Change of Plan: Why Social Media Managers Need to be Flexible

For those businesses who are extremely active on social media platforms, pre-programming content is an absolute must, but there continues to be a disconnect between how some organisations treat social media communications, in comparison to other media, and it's a disconnect I will never fully understand. 

Take our local council, for example, who announced (via social media) at 4.30pm on Friday afternoon that an outdoor art event, due to take place on Saturday, had been cancelled. Just 16 hours later, they issued a reminder to the public not to forget about the art event on Saturday. Clearly a pre-programmed communication. 

They met with a barrage of confusion by followers of their facebook page, they then failed to respond to any of them or remove the inaccurate post. It's likely that no-one monitors social media at the weekend or, worse, no-one thinks social media's important enough to manage. 

There are far too numerous examples of this kind of thing happening. Businesses who tweeted promotional content while frantic families took to twitter to communicate with loved ones during the Boston Marathon bombings. Pre-planned tweets that encourage people to take walks in the countryside when storm force gales are circling the area.

How hard is it to know what you have planned? Seriously. 

So here's a few tips for those businesses who are not quite getting it. Pre-programming content is fine as long as you follow these four golden rules:

1. Be Aware. Know what content you have planned. We have records or every single tweet and facebook posts for every single client, we know what's going out and when - just like if we were broadcasting a TV advert..... it's the same difference. Comms professionals wouldn't sign off a TV or press advertising schedule without knowing the content, social media should be treated exactly the same. 
2. Monitor. Keep an eye on your social media - AT ALL TIMES - have more than one administrator on facebook, have mechanisms in place to alert you if (all of a sudden) there's a surge of activity on your account. 
3. Respond. Can't say this firmly enough. It's a two way dialogue on social media. TWO-way. Talk to your followers. It's OK to make a mistake - just apologise quickly, sincerely and move on. 
4. React. If circumstances change, pull the content. Sometimes it's just inappropriate to be going in with the hard sell. We removed all pre-planned content from social media for a client in the wake of the Boston Marathon Bombings out of respect for their community. Our actions may have gone unnoticed, but it felt like the right thing to do.