FTSE 250 and Fortune 500 companies must embrace social media

Social Media Listening/Monitoring

First, large companies must have a robust social media listening programme, and that is not someone who knows how to use Facebook and given a monitoring software programme. No, it is a specially trained team that clearly has a good understanding of analytics, trending, and how to group data according to demographics, social graphics and recognise sharp changes in consumer sentiment. This team is essential when a crisis occurs, as most companies learn of a crisis through social media before journalists or local TV news. This team will also be able to tell you what consumers think of your TV ads, new products and services. Fortunately, social media audiences are like a focus group on steroids! You must use this data to shape your business. Also we now see analysts, equity firms, and investors tweeting forecasts almost instantly after a RNS is issued prior to a quarterly earnings call. So what does this mean? In essence you can take the social chatter and prep the CFO and CEO prior to the earnings call as to what the market thinks of their results and prepare for the possible difficult questions.

Social Media Campaigns

Second, is social media campaigns. This area of social media is essential to engage certain generations, but importantly helps with overall engagement, creates brand champions and should embrace all areas of marketing, both online and offline. This team of social media marketing experts should sit within your digital marketing team. Oh yes, your social media marketing is not about likes and re-tweets or winning something, it’s about retained audiences and 2-way engagement not just a push from the business side. Just remember, have a two-way conversation, no one likes the person in the room who does all the talking. Engage, and ask for feedback! Finally make sure your social media look and feel embraces other areas of marketing.  Change your social media profile headers to show consistent market messages. Follow your tone of voice guide and make sure your team is prepared with dark sites and messaging in case of a crisis.

Social Media Customer Service

Third, social media customer service. This with social media listening is essential for any large consumer facing brand. This is no small undertaking! The best way to describe how this is done is by using an example of a FTSE 250 company.  One large travel firm saw the opportunity to reach an untapped market. Their typical response was 2 days to a tweet or Facebook post and negative sentiment across its 28 UK brands was at 22%. Today their SLA is 15 minutes to answer and resolve all queries within 24 hours. Their negative sentiment went to an all-time low of 1-2%. A year ago they had 2,500 social mentions/queries a week and today there are over 10k. So what made everything better? A simple specialist team of 5 social media experts. A first for the UK and Europe, a state-of-the-art social media customer service centre. This team of specialists also engage in pro-active customer care. If someone tweets ‘I need a holiday’ the specialists can reach those people, and based on their social profile, they can suggest an ideal holiday that would also take into account their likes and dislikes. This helps to increase sales!

Large businesses must take action and embrace social media using the three key points: Social media listening, social media marketing campaigns and customer service. You will find untapped markets, customer brand champions who shout about you on social media, excellent customer service, more brand engagement and importantly increased sales.