It’s become harder than ever to stand out as a new business. Competition is rife, and everyone is trying to get their brand new companies in front of as many people as they possibly can. That means that once you’ve got earned a following, even if it’s only a few customers, it’s absolutely vital to keep those customers as happy as possible.
One of the most effective methods of achieving this is by engaging with them on social media. This is a great way for small businesses to interact directly with their customers, allowing them to voice their opinions, their praises, and their criticisms.
Create A Specific Channel
A lot of businesses will have a single account for all their social media activities. If a business is extremely small, having a single account can make it easier to manage, but as your customer base grows, it might be worth it to diversify just a little bit. One of ways of doing this is by creating different channels for different purposes.
An example of this is having a social media account that’s just for customer support. So, instead of customers bringing their concerns and complaints to your marketing channel, they can instead direct their issues to the customer support. Not only does this give them a more direct avenue to any assistance they may need, but it stops the other channels from becoming clogged up and you accidentally missing a customer’s problems.
Interact Directly
There’s nothing more assuring for a customer than reaching out on social media and having the company reply back to them directly and quickly. It creates strong ties with the customer because it makes them feel that their concerns are valid, and that any of their concerns will be addressed quickly in the future. Word-of-mouth is still a powerful means of bringing in new customers, so ensuring that your current customers feel valued is important of building a strong, long-term relationship with as many people as possible.
Always Accept Feedback
Listening and adapting to feedback is how small business find success, so when a customer comes to you on social media with a legitimate concern, it’s extremely important that you accept that feedback graciously and integrate it into your business if possible. Not every concern will be valid – some people are just out to cause trouble on the Internet – but the vast majority of customers should be listened to as much as possible. Those new businesses that don’t accept constructive criticism and work to better themselves are often the ones that don’t make it.
Be Relatable
If your business is successful and you find that you’ve made enough money to buy a new car or buy the latest and greatest iPhone pro, it’s never a good idea to use your business social media account to tell everyone. People around the world are struggling, and they find it much easier to relate to businesses that always keep this mind, and never try and take as much money as they can from their customers.
