Know your customers
New customers and visitors to your website are often anonymous. Even if they place an order, you likely have very little information about them. With social media, you can make a more personal connection with your customers and start to get to know them.
Social media helps you learn about your customers’ interests and backgrounds. If you want to know something specific, you can create a poll or ask questions through social media platforms. Once you get this information, you can develop and target marketing strategy and messaging to better connect with customer interests, needs and pain points.
“Your content always needs to be either entertaining, inspiring or educational. So before you hit that post button, I want you to ask if it’s going to do that for your ideal client,” advises Brooke Vulinovich, Instagram specialist, social media coach, and small business owner.
Use social media marketing to interact with your customers. It could mean giving a shoutout to new Facebook followers or reaching out to your company’s LinkedIn audience by sending a short message introducing yourself.
Provide real-time support
Customers are increasingly turning to social media channels for real-time support. Being active and responsive on these channels can help create a positive customer experience. Can a customer reach your business with a social media message about an issue or question about a product or order? If they can, you have a valuable chance to provide responsive and quality customer support.
Even if customers don’t reach out to your small business directly on social media, you can still use alerts so that you quickly know when your business is mentioned on social networks. Tools like Hootsuite and Google Alerts can ping you if your business is mentioned, allowing you to stay ahead of bad reviews or to thank current customers for sharing their positive experiences with your business.
Quickly addressing customer concerns in real-time through social tools can help you build customer loyalty through social media. It shows people you offer active support and help build trust to drive new conversions and increase customer retention.
Enhance your brand positioning
Your business’ social media management techniques can also enhance your brand positioning, further building customer loyalty.
One of your social media customer retention strategies can include behind-the-scenes posts that let your followers see the people and effort behind the company’s daily operations. You can post content about the missions and values of your business and use content to showcase your products in action. Don’t be afraid to get honest with some of your posts and let your followers see the people and passion behind your brand.
“For service-based businesses or creatives, think about what you can teach people online. And don’t be scared to give away your best information – otherwise, how else are you going to show them that you know what you’re talking about?” says Brooke.
Keep your audience engaged
Get your audience communicating with your business. People love to talk about themselves and letting your target audience do that can help increase customer retention rates. Customer engagement helps to personalise your brand and establishes connections with influencers and other customers.
Customers are increasingly turning to social media channels for real-time support. Being active and responsive on these channels can help create a positive customer experience.
Don’t forget that social media followers provide valuable information to developing and refining products and services. Ask them for feedback on social media and create surveys. Pitch new ideas to potential customers and your existing ones.
This type of market research can help determine if you’re onto a great idea or need to go in another direction. It also makes your customers feel like they’re contributing to the business and that their voices are heard. They may be more likely to become repeat customers when they have a genuine connection.
Don’t forget to listen
There’s much value in paying attention to your space. Companies also use social media listening tools such as Sprout Social, Brandwatch or Meltwater to monitor customers and competitor’s opinions on their products. Keeping track of how potential consumers feel keeps you one step ahead.