We’ve been in the go to market space for over 15 years and have seen countless enterprise projects who fail to adequately engage and interact with their customers online, especially in the last 5 years over social media.
Guide to Fine Tuning Customer Conversation on Social Media
Here are some tips that will help you master the customer conversation and build a loyal following to your business or brand:
1. Learn about your Audience
The key to success for any business in the industry is understanding their target audience using social media. With the help of tools like Facebook Insights in Hootsuite, it is possible to determine the age and gender of the social media audience, in addition to a number of other insights. Business can cater campaigns and product offers to their target audience using this knowledge, ultimately leading to a higher return on investment.
Most businesses focus too much on trying to get social media followers to buy from them, use insights to learn what they will like and apply the data to improve conversations with them online, in email and for social conversations.
Related:
Reaching Consumers Through Social Media Conversations
2. Listen to Feedback
Social media allows the customers to provide feedback – positive or negative – giving the business valuable insight on how customers perceive the business and its offerings. Customers on social media will be more than happy to provide their opinion through posts and direct messages about what they like or dislike. For instance, many companies launch new products on social media to gauge how well it is received by their audience. One can also glean insights from conversation on how customers’ needs are evolving with regards to their offerings, allowing them to cater to their products and services better to customers’ tastes, preferences, and needs. New product ideas can also stem from this insight and optimised campaigns can be sent out to followers to improve reactions and comments.
3. Increase in Web Traffic and Search Ranking
One of the most important benefits of using social media for a business is the increase in web traffic. It helps direct people to the business’s website. Moreover, the higher the number of shares of a business’ posts on social media, the greater its search ranking and online exposure. Use keywords in your post title and subheadings for good results in search media optimisation. Use the data from Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools to understand what specific search terms were used to discover your product and service, and then educate sales people on these hidden opportunities to increase customer conversion rate to buy from your business.
4. Increasing Brand Awareness
Companies have managed to increase brand awareness with the help of social media with minimal or no budget. Traditional methods of advertising were associated with higher cost of brand awareness strategies. Marketing departments across countries are hiring community managers now in an attempt to increase brand awareness and reach through social media. These community managers foster relationships with the online audience scattered in different locations by developing conversations and engagement with your followers. Brand managers develop one to one interactions via chat, direct messages, email or social with the potential customer. The intimate relationship can be fine tuned by growing the follower base and looking at which demographic segment is growing the fastest, and then fine tuning a message that appeals to this audience.
5. Viral Content
Social media has made sharing content easier and faster. Companies now use social media for content curation or sharing content about their business in particular. All they do is share their brand on their social network accounts. However, companies should keep in mind that if they want customers to share your content with their followers, they need to ensure that their social media content is aligned to the brand and captures the attention of the audience.
6. Get Ahead of Your Competitor
Social media help businesses gain valuable information about their competitors, improving your market intelligence. This information will allow companies to stay ahead of their competitors by making strategic business decisions. For instance, through HubSpot and Hootsuite, businesses can create search streams to monitor their competitors. Based on the results your business can craft a more focused conversation for potential customers or offer a new product which the competitors are missing, thus improving business sales opportunities.