Stay Connected, Through Technology or Humans

Social media, there is perhaps no two matching words that conjure up so much attention and emotion these days. Even though social media outlets were designed originally to be used on desktops, for people to stay in touch, it was the arrival of smartphones that changed the game. You would only be fooling yourself for thinking otherwise. Now, it is almost unthinkable to run even a small family based business without social media presence. The following are some tips to take advantage of social media in this increasingly connected world.

Be More Pro-active

At the dawn of the social media age, it was used more as a reactive tool. People would put a post and hoped others would listen and usually it ended with that. Things have come a long way since those boring days. Now, it can be used to be more pro-active with customers. If you, the business owner, see a customer using a social media platform to be heard, responding to them is always a good idea. In other words, don’t just sit there watch and listen, but take the experience your brand is offering, directly to the customer.

Take Advantage of Tools

There are so many different types of tools that can help you deal and respond to customers, no matter what the numbers are. It may seem daunting at first, but go ahead and take advantage of various methods that are available at your fingertips. With these tools, you can do everything from a response, marketing and a central dashboard for scheduling and publishing content. Other tasks these tools are capable of doing are routing calls to the right representative and tuning in on what is being said about your brand on the internet.

Human Versus Machine

The danger with all of these tools available at your fingertip is getting lulled into thinking that using social media and all of its added tools, will be enough to get things through. This is not the case. There is always something to be said about direct human to human interaction. This is something not all of the technology in the world will be able to replace entirely. The trick is to strike a balance between the two. The results are in, and what they show is very clear; brands that take advantage of technology without forgetting the human aspect o any business, are the ones that become successful and stay that way.

It's All About the Marketing

The marketing department in any company will have three basic goals to meet. They are, finding new customers, pleasing existing customers and keeping old customers. No one is doubting the power of social media in accomplishing all three of these. The first step is getting your product out there. For this, a combination of paid ads and shared content can be used. This is when you need to be very clear who the potential customers are, and then target campaigns with them in mind. When business starts to grow it is time to ramp up necessary technology to keep up with their responses. The social media aspect of the business will not run on its own. Skilled people will need to be hired to do this work to ensure nothing is forgotten when customers start to come on board and experience your product.