Almost all companies want to have people talking about their brand and have customers actively wanting to enter into conversation with them about their products. So why is it that 70% of Facebook interactions are not even acknowledged with a response?
Over recent years there has been a rapid rise in the adoption of Social Media by all business sectors. However this is where it then seems to stop for the large majority of companies. It’s as if companies are merely setting up Social Network accounts because it is what people expect them to do, so they do it for the sake of it. In many cases this approach is often more harmful to the company than good. Dabbling in Social Media and not staying on top of it often just causes the company more hassle and creates frustrated customers.
Through talking to companies on a daily basis, it has become clear to me that a lot of companies have still not grasped the value in developing a strategy that will justify an ROI. This is often because they have dabbled without any real guidance, focus and direction. Once you know what you want to achieve with social then the ROI soon becomes apparent.
For Social Media to be successful for your business you need to open up and enter into conversation. Social Media is always a two way relationship. If your brand is not where your customers are then how can you expect to:
- Nurture your following – build your reputation/audience/brand loyalty
- Customer Service – keep existing customers happy
- Market Research – provide you with insight
- Create Interest – to run promotions, create social interest and conversation
- Social Commerce – for sales purposes
One aspect that is clearly becoming apparent is to use Social Media to manage and nurture customer care.
A recent study by SocialBakers discovered that “an incredible 70% of questions from Facebook fans are ignored which completely contradicts the interactive nature and purpose of social networks. What´s even more alarming is that 25% of global companies go as far as closing their wall on Facebook to prevent fans from asking questions at all.”
