Social Media Savvy - How to Utilize this Tool to Engage with Your Customers

Social media is a powerful tool, allowing companies to engage with their customers and to connect with their peers.  But, that’s only if they use it right. While it’s great that so many companies have jumped on board with social media- launching Twitter accounts, Facebook fan pages, and YouTube sites - too many took their first steps without a plan or a strategy to back them. Therein lies a problem.  

More often than not, marketing executives fail to see social media as a piece of the greater marketing picture.  There is misconception floating out there that social media is its own, individual beast. While, yes, it is still newly emerging, the reality is that social media is but another element of the greater marketing efforts and should be treated as such.

So, before you participate in social media, you must understand what you are working toward. You must plan, implement, and measure social media tactics with the overall marketing goal at the foreground. By looking at social media and marketing holistically, you can get far more out of the campaign.

So, where do you begin?

First off, ask yourself, “What is the overall marketing goal?” Is it increased brand awareness? Brand advocacy? How about attracting new customers? Figure out the end objective first. It is only then that you can sculpt your social media strategy as a means to supporting it. Depending on what this objective is, your social media strategy should be tweaked accordingly. Here’s a brief look at how your social media plan may differ based on your big-picture marketing goal.

Customer Acquisition Goals - If you want attention and recognition, prove yourself relevant. Build brand awareness and establish your credibility by offering advice to potential customers. Monitor traffic to your social media sites and engage with visitors. Your customer engagement efforts can turn one-time-visitors into repeat purchasers. Brand activation can go a long way.

Customer Retention Goals - To keep your customers coming back, you have to keep them happy. Here, customer service is the key. Use social media to support and strengthen your customer service efforts. Create a Twitter account for your support department, for instance. Monitor social media buzz and make sure to quickly follow-up on any potential problems before they turn to major issues.

Whatever your marketing goal may be, use social media as a tool to achieve it. Be sure to track and analyze your efforts just as you would other marketing tactics. By doing social media the right way, you can unlock all of its potential and the payout makes it well worthwhile.   

Who are your best brand ambassadors? They should be your employees.

Employees hold the key to your brands reputation and sales. Why? We trust their insight.

According to Edelman’s 2013 Trust Barometer, 41% of us believe employees to be the most credible source of information regarding a business. We’ll take word-of-mouth recommendations any day over the hoopla coming from PR departments, CEOs, and Founders.

It is surprising, then, that so few companies have tapped into the scalable, brand-building power of their employees. In person and online, people are increasingly comparing and sharing experiences. Why not build an employees-as-brand-ambassadors that actively encourage your people to create buzz and spread the word about your company through their personal networks?

Sans coaching, we are three times more likely to share bad news than good. By encouraging employees to become brand champions, we can squash brand-tarnishing chatter with authentic, adept, and expressive messages. Here are a few other major benefits that can result from supporting employees as brand ambassadors:

Benefits of an Employee-as-Brand-Ambassador Program

• Better connected company - The more responsibility, recognition and training that companies provide employees for engaging with stakeholders, the more connected and adaptive the company becomes.

 

• Personified brand - Employees openly discussing your brand online can have a humanizing effect. This ultimately boosts consumer perception. Increased employee loyalty - When employees publicly declare support/affiliation for their company, it heightens their own faith and allegiance.  

 

• Amplified brand awareness - Emotions and behaviors are contagious to the third degree. When employees voice their feelings and opinions online, it not only influences the views of their direct network but also spreads as far as two more interactions away from them. The multiplier effect is dramatic.

• More meaning in work - Empowering employees to act as brand advocates boosts their happiness and performance levels. As a result, this speeds company growth and makes the company more productive and more profitable.  

• Improved talent retention - Enabling employees to learn, connect, and shine is an enticing reason for them to stay. With employee-as-brand-ambassador programs in place, top talent is less likely to jump ship and join your competition.

Before launching a program, it is important to collect company-wide feedback about your brand reputation. Listen to your employees. Address issues and make changes so that employees will feel proud as brand champions. It may not be an easy feat, but creating a formal program will result in a happier work force. Next thing you know, the ripple effect will set in and the result will be game changing.  

The Complaining Customer: A Blessing in Disguise?

A complaining customer is no fun. But a silent customer is far more dangerous. 

We often mistake silence for satisfaction. The unfortunate reality is, however, that when customers encounter a mediocre or even a poor service experience, more often than not they stay silent. Rather than take the time and effort to complain, they simply take their business elsewhere. 

According to a Bain & Company survey, major companies lose, on average, half of their customers over a five-year period because of poor customer service. For every one complaint you receive, it is likely that 24 others received the same level of poor service but did not report it. And of those 24 customers, approximately 22 will eventually take their business elsewhere. While one bad experience may not be an end-all, every customer has a breaking point that will send them packing. Most likely, forever. 

When it comes to customer dissatisfaction, ignorance is not bliss. Failure to recognize when your service experience is falling short can have the following impacts, which can devastate your reputation and your bottom line.

Why customer silence is deadly

Lost lifetime value of customer - Losing customers is never good. You’ve worked hard to attract them, so don’t let them go. Plus, new customer acquisition is expensive- attracting a new customer costs up to eight times as much as keeping an existing customer.  

Impact that lost customer has on potential prospects - It's human nature, we are more likely to share bad news than good. In fact, research suggests that an unhappy customer will tell between 8-10 friends, colleagues, and/or family members about a disappointing service experience. The impact can be widespread, far reaching, and seriously detrimental. 

Bad online reviews mean bad news for your business - Just because a customer doesn’t file an official complaint doesn’t mean he/she won’t take her opinion to the blogosphere. With Yelp, food blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and countless other online review sites, a poor review can be incredibly influential.  

Why customer complaints are beneficial 

Highlights a problem - Complaints point out issues you may not even know exist. By asking specific question and following-up, you can create a solution that will improve your business and prevent the problem from occurring down the road.   

Free intel - Complaints are valuable assets that provide free insight about what is important to your customers and what they are willing to spend money on. Every year, organizations spend significant time and money researching just that.

While they may sting in the moment, customer complaints are actually gifts. Make it easy for your customers to voice their complaints- listen, apologize, and most importantly, address the issues. Create a service culture where everyone in your organization understands the importance of the customer experience and has the knowl