Clive Andrews

This is repost of something I blogged about while working with NixonMcInnes. Though I wrote this a while ago, my advice still stands…

___________________

Here’s a familiar conversation: A client (or prospective client) tells me they want more followers for their Twitter (or Facebook) account. I respond by asking why they want more followers, and whether or not it will help them achieve their goals. And most clients, after a bit of discussion, do grasp the now widely-understood idea: good use of Twitter is not all about striving for follower numbers.

The other number

But how about Twitter’s ‘other’ number? There’s another figure shown on everybody’s Twitter profile that’s equally open to misunderstanding – potentially even more so. It’s the ‘following’ number – the total number of people being followed by a user. Each user has complete control over this number, as it’s often considered the primary way for most people to manage what they see when they view Twitter.

While we’ve accepted that follower numbers are to be taken with a pinch of salt, there appear to be some misapprehensions about its lesser-quoted companion, the ‘following’ number. It has become a kind of shorthand for deciding how engaged a person or brand is with other Twitter users. An account seen to be following many others is assumed to be sociable and engaging, while one following just a few people is often regarded as aloof or non-conversational. I want to challenge this assumption.

Two things got me thinking about this – firstly a good debate I had via Twitter with Brighton/Vancouver-based travel writer Nikki Bayley, unimpressed with Twitter’s suggestion she follow a high-profile journalist who was precisely no-one. Secondly, Mashable published an op-ed piece by Ted Rubin that warns of the dangers of unfollowing one’s followers – a post I feel really misunderstands and oversimplifies the mechanisms of Twitter.

So what’s my problem with checking out an account’s ‘following’ number as a gauge of interaction?

I believe it’s misleading to use ‘following’ numbers as a shorthand measurement for a brand’s level of listening. In fact, it is no such thing. Patting oneself on the back for having a good ‘following’ number is almost as misguided as hankering after an ever-higher number of followers. Repeatedly clicking ‘follow’ may offer us the feeling of listening, with just a single click. But is this an illusion?

Twitter gives us many ways to find relevant conversations. There are a range of searches, lists, groups, hashtags and apps to help us navigate to the people and the comments that need our attention. For most brands, the simple ‘following’ mechanism (great for personal users) is just too clumsy a tool to have much meaning or utility in itself, so more nuanced forms of listening have to take place. To judge an account by a ‘following’ number is to draw conclusions about the ways a person or brand uses Twitter to listen.

There are several brands who follow low numbers of people but who conduct their listening very well. Look at international rail operator @Eurostar‘s customer care account.  They follow just 153 people (though they are followed by over 5,000) but they appear engaged in some real attentive listening, responding to grievances and resolving issues for many people. A glance at their measly ‘following’ number tells us nothing of this.

Correspondingly, find a corporate Twitter account with an evident ‘we-follow-everyone-back!’ policy. Do they listen, engage and respond? Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. Their following score makes no difference to this. There are various brands (and people) who I know don’t follow me on Twitter, despite the fact that I follow them. Do I mind? No. Why should I? If I know that they’ll listen to me and they’ll get back to me when I need them to, then we have a worthwhile relationship on Twitter.

A ‘following’ number is NOT an indication of effective listening. It’s just a number. It’s an externally visible clue regarding just one of many tools an account might use to find relevant conversation. But it tells you very little about the way someone really listens.

Am I suggesting you unfollow everyone in a huge Twitter-cull? No I’m not. I think that would be a waste of a valuable tool and might give an unfortunate impression. But don’t get hung up on that ‘following’ number – your own or other people’s. Don’t judge a person or a brand by the number they follow – look instead at what they’re saying and how they’re saying it.

The act of following in itself is meaningless unless we expect major brands to manually sift through millions of tweets from thousands of people, searching for relevant conversation. I’d rather companies spend their time and money listening and responding more selectively and intelligently. That’s what really counts – not just a number.

A good reason to follow: Direct messages as a customer service channel

While the follow button is no substitute for listening, it does open up another channel for communication. Twitter’s direct message functionality is dependent on following. Clients of ours in industries such as transport use DMs as a way to take a Twitter conversation ‘offline’, especially when sensitive personal information is being exchanged.

(Update: Twitter have changed the Direct Messaging mechanism, so mutual following is now NOT required)

Other ways to listen on Twitter

Do you use a column-based Twitter management tool like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck?  OK – try a little experiment with me:

• Get rid of your ‘All friends’ or ‘Home feed’ column – the one that shows you the feed of tweets from people you follow. Don’t worry – you can put it back later.
• Now look at your other columns. By default you’ll probably have a column of direct messages and an @ mentions column – arguably the most important view of Twitter for any brand who claims to be listening.
• Now add some more. Add columns that search for your company name and the names of your key products.
• Use AND, OR and “double quotes” to help gather together various terms in one column and take into account abbreviations or common misspellings. Experiment.
• Now how about your competitors and partners? Add a column or two to take into account what’s being said about other people in your industry.
• Journalists and industry pundits? Use Twitter’s list function to place your favourite 20 pundits in one place where they can be browsed, retweeted and engaged in conversation.
• Add a couple more columns for issues, events, hashtags and topics relevant to your work.

Now sit back and look at the way the information flows onto your screen. Use this set-up for a few hours, or even days. With a bit of experimentation, you can build yourself a useful dashboard. What do you notice? It’s very likely that many of the words you’re looking at have been written by people you’re not following. It’s really not important.

So follow people all you like. That’s fine. But don’t judge a brand or person by the size of their ‘following’ number. And never ever kid yourself you’re listening – really listening – because you’ve followed all your followers back. Real listening takes more than that.

___

Cartoon by Sifarat used under Creative Commons licence.

This is a repost of something I originally wrote on the NixonMcInnes site during my time there, explaining the benefits of really getting stuck into social media listening, whether working in the rail industry or elsewhere. Give me a shout if you’d like to know more.

________

Social media listening is often spoken about. It is generally associated with the areas of customer service, reputation and research. By listening to the customer, we give ourselves the opportunity to satisfy their query, calm their anger or manage their perception. We may gather feedback on a product or service – informing improvements and developments. This we know.

But in listening there are immediate possibilities that reach beyond this. There are occasions when the right kind of listening, at precisely the right time, can make a real difference – not just to perception or satisfaction – but to actual operational functions.

And a particularly vivid example cropped up recently in the rail industry:

An official report into an incident of a broken-down train has made some recommendations around social media. At 65 pages, the report is extensive, but lists at one point the extent of the information that had been shared on Twitter and Facebook (alongside phone calls) by passengers involved in the incident:

 

• passengers on [the train] had operated the passenger communication alarms
• doors had been opened with passengers ‘spilling out onto the track’
• information was not being received via the public address system
• water was required on the train but none had been delivered
• passengers could not communicate with the driver as he was now staying in his
• passengers were requesting assistance

So important, potentially safety-critical information about the incident was being provided, unofficially, by passengers on a stuck train.

The report then acknowledges the potential offered by social media in times of severe rail disruption, the first part of which is already recognised as good practice:

 

The use of social media by train operators may assist them in communicating with customers during times of severe service disruption, and contribute to a two-way exchange of information; thus reducing speculation.

So far, so good, right? This is social-in-rail basics: tell people what’s going on, and answer their questions honestly. But it’s what follows that gets really interesting, and moves beyond usual expectations:

Train operators can consider the intelligence in the context of other known information to ensure a proper risk assessment and evaluation of the information takes place and suitable action is taken.

 

Moving away from the dry language of official rail incident reporting, what’s this saying?

Don’t just monitor social channels for information requests and people in need of reassurance. Really listen to what people are telling you. These people are on the ground, where a situation is happening. They are potentially your sensors, helping to build a picture of the operational situation, so contributing to possible solutions.

Social media listening is not a new idea. But it’s usually done in the interests of marketing, reputation, research or customer service. Here – from a serious government body – is recommendation thatorganisations could use social media listening as real data to inform and assist with operations. It’s recognition that the data shared online, in realtime, by passengers, has more value than as mere reputational currency or customer service fodder.

There are practical considerations here: if your view of social media listening involves monitoring Twitter for @ mentions and keeping watch on a Facebook page, it could be time to get more sophisticated. How much useful information is being offered that might not be formally addressed to an organisation’s Twitter or Facebook presence? Think about search terms, set up some columns on your social media management system, or consider other monitoring tools, like the free-but-basic Google Alerts, or the very sophisticated Brandwatch.

A very real illustration of the difference that can be made by ‘realtime’ listening comes in the form of this tweet, from Robin Morel, an incident response manager who co-ordinates responses and resources when something goes wrong on the rails:

@TheFactCompiler Agree- I find out about stalled trains 1st on twitter a good 15 minutes before driver-signalbox-control-toc -chain kicks in

— Robin Morel (@13milepost) September 17, 2013

“15 minutes”. That’s fifteen minutes’ gap between the time it takes to pick up news of an incident through social media, and the time that information reaches critical staff through conventional channels. And, in Robin’s world, fifteen minutes can be a long time:

Think of the customer as an ally, find the best way to listen to them, and there are times they can really help you to help them.

Photo (unconnected with the incident described) thanks to Tom Page.

https://flic.kr/p/EpwQJ

As I write this, we’re just a few hours away from a significant moment in the UK’s rail industry: Day One of the new Virgin Trains East Coast operation – returning the King’s Cross to Edinburgh (and beyond) route to the private sector after several years of largely successful state control. Though a 90/10 split between Stagecoach and Virgin, the public face of the new company will be that of Virgin – a commercial move that’s a clear testament to the value of the big red brand.

In the original wave of rail privatisation, Virgin was a two-TOC player, before losing the Cross Country franchise in 2007. But now, for the first time in the social media era, one of the most recognisable presences in British commerce will again find itself at the reins of an expanded rail empire – an empire with two franchises, two headquarters, two staff teams and two sets of passengers.

Within the UK’s rail industry, Twitter is the most dominant social platform – combining a customer service function with marketing, disruption information and brand expression.

Virgin Trains is arguably held up as the poster child of how to do social media on rails. Its current main Twitter presence has a good tone of voice, a proactive approach to customer service and good response times.

But how will things work with two rail companies operating using Twitter under the one iconic brand?

It starts with a well-handled transition…

The transition from bid winner to train operator has already been dealt with well on Twitter, through the active engagement of the @askVirginEC Twitter account. But the mobilisation period is nearly over. What happens next?

As a social media consultant that works with the rail sector, here are four things I’ll be watching for:

1. Managing public perception

A popular refrain against rail communicators is that “the public just don’t understand how it all works.” This will be put to the test as the travelling public are asked to understand the situation of one powerful brand having two train companies, two routes, but one voice, look and place in the mind of the British consumer.

Will Virgin seek to make clear the difference, or will they deal diplomatically with the blur, and see things from the point of view of the customer, rather than the industry? How will the two operations be differentiated in the public eye? Will we see a rebranding of the West Coast franchise‘s social spaces, to acknowledge the arrival of a sibling?

2. Handling between accounts

A frequent issue within transport social media is the direction of public enquiries to the wrong train or bus company, as customers look to the wrong oplace for help. Good social media practice will see a courteous handover or introduction to the correct account. With two Virgin TOCs to talk to, how skilfully will I be treated when I ask the West Coast Twitter account about my trip to Edinburgh, or I complain to the East Coast account about delays through Birmingham?

Will the two companies join up their social media listening operation, so I am immediately responded to, regardless of whether I confuse my east or west? Will I be told I’ve made a mistake, or simply receive the information I seek via Twitter?

3. Dealing with objection

Even the big red blanket of the Virgin brand cannot protect a train company from complaint, dissatisfaction and objection. There are many people who disagree with the Government’s reprivatisation of the important East Coast franchise. And a vociferous movement of regular East Coast passengers are taking issue with Virgin’s move away from the East Coast system of rewards points. A key measure of social media customer service will be the way these complaints and objections are dealt with. Engage in debate, decline to comment or manage diplomatically? We shall see.

4. Championing the future

Within the period of this franchise, the IEP programme will bring new express trains to the east coast route. Though planned long ago, and commissioned not by Virgin/Stagecoach but by the Department for Transport, it will be fun to see how Virgin introduces these new trains. Virgin would be crazy not to seize the opportunity to champion the new trains, provoke public excitement and – let’s be frank – take some credit for their introduction. But how will Virgin do this? I’m expecting big things from some creative marketers.