DigitalBoost

Social management tools - keeping your ear to the ground

Managing your social media day-to-day involves listening, planning, scheduling, publishing, engaging with users and analysing all your social content. You can manage your social media presence by using features within the platforms themselves, for example Twitter offers TweetDeck free of charge. However if you have multiple social media accounts on different platforms, or receive lots of messages, comments and posts from a large audience, then you may need additional tools. Social management tools are software, available in app or online, which you can use to track mentions of your brand, and respond to them in an organised manner. In this section, we compare some popular listening tools.

If you answer yes to three or more of the following, you may want to consider investing in a tool:

• Do you receive multiple enquiries or mentions daily via social media?
• Do you find it difficult to keep track of these, or sometimes find that you don’t discover them until too late?
• Do you want to know what people are saying about your brand, and see public posts where you haven’t been tagged?
• Are there multiple people managing your social media accounts?
• Do you want to be able to easily track hashtags relating to your brand?
• Do you forget to post things frequently?
• Are you too busy to post on social media all the time?
• Would you benefit from seeing an automated report of how your social media channels are performing, growing, and engaging your audience?
  

There are dozens of tools on the market including:

• Sprout social
• Hootsuite
• Buffer
• HubSpot

To make it easier to choose the best tool, have a clear idea of how important social media activity is to your business and what you want to achieve. Key things to look for when comparing options:

• Can it manage the social platforms you use?
• Do they offer a demo?
• Is there a free trial period?
• What is included in the different packages?
• How many people in your business will be able to use the system and will the system help assign posts to them?
• How easy is it to publish and schedule posts?
• How are approvals managed?
• Do you need it to integrate with other tools you use such as your CRM system?
• Would having a chatbot be useful?
• Can it manage paid promotion of your organic posts and provide good reporting?
• Do you do paid social media activity that you need to report on?
• Would it be helpful to have alerts for sudden spikes in activity?
  

For example:

For example, if somebody has complained about an experience they had with your business, a simple response will show that you appreciate their feedback and are working to ensure it doesn’t happen again. The depth of your response can be tailored accordingly.

Here are some examples:

On the flip side, positive reviews which are well received and acknowledged is a nice way to build up relationships with the community.

Business gateway has a guide with more in depth information about managing online reviews

How to reply to negative comments

As a business owner, it can be easy to get swept up in a conversation with a user complaining about your service, and it is natural to want to be defensive.

However, posting overly defensive replies can be detrimental to a business - sometimes, it's better to assure the customer that their complaints have been taken on board to neutralise the conversation.

Check out how larger companies within your industry handle negative reactions on social media to check industry best practice.

Replying quickly is really important, but at the same time, make sure you get your facts straight before you jump ahead to reply. Consider double checking your company policies, or asking team members if they witnessed the incident first. See our response flow chart below for best practice advice on this.

Taking the conversation out of public view

If a negative comment is received and you would like further feedback, clarification, or to continue the conversation, the best place to do so is away from public view. This also prevents anyone being drawn into revealing personal information in public. There are two methods of doing this:

1. Sending the user a public reply, asking them to send photos/further feedback/contact details to a generic email address i.e. info@yourbusiness.com

2. Sending the user a Direct Message and having the conversation here. Remember, they could screenshot anything you say - so stay calm and follow your guidelines.

FAQ documents - best in a spreadsheet or Google Sheet

It’s a great idea to build up a bank of standard responses which you can send, saving time and making sure you are consistent. One of the ways to do this is to create an FAQ Document.

These are a brilliant resource for saving time, making sure different team members feel equipped for most situations, and keeping consistent. These documents should be easily accessible to you and your team, and updated every time a new response comes in which isn’t covered.

Response flow-chart

Download this flow chart and use it to inform how in-depth your response should be to comments which come in via social media. It will help you decide what the best approach to take should be, and you can even create templated responses for each final outcome.

Response Times

When customers contact you on your social channels or messenger with a complaint or a query, it is important that you respond as quickly as you can. Responding promptly can help improve your customer experience, as can ensuring you always have the last word in a conversation. Even if you have resolved and ended a conversation, it can help to have the last word, in a positive way, such as a friendly sign off.

If you are using Facebook and/or Instagram, you can download the Meta Business Suite app onto your phone, which will help you stay on top of your notifications and messages from your Facebook or Instagram business accounts. If you don’t want to do this, make sure you log on throughout the day (within business hours!) to ensure you are staying on top of incoming queries. Always check in at the start and end of the day, too.

Auto Responses on Facebook Messenger

To help respond to customer queries, you can set auto responses on Messenger. Firstly, ensure you have set your office or working hours on Facebook, in the About section. This means that users will know when you are active or not..

When you are inactive or away, you can set up an Auto Response function to reply to any messages until you return.

For example, this could say:

This will ensure your response time does not suffer from any enquiries left unanswered overnight, or when you're away.

Once you’ve done this…

You will be ready to handle any situation that comes your way, and show your staff managing the profiles how they can respond with confidence to a wide range of situations! Quick fixes such as the ones above, and establishing proper processes, will mean you’re equipped for anything that comes your way.

No business is immune to scrutiny on social media; it’s in people’s nature to complain from time to time. The real value for your business lies in how you respond: if other users can see you are patient, reasonable, and caring, then you will be able to resolve situations without having your reputation damaged any further.