graphic credit: USPS OIG
Social media is now an important channel of business communication: 70 percent of businesses and organizations worldwide have a social media presence.
Social media represents as much as $1.3 trillion in annual economic value.
A strong social media strategy could help the Postal Service remain competitive in the digital age by better responding to changing communication needs, improving the customer experience, creating value through social commerce, and cutting costs.
The Postal Service can enhance its currently limited social media strategy by undertaking actions that would:
- ensure a strong foundation by allocating necessary resources,
- expand its social media reach, visibility, and level of engagement,
- leverage the network to improve brand image, build new products, and create new marketing and sales opportunities, and
- return social media into a valuable data source.
The Postal Service has already begun to build a social media strategy and has established a presence on some of the major social media sites. A small team manages the Postal Service’s presence and also uses some helpful analytics tools. Nevertheless, to fully harness the power of social media and reap the potential benefits, the Postal Service could consider undertaking some additional actions:
- Allocating additional resources. The resources the Postal Service currently allocates to social media do not seem to be sufficient to ensure an engaging online presence with appropriate cross-company coordination.
- Increasing social media visibility. To increase its number of followers and therefore maximize potential benefits, the Postal Service could market its social presence more actively by, for example, making social media site logos more visible on USPS.com, in TV commercials, on its vehicles, and in post office lobbies.
- Improving customer care. Solving more customer complaints over social media can help the Postal Service project a better public image, reduce complaints by sharing solutions with all customers, and reduce customer care costs.
- Delivering more customer-centric content. For an organization with such a broad and diverse customer base like the Postal Service, creating more regional, local, or interest-based user communities could attract followers by providing them with content more pertinent to their needs and interests.
- Marketing current products and services. The Postal Service could use social media to advertise its current offerings, sell selected products and services, and conduct crowdsourced market research.
Creating new products. Social media creates an opportunity for the Postal Service to offer crowdshipping services, social e-commerce services, identification services, and products that help bridge the physical and digital communication worlds. Social e-commerce services, for example, could facilitate the use of social platforms as storefronts, similar to online shops on Etsy or Amazon. The Postal Service could manage necessary back-end services such as microwarehousing, fulfillment, and delivery.
- Turning social media into a valuable data source. A greater investment in advanced social media analytics tools could help the Postal Service gain a better understanding of what resonates with users and what factors are likely to lead to a more positive view of the brand or even drive sales.
- Continually evaluating new platforms. The social media landscape is constantly evolving. New tools and capabilities might be appropriate to help the Postal Service meet its goals. For example, Pinterest is quickly becoming a popular platform and has recently demonstrated an ability to drive sales. The Postal Service should frequently scan for new platforms, such as Pinterest, that might fit its strategy.
Although not a “cure all,” social media offers significant benefits, and many opportunities exist for the Postal Service to expand in this area. To do so will require a more solid foundation of resources and a distinct, agency-wide commitment. A solid and comprehensive social media strategy built on such a foundation could help the Postal Service extend its reach, cut costs, create value, and remain current as society changes.