---
name: social-media-monitoring
description: Monitor and respond to customer support requests on social media platforms, including brand mention tracking, sentiment analysis, public vs. private response routing, and social media crisis management. Use when setting up social listening, managing social media support, handling public complaints, monitoring brand mentions, or responding to viral social media incidents. Triggers on phrases like "social media monitoring", "social listening", "brand mention", "social support", "Twitter support", "Facebook support", "social crisis", "public complaint", "social media response", "social sentiment".
---

# Social Media Monitoring & Response

Monitor and respond to customer support requests on social media platforms.

## Workflow

### Social Media Support Setup

Trigger: New social channel launch; quarterly social support review; brand mention spike:

1. **Platform selection**: Identify active platforms where customers engage (Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, TikTok); prioritize by customer presence and support volume.
2. **Monitoring tool configuration**: Set up social listening tool (Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Mention, Brandwatch); configure brand mention tracking (company name, product name, common misspellings, executive names); set up alert rules.
3. **Response framework**: Define response guidelines — public acknowledgment, move to private DM for sensitive issues, response time targets (1 hour for public posts), tone guidelines (brand voice, empathy, transparency).
4. **Escalation rules**: Define social escalation triggers — viral post (> 100 retweets/likes), negative sentiment with high engagement, executive mention, media reference, legal/regulatory mention; escalate to PR/social team immediately.
5. **Agent training**: Train support agents on social media etiquette — public visibility awareness, brand voice, crisis communication, when to escalate to PR; practice with simulated scenarios.
6. **Integration**: Connect social platforms to unified inbox (Front, Sprout Social, Hootsuite); configure routing (social specialist or rotating assignment); set up canned responses for common issues.
7. **Launch and monitor**: Go live on prioritized platforms; track response time, resolution rate, sentiment trends, escalation frequency; optimize based on first 30 days of data.
8. **Continuous improvement**: Weekly social sentiment review; monthly response template update; quarterly platform re-prioritization based on customer presence.

### Social Response Guidelines

```
SOCIAL MEDIA RESPONSE FRAMEWORK
==================================

Response Time Targets:
  Public post (mention):    < 1 hour
  Public post (complaint):  < 30 minutes
  Direct message:           < 2 hours
  Viral post (>100 likes):  < 15 minutes + PR escalation

Response Flow:
  1. Acknowledge publicly: "Hi @customer, thanks for reaching out. We want to help — please DM us so we can look into this."
  2. Move to private: Continue conversation in DM for sensitive details
  3. Investigate: Check customer account, ticket history, issue details
  4. Resolve: Provide solution in DM; offer to follow up publicly if customer wants
  5. Close: Thank customer; resolve ticket; log interaction

Public Response Templates:
  General inquiry:
    "Hi @customer! Thanks for reaching out. We'd love to help. Could you DM us with more details?"

  Complaint (general):
    "Hi @customer, we're sorry to hear about this. We want to make it right. Please DM us your account email so we can look into this immediately."

  Outage/service issue:
    "Hi @customer, we're aware of the issue and our team is working on it. Updates at [status page link]. Thanks for your patience."

  Positive mention:
    "Thanks @customer! We're glad to hear this. If you need anything, we're always here."

Private Response Templates:
  After investigation:
    "Thanks for your patience, [name]. I've looked into your account and [explanation]. Here's what I can do: [solution]. Let me know if you need anything else!"

  Escalation needed:
    "Thanks for the details. I'm escalating this to our [team] for further investigation. You should hear back within [timeframe]. Ticket #[number]."

Tone Guidelines:
  □ Professional but conversational (not corporate-speak)
  □ Empathetic (acknowledge frustration before solving)
  □ Transparent (admit when we're wrong)
  □ Never argumentative (even if customer is rude)
  □ Brand voice consistent with other channels
  □ Never promise what we can't deliver
  □ Always follow up if resolution takes time
```

### Social Monitoring Dashboard

```
SOCIAL MEDIA SUPPORT METRICS
===============================

Period: Last 30 days

Volume by Platform:
  Twitter/X:      450 mentions (45%)
  Facebook:       300 mentions (30%)
  Instagram:      150 mentions (15%)
  LinkedIn:        60 mentions  (6%)
  Reddit:          40 mentions  (4%)
  Total:          1,000 mentions

Sentiment Breakdown:
  Positive:   400 (40%) — product praise, success stories, appreciation
  Neutral:    350 (35%) — questions, inquiries, feature requests
  Negative:   250 (25%) — complaints, bugs, service issues

Response Metrics:
  Total responded: 920 (92% response rate — target: ≥ 90%)
  Avg response time: 42 minutes (target: < 1 hour)
  Public responses: 920 (acknowledgment + move to DM)
  DM responses: 680 (continued conversation)
  Resolved on social: 450 (45% — resolved without ticket)
  Escalated to ticket: 230 (23% — required deeper investigation)

Escalation Metrics:
  PR escalations: 3 (viral posts, media references)
  Executive escalations: 1 (CEO mention)
  Legal escalations: 0
  Crisis activations: 0

Engagement Impact:
  Sentiment shift: Negative mentions down 15% vs. prior month
  Resolution rate: 68% resolved within 24 hours
  Repeat mentions: 12% (customer mentions brand again within 30 days)
  Follower growth: +2.3% (correlated with responsive social presence)

Top Issues This Month:
  1. Login errors (45 mentions) — technical issue, resolved with patch
  2. Billing confusion (38 mentions) — pricing page update requested
  3. Feature request: Dark mode (32 mentions) — added to roadmap
  4. Slow response time (28 mentions) — staffing increase in progress
  5. Mobile app crashes (22 mentions) — bug fix in next release
```

## Edge Cases

- **Viral negative post** (customer complaint goes viral with 1000+ retweets):
  - Detection: Alert when post exceeds 100 retweets or 500 likes within 1 hour
  - Response: Public response within 15 minutes ("We see this and are investigating"); DM customer immediately; escalate to PR + executive
  - Strategy: Do not delete or argue; acknowledge publicly; resolve privately; update publicly when resolved
  - Escalation: PR team drafts executive statement if needed; legal review if legal claims involved
  - Follow-up: Post-resolution public update ("We've resolved [issue] for @customer and made [improvement]"); monitor for follow-up mentions

- **Astroturfing / fake complaints** (organized negative campaigns, competitor sabotage):
  - Detection: Multiple accounts with similar messaging; new accounts with no history; coordinated posting times
  - Response: Do not engage publicly with suspicious accounts; document evidence; monitor for patterns
  - Escalation: Legal team review if defamatory; platform reporting for fake accounts; PR strategy if campaign is large-scale
  - Prevention: Authentic engagement with real customers builds credibility; fake campaigns less effective with strong genuine presence

- **Employee social media mentions** (employee posts about company, positive or negative):
  - Detection: Employee name + company name; internal hashtag monitoring
  - Positive: Amplify (retweet, like, thank); encourage employee advocacy
  - Negative: Private outreach from HR/people ops; do not engage publicly; understand root cause
  - Policy: Clear social media policy for employees; training on representing company online

- **Influencer/KOL mentions** (key opinion leader or influencer mentions product):
  - Detection: Account follower count threshold (> 10K); industry relevance; engagement rate
  - Positive: Amplify; build relationship; offer partnership
  - Negative: Direct outreach from executive; personalized resolution; offer demo/partnership
  - Strategy: Influencer relationship management — maintain positive relationship regardless of mention type
  - Escalation: High-profile influencer → notify marketing + PR teams

- **Multi-language social mentions** (customer posts in non-primary language):
  - Detection: Language detection on social post
  - Response: Respond in customer's language if agent is fluent; otherwise, use translation tool + acknowledge language
  - Escalation: Flag for bilingual agent if available; translate for internal team
  - Template: "Gracias por contactarnos @customer. Le respondemos por DM para ayudarle." (pre-translated templates for top languages)

## Integration Points

- **Social platforms**: Twitter/X API, Facebook Graph API, Instagram API, LinkedIn API, Reddit API
- **Social listening**: Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Mention, Brandwatch, Talkwalker — monitoring, analytics
- **Unified inbox**: Front, Zendesk, Sprout Social — social ticket management, routing
- **CRM**: Salesforce, HubSpot — customer identification, account data
- **Help desk**: Zendesk, Freshdesk — ticket creation, escalation, resolution tracking
- **Analytics**: Native platform analytics, custom dashboard — sentiment, volume, response metrics
- **Translation**: Google Translate, DeepL — multi-language social response
- **Alerting**: PagerDuty, Slack — viral post alerts, escalation notifications
- **Content management**: Buffer, Later — coordinated social posting with support responses
- **Data warehouse**: Snowflake, BigQuery — historical social data, trend analysis