Why business social media account responses are important

Last week, I shared a Tourism Currents post entitled "'They never answered me' – do visitors say this about you?"

Let's say you manage a local tourism bureau, and as part of your work you set up a website with all sorts of information explaining why tourists should spend millions of dollars in Rockwall, Texas or wherever. While the information may be wonderful, there may be times when a potential tourist has additional questions. I bet that Rockwall is responsive to questions posted via its contact form, but this commitment is not universal. Tourism Currents:

[W]e spoke with a travel blogger recently who wrote a blog post....On Facebook, he tagged every single restaurant featured in the post, and he also tagged every single DMO [destination marketing organization] where the restaurants were located.

Result?

Of the six eateries tagged, only two responded by Liking his Facebook post and leaving a comment. Only one of the two shared it over to their own Page followers.

Of the six DMOs tagged, plus the state tourism board, only three Liked it, and of those, one left a comment and one shared it with their Page followers....

Finally, NONE of them left a comment on the actual brunch blog post itself, to maybe say “glad you enjoyed our brunch” or “thanks for visiting our town.”

Now I can't pretend that this problem only afflicts the tourism industry. Some people, when seeing a contact form on a web page, give up in frustration, figuring that the question would end up in the void.

But there are exceptions. While people can point to bad examples of social media responses, there are also good examples. Here's one, culled from this list of 14 outstanding responses:

While attending the #PSEWEB conference in Vancouver, Mike McCready tweeted that, while he liked his room at the Delta, the view wasn’t so nice. He didn’t tag the hotel, and he wasn’t asking for anything.

Within an hour, Delta responded – offering a room with a better view. And when Mike returned to his room after the conference, he found a dish of sweets and a handwritten card from the staff at his hotel. It made such an impact that he wrote a post about it – the very same day.

Consistency is important. Back in 2011, I reflected (negatively) on a company that had this to say:

You don’t have to engage with your followers all the time, but every so often. This will remind your followers that you are aware of their voice and you value it.

Or, as I put it,

And even those who concentrate more on the monologue than the dialogue realize that you have to at least pretend to listen.

Well, I just revisited this company - specifically, its Twitter account. Its Twitter biography says all the right things:

#DigitalMarketing Specialists | #ContentMarketing #Copywriting #AdWords #SEO #SocialMedia #InboundMarketing

Since they know all this stuff, perhaps I should use them to build up my Twitter account, specifically my number of followers and my Klout score. And I can learn the reasons why personal engagement is important but corporate engagement is not.