DELETE: The Inbox with Social Media

Sarwant Singh, BBC business author, in his article on megatrends that will change everyone’s lives predicts a shift towards more informal collaboration in our workplace on a base of social media. According to him, social media tools will replace the inbox by 2020. Well, it seems like old news to me – social media is not a new kid in town any longer. Just look at your message box on Facebook or Twitter. A lot of my communications go online, either with my business partners, colleagues or my students. Moreover, while doing my research on social media branding, I used Facebook and Twitter to reach companies I wanted to interview. I didn’t spend time googling their contact details and writing long formal business letters.

Can we use this current trend towards informal communication in business and if so, how? Let your consumers talk to you on social media, not just in a form of comments and likes, but via messages. Check messages on your business page regularly, the same way you check your inbox. It’s important to reply the same day (I know from my personal experience that it’s quite easy to ignore messages on social media). Your consumers are very attentive audience, so a delay in replying, not to mention avoidance will be noticed. Besides, if they sent you a message on social media there is definitely a reason for that (they may have not been able to reach you by phone or email). That’s the beauty of social media – it’s time-saving solution not only for your consumers, but for you as well. And more importantly it reduces the distance between your businesses and your consumers.

Isn’t that what you try to achive?