SE23 businesses: who operates your social media channels?

The Superdrug debacle and Perryvale’s #CatGate demonstrate that social media can be damaging if a business’s channels are left in the hands of others.

As a keen follower of all things #SE23 on Twitter, I notice a spectrum of quality amongst local business Twitter accounts.

Some pump out repetitive and generic memes, hoping to latch onto a hashtag (“Have you got that #FridayFeeling?” etc). Other accounts only promote themselves, and don’t engage with the community in any meaningful way. I mute both kinds of account because they add nothing to my feed.

I’m interested to know which social media companies are used by local shops and restaurants, and whether you think you’re getting value for money?

Or do you use social media directly? How is that going for you?

I do my shop social media accounts completely on my own & I’m the only one that knows the passwords.

Community accounts such as Forest Hill Fashion Week #FHFW (I have a few) a few extra peeps know the passwords & can dip in if they like. From Twitter I get an email anytime something is posted from any other device that’s not mine, so I can check posts immediately when I pick up the email to make sure they are by someone that has the password, though I don’t get notifications from Instagram or Facebook.

The tags I use the most are #SE23 & #ForestHill

No accounts I’m involved in pays an outside company to do their social media.

I’ve always dealt with all of my social media myself. Have recently employed a company though to help with posts from my business FB page.

We’ve always managed our own Twitter account which can also be said for our other stores. It’s only when there’s something of incredible importance to the store like opening/ closing changes, emergencies and the like that someone such as an owner or other store manager might intervene. We do have a Facebook and Instagram page, but that encompasses all our stores announcements.

Otherwise both myself (Ben) and Alex who are very much the one and only Forest Hill team have very different ways of approaching and using social media. You can usually tell by the photos used and how there constructed or use of emoji s who’s sending Tweets that day for example. I believe it works well for us and gives the store a little extra something, we’re not just employees, but individuals and when there’s so much happening in the craft drinks world nowadays, it’d be difficult for any one person to cover all aspects and not have a certain leaning towards taste and producers.

We have had instances where individuals might of run into an issue with any one of our stores, but message the incorrect account or may use an on going thread that involves all accounts, but with a lack or information such as naming an individual store (which can happen) looks bad across the board and something we take very seriously in regards to customer experience.

Otherwise it’s all going well I think? I’ll always try to sign off Tweets with #ForestHill #se23 or integrate into what I’m about to post. I’ll use other tags such #beer #craftbeer and sometimes #weekend. I’ve saturated posts before with #'s, but they seem to have adverse effects unlike a well thought out post which is received much better.