In today's digital era, social media has made it possible for a business to interact with their followers & customers like never before! A potent tool to constantly update the followers about the latest news regarding your business, social media has made it possible to reach thousands of people easily using proper strategies.
Whether it's a new product launch, an exciting collaboration, or even a giveaway, it acts as an essential tool for building & nurturing brand-customer relationships and also marketing your goods & services to a targeted set of audience. Let's learn more about how to use social media in building and maintaining relationships with customers.
Role of Social Media in Building Customer Relationships
Social media has tremendously transformed the way businesses engage with their audience. Gone are the days when you had to wait for days for a reply from a brand. Nowadays, anyone can directly reach out to any brand and get their queries resolved instantly. Let's explore how brands are leveraging the power of social media to improve Customer Relationship Management aka CRM.
Continuous Communication: One of the key aspects of social media is the ability to interact with the audience on a more personal level and that too quickly. It has opened a direct channel of communication, making it easier to educate customers about their deals, services, and offers or even solve issues such as delayed shipment, product replacement, etc.
A lot of brands have also set up automated message bots so that no message in the DMs goes unanswered.
Suggestions Taken Seriously: Since anyone can reach out to the brand directly, it has become easier for any customer to give their feedback to a brand- whether it's regarding a product, service, or general feedback regarding something.
For example, a customer seeking to buy hair care products specifically for Alopecia, can reach out to their go-to hair care brand and suggest it directly. Not only that, consumers are becoming more aware of what they want (or don't want) in their products and are constantly reaching out to brands with their suggestions on how to improve their products or how to make them more inclusive!
Easy Sharing And Collaborating: Since social media has made it possible to share anything within seconds, it makes a consumer feel special when brands share/repost their posts and reels to their official social media accounts. After all, who doesn't want to grab the attention of a brand and potentially reach a wider set of audience?!
Another option is to do a collaborative post that appears on both the creators as well as the brand's page- benefiting both parties at once.
Easy Selling And Visibility: A lot of social media platforms, such as TikTok and Instagram have enabled the 'shop' option where the (potential) customer can easily shop for what they're looking for, without leaving the app to complete their purchases.
It has not only improved the shopping experience but has given a platform to an array of small businesses that might've been struggling to find the right set of audience.
As a result, more brands are gaining visibility and finding new customers.
Exclusive Offers: The idea of 'exclusivity' always seems alluring. Interactive ideas such as offering an exclusive discount to the 'first ten commentators' on a social blog post or offering an additional discount if you 'share the post of your story' etc. will encourage the followers to partake in your brand's activities and also improve the overall engagement.
Interact More: Whenever you're talking to a customer, be it privately or in the comment section, make sure to 'personalise' the message; use their name as it makes them feel special and doesn't feel like a robotic automated reply. Using relevant emojis also helps deliver the right tone of the message and keeps the conversation lighthearted.
Whether you're a brand or an established business, harness the power of social media to build a more personal relationship with your customers as it will help benefit your business in the long run.