Acquiring customers is a huge focus for many social marketers. Think about the title, “social marketers”. You are creating a social market that is viable and that grows without you needing to cultivate every interaction. Building solid relationships between you and your customers is essential for the success of your social media. How can we increase the customer lifetime value? Customer Lifetime Value is an estimation of how much that customer is worth to you over the course of their relationship with your business. Don’t forget that ROI is simply a measure of dollars and cents. With ROI you analyze the customers worth after the transaction is made, you fail to focus on what drives the transaction.
I’m going to give you 5 amazing ways to build relationships with social media with the end goal to increase your customer attention, customer retention, and brand presentation.
5 Ways to Build Relationships with Social Media
1. Be Personal, Don’t be an Aloof Communicator
I know, easier said than done. I’m not saying that you have to be BFF with every one of your Twitter followers or Facebook friends, I’m just saying be a real person. Have a voice, have a character, don’t be afraid to be an individual. Think if you were taking a potential client out to coffee, you’re not going to bring pie charts and wear your business logo swag. This is not a great tactic for making the customer feel comfortable, it may work out for you, but for the masses it’s best to go with a more personal approach.
Personal Voice –> Builds Customer Comfort –> Increase Brand Advocates
Brand Advocates are the cheerleaders for your brand name. They are the customers that have you at the top of their mind when your category comes up. For example if you were Apple, your brand advocate might be having a conversation with friends talking about computers, the brand advocate would then immediately start raving about their Apple computer. These are the customers that not only are profitable with a high customer lifetime value, they also assist you in customer acquisition.
2. Greet new Followers and Friends
Social Media has declined the need for courteous interactions. Let me tell you, it still matters and makes a difference today. When you receive a new Twitter follower send out a quick tweet and say:
This is a small step that takes literally seconds but goes very far in the greeting of a new follower. In day to day terms, if you were to go out to lunch with a group that you had never been out with, and no one greeted you or recognized you had joined the circle how would that make you feel? You’d probably have very little interaction with them in the future, much less would it be the topic or highlight of your day. By no means am I saying if you greet your followers you will be the highlight of their day, but there’s a chance which is better than no chance.
If you are on Facebook then you will want to shoot out a quick message to that new member. Ask them to like any other associated pages, and let them know you are looking forward to their future interactions with your business pages.
3. Write to Include and Validate
Writing to include involves the structure of your posts and letters, write such that all viewers know you are open to feedback, suggestions, comments and interactions. You can do this by asking a question at the end or asking for peoples opinions on your topic.
Writing to validate means recognizing others for their interactions. If someone gives a great comment, make sure that you point them out before you answer or respond to their comment. When praising someone for their contribution be personal, write their names, if you fail to do this the customer may perceive you as overlooking their contributions and lose their valuable interactions.
4. Accept all forms of Feedback
This can be a difficult one, no one wants a bad review on their business page. Everyone wants to receive the 100% amazing business rating. Reality is, this is not going to happen. What can set you apart from your competition is how you deal with the comments and feedback that is not ideal. Always address these comments never delete them. Never let them sift down over time and hope that they will be a week old and no one will read them again. Truth is, people may never read it, but you don’t want to lose that customer.
5. Build on Customer Base Interests
The best topics of interest come from what your followers are talking about. Don’t sit there pondering for hours what to write about next, let the comments speak for themselves. Write and augment on what interests are already spurring in your followers, this not only increases their attention it is also relevant to them and shows that you are listening to their feedback. (Don’t forget to mention the individual who you got the great idea from).
If you need help with your Social Media efforts call Customer Paradigm today Toll Free at 303.499.9318 to talk to a real person or fill out the contact form below.