Partner Article

Do your customers love your social media efforts?

How to understand engagement levels and give your customers the content they desire

Flowers, jewellery, chocolate, teddy bears - the conventional Valentine’s Day gifts for your significant other. But what about those who can’t be won over by commercial clichés? We’re talking about your customers.

Of course as with that special someone in your life, you should always show your customers love throughout the year and using social media to nurture their affections is an easy and effective way to grow an online community.

But, how do you know your love letters are actually getting through? To help you evaluate how far Cupid’s arrow is reaching, here’s some useful tips on giving your customers the content they desire.

Don’t play the field

Your online customers are spending significant amounts of time on social networks. While the average person might dip in and out of channels, many people spend multiple hours each week networking, so knowing when is the right place and time to engage is key.

You don’t need to play the field in social media terms - the demographics of your customers will determine what platforms you should employ. Don’t be a jack of all trades and only utilise the channels you know your customers are using to ensure your attention is focused on those who matter the most.

Attract those significant others

The phrase ‘quality over quantity’ is definitely true when it comes to assessing how loved your customers feel on social media.

It’s great for a company or a brand to have a huge following and masses of content available on their channels, but it’s much better to have an audience of top quality influencers to engage with.

Regular and interesting updates on your social media channels can be used to increase your customer service status and it doesn’t matter whether you post 10 updates a day or one, your content must always be relevant.

Make friends

What better way to turn customers into friends and brand advocates than by listening and replying with personalised content?

Focus on the message you want to share and know how your customers will react to this. Research their habits inside out, from their interests to influences, the hashtags they react to and keywords they use.

In business one unhappy customer tells 10 to 15 people on average, whilst one happy customer tells only five. This is taken to the extreme through social media with numbers easily reaching hundreds, even thousands; so praise the positives and amplify the negatives.

As with any budding relationship, people do business with people they know and trust so make your customers feel like they are talking to a real person, not a robot.

Be true

Whether they are on social media or not, customers love being part of a business’ decision process and this is one great way to engage with your clientele whilst crowdsourcing ways to improve your customer service strategy.

Don’t lie, overpromise or hide negative comments and never delete bad reviews or criticism. Instead, answer honestly and openly, showing the world you are there to help and that your customer always comes first.

A great way to gain your customers’ attention and reward them for their loyally could be by sharing exclusive content such as new product launch or behind the scenes sneak peeks of a day in the life of your staff.

Be yourself

Let your brand personality shine through in your communication. Be personal, relatable and interesting and always put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Ask yourself what messages you would like to take away if you were them.

Remember to tell your story, not sell your story. Just like the dating game, let your customers know what your passions are, not your vital statistics.

Even the most corporate of companies can still be fun, inviting and informative so don’t be afraid to experiment and find your own online personality.

Look for love

So now you understand which social platforms your customers are using, what they want to see from you and how you can share content that’s going to interest and keep them wanting more. How do you track the love and attention you have put into making your online presence a success?

Once you identify the metrics you want to track, whether this is the reach of your content, the demographics of your followers or how effective your hashtags are, you’ll need to find tools to capture the information.

Some social media sites have dashboards and apps that offer an easy way to keep tabs on your social media love. For example, Facebook Insights will show you not just your new likes but which conversations and posts are most popular and when on your fan page, whereas Bitly is a great tool to track the pathway of URL clicks.

Remember just like real love it takes time to build a true and loyal social media community but if you talk with your customers (not to them), be human and interesting and keep your content relevant to their daily lives rather than your product range, your customers will be doing more than ‘like’ your social media channels in no time.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by O Communications .