I’ve been asked to identify the most important social media analytics, since so much of marketing relies on reaching online audiences. There’s always the usual terms like impressions, engagements, and conversions, but the factor that I think is overlooked is comments.
It’s not often that there are comments on social media posts made by the kinds of companies that I work for — sometimes there’s a like or love, but rarely too much more. But when it does happen, when someone points out that they were at an event the company sponsored, or when they say they like the service they received from the business, that’s when it’s important to react.
It’s even more important to react swiftly when there’s a negative comment. Sometimes it’s spam, and that needs to be blocked and hidden. But other times it’s a legitimate complaint that the company needs to acknowledge and address as soon as possible.
It’s easy to ignore comments on social media; you have to go back on those sites and check up on posts you may have made days ago, and you may not even look at those sites regularly if you use a tool to schedule your social media content. Once you do see a comment, you also need to decide what to say. Usually a canned response will work, like, “I’m so glad you could join us!” will help.
For those negative comments, try, “I’m sorry you had difficulty with the system. Please let me know how I can reach out to you to help.” Two notes on that:
- Use “I” instead of “We,” even though you’re speaking on behalf of a company. Social media is very casual, and people respond better when they feel like they’re talking to another person. “We” in this context seems very impersonal, even if it is accurate (social media is less about accuracy and more about getting an emotional response, as we all know).
- Ask to take the conversation offline by getting the commenter’s email or phone number. Writing a long string of conversation underneath a Facebook comment is difficult to read, and also makes what is an individual, internal issue into a very public one.
Many social media analytics are important, and so are procedures like A/B testing and keyword management. But responding in a timely manner to comments — words that people everywhere can see and might be feeling themselves — may have more impact on the audience than anything else.