Perspectives

How to reach loyalty and customer satisfaction with the use of social media?

Deloitte Digital Blog

According to the Deloitte report, every minute more than 4 million people in the world responds with ‘like’ button to the content on Facebook, over 1.5 million on Instagram, and 350 thousand tweets. Such information cannot be ignored by any self-respecting company. The more so that access to the Internet is becoming more and more common every year, and smartphones change the way we work, buy or learn. By 2023, most cellular networks will already offer super fast 5G Internet on phones, and airlines will feature fee Wi-Fi access.

What does this mean for companies? That even more customers – regardless of the time of day and place of stay – will want to contact us. It is very likely that their first choice will be our social media channel.

To meet these expectations, companies must adapt to the requirements of clients and adjust their social communication to current trends. If they fail to do so, consumers will simply enter into a dialogue with another brand. Where to start? It is best to prepare a comprehensive social media strategy.

Why does a brand need a social strategy?

We assume that you have an advertising strategy and marketing strategy. What about the strategy for social media? Social is not just about posting. It is advertising, marketing, communication and sales – all packaged in one efficient and extremely efficient medium. Knowing the strength of this channel can you afford to leave room for taking a chance?

A dedicated social strategy will allow you to:

  • plan the content over time,
  • maintain the coherence of the brand,
  • react to possible crises,
  • distinguish yourself from the competition and increase your visibility,
  • and above all – effectively build customer loyalty (in the end, we all like websites and brands that we know well and know what can be expected of them).

How to build a strategy for social media

Firstly: coherence

The brand must speak the same voice in every communication channel. We know this not from today. Regardless of whether the client is calling the hotline, contacting via the form on the website, writing a letter or making a phone call to Messenger, the message must be coherent. Of course, each communication channel is different and follows its own rules, but it is about avoiding the discrepancy and the impression that the client communicates with two companies at once.

Take care of the language of conversation and adapt it to the target group. Develop a visual form of posts and make the personality of the brand readable to your recipient. Remember that, for example, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram users expect different publication frequencies and different content. Be creative and make the most of the power of social media.

Secondly: content tagging

Also, be sure to explicitly tag content and use popular hashtags. They should be the same, regardless of the communication channel. Research shows that about 75% of users use hashtags. Twitter or Instagram are certainly channels in which special attention should be paid to this form of content tagging (Tweets with hashtags are twice as much visited as those that are not used). Keep in mind that for Facebook, a maximum of 2-3 hashtags work best.

Do you know that…:

– 4 million people presses “like” to posts on Facebook every minute?
– 75% of users use hashtags.
– Tweets with hashtags involve twice as much as those without hashtags?

Thirdly: regularity

The decision on being present in social media is also connected with a certain responsibility. Have you decided to create your own page on Facebook or Instagram? Do not neglect it! Lack of regularity will give the impression of a lack of professionalism and can be taken as a disregard for its own clients.

A monthly content calendar will help you in publishing content regularly. This means scheduling content in advance, for a specific period of time (e.g. week, two weeks, a month) and publishing it using tools that allow their distribution in time.

Fourthly: Take care of the visual aspect

It’s not a secret anymore that a good photo sells much more effectively than written content. Choosing the right photos and their style should therefore be an important aspect of creating communication strategies in social media.

Forget about publishing boring photos. Limit – if possible – the number of stock photos. Engage people visiting your profile with infographics, creative charts and visualizations.

You do not have a dedicated graphic department that will take care of photo processing? Nowadays, it really is not a good excuse. Using the tools available on the Internet, you can easily create graphic content that will be consistent with your brand and the appropriate visual level.

Do not forget about movies and animated content – they build much larger ranges than traditional posts. It’s about simple, aesthetic forms with added subtitles that will transparently guide your client through a given topic. You can easily create this kind of video with online tools (e.g. Lumen5).

Social listening, i.e. listen to the media

According to research commissioned by the American Office for the Protection of Consumer Rights, we are twice as likely to share a negative opinion on the Internet as a positive one. What’s more, no one can predict when the client will appear, who will ask a question in the forum or publish a negative opinion about your product or service. In such situation, you cannot act as nothing was happening. Salesforce reports that 64% of consumers expect real-time responses and interaction from the company. The sooner you react to a question or criticism of the consumer, the better. A critical post left unanswered will contribute to the negative perception of your company and will reduce the credibility of the brand.

However, how to react dynamically to consumer inquiries, since their number is constantly growing, new channels of interaction and services are being implemented, and we ourselves are burdened with more and more work? New technology and tools for listening to social media based on big data analysis can help us with that.

This type of technology uses keywords to constantly monitor content published on the Internet and collect additional information about people publishing content (they may vary depending on the place of publication). Access to such data allows for quick identification of the client, personalized help or answering his questions.

However, the use of social listening technologies does not have to be limited only to the monitoring of negative statements. These types of tools give the perfect opportunity to build relationships and surprise consumers with solutions dedicated only to their needs. And thus building the image of a brand open to the needs of consumers and competition ahead.
Customers expect a human approach

According to the last Salesforce report – “State of connected customer” – consumers (despite their sympathy for technology) do not want to be treated as an email address or avatar on Facebook. They expect an individual approach and understanding of their needs, as if they were served by a real seller behind the shop counter. In return for loyalty, they expect to be heard, understood and appreciated by companies.

Two-thirds of them say they are willing to change the brand when they feel treated like a number rather than a person. Therefore, using personalization in the network, establishing relations with consumers and interacting with them in real time is not only an additional aspect; it is an absolute necessity if you want your company to succeed in social media.