Last week, I wanted to take my son to a baseball game. I checked online, and it looked like the game might have been sold out, but there was nothing on the website that indicated that is was categorically sold out.

So, I tweeted the baseball team, asking if they were sold out.

No response. I thought, well, okay… it IS Sunday. But still, it’s a game day, they’re working, right? No. No response to my tweet. Ever.

Some businesses think “oh! I have to be on Twitter!” and they create an account, but due to lack of resources or knowledge, they give up and abandon their account. This particular account was not one of those, however. It has lots of followers, and tweets on a regular basis. But no response to my tweet.

This is not an ego thing. I believe everyone should be treated the same way, whether they have 10 followers or 10,000. I’m still kind of surprised they never responded.

I have an infographic for you today about how important it is to respond to your follower’s comments and questions on social media in a timely manner. I’m pretty patient with this stuff–in fact, I’m usually pleasantly surprised when a business replies to me quickly. Which is kind of sad, when you think about it, because it indicates how low our standards are.

This infographic illustrates a simple point: the faster you respond to people on social media, the better the chance that they will feel like they are creating a relationship with you, and that will lead to sales and brand recognition in the form of referrals.

I’m not saying you have to be on your phone 24/7. You can even post that you’ll respond to tweets during office hours. But do respond.

At the end of the day, it’s like a customer is ringing your phone, and you’re not even bothering to answer it. Twitter and Facebook are rapidly becoming the new phone–answer them.

Infographic courtesy of Brickfish.com