Considering we work in a highly sociable industry our online social skills are severely lacking. Vikki O’Neil offers some pointers to make sure you don’t miss opportunities.
The clue is in the title and I’ve said before, you ‘don’t do social, just be social’ so why do so many brands on Twitter totally ignore what people are saying about them? Why don’t they engage with what their customers are saying?
I’m not talking about the big groups like @SKY (who actually don’t appear to engage with anyone now I look) but I’m talking more about us lot working in restaurants, pubs, cafès. By the very nature of our work we’re social. Working with and talking to different people all day every day – and for the most part, those social skills shift to online into a seamless social personality
Let’s not kid ourselves – it’s hard bloody work. Who had a social media manager in 2008? Nobody. Now, it’s one of the toughest, albeit, one of the best jobs. You create content, you listen, you engage, you share, you analyse, you use it as part of your marketing strategy – seven days a week, from morning til night. For larger businesses with multiple sites – it’s a full-time job often for more than one person.
Customers will use Twitter to contact you for everything – sharing their visit, asking questions, complaining or just having a conversation about you to their mates
And it’s the engagement that is absolutely key. You’re there, on Twitter – stop ignoring people talking to you. Just because it’s online doesn’t make it any less acceptable. And you need to be smart, don’t just search for your business name, search for other ways people may talk about you.
Take Vapiano. Customers call it Vapiano, Vapianos and Vaps. A search for Vapianos brought up 35 tweets sent during one afternoon –that’s people having a conversation about their visit, imminent or past, recommending it to their friends. Vapiano responded to all of these which let people know the Twitter account (which 85% then followed) and indicated a genuine, pro-active interest in what their customers are saying.
It’s also important to create your own engagement. Search for opportunities. Sticks’n’Sushi spend time looking for mentions of sushi Wimbledon, sushi Covent Garden, best sushi in London and pre-theatre sushi as they find conversations that people are having about visits or people looking for recommendations of where to go. This way, they can say hello, link to the menu – which often results in a booking or a walk in. Which then leads to additional engagement and a follow. Job done.
But not everyone makes the effort. There is one national brand with around 45 restaurants around the UK. They have more than 25,000 Twitter followers. In the space of 24 hours, 60 people had tweeted about this brand, either using the @ as a direct tweet, using a # or just mentioning their name – and 14% of these tweets were about a negative experience in the restaurant.
Not a single one of these tweets were picked up on by the person managing the Twitter account. Nobody was thanked for coming in, nobody had a response to a poor experience. Nobody had their question answered.
This is an example of how totally not to use Twitter. They are missing out on so much. Winning a pissed off
customer back, saying thank you to the mum who took her kids out to lunch – all these small things should be important in your overall marketing strategy of which social is a part.
But it’s the complaints that are a game changer. If you really care about any genuine issue a guest has, you’re going to want to put things right. And it’s the tweets that don’t tag you, you want to find. Which is why searching for your brand name is key. You definitely do not want the negative feeling to stay with the guest. Be genuine, chances are you messed up. Put your hands up, say sorry and ask for an email so you can take it offline asap and quickly make it up to the guest.
Vapiano saw a tweet sent at 12.37pm directly to them complaining about his pasta, which didn’t have the extras he requested. The guy was on his lunch break so had to eat a dish, he wasn’t 100% happy with.
Vapiano saw this tweet straight away and asked where he was sitting, so within a minute, someone had gone to his table, said sorry, arranged for the meal to be removed from the swipe card and given him a voucher to come back for a dish on the house next time. The customer was amazed – he wasn’t expecting that instant reaction and fair play to him, he sent a complimentary tweet to his 4,000 followers straight after saying credit to Vapiano for being so on the ball.
Now, not every situation can be as fast as this, but where you can – do. Surprise and delight go a very long way to appease a customer who hates you at that very moment.
So whether you’re managing a multi national brand or a small local cafe, it’s important to say thankyou to every follower who asks a question, has an issue, or gives you a compliment.
Some will respond back, and others will re-tweet your response simply because they want to show their followers that you’ve engaged with them. And by doing this you’re not just engaging with that single follower, you’re then engaging with a much wider audience of all their followers too
It’s not just on Twitter. Instagram is another platform where you can be pro-active with your engagement. Don’t wait for people to tag you in their photos, search for # of your name, you’ll find a load of photos and comments that you didn’t know existed.
Like every single photo, make a comment on the images or customer comments that you feel necessary. People love to see you found their photo and engaged with them
And after you’ve done all this, compare your social analytics to the previous month.
You’ll see an increase in engagement, an increase in mentions and an increase in RTs. Which basically means you’ll reach thousands more people, all getting to know your brand. Then of course you just work to turn all of that value into what we’re all here for – bums on seats. Good luck.
@vonmarketin
