Why You Should Always Check Your Social Media Direct Messages

So, you hired a professional social media manager?

Congratulations!

This is a big step toward growing your audience, expanding your team's capacity, and focusing your own day-to-day on the pieces of the business that only you can do.

There is, however, one thing that I, as a social media manager, only take on reluctantly.

That task?

Answering direct messages.

Many people believe that, once they've hired a social media manager, they're able to be completely hands-off with all aspects of social media. And while it does allow you to be slightly less hands-on, at B-Plot, we're firm believers that the business owner or their proxy should continue to check and respond to social media messages whenever possible.

Why?

Your social media manager:

1. May not know the answers to all of the questions that come through.

2. Doesn't know your inventory.

3. Doesn't know your business the way you do.

Routing all questions through your social media manager can have the unintended side effect of slowing down response times to your customers, not to mention leading to possible errors on simple questions that you or your staff could answer in your sleep.

Consider this scenario:

You own a bookstore. Someone messages your store's Instagram account asking if you have the book Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir in stock. (And yes, this is secretly a plug to get you to read Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.)

It's not a complicated question, but in order to provide an answer, your social media manager will need to: read the message, relay the question to you or a member of your staff, wait for a response, and then provide an answer to your prospective customer about your current inventory.

Meanwhile, this is probably a question that you, as the store owner, already know without hesitation. You can probably have the book in your customer's grabby little hands before your social media manager can even forward you the question. This is why it's faster -- and oftentimes easier, with fewer steps -- to field social media messages directly.

This is in no way intended to speak ill of social media managers. I am one! But I also don't know your store's inventory like the back of my hand the way you do. And equipping me with the tools needed to answer these kinds of questions can be costly and cumbersome. You can add your social media manager to your inventory management system, but what would that add to your monthly costs? And would doing so take away a seat from an in-store bookseller, thus limiting their ability to do their job?

That's not to say your social media manager can't still help with direct messages! But having your social media manager field any and all questions that come through might not be the most efficient solution to free up your bandwidth. Instead, your social media manager can help you set up an automated response, flag messages that need follow-up, and highlight questions that are asked frequently that should be added to the FAQs on your website. These all contribute toward freeing up bandwidth so you can focus on the things that only you can do!

Every business/social media manager relationship is different. If you've worked with a social media manager in the past, what balance has been right for you?

Need help setting up an automated response for your social media direct messages? We're here to help! Click on Contact Us to speak with a member of the B-Plot team directly.