What social media can do for your business

Social media have created a public stage where businesses respond to the needs of their customers in full glare of the public. Consumer complaints, issues and frustrations used to be managed via emails and telephones. In most cases, such problems were rather complicated rather addressed. With the advent of social media, more and more people are turning to them as primary means of registering their pinions.

Many brands have launched social media to engage their target audience. They have also used them to identify complaints, hence the surge of customer service activities in the social media space. In a second quarter of 2015, report by a popular social media analytic tool, Social Bakers, said less than 30 per cent of the seven million questions asked about brands on Twitter were answered. They also admitted that brands were doing better on Facebook as they answered 76 per cent of the 1.5 million questions posted on the platforms.

The report also ranked brand response rate across countries. It puts Nigeria at 30 per cent.

Because of its mobile adaptation, personal and other conversational features, studies have since voted for Twitter as the mostly suitable platform for customer service.

In March, Facebook launched Business on Messenger, a feature that allows companies to communicate directly with Facebook users to let them track packages and answer questions or respond to complaints privately. To gain the lead in customer engagement in the social media space, Twitter is partnering with Sprout Social and Oracle to help improve its business tools.

This month, Twitter has also released a report on its customer service on Twitter Playbook. It was aimed at helping businesses improve their customer service efficiency by taking advantage of the personal nature of the platform.

It has also changed its 140-character limit for direct messages, thereby preparing the groundwork an extensive private conversation on the social network.

While highlighting the major points in the report, I will also be adding my thoughts.

Be personal

Telling businesses and brands to be more human is already a cliché. But coming from Twitter, it will probably drive home the point. Especially on Twitter, relating in a more conversational manner is the basis of successful engagement. People want to have direct conversation on Twitter, which is why emails and suggestion boxes do not exist anyway. Even though they are tweeting, they want to be responded to. People who get personalised responses are known to bond more with a brand. They are also more likely to share information posted by the brand manager.

Be nice

When customers have friendly interactions, they are likely going to more satisfied. People who are commenting and tweeting on social media can be annoying. This is mostly because they send their requests or comments the moment they are experiencing difficulty. They may have also tried other options.

Be responsive.

About 60 per cent of customers analysed by the study said they expected brands to respond to their requests within an hour. While in reality, Twitter said brands on the average should respond within one and half hours, it is important that brands stay ahead of the game as a simple tweet can trigger a social media crisis. 

Leaving messages unattended to leaves the company in bad light. It simply means that the business is either arrogant or ignorant. You wouldn’t want to choose between the two. Do you?

Be sure to resolve the problem

The research found out that for every enquiry there were an average of five interactions between brand managers and a consumer, meaning that a single tweet is rarely enough to find a solution to an issue. Also, the survey found out that 30 per cent of consumer issues were left unresolved.

Listen actively

The starting point of succeeding in social media engagement is listening. While most brands are struggling to keep up with the direct engagement with customers online, there are a lot of other mentions of the brand and the industry that are not do not appear on your handle.

Develop rich content

While it is great to respond to direct issues by texting and directing them to appropriate departments, there is the need to develop rich and ready content. Develop infographics and videos, Periscope script, images, blog posts, YouTube videos and other rich media. Having them as a rich resource to help answer your customers’ queries will not only make resolutions easy but will also help customers find solutions when they go online to search for them.

Facebook and Twitter have become impotant platforms where people and brands connect. It is not just about marketing your brand customer service takes place on the platforms too.