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Tag: social media

When All Else Fails….Turn to Social Selling

During the COVID:19 Pandemic, business owners have had to be very creative in order to survive. In an instant, an owner may be left with no customers. What is next? Creative thinking to the rescue! Interestingly enough, many find new ways of selling their goods and services. Social selling is one option.

A great example of this is how a Minnesota Farmer got quite creative when faced with meat processing plants closing suddenly. One farmer had 1200 pigs that were ready for slaughter, with nowhere to go. “We went from having planned all of this 10 months out, having a market for these pigs – that flipped on a switch,” Kluver said. Brad Kluver is a third generation pig farmer, who has never seen something like this happen. He goes on to say that they were stuck, with no alternatives and the pigs were getting fatter every day.

Social Media To the Rescue!

So the family decided to try selling their pigs in social media. They turned to their community for help through their social media accounts.

“In just 48 hours, we had over 400 families reach out to us wanting to purchase pork and help support us through this,” Brad said. “We were left high and dry with nowhere to go and nowhere to turn and that’s where our community stepped up.”

The family was also able to get connected with other, smaller pork producers who were able to take some of their pigs and get them ready to be sold to consumers. 

Time to Try Social Selling?

Social selling is really nothing new, however, it is new to some industries. The impact of COVID-19 has made everyone more aware of social selling and it will be interesting to watch and see if this trend continues. When you think of social selling, LinkedIn comes to mind. LinkedIn has been the best place to date to build relationships and acquire more customers. This is especially true for B2B companies.

However, now is a great time to start building your social media community. It doesn’t matter if it is in Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram. The Pig Farm story is a good example of social media ROI. I bet the farmer never would have thought this online community would be of benefit to him at any time now or in the future. But it was. It may also make him think of his business differently post COVID.

Consumer Reports recently reported on the increased importance of social media customer service which goes hand in hand with social selling. Once you commit to being there, you must maintain it and monitor it. Customers are eager to reach out to you there. To get that personalized service that everyone wants these days.

Maintenance goes a long way in social as well as your website. As more and more people turn to online shopping for essentials, be sure:

  • Outbound links in social media are all in working order.
  • Contact information correct.

Take time now to be sure everything is up to speed. Are there ways to increase your followers? How well are you engaging? You never know when it will all come in handy in ways you never would have thought!

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How Social Media Can Enhance the Customer Experience

With the explosion of social media, customer service is more important than ever and businesses are taking steps to create memorable “customer experiences”.

Social media has put the power back in the hands of the customers and given them a voice to share their experiences. Companies now have huge opportunities to build relationships with their customers through multiple social media channels.

According to Dan Gingiss, podcaster and author of the new book Winning At Social Customer Care: How Top Brands Create Engaging Experiences on Social Media, customer experience is how people feel about every interaction they have with a company. A customer who has a bad experience at a store or restaurant can quickly take a picture or video of the incident and share it on social media, which can create a firestorm of negative publicity for the company. Conversely, positive experiences can lead to great growth and promotion for a brand.

Walk a Mile in their Shoes

In order to best utilize the power of social media for customer experience, companies need to put themselves in the customer’s shoes by walking through their store, website, or service with the eyes of a customer. Observing things that happen from a customer’s point of view can reveal the challenges and roadblocks in the path and what it means to be a customer of your company. The key to a good customer experience is fluidity—everything should be smooth for the customer and work together to create a cohesive experience for them.

Social media also allows brands to be more authentic and transparent. Today’s customers can see right through automated responses and canned replies; the best way to reach out to people is to take the time to connect with them and build a relationship of trust and authenticity. Customer experience has changed greatly with the growth of social media, and it plays an important role in reaching out to customers and starting a conversation with them. In the future, customer experience will become the major differentiator between brands, so it will be more important than ever to provide customers with a high-quality, seamless experience.

Javed Matin, a sales and marketing consultant, adds: “Companies that truly understand social media are also truly customer-centric.  They understand the real needs of their customers and treat them like family. Social media is like talking to your mother: you can’t get away with anything, so you better be truthful.”

Do Your Research

Social media can also be a useful research tool for understanding the problems in the customer journey and an opportunity for improving the customer experience. Involve yourself in the numerous conversations on social media featuring your brand and turn that data into a research opportunity, highlighting customer grievances and what you can do to stop them from happening.

You can learn a lot from social media, including understanding your audience. Online conversations are a great tool for uncovering consumer insights and social media research allows you to ask interesting questions to get an in-depth look at your audience.

 

Get Creative

Think about the customer experience of following your brand on social media. If all a customer sees is a stream of advertisements, it distracts from the genuineness of your brand. Use a mix of content: share information from other sites, company news and culture, ask questions, be interesting, and have a personality.

 

Customers are people, just like us. Follow the golden rule: treat them how you want to be treated. Only then will you experience success in both social media growth as well as customer experience.

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