Social Media Leadership Insights on Navigating Social Customer Care in 2023

Key takeaways:

• Social media leaders Erika Heyer-Watts at Otis, Jennifer Manger at Wells Fargo, David Lingholm at Consumers Energy, and Lisa Hill at Whirlpool Corporation shared best practices for navigating social media customer care concerns in 2023.
• They discussed how you should re-examine your strategies on Twitter and TikTok to provide customer support in lieu of uncertain changes for the future.
• It also helps to partner with internal teams and use social media listening tools to track how consumers are responding to your brand and address any potential risks to your company’s reputation.

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Social media leaders are adjusting their strategies and navigating their social customer care teams amidst recently proposed legislation and ongoing platform instability.

While many social leaders are making progress on getting social care structures in a good place, establishing a successful structure and policies is an ever-evolving process.

During a recent SocialMedia.org leadership panel discussion on addressing social media uncertainty in 2023, several leaders provided insights on the platforms they’re prioritizing for customer care and how you can manage brand safety and reputation in light of increased misinformation and fraudulent accounts.

We looked at some of the best practices you need to navigate social customer care for 2023 and protect your brand on uncertain platforms.

Evaluate Your Presence on Twitter and TikTok for Your Social Customer Care Strategy

After several states and Congress proposed or enacted bans on TikTok in the U.S. and the turbulence that Elon Musk’s takeover on Twitter created, social media leaders at the world’s largest brands shared how they’re re-evaluating their brand presence and customer care strategies on these uncertain platforms.

Is Twitter Still a Priority for Social Customer Care?

With an established Twitter presence to support customers, Otis Social Media Manager Erika Heyer-Watts explained how her team is still looking to support their customers.

“Twitter is an important channel for us,” Erika said. “A lot of our customers go to Twitter seeking customer support. Many changes are happening there, but that will always be a resource for our customers. We want to ensure we’re where our customers are and that they can reach us.”

But others are pausing their Twitter strategies to evaluate the ongoing policy changes and procedures to ensure they can protect their brand reputation and connect to customers. Jennifer Manger, Vice President of Social Media Marketing at Wells Fargo, shared how her team is developing a customer care plan.

“We’re actively looking at what policies, procedures, and other things they’re putting in place to manage brand safety,” Jennifer explained. “I know they just came out with an adjacency survey. So, we’re digging into what that means. I hope that we will be back on the platform in the next couple of months, but at this point, we’re only supporting customers in that space.”

Will TikTok Be a Focus for Social Customer Care in 2023?

As for TikTok, some social leaders are foregoing any attempts to invest heavily in the platform because of the back-and-forth political battles taking place to decide its future.

David Lingholm, Social Media Team Lead at Consumers Energy, said his team focuses on legacy platforms instead of investing in TikTok.

“We would rather focus our energies elsewhere, frankly, than go to TikTok,” David said. “We’re almost a little antediluvian right now. So we’re doubling down on our blog. We’re making sure that we’ve got good content and doubling down on our YouTube channel for 2023 to have a good foundation before we branch into anything new.”

Lisa Hill, Social Media Lead for WoW Studios at Whirlpool Corporation, talked about her team’s focus to tap into their customer’s behavior on TikTok to provide positive experiences in their social care strategy.

“TikTok is used to celebrate the making of what we do with KitchenAid and brings to life some of our products in a different way that we know that consumers are already doing in that space,” Lisa noted. 

She explained how they’re approaching TikTok with a cautious procedure and taking slower steps with content creation and customer care. The Whirlpool social media team is taking time to ensure the safety regulations, and they are partnering with content creators that highlight their brand values.

Leverage Partnerships and Tools to Bolster Social Customer Care

It helps to establish partnerships with other business lines in your company to create winning social listening structures while navigating customer care.

Erika described how a partnership with their digital security team helped Otis monitor any misinformation or fraudulent accounts associated with their brand and provide customers with correct information.

“They use a tool called Proofpoint that monitors our current channels and our brand name,” Erika said about their digital security team. “If they see an account that pops up, whether it’s on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, wherever it is, they alert us.”

Erika explained how this partnership is crucial in global customer care as well. Her team is notified when any fraudulent accounts appear, even in different countries, and can get misinformation taken down quickly.

Jennifer said her Wells Fargo team also uses Proofpoint to monitor social engagement and any regulated social media users who drive business goals. Her team also partners with their social listening team, who work 24/7 to track brand voice, the volume of mentions, and any level of sentiment toward their brand from customers.

“If anything is bubbling across our channels, they act like a canary in the coal mine to alert us to any problem,” Jennifer said. “We don’t have control over what people say, but we’re monitoring what they say, and if there’s a problem, then we can bring that up to senior leaders and say we need to address this.”

Test New Strategies and Stick with Legacy Platforms to Connect with Customers

Because of the uncertainty on some of the legacy platforms, social media leaders are looking to test new platforms and content strategies to support customer care teams.

Lisa noted how her team at Whirlpool is evaluating new platforms for 2023 while at the same time investing more in the channels where they have established a successful presence.

“We still want to test out and explore TikTok, as we’ve seen some success with it, and we’ve inserted ourselves into that space,” Lisa said. “But we have some legacy channels with Instagram and Pinterest that allow us to dial up our objectives for bringing innovations to our consumers.”

David shared how he believes focusing on content marketing will be a priority for Consumers Energy this year. He noted how his team has ongoing conversations around the importance of blogs that customers can use to gather information.

“It’s ensuring that we’ve got the right content for the right channel at the right time,” David said. “LinkedIn has been a silent killer for us. Especially if we want to reach our employees, that’s a great way outside our normal internal communications channels to amplify a message.”

He talked about leveraging platforms where your company already has success and noted how his team is investing more into Facebook because that’s where they’ve found the most success with customers.

Gain More Leadership Insights on Addressing Social Media Uncertainty in 2023

As social media leaders plan for the new year, many are looking to safely navigate the impact that uncertain platforms are creating with customer care teams.

David, Lisa, Erika, and Jennifer provided more insights on how social media leaders can address the challenges of evolving platforms in SocialMedia.org’s recent panel discussion.

If you lead social media at a large organization, you can apply to learn more about how SocialMedia.org members are working together to address the impacts that uncertain platforms are creating for brand reputation.