Photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/bizior

Communications with clients has become a very complex and tangled web with the introduction of social media.  Social media is great as it can drastically increase your marketing reach, it also expands the number of ways you are able to be contacted.

How is this a bad thing, you ask?

Perhaps it is not actually that bad.  However, unmanaged, it can easily turn into some wild and unruly beast.  In reading Heather Vreeland’s blog, I see where she is upgrading…herself.  While all of the upgrades from 1.9 to 2.0 are great, the last tweak to her operating system was the one that really stood out the most.

“Funneling the avenues in which I can be reached :: I love Twitter and Facebook, but I can’t manage those inboxes in addition to my email. So, if you follow or friend me, try to contact me at heather@atlantaoccasions.com if you want to talk biz. I use my social networks primarily for business, but not necessarily as a point-of-contact. You’ll get a quicker response from me if you reach out via email.”

This stood out primarily because last week as super hectic for me and my business partner.  Preparing for a big weekend event does not mean your client’s needs are put on the back burner.  It does not mean you stop your company while you prepare.  It does not mean you stop communication.  It means you work extra to ensure your event goes off without a hitch while not allowing for any slip in normal business processes.  During this week, I had received contacts via Twitter direct message, Flickr mail, Shuttr messages, and Facebook all coupled with the usual barrage of emails and phone calls.  I always start returning phone calls first, then emails, and the social media contacts follow.  Overall, it can overwhelm you, and do it quick.

So… how do you want to be contacted?  If you prefer to be contacted via phone or email, then that is something you need to make clear.  I am not saying that you should ignore anything else that comes through but there is nothing wrong with replying, then kindly reminding your contacts that if they need a more prompt reply then phone or email will do the trick.

More importantly, how does your client or potential client wish to be contacted? If they have ended up following you on Twitter or added you as a friend on Facebook, that might not infer that is how they want to be contacted.  It might just be that they want to learn more about you, your company, or follow what is happening with your company.
One last note here would be the difficulty in tracking follow-ups.  I save just about every email.  If it is client related, I save everything.  It becomes a challenge to refer to conversations on Facebook, Twitter, as well as email.  Having everything in a single place makes tracking when I followed up much, much easier.

There is still nothing wrong with picking up the phone and talking to someone.