The IBM Institute of Business Value recently published a report entitled ‘From Social to Social CRM’. The report surveyed 1000 consumers about the reasons that they interact with brands via social media and then compared the results with the results from surveying 350 business executives on why they thought their customers followed them on social media. The results highlighted a surprising perception gap that offers amazing revenue opportunities for companies that respond to the findings.
The truth is that customers who follow brands via social media want deals, promotions and discounts. Sadly most marketing departments and business owners are using social media to broadcast, they want to get ‘their’ message out to as many people as possible and as quickly as possible. Instead they should be applying the 80-20 rule of marketing to their activities and make sure that at least 80% of the time they spend on social media activities is not self promotional and only 20% is self promotional.
Social media has a big advantage over mass marketing because people communicate to you upfront what they are interested in and you can use this to your advantage to target and build a following of people directly interested in your area of business. Social media allows you to connect directly with your target audience so you can build common ground and start building relationships.
Social media offers, coupons and deals should sit alongside engaging content, the opportunity to have conversations with your customers and listen to their feedback. Many businesses ignore the fact that social media is:
- an amazing source of consumer research
- an opportunity to listen and demonstrate you care
- a way to truly engage and deliver excellent customer service to your customers
By offering social media offers that focus on revenue it’s also a great opportunity to measure the ROI of your social media activity. Your social media strategy should be a blend of amazing content that people can talk about and share on Twitter and their own blogs. This conversation will boost the word-of-mouth activity around your business but also create more incoming links to your content. As an internet marketing company, here at LexisClick Online Marketing we recently pushed out an offer across all platforms and social media was a clear winner.
If you don’t think you have the content available, don’t worry. Quite a few businesses we come across don’t think they have much content available, but in pretty much every instance we’ve been able to uncover plenty. As a Bournemouth based SEO and online marketing agency LexisClick specialise in helping companies grow their business online across all forms of digital channels including SEO, online-advertising, web design and development.
For further information about social media and social media offers call LexisClick on 01202 961336 or email [email protected]
Contact Details:
Lexis Click Online Marketing
Melbury House
1-3 Oxford Road
Bournemouth
Dorset
BH8 8ES
Phone: 01202 961336
