SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Social Media — tracks feedback from leading marketers about social media practices and issues.
This week, we asked: Does your social media presence take a break during the holiday season?
- No — 68.10%
- Yes — 31.90%
The holidays are a time of relaxation for many people — but the pressures of the social Web never stop. More than 2 in 3 SmartBrief on Social Media readers say they won’t put their social media efforts on hold during the holidays. People using social for personal reasons or small-scale entrepreneurs with tiny fan bases may be able to get away with taking time off. But if you are using social tools for a successful business, it’s easy to see why taking a break can be difficult: Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the social media universe is open for business 365 days a year. You may have customers coming to you with questions, problems and maybe even a little holiday cheer. Even if you’re not in the middle of a big social media campaign, your brand needs to be able to respond to anything that comes up online.
Does that mean that your social media person can just never take a day off? Of course not. It means that social media should not be on the shoulders of a single person. It should be a shared responsibility that permeates your organization, so that you can set up a rotating triage team to alert the appropriate parties in the event of a social media crisis, without totally ruining everyone’s holiday. Becoming a social organization means listening to your customers every day of the year — but that responsibility belongs to everyone.