Since being social is a main point of social media, when someone engages with your social media content with words then you should engage back. There is a good rule I read about that mentioned that replying twice can be good. There are a couple of fantastic books on how to engage with customers called Hug Your Haters by Jay Baer and The Effortless Experience by Matthew Dixon, Nick Toman, and Rick Delisi. The tip about replying twice should be in one of those books, but there are a lot of other great tips in these books as well. Online customer service is part of the social media marketing mix.
When engaging with the customers, be human. Corporate speak could end up making them even more upset if their intent for socialization is to make a complaint. Treat them how you would want to be treated in that situation. For example, if someone complains by saying, “Your products sucks,” if you were saying that would you rather get, “At Product Makers Inc. we value customer inquiries. Thank you for your feedback,” or, “Sorry you didn’t like the product. I’ll message you.”? The first doesn’t address the core of the issue and seems more like a, “Shoo fly don’t bother me,” kind of message which could aggravate the person. The second one has an apology and shows that the brand is taking agency in taking care of the problem. This video has some great information about this.
Accepting compliments well is also important. A simple, “Thank you,” sometimes with an exclamation mark at the end, could work well. Of course there are instances where it’s best not to respond, such as obvious baiting, people trying to advertise their products on your page, and so forth. But if people are engaging with your brand in the sense of asking questions and other ways that show they are trying to be actually social with your brand, then it’s good to engage with them within a limited time frame. Depending on how many posts a week you make, how fresh the content is, how many comments you get, and other factors, responding to all comments might be a little too much of a work load for some brands. You can use your discretion, but please keep in mind to respond to comments and messages when people are trying to be social with your brand.
Here’s a video of a keynote by Jay Baer who wrote one of the books I mentioned (Hug Your Haters). Hopefully it can give you some more good insight on responding to customers through social media. If you found this post helpful, please feel free to share it.