The power of social media is impeccable. It has enabled customers to interact with each other, share opinions, and build an online community that has the potential to make an online business a huge success or a failure.
According to research, Americans prefer to spend more time on social media than any other internet activity.
While every business has a different sales or conversion funnel, all of them work to achieve a single goal - get their presence noticed, have more leads, convert those leads, and inspire customers to keep coming back for more.
With more than 3.4 billion social media users worldwide, it is more critical than ever for your ecommerce business to stay active on at least one or two popular social media platforms.
But is staying active on social media platforms enough to drive the desired attention?
No. Because you need to be clever about how you can implement techniques to build customer relationships on social media.
Social media is the most powerful weapon in your digital marketing arsenal that provides you with an opportunity to build long-lasting relationships with your buyers.
There are several benefits of building customer relationships through social media. In this post, we'll highlight 10 techniques to build customer relationships through social media that you can implement right away to sustain relationships with your audience throughout their journey.
Why Do Customer Relationships Matter?
The biggest mistake digital marketers make is they keep their entire focus on driving sales and conversions.
You cannot expect long-term results when you fail to build relationships with your audiences, even if you're having lots of conversions. So yes, customer relationships matter.
Long-term loyal customers contribute more than one-time buyers who visit your store, make a purchase, and never return. So if you're looking to have those kinds of customers, you have to invest your resources to earn the trust of your customers.
That's nice if you have thousands of followers on your social media profiles. But how many of those visitors engage with your brand and show interest in your announcements and offers?
As an added advantage, when you build relationships with social media, you increase your odds of having brand advocates who will spread the word of positivity about your brand in front of other potential customers.
Here are some of the reasons why it's imperative to implement techniques to build customer relationships through social media.
Faster, Easier Communication
Today's customers are busy and impatient. They don't have time to wait forever for your representative to respond to their concerns. Thanks to social media, your customers can now quickly get in touch with your support team.
There are still some challenges depending on your industry and area of expertise. But the overall line of communication has been significantly improved and is no longer as tough to do so.
Increases Visibility
The top benefit of using social media for your business is that it boosts your organic search engine visibility and helps you make the most of your ecommerce SEO efforts.
Social media also transmits relevancy signals to search engines to enhance your content visibility.
Promotes Partnerships/Collaborations
Earlier, communicating with celebrities and other high-profile people was nearly impossible for the general public. But today, anyone can interact with famous people such as actors, politicians, and other influencers using popular social media platforms.
Building relationships becomes easier when you know how and when you should use social media to get your brand message across and connect with your existing and potential customers.
Helps Maintain Business Reputation
Did you know people read at least 10 reviews before they buy anything from an online store? People usually turn to search engines, social media pages, and business profiles to get an idea of how reputable and trustworthy a company is.
This allows your online business to portray its professional image in front of the target audience. Also, when you're always available to address your customer's concerns, it will automatically build your repo and credibility in front of them. Thus, these are the reasons why online and search engine reputation management is so important.
Increases Website Traffic
Brands active on social media channels better drive traffic to their official websites than those who don't. When you build relationships with your customers on popular social media platforms, your customers become more familiar with your brand and the offers it has in store for them. They're more likely to visit your official website when they already know your brand.
User-Generated Content
Social media allows businesses to seek user-generated content (reviews/videos/images) that directly or indirectly impacts the brand and its messaging.
Businesses usually repost that content with specific hashtags so the content can be seen throughout social networks.
Promotes Personalization
Because social media enables you to maintain communication with your customers, you get to know about them. Social media acts as a bridge between you and your customers. As a result, you can create strategies that are more targeted and personalized.
10 Ways To Build Lasting Customer Relationships Through Social Media
1. Have A Fast Response Time
Customers have many questions, and they're not going to wait forever for your response. Remember, gone are the days when your buyers were willing to wait out those recorded automated responses that leave them on hold for several minutes.
All successful brands have an organized social media support system that maintains quick and effective communication with customers across different social media channels.
Ideally, your support agents should not take more than 30 minutes to respond to customer's queries.
You don't have to spend a lot of time monitoring your social media conversations either. It would be great if you dedicate just one hour to update ongoing conversations on your social networks. Also, there are different tools available online like Tweetdeck and AgoraPulse that you can use to do this job for you.
2. Personalize The Experience
Customers prefer brands that understand their needs and offer tailored solutions. The concept of personalization has taken the digital world by storm.
Today, only businesses that offer the personalized experience to their customers build the rapport that eventually leads to the trust and credibility you need to excel as an online seller.
So how can one achieve this?
It's simple. You have to create content that is conversational and more relatable instead of using old-school templates using a formal corporate tone. Your customers want to hear often from their favorite brands. So make sure you don't keep them waiting for long.
Introduce your other team members to your customers so that they know who's behind doing what. Conduct market research and monitor your buyer's interests, buying preferences, and past purchases and interactions. Doing so will help you create better strategies to connect with your customers on a more personal level.
3. Always Be Authentic
One proven technique to build customer relationships on social media is to stay authentic and genuine with your customers. No, you don't have to include a smiling emoji in every conversation to depict how friendly and accommodating your brand is.
The key here is to actually care about your customers, listen to them, and take their feedback seriously.
Give respect to your customer's opinions and resolve their issues, not for the sake of resolving the case but to improve your services and make up for that poor experience they had with your brand earlier.
4. Share Timely And Relevant Content
Content marketing and social media go hand in hand. Brands that fail to impress their customers cannot sustain for too long as customers trust only those businesses that take the time to create premium and relevant content.
Fortunately, there are many tools available online that you can use to evaluate your audience demographics and monitor what type of content attracts their interest.
The key here is to create content that resonates with your audience and encourage them to spend more time reading your content.
Remember, if you offer value to your readers, there is no reason why they won't spend more time on your website and social media pages. So, get this one step right if you want to build lasting relationships with your customers on social media.
5. Let Your Customers Share Their Story
The purpose of social networks is to enable people to share their stories. Whether it's about someone buying a new car or people sharing images of their big days and anniversaries, people want to talk about themselves and expect acknowledgment, praises, and lots of appreciation in return.
Your customers want to engage with your brand on social networks not because they want to know about your business but because they want to share their experiences.
The benefit of doing this is that it also allows businesses to know more about their customers and build relationships to entice further engagement.
Encourage your customers to share their stories (preferably something related to your brand) so that you can have more user-generated content on your social pages and build long-lasting relationships.
6. Keep Your Customers Engaged By Hosting Contests
Another effective technique to build customer relationships on social media is to host different contests and competitions.
When you reward your customers with giveaways, coupon codes, or vouchers, they feel valued and obliged to trust your offers.
You can also create a buzz and position your brand on top of the list by hosting events that encourage other people to visit your social media pages or a website to know more about your offers.
Many brands spread their message by asking their followers to share it within their circles and offer a reward for the one who's sharing or spreading the message.
7. Run Exclusive Promotion Campaigns
If you're looking to build relationships with your customers on social media, you must prove you care for them. For instance, you can initiate an exclusive sale or a promotional offer for people who are following you on social media.
Now take a step further and ask them to share your promotional offers on their timelines to get an additional reward.
The thing is, everybody admires a good deal, and it becomes more rewarding when it comes from the source you're following in the first place.
8. Respect Your Customer’s Feedback
Online reviews and testimonials act as social proof that encourages your potential customers to take your desired action. The number of genuine reviews on your site and social media pages strengthens your SEO rankings and drives more sales and conversions for your business.
If you have turned off reviews for your social media pages, you must enable them right away as customers only trust brands that have verified reviews on their pages.
A happy customer not only becomes your regular client but can also become your brand advocate who will promote your business within their social circles, friends, and family.
9. Thank Your Customers Often
Customers are an essential asset for any business. Brands looking to outperform their competitors should pay more attention to treating their customers right.
Brands with generic relationship management strategies suffer because they fail to give their customers a reason to revisit their pages.
Did you know a simple thank you has the potential to make your customers happy and stay loyal to your brand for a long time?
Simply writing a little 'Thank You' note will keep your customers happy and help them know you value their presence.
10. Be Transparent
Last but not least, make sure you maintain transparency in whatever you share on your social media pages. Do not build fake stats to lure your customers, as they're smart enough to catch any fake information right away.
