Christmas is fast approaching and as we juggle the end-of-year rush with Christmas parties, winding up those outstanding projects and dreaming about spending days on the beach, the management of social media is often left at the bottom of our priority list. We clock off for the year just before Christmas Day, and don't return until early January, leaving a two-week void for consumers to wreak havoc on our social outlets and potentially severely damage a brand’s reputation.
Too many marketers simply don't have a social strategy in place over the break. There is no framework for dealing with a crisis, no content strategy to capitalise on the retail furore which is Boxing Day and beyond, and sometimes not even a community manager to deal with the customer who found a printing defect on their box of cereal who feels as though they need to ‘vent’.
Those social outlets you've spent all year building, tens of thousands of dollars advertising, nurturing and caring as if it were your first-born, are left alone in the wilderness, expected to fend for themselves. It’s misguided, especially as the holiday period can be one of the best opportunities to engage with your customers when they are most receptive.
So how can you prepare your social outlets for the break? Let's start with Facebook. If you don't have someone monitoring the page and responding to enquiries, limit content and close wall posts. Keep private messages on, and log on every couple of days to respond to those that need responding. If you close private messages, people who could do damage to your brand will, and will do so publicly. Limit their ability to vent publicly, and drive all enquiries onto a private forum.
Twitter, Instagram, and other public networks are a little harder, seeing as you can't stop people from posting publicly using their own profiles. Set up alerts using your social media management software, if you haven’t done so already, and have it track keywords which would suggest you needing to give it your utmost attention. For example, @ mentions with words such as disappointed, horrible, customer service etc.
When responding to people on Facebook or Twitter, all you need is to respond with a holding statement that acknowledges their message and explains when their message will be responded to directly.
For the larger brands with bigger communities who can't just close wall posts or reply with generic statements, you need a full-time community manager responding to enquiries with real responses, rather than just holding statements. You should even be scheduling some content in over the break. So, start thinking about how you're going to resource and handle any issues that may arise. Put together an escalation framework and if need be find staff to manage it.
People spend more time on social over Christmas than they do the rest of the year, communicating with friends and family, organising events, and posting photos. Capitalise on the activity and use it to your advantage. If you don't, your competitors will. Don’t #fail this festive season.
George Photios is a campaign director at social agency G Squared
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