog and that’s the intent. My position is that Twitter or other social media shouldn’t be different. I would much rather have an opportunity to have a dialogue like this than have someone feel they weren’t heard.
Having said that Nico, in my case, I’m better than that and should have just contacted them offline.
To your second point about not following someone back being “a game 10 year olds play around birthday parties” I agree and would add that its even dabbling on being quite middleschoolish but we are talking about two very different things here.
We certainly don’t need to follow everyone back. Just understand that when you have 25,000 followers and you are following back 600 it sends a message. There needs to be a good Followers to Following ratio. Marry that message with being non responsive and you are most probably hurting your brand and you are definitely missing an opportunity to enhance your brand.
Here’s the point. Put two brands side by side in a social networking venue:
Brand A: Is interacting (RT’s, responses, having some fun with their followers etc) and have a decent follower to following ratio
Brand B: does none of the above
Brand B wins in this venue and Brand A misses opportunities.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by Nico!
Respectfully,
Paul Castain
Hi Paul,
I’m Dutch, you can be blunt with me 🙂
You’ve added the nuance to my arguments I deliberately left out for the sake of argumentation. I concur!
Best,
Nico
Hey Paul,
Just saw this post by looking up my name on http://www.whostalkin.com, which searches conversations about whoever (just found it). After writing out that URL just now I noticed something…it says “Who’s Talkin” but kinda looks like “Who’s Stalkin” – hilarious!
Anyway, thank you for that mention. It’s true, it really blew me a away when they responded so quickly. Those types of simple “social” interactions keeps customers coming back for years! What a great lesson, and great post!
Jeff
Great post, Paul!
Your “value-added” perspective is always most very much appreciated.
I’m right there with Dan “you can call me Herb” Hebert right now.
Could you fleet-of-foot youngsters please look back once in a while and see if us old guys are still with you?! Picture Kilroy here dangling, peering over the edge imploring aid and comfort.
There is so much overwhelming time commitment to associate with so many valuable and interesting people that other work is sidelined. I want to communicate and interact with everyone, even that guy that shines shoes and sweeps the deck. The “man in the trenches” has an interesting perspective that may be as valuable as the CEO. This is especially true when we remember that some of those CEO’s came from the trenches themselves and worked very hard to realize their dreams and passions without the benefit of education or support. Entirely self-made. But to add facebook and twitter right now is virtually impossible. So many invite me to their “spaces” on so many different sites (like MS Live) where I haven’t started an account or have a blank profile that was created by default. I can certainly appreciate how Susan Boyle was inundated by sudden notoriety and succumbed under pressure. She is beautiful and strong and bounced back, though. Testament to the strength of the human will. Most respectfully, as always.
Great post, Paul. I have told so many of my clients that you need to be “social” to be on social media. So many are being told to be on “Facebook, Twitter, etc” but they have no strategy behind what they do there or how it affects their brand. Thanks for writing this and I’ll be retweeting it for sure!
Thank you Diane!
So true and then they stick in “broadcast” and wonder why people aren’t loving instead of liking.
Thanks again!
Great post, Paul. I have told so many of my clients that you need to be “social” to be on social media. So many are being told to be on “Facebook, Twitter, etc” but they have no strategy behind what they do there or how it affects their brand. Thanks for writing this and I’ll be retweeting it for sure!
As you have bubbled this post back to the surface (great stuff, BTW), have you considered approaching the computer company as a prospect? THEY NEED CASTAIN TRAINNING SYSTEMS and a page out of YOUR playbook!
Thanks for sharing.