Social media to me, at the end of the day, whether you are talking personal or business is about engagement. Talking with people, sharing information, making purchases - engaging with people or businesses - this is what social media is about. I think the biggest failure - and maybe failure is too strong a word - for businesses in social media is not realizing this fact. So many businesses jump into social media not truly understanding the space or the nature of its interactions.
I see some businesses with little or no strategy to their existence on social media. Others try to treat it like a website, or other push technology in the digital arena - meaning the business wrongly believes they can control the environment and simply push out content when it suits the company's leadership. Social media is not a website and vice versa.
Many in public relations have written about social media and the keys to navigating this space. But I feel understanding this is the heart of most of the issues where it goes wrong. Businesses don't spend time listening to the conversations, they don't engage in conversations with their customers. So they become tone-deaf to what's being said about their brand.
In my job, working in public relations for an electric utility company along the Gulf of Mexico, I have seen these principles in action. In 2018, when Hurricane Michael, a Category 5 hurricane with wind speeds exceeding 150 miles per hour, hit Panama City FL, the social media response was viral, for our small social media effort, Gulf Power Facebook. We had engagement numbers on some of our posts exceeding 1 million people reached. What was fascinating was we only had 470,000 customers. However, you have to keep in mind, that number represents 470,000 households or businesses, so the actual number of people interacting with the brand was higher.
Observing this in 2018, demonstrated the relevancy of social media for businesses. It also confirmed my belief that it relates back to the strategy for the business. For Gulf Power, I saw where social media was relevant for the company in terms of being an energy provider to the people in the Northwest Florida region. People relied on us to maintain their service, and so, when in a storm, with a hurricane battering the area, they looked for us to be there. Customers were reaching out via social media during landfall, asking what was happening.
What we discovered in this situation is a perfect response to the question of what application social media has for the current business environment. For Gulf Power and its customer, social media provided the perfect conduit for conversation, two-way conversation. We could inform our customers about the progress of restoring from a Category 5 hurricane, and customers could ask us about their particular situation. The conversation was often real-time and just what was needed in a crisis situation. The company also saw high levels of customer sentiment toward the company, with negative sentiment dropping to 12% during the month of October. Hurricane Michael made landfall on Oct. 10, and the restoration period lasted 23 days.
In the text, Social Media Communications: Concepts, Practices, Data, Law and Ethics, the author writes about how social media is more than posting or talking to those on the platforms. It's also about listening and hearing what the conversations are so that a brand knows what is going on. (Lipschultz, 2020) It's the old adage to communication, effective communication is two-way and it is dynamic. Participants hear what is being said and respond to it. Social media, at its heart, is about engagement. Pure and simple.
- Hurricane Michael Restoration. Gulf Power Facebook. (October, 2018) Retrieved from: http://www.facebook.com/GulfPowerCompany
- Lipschultz, J.H. (2020). Social Media Communication: Concepts, Practices, Data, Law and Ethics, 3rd ed. Routledge. ISBN: 978-036719500
