Customer Engagement

Being on social media isn’t hard, but being on social media is (haha, confusing? read on, my friend.)  Just having Facebook and Twitter and other outlets isn’t enough – your brand has to be actively seeking to enter into conversations with your customers every day. It’s important to not only answer feedback in a timely manner, but to also be the one asking for feedback. When a company asks customers for their opinions, it’s telling consumers that the business cares and wants to improve. Engaging with customers is one of the major steps that companies who are succeeding in social media use.

You be first

Don’t wait for others to ask or post.  Make the initial move to start the conversation with your followers.  Create a post that’s interesting but that also deals with a problem.  Do research before you post so you can be well informed about your audience and their needs, your market conditions, your competitors, and your own product.  Once you’ve done your research, your content will look more appealing and up to date with what consumers want.

You be second

After you’ve scoped out the landscape and placed yourself in various situations, you have to realize that consumers will take advantage of social media to tell you how you’re doing.  Bottom line: social media makes it easier for people to complain.  So you should take the chance to use social media to address those complaints.  Responding slowly or not responding at all can be a major turn-off for consumers.  Take the time to answer your followers’ questions, and even looking up answers or asking co-workers if you’re stumped by the question.  Also, customers hate it most when they get the run-around.  Just answer their question!  No need to give them a generic, automated answer, because that’s also a huge turn-off.  If you don’t know the answer, admit it (it’s okay to make mistakes) but again, go above and beyond to help the customer find the answer.