Consider for a moment that 90% of the world’s 5 billion social media users follow brands and businesses [1]. Likewise, 76% have purchased at least one item they’ve seen on their feeds.
Evidently, people enjoy interacting with brands and discovering new products via social media. They can also be fickle, however, as 86% of consumers will leave a preferred brand after just a couple of negative experiences [2].
Hence, it’s essential to cater your social media messaging to appease your customer base and keep them interested in your brand. From setting reasonable response times to avoiding scams and spam, let’s set some actionable ground rules for effectively messaging your online followers.
How Quickly Should You Respond to Social Media Messages?
If you have the time and see a message right away, no one’s going to get angry about a lightning-fast response. In fact, nearly half of consumers worldwide expect a reply either immediately or within an hour after messaging a brand on social media [3].
Obviously, this timeframe isn’t always realistic—especially if you’re a small business with minimal staff or when messages don’t roll in during business hours. Nonetheless, it’s still important to respond in a timely manner and not leave your followers hanging, waiting for an answer.
So, the question remains: how quickly should you respond to social media messages?
The best answer is as soon as possible.
That said, in general, try not to:
- Leave messages on Read
- Let your followers know you’re online without responding
- Take excessive time to sort out queries and questions
Here at Coal Creative, we have a rule to respond to all emails within 24 hours and feel the same logic applies to social media messages. If you can answer even sooner, all the better—but over half of consumers agree that one day (or longer) is a reasonable amount of time to wait for a company’s response [3].
Meta even has a handy tool that will send an automatic response if someone messages your business and you can’t get to it right away. This is helpful to provide additional context to users and keep them held over until you’re able to give a proper response. Some items you can include in this message:
- A “Thank you!” for their interest in your company
- Business information, such as business hours or other ways they can contact you
- When they can expect a response
Your business can set this feature up in the Meta Business Suite.
When To Take a Conversation From Your Feed to Your Private Messages
Followers will often comment on brands’ feeds or tag them in posts to elicit engagement, share their stories, or air grievances. Positive public interactions bode well for your brand, benefit your image, and potentially boost future sales, but poor publicity can throw a wrench in your marketing efforts and negatively affect your company as a whole.
Unfortunately, some internet users have taken to posting their issues and complaints on public spaces in the hopes of getting quicker (and better) customer service.
If you experience negative activity on your feed, immediately message the poster personally (if possible), or respond to their comment, and do what you can to rectify the situation. Offer reasonable solutions that will satiate their problems and, if the interaction ends on a positive note, ask if you can remove their previous post—or if they’ll comment underneath explaining how you fixed the situation.
You may also want to take your conversation off public forums and into private messages if:
- You want to collect sensitive information—such as real names or addresses—from your clientele
- You’re offering special treatment—such as a deal or discount—that’s not available to the general public
- The follower has stopped responding to comments on their post
How Can You Tell if a Message is Spam or a Scam?
Unfortunately, not all social media messages are helpful to your business. There’s been a noted rise in spam messaging on Meta targeting small businesses. The recent “Your Facebook page will be deleted” spam targets unsuspecting page admins with claims of imminent deactivation and a link to their supposed appeal process. These messages say you’ve violated Facebook’s terms of use and may appear to come from Meta itself—but the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
Once the page owner clicks the appeal link, they’re brought to a legitimate-looking login screen complete with Facebook’s layout and branding. After you enter your credentials, however, they’re quickly stolen by the scammer and potentially used to take control of your page.
If you ever get such a message, it’s highly likely to be a scam. To quickly identify and verify for certain that it’s not a legitimate request, you can look for [4]:
- A lack of details – If the message doesn’t mention exactly what terms you’ve violated, it’s almost certainly a ploy.
- Suspicious senders – Meta won’t ever use Messenger to report a problem to your account. If you receive something that says it’s from Facebook or Meta via Messenger, you’re safe to delete and ignore it.
- Logical flaws – Facebook deals with billions of users on a daily basis—so messages claiming only 24 hours to appeal your account (as such scams usually do) don’t realistically fit into its pace of operations.
- Spelling and grammar errors – Professional writing is logical and straightforward while spam messages—which facilitate scamming first and syntax second—are often riddled with grammar and spelling mistakes.
- Fake URLs on login pages – Check out that login page carefully before entering your credentials—it may appear to mimic a real Facebook link, but will often contain a subtle spelling differentiation upon closer inspection.
- A lack of native app notifications – For real policy issues, Facebook will also warn you with an on-site or in-app notification instead of just a singular inbox message.
Pay close attention to these details next time you get a suspicious message—it could prevent you from losing your social media accounts and all the followers you’ve worked to amass.
Team Up With Coal Creative to Optimize Your Social Media Messaging and Presence
Coal Creative may be located in the heart of Northeast Pennsylvania (NEPA), but the beauty of social media is how small it makes the world. Thus, whether you’re our geographic neighbor or on the other side of the planet, we can help you improve your social media messaging tactics and presence as a whole.
As both a marketing agency and creative agency, we offer a wide range of social media services including:
- Creating and scheduling social media posts on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn
- Responding to and managing messages, questions, and comments
- Auditing social media accounts to see what can be improved
- Creating social media strategies to bolster your online presence
- Paid ad campaigns and reporting
- Making graphics, Reels, and more
- Starting Facebook groups and event pages
If you’re looking to rejuvenate your social media messaging and use your online persona to build your business and its reputation, Coal is your creative partner to get the job done. Request a proposal to reimagine how your organization uses social media.
Sources:
[1] “Top Social Media Statistics And Trends Of 2024.” Forbes. May 18, 2023. [Online] Available: https://www.forbes.com/. Accessed June 18, 2024.
[2] “86 Percent of Consumers Will Leave a Brand They Trusted After Only Two Poor Customer Experiences.” Business Wire. February 2, 2022. [Online] Available: https://www.businesswire.com/. Accessed June 18, 2024.
[3] “What is your expected response time for social media questions or complaints?.” Statista. March, 2019. [Online] Available: https://www.statista.com/. Accessed June 18, 2024.
[4] “Don’t Fall for “Your Facebook Page Will Be Deleted” Scam Messages.” Malware Tips. January 15, 2024. [Online] Available: https://malwaretips.com/. Accessed June 18, 2024.