Press Pass:

Another example of how the way we consume media and information is changing every day. And yes, it’s yet another post about social media and Twitter.

If you are on Twitter, simply look at the top trending topics and click on #iranelection. I noticed this topic trending on Saturday night and have been watching in awe ever since. I’ve found the latest photos, articles, posts and voices from the inside keeping me up-to-date with the events surrounding Iran’s recent election. Accompanying many of those tweets you see hashtags like #CNNfail and frustration with the media’s coverage (or lack thereof) of this event.

Truthfully, as things progressed Saturday night, not much could be found on CNN.com about the unfolding events. Now I’m not suggesting that we, as individuals, replace the formal media, because I don’t want them to go away. I want their credibility, I want their standards, I want to go there to fact check and confirm. I want them to be correct. But can we demand that they be both correct and immediate at the same time? Yes, it’s tough–and we, as information consumers, are making it even tougher on them. However, they’ve got some catching up to do. If they don’t cover it, we will. On our blogs, in our networks, with our tweets–we’ll spread the word.

Where do you look for up-to-the-minute coverage on what’s happening to the world? This weekend I realized how much it had changed for me. Tweet!

People are talking about you . . . are you talking back?

Last winter I complained on Twitter about my blog service, which was taking ages to get back to me on a bug request. I had e-mailed and e-mailed . . . and e-mailed. However, I sent one tweet with the company’s name on it–and that’s all it took. My tweet went something like this:

“Typepad is slaying me! I have had a bug in my admin for weeks–no progress!”

Typepad’s customer service might have been backlogged, but it had someone dedicated to monitoring social networks, and she resolved my issue within the hour. All of the sudden, I received an e-mail with the subject line: “Typepad Woes?” The body read:

Hi Rachael:

I saw your Tweet about having trouble with TypePad. I’m taking a look
through your tickets now–I’ll work on escalating this and see if there
isn’t something more I can do from my side to get you posting again!
–
Ginevra Whalen
TypePad Community Manager
Six Apart

And escalate she did. I was able to post within the hour. Typepad and Ginevra did a couple of things right, and good things followed:

1. It has someone monitoring the networks and engaging with the community.
2. Ginevra stepped in, followed through and actually did something that helped me.
3. The tone of the conversation about Typepad and my experience with the company changed. I went from being disgruntled and ready to shut down the blog and leave (I had been e-mailing about the bug for three weeks) to impressed and excited about how it effectively used social media for customer service.

Another company that shines for its customer service via Twitter is Comcast. To read more about what it is doing and how @comcastcares has been an effective way for the company to help customers, check out this recent blog post from the Wall Street Journal Digits blog.

Sad example of a missed opportunity:
I heart my milkman. But in a very upstanding way.
Once a week, the cooler on my porch is full of fresh milk and fresh-pressed apple juice, and sometimes the poor man has to drag groceries up my long and windy stairs, too. One very early morning I was up feeding the baby, and looked out the window to see my poor milkman hunting around my yard for the cooler that my kids had hidden. He found it, returned it to the right place and filled it. Just a little thing, but I was impressed. I wanted to tweet about it. I searched on Twitter for his company–it was not participating. But people were talking about his company on Twitter–good and bad. Unfortunately, the conversation was one-sided.

If you have a business, you can’t afford not to monitor and engage the social networks your customers are using. Whether you are a blog service or the local dairy with a delivery service, people are talking about you . . . are you talking back?

Brands can benefit in a big way by having solid social media strategies, but they can also be hijacked. The recent Domino’s disaster raises questions about how much control you really have over your brand online. Employers also have to be asking themselves how to monitor their employees’ use of social media in relation to their brand and business.

It also reminds me of the issues that were raised when Tim Russert died and his Wikipedia page was updated before his family was. How do you stop the freight train of “news,” user-generated content and citizen journalism?

I don’t think there is any easy way to make your brand and business bulletproof–but I do think that every company would benefit by setting some social media policies for its staff. This, too, raises interesting questions, such as:

1. What can and cannot be posted about your company by employees?
2. Should employees sign an NDA of sorts regarding specific points and practices?
3. Should you keep employees’ twitter handles on file?
4. Should you friend them on Facebook?
5. What should be considered personal and private information about co-workers?
6. At what point do you encroach upon personal privacy in social media with employees?

I sent a tweet out to the twitterverse asking people if their company had a social media policy. I got a response from someone with OrangeSoda.com. In essence, they’ve had the conversation with their staff, and their rule of thumb for social media is to “use your best judgment.” I agree with that, and I think it’s important to at least have that conversation and set those expectations.

It still doesn’t necessarily solve the Domino’s problem–as the two Domino’s employees obviously didn’t use any common sense. However, I do think that it would be a good preventative for businesses to simply have the conversation. Moreover, I think a basic agreement should be signed outlining the standards that employees agree to abide by both from a customer service and social media perspective.

What is your company doing?