Social media presence matters, but why does it matter? Getting the attention of customers is important, but driving foot traffic and getting likes on your posts aren’t everything. Social media does more than just give you a place to converse with others. Here are two ways that social media delivers information and helps manage multiple parts of any business.
Social Engagement is Customer Data at Low Cost
Not everyone can make great memes all of the time. You don’t need to have the funniest social media site to have a social presence; if you already have customers and just want to interact, having a social media site makes that easier.
Generations are shifting. Millennials are becoming the more dominant adult users and spenders, while baby boomers at the younger part of the age bracket tend to be computer savvy to an extent.
If you don’t have customers, social media advertising makes marketing easier. While many people worry about getting social media engagement right, it can also be used as a testing ground.
Designing and testing the appeal of flyers, inserts, and other graphic advertisements can be done on social media first. Designers can have time to let their creations out into the wild, think about how they look, and revise for physical versions.
While doing that, you’re reaching the eyes of customers and creating content that shows up in search engines. At some point you’ll want to have perfect delivery, but a growing company can afford to evolve on social media.
Customer Service Made Easier
Many businesses are shifting to either more affordable customer service platforms or maintaining their customer service entirely on social media platforms. While the latter is risky–since any social media site could shut down while leaving you without even an offline way to handle customer service–you can avoid the more expensive support systems with social media.
A central trouble ticket system is good. Trouble tickets make it easy to document and reference customer complaints–or any kind of feedback–in a way that can be stored offline. Modern trouble ticket support systems have social media linking tools. This allows customers to send Twitter DMs, Facebook private messages, and other social media messages to your customer service system automatically.
Formatting can come after the fact, and it allows your customers to feel a sense of instant gratification. They don’t need to sign up to yet another website to manage their trouble ticket, meaning one less frustrating even
Responding to tickets via social media while updating a local, protected version of the ticket is easier as well. Social media and modern customer management tools work together for everyone’s benefit.