Bell vs. Telus In Social Media

From even the first few tweets, you can see a wild difference in the styles of social media postings the two companies have. Although very different approaches, both companies stay true to their brand. Bell has gone for a more “social corporate responsibility” style of posting. Including pictures of their workers helping out for the holidays (very similar to the Bell “Lets Talk” campaigns). Telus however has gone for a much more consumer oriented vibe on their social media pages. Telus has loads of replies to average Joes with personalized comments on each post. They also use animals that look friendly and cuddly to elicit an affectionate response. Consumers then apply this to their whole brand. Overall, Bell gives off a more corporate vibe with their posting. Whereas Telus is much more warm and individualized.

The Winner

Although in all death-matches, there must be a winner, and for this one i’ll choose Telus. Although i’m sure many people love the way Bell does things to help, I can’t shake the feeling that it is all a money grab. Across most platforms, I can’t see a single response to the consumer base, which is bad. People love to be heard, and a huge company like Bell or Telus replying to the little guy? Oh man does that feel good, but Bell seems to have lost that art, and instead is focusing on “look at what we do!”.

When looking at great social media pages, it’s hard to miss the stand-outs, Wendy’s as a prime example. The social media team at Wendy’s replies to their consumers, addresses issues, and is funny as heck to top it all off. But a big thing with social media posting is being consistent, and this is where Bell is lacking. Bell responds to the needs of their customers over Facebook, but nothing to be seen over Twitter. This can make things confusing for the consumer when they don’t know where to post to be reached. Ease of access is key. Consumers needs to be able to hop onto one site, say what needs to be said, and be responded too, or else chaos.

Similarities

With all this said, these companies do have major similarities across their pages. When a problem arrises for a consumer, both companies reply quickly, with a typical “customer service” response, which is a must. Another major point is keeping the “bad press” comments. Although it can be tough, and look bad for a company to have multitudes of comments stating how poor their service is, deleting these will only make things much worse, and blow up in their face.