Should Social Media Take Weekends Off?

The bonfire I eventually made it to, on an empty stomach. 

I never eat fast food-- I wasn't allowed to as a child, and fortunately that made me never crave it as an adult (unless it's Taco John's which started in my hometown, and I am literally obsessed with their potato oles). However, I was starving as I waited to attend my first (yes, first) bonfire this past Saturday, and, being in Wisconsin, Culver's was the only quick bite in sight.

I ordered some soup (healthy compared to a butter burger, right?!) and had the nicest high school boy deliver it to our car when it was ready. Starving, I opened the soup to find a big old cup of...broth. Yes --> only broth.Seeing as how we were already on the road again by the time I opened my soup, I refused to make my family turn back around.

Now, a funny thing has happened in my family. They have suddenly gone from hardly acknowledging the fact I work in social media, to now bossing me around about it. Case in point? My mother immediately interrupted my whining with the most surprising phrase ever to come out of her mouth --> "Tweet about it!"

Oh, mother...literally. So, of course, I took a photo of my noodle-less, chicken-less bowl of chicken noodle soup and Tweeted Culver's. Being the social media pro I am, I kept checking my Twitter every two seconds, waiting for them to Tweet back. "Marji, they probably aren't going to answer it. It's the weekend," was the next surprising sentence out of my mom's mouth.

This warranted a pretty harsh glare, as this was the same woman who always wonders why I have to be on my phone all weekend checking brands' social media accounts. I answered like a teenager --> "Mom, I have to be checking our Twitter accounts ALL WEEKEND, so they can too. Are you kidding me?"

This quite passionate respond about social media monitoring on the weekends forced me to think about it for a bit. Should a brand be monitoring on the weekends? Or, is it okay to take off a couple of days and revisit everything on Monday?

IMHO, if your consumers are engaging with your brand on the weekends, then you need to be monitoring on the weekends. One of the best social wins for a brand I work on came from a Tweet that was sent at 10pm on a Saturday night. Granted, most of the other teams weren't available to decide a course of action until Monday morning, but I was able to keep the conversation going long enough to turn the 10pm Tweet into a huge, successful social media opportunity for the brand.

On top of that, you don't want pissed off consumers come Monday morning who had one of your products break over the weekend and didn't hear from you until you got through all of the social posts on Monday afternoon. One could argue --> what's the point of your brand's social media channels if they get the same love a consumer would get anyways from calling customer service?! You should always push to give the consumer a little extra on social then they would get from a typical interaction with your brand. After all, they found you on social media for a social, more intimate, conversation.

Examples of when you don't necessarily need to be monitoring on the weekends? --> If you're a publishing brand, a lawyer's office, a doctor's office. If your place of business is a service, not a product, and you are not open on the weekends, then feel free to take a break. However, no one's going to complain if you want to go the extra mile and give your consumers something on the weekends, as well.

As for Culver's --> I did receive a generic Tweet a few hours later directing me to their comment card on their website that I could have just found myself. In the perfect social world of Marji, I would have preferred something a little more personal. A tailored response to my issue would have been ideal. Also, a response from the comment card I did end up filling out online would have been ideal.

When a brand treats social like any other one of its channels, it makes fans less likely to make the effort to engage with them on their social networks. After all, why would I ever Tweet Culver's again when I know they will only send a generic Tweet linking me to their website?

What are your thoughts? Do you think brands need to monitor on the weekends, as well?

- Marji J. Sherman