Most companies agree that joining the conversation is crucial for their brand and customer experience. Still, many of them (most of them) don't dare taking the step.
What is holding them you could wonder?
I call it the 95%-5% rule. During internal discussions there are always examples used of cases in which it's better that a brand is not joining in. Most of these cases are exceptional cases. Furthermore, they can be very well described and everyone in the company feels that in those circumstances it is indeed better not to join.
My conclusion: for most companies, these cases only count for 5% of the online conversations. For 95% of the cases, everyone feels very comfortable with the idea of joining the conversation. But that stupid 5% is holding us back.
Let's turn it around and make it more explicit. Organize a meeting in which you define the 5% and 95% cases very clearly. So everyone in the team knows what the policy is: when will be join and when will we not join. Making them explicit helps to break the resistance of joining in.
Let the 5% exceptional cases not stop you from reaching out to your consumer.