Do you monitor the Twitter account of your company? Most people check it once or twice a day, seems like plenty, right? Well, unfortunately, it may not be enough. It turns out people expect a response when they Tweet at you, and most of them aren’t very patient. Let’s take a look at what the expected social media response times really are, and how you can capitalize on them.
Let’s take a look at some numbers real quick. It turns out a full 14% of people expect a response immediately. IMMEDIATELY. That means fully a seventh of your audience will be upset if you aren’t monitoring Twitter 24/7. From there, it only gets worse:
As you can see, a full 53% of people expect some form of reply within the first hour. 65% expect a reply within the first two hours. This means that in order to fully serve your fans on Twitter, you need someone who can afford to be on it all the time. I know that sounds pretty intense, but it’s really not that bad.
All you really need is one employee to keep an eye on social media as a background task. You can leave open Facebook and Twitter in tabs, and just refresh them once every 3o minutes or so. If there is no one complaining, you’ve only wasted 10 seconds (20 if your internet is slow). If there is a question waiting, you show off that you’re an interested and attentive brand who cares about their fans.
We know it seems a little over the top, but it’s worth your time. If you want to get extra sneaky (and we all do from time to time) you can also monitor the Facebook and Twitter of your nearest competitor. Chances are they won’t be watching as closely, allowing you to swoop in and answer questions asked of them, redirecting the askers to your business instead.