Social media has changed how we connect. One of the biggest trends in digital marketing is the advent of social media marketing. Organizations are using social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter to connect and delight their customers. These social media channels are a great communication tool and a beneficial source of consumer information and trends.
Brands must capitalize on their social media channels not just as an advertising platform for their products and services but also to create a dialogue with their customers. Social media is an excellent channel for managing customer feedback. Additionally, it is an important tool to gain and retain loyal customers.
Why should you use social platforms to delight your customers?
With 3.5 billion social media users, social media platforms are a massive digital marketplace for companies to spread brand awareness and enhance customer loyalty. Which is why social media has become an integral part of every marketer’s inbound marketing strategy. Organizations are using this versatile tool to attract, retain and engage their prospective and present customers.
The onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic has inevitably led to many companies using their social media as online marketing platforms. It’s a cost-effective way to ensure that you maintain communication with your audience and continue solving their problems and questions.
Given the boundless options available on these platforms, if a customer chooses to follow your business account, that is an indication that they are interested in hearing from you. It is truly a privilege when your customers take the time to follow you. The convenience of such platforms is that it provides an opportunity to instantaneously respond to a customer’s positive or negative feedback, thereby reducing the chances of a negative brand experience.
How to delight your customers on social media?
Enhanced customer service
For any successful business, customer satisfaction is a key metric. It’s important to use all your social media channels to listen to your customers and understand their needs in order to deliver exceptional service. Any query or question that may come through social channels must be responded to, and ideally within 24 hours. Such responsive customer service helps to build a positive brand experience. It’s important to monitor all channels to ensure that you are part of the conversation and address any question or issue that a customer may be facing. This makes customers feel like they are being listened to and builds trust and loyalty.
Problem solving attitude
Customers use their social media accounts to share their experiences and voice their opinions. It’s a great way for brands to collect relevant feedback from their customers and enhance user experience. Brands need to utilise their platforms to resolve customer complaints and turn a negative experience into a positive one. Use social media listening tools to find out what’s being said about your brand. Not everyone will use the official handle of your account when posting a review, so it’s important to keep a lookout for brand-related keywords to make sure that you are proactively solving customer complaints.
Personalised conversation
Personalisation is always appreciated by customers. When interacting with customers, a quick response is essential. But what’s even more important is the touch of personalisation. AI-powered bots may help you respond quickly with an automated message, but it needs to be followed by human correspondence to ensure that you build a long term relationship with your customers. Embrace personalisation by using the customers’ names wherever possible, sign off on comments with the team or brand’s name and always maintain a friendly tone when interacting with them.
User generated content
Building and maintaining brand loyalty is a tedious process. One way to keep user engagement high is to create custom content for your target audience. User-generated content is extremely relevant because it makes customers feel like their feedback and views are important to the businesses they support. Writing how-to blogs and training guides ensures that your customers remain engaged even after the initial purchase.
Rewards for followers
Rewarding your customers is a great way to show your appreciation for them. Competitions, contests and giveaways are great initiatives to give back to the customers that support your brand. Most companies urge their participating followers to use the brand’s hashtags and highlight their products or services on their posts and stories. This helps to create buzz around the product and enhance brand awareness.
Embrace all feedback
Customers really like to use social media platforms to highlight their pain points. Resolving such issues expeditiously can help you convert a critic into a brand advocate. These feedbacks are essential for businesses who are proactively trying to build a better product. Using social media channels as a customer feedback tool is pivotal to gain insights into user behaviour and the latest consumer trends. This is very important if you want to maintain a competitive advantage over others.
Pay extra attention
When building relationships on social media, going the extra mile really helps to improve social media engagement and customer retention. It helps to be responsive and proactive when offering support to your customers. When brands offer their customers access to exclusive discounts, events or promotions, such small gestures go a long way to build long term brand loyalty. Getting ahead of the curve by posting FAQs and tutorials on social channels before it’s requested by a follower is a great initiative to ensure user engagement.
Share their success
It’s important for businesses to cheer their followers on their important achievements. Respond to positive reviews by thanking them for their purchase and kind words. Always acknowledge posts and stories that tag your brands and send shout outs wherever appropriate. It’s important to remember that word-of-mouth is an important element of marketing. It’s a great way to create awareness and interest in your business.
Final thoughts
Social media has become ubiquitous both in our personal and professional lives. A smart social media strategy can really help businesses of all sizes to expand and scale-up. At Alkye, we offer social media engagement services to help our client to optimally utilise all their social media channels for growth and expansion.
Words by
Nicola Bond
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