Recently I heard that Safeway landed a verified account status on Twitter and they were also doing a “Promoted Who to Follow” on Twitter. Having spent over 3 years there in a previous work life, I decided to see what they were doing in the landscape of social media and this is what I found on my first visit to their Twitter profile page:
I was kind of surprised to notice that the second most recent tweet in their timeline was an “@ reply” to “@FuckPhilosophy”.
I’m a firm believer of “No Tweet Left Behind.” If you’re managing a companies’ online presence, it is your duty to engage with every fan and follower that takes time out of their day to acknowledge you. However, after reviewing this tweet, I’ve come up with an exception to the rule. If the User ID or Twitter handle in this case isn’t “safe for work,” then it’s ok to leave this conversation alone.
In this particular case, there was no instance of customer service that needed to occur. There wasn’t a problem that had to be solved. This was designed to be a friendly exchange with a fan of the Safeway brand. A company like Safeway has a wide range of audience. For a tweet to be displayed (at the time of noticing, 7hrs) for that long, who know who else saw that and was a little shocked (UPDATE: A day later and it’s only the 3rd most recent tweet. Looks like they’re keeping it posted).
Lesson Learned: Be careful who you “@ Reply” to on Twitter. Especially if you’re representing a brand or company. Not all tweets need to be responded to, especially when they contain information not safe for the general public.