Having a relationship is tough, and maintaining it is even tougher. Now think about your customer. Think about when you create a product, they buy it, and then what? What is next? How do you build your relationship with them? Also, how do you maintain that relationship? One way is social media. It has become one of the most approachable tactics to build and maintain a relationship with them. Let us walk you through our blog on How to build customer relationships with social media and make a connection with them.
Introduction
The average person spends 2 hours and 27 minutes on social media. Isn’t this interesting that we spend so much time on social media? The average American checks their mobile device 159 times a day. That means you have 159 chances to attract your customers. Huge enough to make a connection, right? In the constantly evolving world of social media, it is easy to forget the real essence of these platforms, i.e., building customer relationships. We are all aware of the importance of engagement (likes, shares, and follows) but we often undermine the importance of customer relationships.
Social media is a tool for marketing your products and services as well as a significant channel for you to build long-term connections with your audience. Global users are expected to spend 4 trillion hours on social media. Mindboggling! When you read all these amazing statistics, do you also wonder how you can leverage social media to build long-term relationships with your audience?
Let’s dive in!
Why is it important to build customer relationships?
Social media has influenced how businesses and customers connect with one another, and it is important that it be seen as a channel for real-time interaction and feedback. Additionally, just because you generated a lead or made a sale to a customer does not imply that your job is finished. You need to ensure that your customers come back again and again. You need to make efforts to cultivate and nurture those customer interactions on social media. When you do, they will start promoting your company and helping with your marketing.
Nothing beats word-of-mouth advertising. Maintaining a strong relationship with your customers is an excellent way to keep them interested in your business. Customers who are enthusiastic about your company will continue to shop for your products or services and will also recommend you to their friends and family. For this reason, establishing strong customer relationships is important to both business and marketing. It is wiser to retain loyal customers and continue to develop connections with them.
What makes a robust customer relationship?
A robust customer relationship develops when your brand and business tops the minds of the customers. When customers believe that your business will always complete its work accurately and on time. However, getting here might be challenging, which is why you are here. Your brand must develop trust by consistently delivering on consistency, punctuality, and quality.
One excellent method is to leverage social media listening tools for your brand and business. You will better understand how to improve your customer service by paying attention to what they have to say and analyzing what they say. Building excellent customer relationships requires consistently exceeding expectations.
Let us learn how to build customer relationships with social media.
Also Read: The Dynamic Duo: How Social Media Supercharges Your SEO Efforts!
How to Build Customer Relationships with Social Media?
Facebook was the first social media platform to pass one billion users (CNN.com). Up until now, you must have gotten the idea that your target audience is present on social media and you can reach out to them, build a community, and establish a relationship. Here are a few tips to build customer relationships with social media:
1. Leverage Social Media Listening Tools
Social listening is an activity that monitors some areas and keywords on the internet to ensure you get important mentions of your company’s brands or specific topics. There are various social listening tools, such as Social Sprout, Hootsuite, Buffer, Brand24, and BuzzSumo, to name a few. A social listening platform gathers and organizes the conversation going on about your business, your sector, and relevant subjects. Your campaigns and messaging may be modified and enhanced using this information.
Make better decisions to assist your customers in resolving issues and provide insightful responses to their inquiries. Use this information to compile a list of blog posts, new features, and educational content that you know your audience will find useful.
The image is an example of a social media listening tool named Social Sprout. With all the necessary insights, brands and businesses can modify their brand, social media, and marketing strategies. They can learn about their customers and target audience. They can understand the conversations of their customers, sentiments, tone, and engagement.
2. Customize your Customer Experience
Customization is a wonderful method for fostering customer relationships. Think of including a live chat widget on your website to answer customer queries and provide help. Your audience will have the opportunity to communicate with a real person who addresses them by name and offers a genuine experience.
Other additional methods to customize the experience are by making sure to include your recipient’s first name in social media conversations and email newsletters.
This is a perfect example of Starbucks. They have excellent customer service. Making a human connection is important, whether you are addressing a customer’s concern or simply responding to your followers’ comments or tweets. You can build customer relationships with social media by providing excellent customer service.
3. Create a Separate Customer Support Page on Social Media
Establishing a dedicated customer service channel is an excellent way to build relationships with your customers on social media. You may respond to customer care inquiries on your current social media platforms. However, many brands have decided to set up a dedicated X account to deal with customer care inquiries and share product support concerns and answers. X, particularly, is an excellent choice for customer care.
You could also include a feature in your Facebook Messenger Chatbot that lets users submit assistance requests, or you could point them to a support page on your website. A strong reputation for your brand may be developed by making sure that all response times are prompt and helpful.
An amazing example here is the “Xbox Support” X page by Xbox. Did you know that it holds the Guinness World Record for the most responsive account? It responded to over 5,000 questions in one week with an average response time of 2 minutes 42 seconds. (Source: Practical Ecommerce)
Build customer relationships with social media by creating a separate customer support page and win your audience.
Also Read: Why Hiring a Social Media Manager for a Small Business Matters?
4. Pay Attention to Customer Feedback
One important thing is providing a means for customers to provide feedback. Doing something with that feedback is entirely different. You can show your customers that you value their suggestions by incorporating their advice and desires. Earning your customers’ trust and loyalty requires considering their feedback when launching new products or adding features to your software. It implies that you are open to acting on their wants and concerns after hearing them.
When you pay attention to customer feedback, you are in a direct line of communication that can significantly enhance your business. Always remember to acknowledge every piece of feedback you receive. A simple “Thank You” will also work. It shows that you are listening and that you care about them.
5. Include User-Generated Content
Customers want to share and tag brand products in their photos when publishing social media content. This is known and user-generated content and is a useful strategy for community development and management. It is helpful in building a social media calendar. User-generated content is 35% more memorable than content from professional marketers. It is an effective way for your brand to build customer relationships on social media.
For instance, Adobe, the design software company, incorporates the work of talented artists and designers.
This is a way to build a community for your brand. Encourage your consumers to share their images with your products and include a call-to-action (CTA) for your followers.
6. Share Valuable Content on Social Media
There is ample content shared on social media platforms. Also, there are various types of content created for the platforms. Some of them will be promotional in nature, as the goal of your business is to generate profit while still providing solutions to the pain points of your customers. Nevertheless, you must make sure that there is a fair balance between your promotional content and the free value you offer to your audience, whether it be gifts, coupons, or expertise.
In order to educate your audience, share blog posts and provide instructional videos. By attracting new consumers and fostering relationships with them, you can show the value of your products or services and encourage them to stay with you.
For example, at Markeeters, we share our blog posts on the LinkedIn platform.
7. Establish a Relatable Brand Voice
Being relatable is one of the most effective ways to build customer relationships with the help of social media. You don’t have to be excessively informal on social media. There are methods to use your brand voice to make your presence enjoyable for your audience.
To quote an example here: Zomato. Zomato creates humorous and relatable memes on its platforms. They use their brand voice using memes that are relatable to their audience.
when you placed your order 5 minutes ago but it hasn't arrived yet#INDvsPAK #MatchHoTohZomato pic.twitter.com/wtSG8D3lBF
— zomato (@zomato) October 14, 2023
Use your audience’s lingo, share trending memes, and observe other businesses to see if you can pick up any tips for making your brand voice more approachable online. You can also create a unique brand identity to establish trust and loyalty among your audience.
8. Maintain Authenticity
Above everything else, maintain authenticity to build customer relationships with the help of social media. Authenticity is the most important factor. You should not face any problem making a connection with your audience as long as you actually care about them. Your audience enables your business to succeed. Be transparent and try to share behind the scenes of your business. Bloopers are also a fun way to connect with your audience. Humanize your brand on social media.
Also Read: 10 Benefits of Social Media Marketing for Every Business
Conclusion
These are the most effective ways for your business to build customer relationships with the help of social media. You can also incorporate AI to automate and streamline your process. The better your customer support, the more customers stay with you in the long run.
Social media is a valuable tool for your brand and business. It helps reach your audience and stay connected with them. Create informative, inspiring, and educational content that is helpful to your audience and customers. If you follow the above suggestions, your social media management will undoubtedly soar, and you will be able to create a powerful brand.
FAQs
What social media you would use to improve the customer relationship?
Social networking is a powerful tool for connecting with current, past, and future customers. All social media platforms are not created the same. The social media sites Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn are considered effective for business.
What is the role of social media in customer relationships?
The incorporation of social media platforms into customer relationship management (CRM) platforms is known as social CRM or social customer relationship management. CRM solutions are increasingly supporting social media in addition to traditional channels so that consumers may communicate with businesses through their preferred channels.
How does social media build customer loyalty?
Positive reviews increase the confidence of your present customers and are more likely to bring in new ones. The psychological phenomena of people’s propensity to follow the herd, social proof, is responsible for this.
What is an example of customer relationship management on social media?
A business or a customer establishes a fan page for their business or item on Facebook. Fans of the brand and its business practices will register, providing a platform for interaction, marketing, and networking.
