Transcript
How do you handle the peaks of incoming social media messages during your event or in crisis situations? Dimitri Callens shares some tips.
Hi Dimitri, welcome back to our studio.
Thank you.
One of the main issues that event organisers have with social media is the day of their event, because the volume, the peaks of incoming messages at that specific day is so high that they just can't handle it. How do you deal with that?
Exactly, in events that's a really outspoken thing. Other brands can have it as well during times of crises But indeed, social media goes in peaks, so you need to be prepared for that. And of course, for that you need tooling. You can't handle that directly on Facebook, neither on Twitter, neither on any of the other social networks.
Why not?
Because they don't offer features that really make sure that your team can handle those peaks. To give an example: it might be that you have a brand which is really well known and that a lot of people are always discussing. Then the better choice for you would be to only answer those questions which are really directed at you. If somebody mentions you on Twitter, don't respond to it. You can retweet it of course as a kind of ambassador thing and making sure that it was good content. But otherwise, don't answer it. Just let it go with the flow. And only answer to people really @mentioning you directly. Because that way you can already filter it out. Can you filter it out on Twitter? Yes. But can you then easily respond and make sure that you have a kind of Inbox Zero Principle? Make it as easy as email...?
Yeah, because how do you know what message already has been answered and what message isn't, if you are already working with a team, and especially on an event?
Exactly, and that's what you need a tool for. Because the moment you have tools and you can filter on that, that's only a very small part of the possibilities. Other things that can be offered is for example that if you work as an international brand and you're active in different countries, you must make sure that if people are speaking to you in their own language, that your team is ready to answer those questions. So what you should be able to do is really make sure that any tweets coming in in a certain language, that they are automatically assigned to your community manager that masters that language. And that is possible with tooling.
So your tool Engagor automatically detects automatically what language it is in, and then assigns it to the right team?
Absolutely, Engagor detects over 166 languages.
Even the social media small talks?
Because the words there are sometimes a little bit different than the real world. Indeed, the smaller the data, in fact... Like, a tweet is only 140 characters, the more difficult it becomes. But nowadays the data signs are really on top of that and that really works well. In Engagor the language detection is over 80% correct. Which is very good. Considering that on twitter indeed a lot of dialect or slang is being used. But yeah, computers understand more and more nowadays, so that goes really well.
They start to speak dialect?
Exactly, and then you simply build in the workflow that it should be directed at someone else.
Are there other used cases where you would automatically assign messages to certain people in your team?
Yes, we know that some companies for example make sure that any tweets that come in and have a very negative sentiment, that those are being responded to quicker. So in most of the tools you have sentiment analyses in different languages. Another very good example would be that you would easily detect any people on Twitter who have many followers. So that you make sure that you answer those quickly as well. Another thing, I'm not sure whether that is the best practice, because in my view anybody should be treated the same. But what we often see, and in my thinking that is a very good practice, is that if you have consumers who often tweet about you in a good way and who really are your ambassadors, you can also tag them, label them in the program, and you can then make sure that any tweets coming in from those people are also prioritized and that they can get an answer much quicker.
Okay, that's interesting. And then also assign between operators? So if I don't know the answer I can assign it to you for follow-up?
Absolutely, in today's society community managers; it's a job that's quite flexible. Sometimes people work at home, etc. They know different things. They are in contact with different departments in the company. At that point it can be very interesting when a tweet comes in and you think: "I have a colleague who is a specialist in this matter". To forward it to that colleague, who can then immediately ask, maybe even in another country, what the answer would be. In that case, even a chat in the application is possible.
And how do you handle for an example at an event... You will get a lot of the same questions coming in. All people want to know where the toilets are, where you can find the food and things like that.
Exactly, that's a very good point. The thing there is that as in any contact center software, for example, you can make use of canned responses. We have noticed indeed when in a trial period when we set up the tooling is that the questions being directed at brands are like 80% always the same questions. We make sure that we understand those questions and then those canned responses can be put to use.
But doesn't it get boring then for all your other followers? Because you're constantly saying: "the toilets are there, the toilets are there".
No, the thing is that it remains social media. Some brands ask us: "so then we can automatically reply to messages?"
Yeah, that's a good idea (laughs).
That's not a good idea. Don't do that! Because it's social media. If you let a computer answer it, it's not social anymore. It's really a dialogue between people. So those canned responses really are there to help the community managers in not having to type as much. But they can always give it a personal touch. And that is what you see within big enterprises: if a question comes in that is being asked repeatedly, then the community managers will use a canned response. Sometimes they can even choose from 5 canned responses, but they can always add a personal touch to it. Because you can adapt yourself to the tone of voice of the consumer, or you can fit in a joke even. Those are some of the best practices. And in this case it really becomes social media.
The most important thing today to remember I think is to find a very good tool like Engagor to make sure you can handle all those challenges.
Absolutely, and make sure that your community managers understand your tool and its possibilities and remain very human and social within those answers.
Dimitri, thank you very much for coming over.
You're very welcome.
And you at home; thank you for watching our show. I hope to see you next week.
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