Getting in front of your customers online can be both difficult and expensive, but that doesn't mean that your customers have the same problem getting in front of you. Actually, it's quite the opposite - social media has made it easier than ever for customers to start conversations with brands they want to communicate with - it's your responsibility as a brand to be there where they're trying to reach out to you.
You wouldn't intentionally ignore a customer's phone call, so would you ignore outreach on the much more public medium that is social media?
Sprout Social recently conducted a webinar all about the current state of social media engagement and what you, as a brand, can do to improve your social customer care. Here's a the SlideShare we used to present as well as a blog post all about the content, and you can find the entire recorded webinar here.
What is Social Media Engagement?
Social media engagement is using social networks to start or continue conversations with your current or future customers in order to build lasting, beneficial relationships for both parties. It's the idea of using social channels to humanize your brand, and it's about using social media to provide both proactive and reactive customer care.
Why is Social Media Engagement Important?
As Sprout Social's CEO Justyn Howard states, brands have a responsibility to utilize social media to engage with their customers.
"Never before has a brand's responsibility to be responsive and engaged been so critical. As open communications with brands shapes a new wave of interaction, the need for social teams to be active and authentic day in and day out matters more than ever."
If that philosophical need for social engagement doesn't encourage you to start improving your own presence, check out some statistics that convey the importance of engagement in terms of figures.
- The number of social messages sent to brands that require response increased 32% in the past year (source).
- 42% of customers who reach out to brands expect a response within 60 minutes (source).
- 8 in 9 of the messages sent to brands requiring response go unanswered (source).
- 69% of customers who have a positive experience will recommend your company to others (source).
Customers are reaching out to brands, but for the most part brands are dropping the ball when it comes to keeping that conversation alive. This is a missed opportunity, and companies who can stay ahead of the pack have the chance to create a real competitive advantage by utilizing social media for engagement.
5 Ways to Boost Your Social Media Engagement
If you're just starting to build out a social media strategy, or have had your eyes opened by the facts within this article, you'll need a few strategies to help boost your own engagement.
1. Facilitate Engagement with Social Posts
If there isn't much activity associated with your social media pages, or if you're having trouble finding quality conversations that could lead to great relationships, try getting the ball rolling with some of your own thought-provoking content. The types of things you can post on social media vary greatly and you should choose those that yield the highest engagement.
- Owned content - thought-provoking, insightful content you create that establishes you as a thought-leader within your industry, and gets your audience talking.
- Social Posts - regular social media posts that pose questions, ask for feedback or facilitate discussion.
- Third-Party Posts - share content from thought leaders or adjacent brands to build on relationships and increase engagement with important users.
2. Utilize Tools for a Steady Stream of Content
Publishing the type of content discussed in the first tip is important, but it's also fairly time consuming. Creating those assets takes up time that could otherwise be spent building and engaging with your community. A key strategy is to utilize content curation tools to augment your social media calendar.
One tool that expedites the social content discovery process is Buzzsumo. With Buzzsumo, you can type in any topic or key phrase that is relevant to your business and the tool will pull the best content written about that subject. From there you can go on to schedule these posts to be across all of your social networks and profiles with a tool like Sprout.
3. Get Other Departments on Social
Unless you're the sole employee at your company, you should have access to some great teammates that can help you manage your social media presence. Convince some of your larger departments to log on to your social pages, or to create their own, and respond to the engagements relevant to their departments. Most functional areas of a business have something to contribute.
- Human Resources - can answer questions relating to your open positions and hiring process.
- Research & Development - can respond to requests for new products or features.
- Finance - can handle any issues or complaints with billing (privately, through direct messages).
- Sales & Business Development - can chat with any engaged users interested in learning more about your product.
4. Find Conversations Worth Joining
Not every conversation you should join will stem from people tagging your page or mentioning you in a post. Sometimes the most relevant conversations won't tag your page, which will lead to a missed opportunity if not discovered. Use a social monitoring tool like Sprout Social to keep tabs on key phrases that indicate a conversation worth joining.
- Brand Terms - monitor brand keywords to find posts mentioning your company name that don't tag your page.
- Product Terms - monitor product term keywords to find those discussing your products or services.
- Industry Terms - monitor key phrases that indicate someone has an interest in something you offer, but is still unaware of your company. For example, The Hyatt in Chicago monitoring for the phrase "great hotels Chicago".
5. Bring Your Communities with You
It's not realistic to think you can sit at your computer 24/7. Even if you could somehow train your eyes to handle that much concentrated LED for that long, you really don't need to. Instead, look for a social media application with the key features necessary for managing a social media presence while on the move.
- Push Notifications - only check out your social presence when you know there's a message waiting for you.
- Publishing Capabilities - make sure that you can share content on the go in case your calendar runs dry.
- Tasking Functionality - the ability to assign tasks to those who may be near their computer is incredibly convenient.
Have you ever reached out to a brand on social media with a comment, question or complaint? If so, how good did it feel when they responded? It's always great to know that a company appreciates you and your feedback, and just one interaction like that can earn you a customer for life. Spend some time communicating with your customers, and see just how effective it can be.