So if you follow me on Twitter, you probably know that on Tuesday I was having a issue with the hosting company Media Temple. They not only hosts A2SM, but many other projects that my company Goldstein Media is currently working on.
I don’t think it’s necessary to rehash all the details, since the issues have since been resolved, but I did want to talk about how Media Temple used to social media to not only diffuse a potentially bad situation, but also how they reached out and helped solve the problem.
It all started around 1pm, after having some database issues on my shared server, Media Temple support started transferring me to a server container for a 30 day stay while they looked into the issues on my cluster. During this process something went wrong. Mind you, this was only supposed to take 45 minutes. Or so I was told.
At about 1:10pm my whole server full of sites and projects went offline. On each page was a spinning status graphic and a note that said they were upgrading the server. I immediately got worried, though they had told me that it would only take 45 minutes, it was in the middle of the day — Prime Time. After 20 minutes on hold, listening to some musician making gurgling noises (that’s a whole other thing they need to deal with), I began to tweet my frustration on Twitter. Sure enough @mediatemple, monitored by support lead TJ, had been monitoring what was being said about my frustrations with their brand and decided to see what was wrong.
TJ sent me his direct number (via DM) so he could help me debug the issue. After more than 3 hours of back and forth phone calls, TJ and his sys-admins were able to rectify the situation and get everything back online.
Throughout the whole ordeal, TJ kept a positive and supportive attitude and did his best to answer any of the negative tweets that I or any other Twitter users had tweeted as a result of my my initial complaints on the social networking site.
In the end Andrew, a VP a Media Temple, called me as well and helped put out the last burning embers of the fire. He too was very professional and courteous and did his best to make everything right.
What can be learned from this interaction on Social Media?
Now take a second and imagine what could have happened if Media Temple didn’t have its people monitor their brand. This situation could have easily spun out of control and in the end caused major damage to their brand. But this didn’t happen because TJ was vigilant and quick to respond to the negative tweets. He lessened the blow to his company’s brand and might have saved a customer.
If you involved in a company that interacts with the public in anyway you NEED to be on Twitter. You NEED to be monitoring your brand and responding to both positive and negative feedback you are getting over that channel. If you aren’t doing this, you are not only neglecting your company’s image, but potentially losing valuable opportunities to fix problems before they become bigger issues and cause more damage.
Social Media is the future of communication, either your on board or get ready for a really bumpy ride.
Seth Goldstein is the co-editor of A2SM, the co-host of the A2SM Podcast. When he isn’t engrossed in A2SM, Seth is the president of Goldstein Media LLC a Web Design and Internet Marketing company based in the Philadelphia.
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