Follow me 24/7?

It is undeniable that there is an exponential growth in trends of business turning to social media as their communication platform to the wider society. But the main question is, how far they could utilize this medium?

I have recently read “Socialnomics” by Eric Qualman (as mentioned by Peter Wagstaff in his first lecture of the semester), and he point out a couple of example how business utilize social media like twitter as their customer service “hotline”. He mentioned a pretty interesting example of @Jetblue case with a number of their customers that felt being “followed” on twitter. And in response to the customers that felt being “followed”, Jet Blue are sending them a message, that says:

“…… its merely me and my team keeping our ears to the ground and listening to our customers talk in open forums so we can improve our service. Its not marketing, its trying to engage on a level other than mass broadcast, something I personally believe more companies should try to do.” and apparently it was sent by their Corporate Communications manager.

This case shows that even though social media is engaging, monstrous communication platform, but they still have to be carefully implemented and monitor. Slight mistakes in social media could bring a massive fatal impact, as it is instant sharing of information, worldwide. The one point that capture my attention in the response letter sent by Jetblue is how they stated, “Its not marketing, it’s trying to engage on a level other than mass broadcast”.Should they even say that? Is it just another marketing gimmick or they sincerely want to engage and establishing relationship with their customers?

Well, I personally think that its just another marketing gimmick that intends to construct a brand images that customer-friendly. And it shows that they fully acknowledge that as an airline company, its rather critical to maintain and improve their customer service to maintain their competitive edge in the industry. Also, it seems that they are following the trend of social media, and utilize this so called most influential tool like twitter to keep their brand relevant to today’s society, and yet they might not properly utilize it.

I am not against the idea of using twitter as part of customer service; however there are some other way to utilize it. A good example of how to properly utilize twitter is displayed by Comcast, where they assigned representatives (@comcaststeve, @comcastmichael,etc) to immediately respond to the enquiries and feedback from public. It is like a call operator but in twitter version. It’s interesting to see the overflowing number of company or brands twitter account that try to engage with the public and yet only a few of them that utilize it properly.

So, what do you guys think? ? Is it just another marketing gimmick or they sincerely want to engage and establishing relationship with their customers?

Sound off below and tell me what you think! :)

ps: go check “Socialnomics” by Eric Qualman, it's such an inspiring book!

Tha!