As social media continues to grow, more and more businesses are creating separate marketing units for social media or outsourcing their social media operations. Whichever way your company decides to go, you should make sure that you do your research and choose the option that best suits your needs. You also need to be careful who you hire to represent your brand on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter! The smallest mistakes can sometimes cause the most damage.
Chrysler learned this lesson on March 9, 2011 when a tweet was sent out from @ChryslerAutos account: “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f***ing drive.” The tweet came from an employee of New Media Strategies who currently holds a contract with Chrysler to manage their social media accounts. In all fairness, the employee likely assumed he was signed into a personal private account; however, this event has not been taken lightly by NMS or Chrysler. Especially since Chrysler has recently launched a new campaign with the slogan “Imported from Detriot” that is based around pride of MotorCity. Eeeks! We still love you Chrysler. Mistakes happen and we recommend everyone follow this auto company that’s embracing social media. Go Chrysler!
As you can see, something as simple as double checking the account you are logged on to can go a long way. Chrysler isn’t the only company that something like this has happened to so we put together a few tips for anyone who is looking to hire a social media manager or company to manage their accounts.
Some things to think about when hiring a social media representative.
- Make sure the person/company is knowledgeable and experienced with the software.
- Ensure that the representative is fully trained and understands your brand image.
- Arrange to have a deployment schedule set up so that all posts/tweets can be approved before sent out live.
- Limit the amount of people with access to the account.
- Limit the number of people in charge of creating and implementing posts to avoid confusion and mistakes.
- Communicate with the representative on a regular basis.
- A branding document/info sheet to help ensure that your brand image is conveyed consistently. This can include info such as formatting, appropriate or inappropriate abbreviations to use, a company mission statement and guidelines (or even stock messages) to us in replying to complaints or negative comments.
- Stipulate that SM reps use separate SM management systems for their professional and personal updates (e.g. Hootsuite for business, Tweetdeck for personal). This one would have been useful in Chrysler’s case.
Having an expert manage your social media accounts can certainly save time and get you the most effective posts in that little 140 character box! Just make sure that it is the right decision for your company. For more information on social media management, channel setup or contest marketing campaigns call us and we will be happy to help!
And in case you were wondering, the employee from New Media Strategies who sent out the tweet was fired and Chrysler decided not to renew its contract with the company! Ouch… lesson learned!
