At a recent Social Media event we got to talking about the Motrin social media [incident]. One of the threads that jumped out at me was the part about the mommies who responded happen to really speak out late on a Friday night. And by Sunday, Motrin has responded and removed the ads that started the whole issue–just 2 days later.


This scenario and others just like it are proving that social media never sleeps and therefore the social media team has to be ready to respond 24/7/365.
Some may feel like the pendulum has swung too far in instances like these–I agree–but I also feel its not coming back. And I am ok with that. I think as social media marketers we are doing our brands a huge service by humanizing them and caring enough to show it in our response times.
I have been asked: What is a reasonable response time on Twitter or Blog comment? I feel a few hours is probably right. Since in Twitter or Tweetdeck (or whatever tool you are using to monitor) there are built in delay times. So real time (or near real time) is out of the question (at least for now). Given that you may be busy putting your kids to bed when something like the Motrin issue hit–I have to think 3 hours is probably a good target.
The issue quickly becomes–what happens if it is a really tough issue–that can't be triaged with just a single Tweet. Where you need to assemble a team as Motrin did. Well, I guess there is no weekend in social media because social media never takes a vacation!
What do you think? How can marketers prepare for 24/7/365 social media?