GREAT COMMENT! Very well thought out and you have very good points. I see a lot of the issues with the “Social Media for Customer Service” solution being a pretty far-fetched idea for precisely the reasons you point out.

Logically, the “corporate” level needs to see the advantage to monitoring their brands with social media. After that is absorbed and metrics have been established, they can then be educated on the proper use of SM to engage – both from a brand marketing standpoint (which some have started in a “Push” model) and a PR standpoint where the situation like I described above would enter.

It’s going to take time. It’s going to take professionals like you and me. It’s going to happen faster than some companies can deal with. But eventually, the WILL have to deal with it.

Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting. It’s good to have you at the table.

Keep Cooking!
Andrew B. Clark
The Brand Chef

In most cases of customer dissatisfaction on Twitter, the hashtag emerges from the crowd, and catches steam as a result of people promoting it. Typically the company is not the one to kick things off, unless it is an organized company event or a giveaway contest.

Also, this whole scenario hinges on the fact that a business could catch and pinpoint the woes of a small crowd at 7:30pm. Most businesses are still only operating 8-5 on Twitter, but I COULD see that changing over time. The other key to this plan is the integration between the web and the physical store. Unfortunately for us, that sync between site and store just isn’t there yet.

I think that businesses and organizations could do more with the data they collect via listening, including leveraging Twitter in new ways, but it will still take time to get to that level. All we can do is to keep suggesting it to them until they listen.