Note: this is an excerpt from a guest post I wrote for Karen over at Makin’ The Bacon. Her blog is a great resource for entrepreneurs interested in starting an online business and boosting productivity.
Whether your brand is new in town or just new in the world of social media, there’s no wrong time to establish a social media presence presence. You certainly don’t need to be on every channel, but it’s worth investigating which ones work best for your business goals.
Control the conversation
People are going to say things about your brand. People are going to Google your brand. The conversation will happen, so you might as well exert control over it.
Social media has become an overwhelmingly popular avenue for customers to air their complaints, praise, and everything else. After all, helping your customers find love is free publicity.
52% of customers expect brands to respond to reviews within a week while 72% of people who complain on Twitter expect a brand response within an hour.
On the flip side, customers love having a social media presence to tag when they’re happy – like if they’ve found a cute pair of yoga pants that they want to show off, or just experienced great customer service at a restaurant on their birthday. According to this study, 44% of millennials use social media to spread the word about products or services. It’s no wonder influencer marketing has taken on a life of its own.
Build loyalty
High engagement on social media may not translate into immediate revenue, but engagement boosts brand loyalty which ultimately becomes revenue. People who are loyal to a brand drive 33% more sales and 18% more traffic compared to a regular customer.
Whether it takes a few weeks or a few months, building loyalty among your existing customers is a great way to build out your brand’s future. Featuring happy customers is a shines the spotlight on them. If your customers are happy enough to act as your ambassadors, they’re essentially marketing for you.
Burners, Deadheads, and Trekkies – what do these all have in common? They’re names of communities that people identify with because they band together to talk about a common interest. If your brand name translates well into a community nickname, go for it.
Run contests that will keep them revisiting your social media channels because they feel they might gain something from it. Add genuine value to their lives without being overly salesy with your content.
As Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media put it:
“All the people who feel creepy about social media feel that way because they are trying to get more value than they create. All the spammy methods, all the ways of getting more influence, or social climbing. If you focus on creating value, you actually do capture more of it in the long run.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
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