Building Customer Relationships through Social Media

The age of social media is here. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that the long-term success of your business is dependent to a large extent on your social media presence. In 2019, an estimated 2.95 billion people were using social media worldwide. Such statistics prove that there are high chances you will find your target customers on social media. Most marketers use social media channels on a regular basis to market their products and services, find new customers, retain existing customers, and build long-term relationships. Social media channels are myriad and come with their very own advantages and features. Building customer relationships through social media has never been easier. 

Considering the wide reach and usability of social media, marketers often integrate a marketing CRM tool with their social media channels. This helps in maximizing the reach, targeting multiple markets, gathering customer insights, and personalizing both online and offline offerings. Using social media customer relationship management is an effective way of building trust and long-term relationships with your customers. This is especially useful during the current turbulent times when companies are doing all that they can to retain existing customers and acquire new ones.

Why should you use social media to build customer relationships?

Here are some of the reasons why you should be using social media as a tool for building and managing customer relationships:

Extensive Reach

Extensive Reach

No other marketing channel has as much reach as social media. Considering that the majority of the world’s population use social media channels, finding your target market(s) is quite simple. In addition to finding new markets, you can also grow your followers. Social media channels come with tagging, sharing, and commenting capabilities. By leveraging these, you can reach out to more people and get your product/service noticed. The best part is that you can get all this done organically, without paying a penny!

High-Level Connections

High-Level Connections

If you are a startup or a small-business owner, you know the importance of networking. Building valuable connections is extremely important in order to grow your business. As a business owner, by connecting with C-level professionals, you can find in them guides to help you learn and potential investors to give your business a boost. Generally, it is not easy to get in touch with professionals who work in such positions, especially for networking opportunities. Social media can help you. Social media platforms, especially LinkedIn, provide an appropriate and effective way of connecting and interacting with other professionals. While people working in high-level and managerial positions might not be ready for a face-to-face meeting with you, they might be willing to connect with you on social media. By interacting with them on social channels, you can build relationships and even invite them for events and conferences someday. 

Cost-Optimization

Cost-Optimisation

Social media is one of the most cost-effective marketing channels. With the help of social media CRM, marketers can reach and engage with a large number of potential customers, without incurring any additional costs. Moreover, you can keep connecting with the same customers without having to pay anything extra. On the other hand, trying to convert prospects without any digital assistance involves huge expenditure. Traveling costs, lunch expenses, room charges, etc can all add up to create a big hole in your pocket! In addition, while in the case of social media channels you can keep interacting with your customers until they convert, in case of offline prospecting, this requires money.

How to connect with your customers on social media?

Building customer relationships through social media is vital for ensuring business continuity at the lowest costs. Here are some ways by which you can connect with your customers on social media:

Social Listening

Social Listening

Social listening can be defined as the tracking and monitoring of customer feedback and brand mentions on social media channels. It is nothing but ‘listening’ to what customers are saying about you on social media. Social listening is incredibly important as it helps marketers get an idea regarding customer perceptions about a brand. Based on such feedback, marketers can optimize their campaigns and offerings to be more in line with what the customers want. Social listening capabilities are available in many social management tools and social media customer relationship management platforms. Once customers are happy, brands can easily connect with them and build long-term relationships. 

Content

Content

Customers visit your social media channels to view your content. If your content isn’t at par with the needs of the customers, they will not be willing to connect and convert. Marketers need to first understand who their customers are and what they want. Based on this, the content should be created. The content that you post on social media channels should be entertaining and engaging, while also adding value to customers by informing and educating them about something. Fun and informative content will keep your customers coming back for more, helping you build relationships with them.

Problem Solving

Problem Solving

Many customers turn to social media channels to air their grievances. While this might seem like something negative, it can actually be a huge opportunity. Brands that track such complaints and respond to them promptly win customers’ trust. By solving their problems, customers feel that they are valued and important to your organization. Brands need to continuously check their social media channels to find and respond to queries and complaints. A CRM tool can help in this regard. These tools, once integrated with your social media platforms, can track customer grievances and alert you to the same. Certain social media customer relationship management tools also have capabilities to respond to grievances with the help of predetermined messages. 

Rewards

Rewards

Building customer relationships through social media depends upon keeping customers happy. One of the easiest ways by which you can keep your customers happy is by rewarding them. Rewards give customers something to be excited about while showing them that you value and appreciate them. Running competitions and quizzes are simple ways via which you can reward your customers. For instance, you can hold a competition where customers have to say their favorite things about your brand and tag 3 of their friends. The best answers will be rewarded. This not only keeps your customers happy and engaged but also acts as a free promotional activity for your brand.

Your customers are your biggest assets. The success of your company depends upon how happy your customers are with you. Leveraging social media channels is a simple and low-cost method via which you can boost customer delight, build long-term relationships with them, and drive your sales.

Talisma’s social management platform can help you connect and engage with your social media community. with us to know more.Get in touch

2020-07-04T04:33:28+05:30June 24th, 2020|

Leave A Comment