Are you making the same mistakes as your competitors?

Social media has many uses for your business. It is not just for interacting and sharing content with your customers or staff, but it is a great tool to use for prospecting, customer service and for internal communication with your team.

Firstly you need to remember that social media is exactly that – social! You need to put some context into your content if you want to actually get any traction and start conversations with your audience.

Let’s start with one of the biggest challenges faces businesses – generating qualified leads using social media. 61% Of B2B marketers feel that the biggest challenge they face in regards to lead management is generating high-quality leads (via B2B Technology Marketing Community).  If you are in sales, social media can be used as a prospecting tool to find out more about your potential customers.

Social media provides an opportunity get to know your audience, rather than selling to them on the first interaction. Think of it like dating or wooing your audience before you ask them to marry you. You can use it to get know your ideal clients and prospects by listening & watching what they are interested in, getting to know their likes and dislikes, what motivates them, what content they are interested in and how they want to interact with a business like yours.

It is time to sit back and do some virtual stalking rather than virtual talking. By taking time to get to know your prospects, don’t you think you’d be better equipped to start conversations with them? The more you know, the more relevant the information you have to use in order to create content that will resonate with them. It makes perfect sense to use information that they have shared freely about themselves and use this to help them solve a pain point or problem they are currently facing.

To start the social prospecting process, use the free tools you already have available and get focused on who your best prospects are, then create content solutions to make them want to start conversations with you (rather than the other way around). Get more inside tips here

Now let’s consider how and why social media is such an important tool for customer service. If you are on social media as a business then you should expect customers to reach out to you to ask questions and provide additional service on those channels. These days, many of us will use social media channels as the first point of contact to ask a question, leave a complaint or give feedback. As consumers we expect these to be acknowledged and addressed in a timely manner. If you are not doing this then you are missing a huge opportunity to get valuable information and create two way conversations with your customers. If you are on social you really need to be on social.

By using your social media channels as customer service channels you get many benefits:

• You can answer queries that impact many people, increasing your overall productivity (by not answering the same question over and over via email for example).
• You show potential customers you care and will respond to their questions and issues
• You will win more sales as you are giving them answers when they want to buy from you (and are usually part way through the buying process)
• You are telling them, they are priority and they are important

And last but not least, consider how you can use social as a tool for internal staff communication. It is not just for communicating with your customers and has great power when used like an intranet site allowing your teams in multiple locations to communicate between themselves, share wins,  build a company culture and eliminate some of those office emails that no one answers. It costs nothing, can help develop your team culture and provide a very effective communication channel that will increase productivity and get your team more engaged. See more here
Most businesses I talk to about social media are not using these tactics and are therefore missing out on low-cost opportunities to drive enquiries & sales, build engagement and actually get an ROI on their social media time. Too many businesses are focused on creating content they want to share, posting on their channels then forgetting about it. This wastes your valuable time and resources and can do more harm than good.
Instead, take time to plan your strategy, communicate this with your teams and train them on how to use it effectively. This starts with a change of mindset from you and your boss and equals turning a time wasting exercise into one that can generate a real ROI. Get more insights here

It is time to make changes to your social communication in 2017 and there is no time like right now

Author: Tanya Williams, Chief of Everything Digital Conversations

Tanya is Chief of Everything at Digital Conversations and a Tradigital specialist, creating strategy & tactics to help businesses leverage their traditional and digital marketing to make their business more visible.  

Tanya uses her 20 plus years of experience in traditional marketing, sales, digital, ecommerce & innovative technologies to help brands become more digitally savvy and create a strong digital footprint to future proof their business and build strong internal and customer communities. During her career she has worked with brands like Commonwealth Bank, Brisbane Marketing, National Retail Association, CPA Australia, Empire Group, Mosaic Property, Business Depot and many more. She is passionate about creating digitally savvy individuals and businesses so they can work smarter not harder.

She is a strategist, entrepreneur, blogger, digital speaker, video marketers, trainer, author of 4 ebooks and does all this wearing 4 inch heels. Her personal mantra is never let anyone dull your sparkle.