Recently, our family took an extended vacation. While there, I posted pictures to Instagram, Twitter and Facebook all the while tagging the resort we were staying at. I told people how much we loved it, and how it was a wonderful place to stay. The resort? Steadfastly did not acknowledge my praise of their establishment.
Five days into the trip, I jokingly mentioned to a friend that while the resort was ignoring my tweets, I was thoroughly enjoying my stay. Within two hours, the resort piped up to say they were not ignoring me! Then they promptly retweeted one of my two day old photos.
It became very obvious to me that at the very least, this account manager was missing critical opportunities to engage with their existing and potential customers. Rather than taking the opportunity to engage with their clientele, they use their Twitter account to promote their specials and discounts. They don’t share industry news, seasons greetings or have a conversation with those staying with them. In doing so, they are missing a critical opportunity to enhance the client experience and build brand loyalty.
Twitter is a platform for engagement. It allows brands an opportunity to quickly and casually talk to their clientele. When my son turned 3, I tweeted a picture of him at one of his favorite restaurants. Within minutes, the restaurant had retweeted the photo saying how much they loved to see my son’s smile. With a timely response and less than 140 characters, this restaurant showed that they cared about my client experience.
The experience that I had with our recent resort was far different, though. By not responding to my tweet with a “Glad you’re enjoying your stay” or similar statement, they gave me the impression my experience was not important to them. They ran the risk of me no longer talking to, or about, them.
My experience is one more example of why you need to make sure that you do not set up a social media account just to be “on” a given platform. You need to monitor the accounts which you’ve started, or else you run the risk of severely isolating your existing and potential clients along with missing out on invaluable chances to create brand ambassadors.
Thanks for this. Forwarded it to some folks that NEED to read it.
Totally in agreement. I have had similar experiences. Don’t these companies realise that they are missing out on vital advertising oportunities. A good review is better than any marketing campaign you can come up with.