I was surprised to see something the other day. My dad was the first to reach out on social media after a customer complaint. When he was having problems with a web application, his first reaction was not to contact their support line or use their web chat but to message them via Instagram. Social media is not just for Millenials or Gen Z. Everyone uses it. Your business is already at risk if you need the right technology to enable seamless social media interaction.
Building solid customer relationships is critical to your business’s success, both in the short term and over time. Relationships are what drives loyalty and keep your business growing. Social media relies on conversations that build deep relationships. To take full advantage of this, you need to be prepared. Social media can be complex. Your teams will not be able to manage the complexity of an advanced social strategy without reliable technology. No matter which department or function you work in, a good tech stack will be your best friend for social.
Stay in touch with your audience.
Social media still needs to be widely accepted by most businesses. Over half (54%) of global customers are more likely to view brands favorably if they address their support needs via social media. Even though these stats are impressive, many businesses want to direct their customers to email or support lines. It’s easy to understand and manage. We have worked phone lines and email for many years and can easily direct them to the appropriate department. Social doesn’t allow us to control the source of messages, nor can we determine when they are sent.
Your customers must see your company as neatly divided into departments like sales, customer service, and marketing. Your customers see your company as a single entity and can easily message this entity via Facebook. Our job as business leaders is to meet and understand our customers’ needs. Right now, they want a seamless experience on social media.
Social media stacks can do the same thing. Just as email and phone technology make it easier to send requests to people who can respond, they can do the same with social media. By investing in social media technology, you can ensure that your team and customers will have a seamless journey from the beginning to the end. Technology can divide your messages by leads, questions, and complaints to ensure the right person is always ready to respond. The technology also tracks every message that you receive so that you can respond to every message. This will help you to serve this customer better and inform future decisions.
Reach out in Real Time
Social media is one of the few marketing channels that provides instant feedback. Each view, comment, and like is a data point that tells you how your campaign is doing. It isn’t easy to imagine how another channel could compete with those results. By creating a social media campaign, it would help if you supported any campaign that you run with traditional media, whether it’s TV, billboards, or radio. This will allow you to see the results and make real-time changes.
You can be data-driven with social-first marketing. You can only use this data with the right technology. It’s nice to know that 10,000 people interacted with your company on social media last week, but this doesn’t help you make any decisions. It would help if you dug deeper into the interactions to find out what actions were taken. Quantitative data, such as engagement metrics or post metrics, will show you your campaign’s impact. Qualitative data – like the content or sentiment of replies or mentions – can tell you what you are doing well and where to change your course. They’re only numbers without technology to interpret them.
Connect with others through conversation.
Conversations are the foundation of any relationship. Brands have had one-sided conversations in the past. Social media allows your customers to speak, and your brand is responsible for interacting with them. Socially sophisticated brands know that commenting, liking, and interacting with your audience is an essential strategy. You can inspire loyalty and trust by showing that you care about what your audience cares most about. This strategy can only be scaled with technology.
Having the right technology for your team and social media presence as they grow is essential. To keep track of customer comments and interactions, they’ll need to have a single source of truth. This is not something that can be done natively on a platform or even with a less advanced social media management tool. To be a leader, you must equip your team to succeed. As your strategy becomes more complex, you’ll need to use a technology stack that simplifies it.
React to changing conditions.
We are all experiencing the impact of changes in consumer and market behavior. Sometimes it can feel impossible to predict what will happen next. Social media can give you a good idea of your team’s future if you use it correctly.
The social data that we have at our disposal is one of the most valuable. This is a collection of billions of people’s thoughts, opinions, and anxieties. The answers to the most critical business questions are found in social data. Social data can be used by your team to make real-time data-driven business decisions, whether focusing on investor relationships, sales, R&D, or HR.
Technology and teamwork
It would be best to act quickly when facing economic challenges. This is only possible with help. Support can come from your team, but sometimes it’s a technology that fixes problems you didn’t know existed.
Social media is one of the most significant business opportunities we will ever have. It is necessary to recognize the relationships that social media builds and the benefits they bring. Businesses that are prepared to tackle the complexity and challenges of social media will win.