Guest post by Rachel Kim
For most businesses, customer service doesn’t end once the customer is out the door. However, social media allows consumers are able to remark and comment on a business, good or bad.
If unchecked, negative comments can have a damaging and lasting effect on the business. Therefore, businesses need to make the connection between customer engagement and social media, and make sure that their customers are kept happy through virtual means.
5 Tips to Achieve Better Customer Engagement
Social media is an intimidating frontier, especially for businesses without much online marketing experience. The following tips are useful ways in which businesses can use social media with customer engagement in mind:
1. Directly Address Concerns
The openness of social media platforms allows individuals to express their concerns and opinions. Users can comment on a business through Facebook, while Yelp allows the customer to leave a bad review on an experience. However, communication is a two-way process: social media can also be used to provide feedback and directly address concerns. By utilizing social media, businesses can have a positive effect on customer engagement.
2. Reward Customer Loyalty
One useful way to keep customers happy is to reward customer loyalty. Social media is an effective means to target your most dedicated customers, by releasing an exclusive offer through your accounts. For example, a restaurant can offer a special coupon to Facebook Fans, or release details on a contest through a Twitter campaign. Businesses can satisfy their most devoted followers by leveraging the power of social media.
3. Answer Questions
Social media provides a direct channel between the customer and the business, allowing a dialogue to form between the two. Oftentimes, a customer may have a specific question or concern about a product or service. Businesses can take advantage of this opportunity by directly answering the question, whether through Twitter, Facebook, Quora, or Yahoo! Answers. This exchange allows businesses to give customer engagement a personal touch and have a direct influence on customer perception.
4. Provide Useful Content
Social media also provides a platform that will allow businesses to give their customers valuable information. However, this doesn’t necessarily involve content directly related to your product or service. Given that customers are extremely sensitive to shameless promotion and advertising, businesses will need to use creative means to engage their audience. For example, a car dealership can provide advice on how to keep a car well maintained, or how to purchase car parts. By providing quality, useful content, businesses can keep customers engaged through social media channels.
5. Don’t Delete Negative Comments
Businesses may be tempted to delete negative comments from their social media accounts, especially if the comment is particularly damaging or hurtful. However, deleting feedback can have more consequences against the business. If the customer realizes that their opinion has been removed, then they may further angered and lead to question the integrity of your business. Don’t fall to the temptation of removing criticism; instead, turn a negative comment into an opportunity to engage and acknowledge the customer.
Although you shouldn’t delete negative reviews on your own sites, you can do something when Google searches for yourself turn up with some bad publicity (reviews, pictures, social media, etc.). Companies like Reputation.com can bolster the authority of your better reviews and eliminate the bad reviews from search engine results. This can help shine a positive light upon your business through Google and Bing – the world’s primary search engines. And positive search engine results typically lead directly to success in your business.
About the author:
Rachel Hyun Kim is a writer on topics ranging from phone systems to telemarketing companies. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including B2B lead generation for small business owners and entrepreneurs at Resource Nation.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
The website/blog is awsm.Just thinking that if all could have same type of author or content then internet would be so much better place to live!
For getting better Customer Engagement with social media in business these are some nice tips to put in action. I think #3 is really good. Answering the questions can be the best option for achieving better customer engagement.
The last option is probably hard to do because of course you don’t want to taint the name of your company. but then the option of others matters as well. As long as they didn’t put any curse words then don’t delete it.
Very informative post. Get to know something new and very informative. Love to read more posts like this.
undoubtedly social media is a great power and it gives a great exposure to your business without any experience in the specific field all you have to do is increase the number of fans on your social media consoles including Facebook, twitter and rest of others. so the real art is how you make maximum fans over facebook and twitter and then the rest is piece of cake
Most people probably don’t know how good social media can be for their business, and many don’t realize how effective social media is. Without a way of measuring the success of social media, they are blindly using that form of communication without realizing the effect it has with their customers.
I Agree! Social Media is and will be the most important area to look for in future…I like your post. Thank you for sharing!
Great tips Tom on how to achieved better customer engagement in Social Media. More power in 2012! Thanks!
That’s true if you need to get good customer traffic then you need to follow people related to niche of your site.