We’re now in the lazy days of August. Days are getting shorter (which makes me sad) and summer is slowly winding down. And people are taking their summer vacations if they haven’t done so already.
And maybe you are. And you also happen to be the online “voice” of a brand or an organization. So what happens?
Apparently, this:
Does a brand like Pizza Hut, with 31,000 followers, just stop tweeting? Yes, their Twitter person went on vacation, but the rest of his or her followers didn’t. There was a SIX DAY lapse of tweets. SIX DAYS! So what do you do? My opinion: get a temporary replacement that’s been adequately trained to do the job.
Your Twitter page (or whatever other social pages you have) is the voice of your organization. Business moves fast and doesn’t take a break (except maybe on Christmas) so your social pages shouldn’t either. Especially for a monster consumer brand like Pizza Hut. I am personally the voice of several pages and am taking a week’s vacation next week (SCORE!) and you betcha I’ve prepared scheduled posts and back up people to handle the pages for me…and those pages don’t have nearly as big a following as Pizza Hut.
When hiring social media people, organizations have been making it clear you need to be available more than Monday- Friday 9-5. Southwest did this in a recent job opening – they said you need to be available on the weekends, too. Now I am not saying they need to not take vacation, that’s just silly. But they need a back up person.
Back up person needs to work closely with voice person everyday. They need to be well-versed and even post themselves every now and then to get a feel for the voice. And this person should be on-hand always — not just vacation. How about when voice person has day-long meetings? Or if they have an emergency? That’s why it’s critical to have more than just one voice of an organization. This holds true when and if said person decides to quit, as well. Also, the two need to work together each week on what they are going to be posting, and how often as well as get a response schedule going. Doing this would ensure a smooth transition whether it be for a day or a week. Their followers would probably not even notice if they did it right.
Think about it — you have everything else covered for that August vacation — are your social pages covered, too?
This is a great point! I work in a small group of 3, and although I am the main SM voice, the other 2 women understand what our voice is all about. They are always giving me ideas for posts and we work as a team. I agree that it is important if I ever take a vaction that they could easily step in. Or at least for that time I am out, HootSuite could be used to schedule posts, and then another person in the office could help with follow-up and replys.
Good post!
Thank you! That’s great you work as a team. I know at my job at our weekly meeting we have a section carved out for “tweet worthy information” so we have a plan of attack.
I think also, Deanna, that part of the problem is getting management to see how important it is to maintain that connection. So many managers don’t see any ROI coming from it, not realizing how indirect said ROI is. They end up not wanting to “waste” a resource while their regular person is gone. The hard part is changing that perception…
Yeah it’s hard enough to invest in one person to do this stuff — let alone two or more! But with the success of big brands like Zappo’s and Southwest, you’d think Pizza Hut would see the value (esp. with their new Foursquare campaign).
great point! I’m going on vacation tomorrow actually and as the main SM person, I hadn’t come up with a strategy for handling FB posts and tweets while I’m out. Unfortunately, there aren’t many people in my dept. well-versed with the voice (or technology!). I’ll probably take Bethany’s approach and work with hootsuite!
Good idea! You can always try TweetLater, too, and write the tweets today and schedule them. Although, there will be no one there to answer @s coming in. It’s a tough situation when there’s no one to help you out.
I’m in health care so the bulk of our @s tend to be service-based questions. I’ll probably refer people to the patient satisfaction team. I think it helps to at least have a point of referral for people looking to connect.
Ahhh this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. In a larger company this isn’t much of a problem because you have more employees.
The REAL problem is when you’re at a startup company and you’re the Community Manager/Social Media Maven and there is no one to do your job while your gone. What then?
In the past the only good solution that I’ve seen has been “working holidays.”
When I’m on Holiday my iPhone becomes my computer, I rely heavily on an application called “Boxcar” that gives me push notifications for social media stuff.
The tools of my trade are: CoTweet, Boxcar, Tweetie, Qwitter and Incoming! (Just twitter usage really).
Exactly! You have to get creative. Thank God for smart phones or else we’d be screwed.
Deanna,
This is an excellent post, and a topic a lot of organizations that are relative newcomers to social media probably haven’t given hard consideration to. Thank you for sharing your insight.
At our office, I’m one-half of a team of two folks who manage our social media presence. We’re almost never out of the office at the same time, so we serve as the other’s backup. Tools like Hootsuite and CoTweet are an immense help in giving us access to accounts the other owns so we can keep the information flow and engagement going when one is away.
I’m surprised as well that Pizza Hut has only one twitternaut on staff. I’m quite certain they have more than one PR person on-hand… why should social media be any different?
All the best,
Mike (@brightmatrix)
Mike,
Thanks so much! It’s amazing that us “smaller scale” social media people have all of our bases covered, and consumer giant Pizza Hut can’t get their act together 🙂
Great topic. That is very critical for the brands success. Social Media does not ever take a day off and what happens if something like the Jet Blue thing happens when you are on vacation. News does not take a break.
When Stephen Clark went on vacation he had someone else moderate the #Backchannel for him. He was still on Twitter for his personal side but as far as working the news he had someone else fill his shoes. I think this is increasingly important. Especially when trying to build a community.
I agree. Thanks for the comment! People take vacation – social media does not.
Excellent idea, post and comments all around. Lot to learn and for which to prepare.
In the case of Pizza Hut suppose the Pepperoni goes bad while said social media person is catching rays at Hilton Head.
Lots of attacks and no social media response. Not a good thing in a social media aware world.
The various ideas and solutions between backup people, teams and technology are all helpful.
thanks.
Just found this for my predicament, not to rez a year old post, but as the only social media savvy person in our small business this article still resonates. I’m set to be on vacation in a couple weeks and have noticed that auto-updates (via HootSuite, Postling, Involver, etc) are now getting markedly lower impression and interaction rates on Facebook.
Any creative ideas to actively post while away or is my best bet to train a minion to copy-paste my handcrafted posts? Thanks for any advice and help.
The post is still relevant today 😀
If I were you — I’d stagger scheduled posts with real-time. Sit down with someone for 30 minutes and train them; it will make all the difference.