Social Media Response Policies

picture source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/regulating-employee-social-media-use#

According to a research done by MarketingSherpa, there are only 25% of the companies respondent said that they had their own social media policy. Perhaps majority of the respondents saying that they do not think they need the social media policy or didn't intend to implement it for own company.

However, in fact, it is very important to have social media response policies in today's society.



The Importance of having Social Media Response Policies 

1. Articulating an organization's expectations

picture source: http://sendible.com/insights/social-media-response-flowchart/

Social Media response as a guideline for an organization to communicate with the feedback.

Social media response policies refer to the rules and guidelines for communicating in the social and online world. It guides an organization on what is allowable to say or do in the online platform. Organizations should set expectations at the beginning to provide clear organization's values. Consequently, it can ensure all the staffs in the company to understand the what is right and wrong, how to response to the feedback on social media.

2. Avoid Confusion

picture source: http://www.gograph.com/stock-illustration/confusion.html

There are various departments in an large organization. The CEO, Vice Presidents, marketing departments, PR team, IT departments may response to the feedback on social media at the same time. This can cause chaos for the company itself and also the audiences. It may cause the products or brand's image become muddled. Thus, social media response policies can use to avoid confusion as all the departments in the company clear and understand what, when, who, which, where and how to response on social media in an effective way. 

3. Maintaining Relationships

Social media response policies can help an organization to maintain good relationship with the customers. As social media response policies are the guidelines that aid in preventing an organizations from having bad experiences interacting with the clients and customers in the social media communities. 

4. Reputation Maintenance 

Social media response policies are able to help in building good images and maintain the good reputation. The social media users may criticize or complement towards the response of an organization on social media. If an organization response every feedback in a polite manner which follow the social media response policies, it can help to protect the organization's reputation. 

How it can be effectively used by organizations?

All the departments and employees in an organization have to be clear about own roles in social media response according to the social media response policies of their organization.

If there is any controversial issue happen or emerge on social media, the organization should use social media response policies effectively.

An example of organization which use social media response policies effectively is "Next Online". Next Online a Britain's fashion brands. Next Online representatives stay within Facebook as much as possible by using direct and private messages to solve personal issues or deal with sensitive information.

Picture Source: http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-examples/top-brands-social-media-customer-service-facebook-twitter/



Another example is AirAsia, the AirAsia customer service team is able to respond immediately to customer queries on social media to avoid costly call centers which also reflecting AirAsia's main goal in "The lowest cost airline in every market they serve".

Picture Source: http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-examples/top-brands-social-media-customer-service-facebook-twitter/

Thank you for reading and have a nice day :)



References:
http://fredericgonzalo.com/en/2012/06/12/on-the-importance-of-having-social-media-guidelines/
http://www.steamfeed.com/important-social-media-policy/
http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/why-social-media-policy-important-your-business
http://www.michalsons.co.za/social-media-policy-the-benefits/14888
http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-examples/top-brands-social-media-customer-service-facebook-twitter/