Okay, so for my social media class I had to do an audit of an organization that many of you may know of if you don’t have a car, you are too scared to drive (which is completely okay, I mean, who isn’t), or when you’d rather take this instead taking public transit when the party ends around 2 am. If you haven’t guessed yet, it’s Uber, the ridesharing company.
Essentially, I had to do a breakdown of their social media on the big three social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Some of the best practices I focused on were posting patterns, their type of content, as well as their responses and response time to their followers.
Consistency is Uber Important
Seeing as though there is only one other significant competitor (who shall remain nameless for the time being), it is expected that Uber has a large presence on social media. But which one brings home the coveted social media and best practices trophy? That’s simple: Twitter. And how is that possible? Simply put, they are consistent. With one million twitter followers, Twitter never leaves them hanging.
Every day they post 4 times or more a day all between 12 pm and 2 pm: prime lunch hours. Most of the time it’s just a retweet, but the direct engagement with their audience is admirable. Each one of their retweets usually has an adorable emoji to go along with it. And as Buffer states in their best practices guidelines article “How to Engage with your Social Media Followers Quickly and Authentically“, the best way to make your day more enjoyable is with an emoji! They know what their audience wants, and they always seem to deliver…on twitter.
Uber’s Middle Child
However, Uber’s performance on Facebook and Instagram are completely different stories. And by that I mean they are in every way inferior to Twitter. Uber on Facebook has over 125 million followers and around 1.3 million followers on Instagram. But it does not necessarily seem that way. With all the attention that is put towards Twitter, it seems as though that they follow the best practice of choosing “which network to use and which to ignore” that comes from Hootsuite’s “14 Social Media Best Practices.” Having three social media platforms for one company may seem beneficial but one of them will have to suffer. It’s like having multiple children, no matter how much you try to divide your time one child is going to get more attention than the other.
When doing the audit I had to look up to 4 weeks prior to the start of the assignment to find any sort of significant posting on those two platforms. I really have to wonder why they don’t give some sort of consistent updates on Facebook, but then I realize that posting on Facebook regularly can be slightly annoying and will you fill your feed. This notion actually is a best practice. According to Meltwater, the best way to post on Facebook is once a day or less. So their lack of posting could be seen as a good social media strategy as opposed to pure laziness.
Separation is a Good Thing…
Uber on Facebook and Instagram do have their strong suits though. Although they do not post frequently on Facebook, they do follow the best practice as explained in the article “The Ultimate Best Social Media Practices of 2019” from Bonfire Marketing, of not having a post longer than 80 characters long. They do this exceptionally well on Facebook. None of their posts go beyond more than two sentences and are usually accompanied by a photo. Basically, Facebook is just an extension of their Instagram. It would just be nice if there was some sort of variation between what is posted on the two platforms. Sometimes separation is a good thing. It enables uniqueness.
Their Instagram is like an aspiring Instagram photographers’ dream. Just like Facebook, they post quite infrequently. However, I could not find one photo with less than 1,100 likes. This without a doubt has a direct correlation with the Sprout Social’s “5 Social Media Best Practices Every Marketer Must Follow“ best practice of having a highly visual image and video experience. Many of the photos are not even promoting anything, they are just artsy shots of behind the scenes or cityscapes. Let’s be honest, who is going to see a photo of a person with black combat boots and a no-shave November beard standing over a cliff looking down on the city just as the sun rises and not click the heart button?
Calm, Cool, Collected
With every major organization, there will come some sort of backlash. It’s inevitable. If you scroll through the comments on any social media platform on any post you will see a collection of horror stories or bad user experiences from Uber patrons. However, they handle it exceptionally well with any curve ball that comes their way. The responses to these comments are never replied to in anger or animosity. They all have a calm approach that usually starts with an “Oh we’re sorry that happened to you” and ends with “check your inbox, we have someone reaching out to you right now.” In a situation that can be tension-filled, even on the internet, Uber always takes the high road and comes off like a calm, cool, and collected professional. If you want to keep your followers, it’s not beneficial to come off as anything less.
Innovation Has No Limits
Uber is an innovator of the ridesharing program, so it would be expected that they would be equally on social media. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Yes, they are thriving on Twitter and have some moderate clout on Instagram, but their lack of originality on Facebook would be could be considered mediocre at best and that could quite possibly affect their overall social media perception. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s not necessarily a good thing either. If they want to remain relevant as well as being leaders of their industry, they need to up their game.
Let’s talk about it.
Now it comes down to you! You must have come to my blog for some reason! Maybe you are trying to decide between Uber and another ridesharing company or maybe you are new to the whole social media world. Either way, your thoughts, and opinions matter! I want to know if you agree or disagree. Do you think I was fair in this overall audit? Tell me what you think in the comments below and maybe let me know what you would do if you were the social media manager of Uber!
Brandon's Social Experience 