accessible.ie

It’s been some time since people have come to expect companies to have a website. Now, they also expect you to have a social media presence.

Irish Brands using Social Media

	Twitter	Facebook	YouTube
Barry’s Tea
Bord Gáis
Butlers Chocolates
Ecocem
Eircom
FBD
Irish Times
Kerrygold
RaboDirect
Tayto
Trinity College
Vodafone

If you don’t register your brand as a twitter name, someone else will. Who knows what fun they’ll have with it before you notice?

A basic level of involvement is now expected

People expect your company to be using social media. In fact, the chances are, your customers are already talking about you on twitter, whether you’re there or not. Domino’s Pizza had a pr disaster last April, when two employees posted a video of themselves to YouTube doing awful and unhygienic things to customers’ food. Immediately, the story spread all over Twitter, Digg and the blogosphere.

Dominos biggest failing in counteracting the viral avalanche that was crashing around them was that it wasn’t on twitter to pick up all the noise of what was being said about them.

Computer Weekly

Dominos finally began to respond to the fiasco two days later. The company president, Patrick Doyle, placed ads apologising for the debacle and they created a twitter account as part of their strategy to keep a close eye on what was happening in social media. They are now communicating directly with their customers via Twitter, actively seeking out disgruntled souls, gathering information about how to make their service better, and presenting a good public face to the online community.

The Dark Side of Twitter

It’s important to be aware of of the potential pitfalls of Twitter such as social engineering, fraudsters, and bad press.

Social Engineering and Fraudsters

Customers are at risk of fraudsters impersonating banks. All they need is a likely looking username, and a false air of professionalism, to gain the trust of some customers, and then their sensitive financial data.

…a fraudster posing as a bank on Twitter could respond to a customer’s question about an account problem by asking for account passwords, Social Security numbers, and other sensitive information. Unsuspecting customers, thinking they’re on a legitimate bank Twitter page, could be duped.

Search Financial Security

Bad Press

Your customers may already be talking about you. What are they saying? Use twitters in-built search function to keep a finger on the pulse of your brand. TweetBuzzer is a useful site for keeping track of the top 100 brands on twitter, and a useful introduction to how opinion sways, and word spreads. You can also request that they track your company too.

It’s a great platform if you get it right

Twitter allows you to reach out to your customers in a very personal way. Tweets are faster and often less formal than an email, and they can be spread from person to person very quickly. There are many uses for Twitter.

Catch problems early

Are there flaws in the system? Programmers say that many eyes makes for shallow bugs. If there is a problem with your product or service, listening to the tweets of your customers can help you go find it and get it sorted quickly. The feedback ranges from general belly-aching, to direct and specific pleas. The latter can help you to pin-point exactly where you can fix things to retain customers. This tweet was followed with sympathy and discussion from other twitter users about the details of the problem, and advice about other banks to switch to. This could have been the perfect moment for a compassionate intervention from customer service. Then the following tweets may have been praise rather than damning details.

Nip pr issues in the bud

Customers hurting? Twitter is an excellent, real-time barometer for how people feel about a particular product or service, individual bank, or even the sector as a whole. See what news and ideas are spreading. Excellent customer experience may be rewarded with a bit of free word of mouth advertising.

Etiquette

Do not abuse hashtags or trending topics. These are key words that twitter uses to keep track of what topics are popular at any given moment. HabitatUK did last June, and they got roasted over it. If you attempt shady publicity tactics, the community will retaliate. SocialMediaToday offers the following advice:

It’s ok to fail. Do it quickly and apologise publicly. People are a lot more forgiving when you admit to your mistakes rather than deny any wrongdoing.

Don’t spam. The quality of your tweets is what attracts followers. If you spam or have low quality tweets, soon the only followers you will have will be spambots.

It’s a New Advertising Channel

As well as being a social tool, Twitter is also a new advertising channel. It has some similarities with voluntarily joined email newsletters; your message has more weight when the user has consciously opted in to receive it. Twitter ads have immediacy which other mediums can only dream of, and there is also the possibility that your customers will choose to spread the message further.

Bare in mind however, that nobody spontaneously tweets about an average experience. “I’ve had four years of loyal service with XYZ Bank, I guess they’re ok” is not a tweet you’re going to see very often. People generally only tweet about companies if they have either a very good or a very bad experience. As a result, these opinions are usually raw and unvarnished and may sting.

Social Media Success

Twitter is not just about keeping disaster at bay. Used correctly it can generate leads and bring in income. Dell claims to have made €3 million from twitter by generating a large number of followers, tweeting about products and offering coupons.

Another social media service is LinkedIn. It’s more business orientated than twitter, though they are connected. LinkedIn is a networking site with a more formal approach, and so is a good way for companies and professionals to keep in contact with each other, rather than with consumers. Goshido is one such company, which was in need of serious venture capital. They managed to raise €230,000 solely on LinkedIn. So, twitter is not the only social media channel to keep an eye on. Your company may also benefit from a YouTube channel, and perhaps a facebook page too.

And the chances are, your customers and staff are already there.

Conclusion

• Get in before someone else starts using your company name on twitter and spreading chaos, or fleecing unsuspecting customers.
• Provide an official voice, so that customer and staff opinions are not the only representations of your company.
• Make it clear to customers that you will never ask for their bank account details via twitter. Similar precautions as you might take with email and phone communication.
• Safer to stick to announcements, information, and product information.
• Listen to your customers. If you don’t, everyone else will, and spread it around.

Tags: banking, Facebook, LinkedIn, social media, Twitter, YouTube

This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 5:28 pm and is filed under The Irish Perspective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.