Opening up a dialogue for conversation is one of the most important ways to engage your customers and make them feel like there is person on the other side of the screen.
No one wants to be hit with message after message with little to no feedback when they reply.
Think about it, when was the last time you were on Facebook and you reached out to a company that you liked or had questions about and they never replied? How did that make you feel? I bet you were a little bitter.
This bitterness can manifest in a variety of ways, from avoiding the product to actually becoming a detractor and smearing the company for its lack of empathy.
Keeping an open dialogue with your customers can save your relationships with the customers who are on the fence and can strengthen the relationship with customers who are already fans.
There are many different reasons to open up a dialogue and in this report, I wanted to go over a few of the more important ones.
Feedback From Customers
Customers feedback can help to determine the direction that your company takes in the future. You may have a very definite view of what your company and your product should look like, but after hearing back from your customers, you may see that your views need to change.
Customer feedback is the ultimate litmus test for if what you are doing is effective or just a waste of your time. Customers tend to be honest and—especially over social media—they won’t sugarcoat things.
Let’s say that you have a customer that has joined your blog and didn’t quite understand how a specific blog was relevant to your overall message.
You may have a healthy eating blog where you post an article about hypnotherapy. Right off the bat, someone may come to you confused about what this has to do with their eating habits.
This gives you the opportunity to respond by letting them know that hypnotherapy can be used to suppress urges for eating bad foods.
Bam! You’ve just reached out and kept a fan, as well as answering this question for others.
On the other hand, if you weren’t available to answer this question, this may have sparked a full on debate on your social media, which could lead to anger, more confusion and even people unsubscribing.
Because you failed to answer one simple question that would have taken you a few moments to answer, you’ve struck up a controversy that could cause real damage to your company!
Responding to feedback from customers can change the customer’s perception, open up a dialogue and let you know what is working and what isn’t working with your company.
Just as importantly, you will be better able to build the trust and respect of your customers by showing them that you care enough about their questions and feedback to take time out of your day to answer them.
They get an answer to their question and you get to maintain the support of a customer. It’s a win-win!
Business Connections
Social media has become an excellent and even necessary way to reach out to other businesses. This is especially so for businesses that are based online.
Networking is key to the growth of any business. You need to be able to communicate with others in a way that you can express your needs, discuss their needs and find a way that you can be mutually beneficial.
There are many ways to reach out over social media, so let’s discuss a few different platforms and how to reach companies directly through these platforms:
Facebook allows for connection is many different ways. You can start off slowly by liking a few of their photos and commenting on a few of their posts. From there you can begin to build a relationship and plant the idea of your business in their head.
You can even take it a step further by reposting some of their posts on your wall. This is giving them free advertising, which I’m sure they will appreciate.
Once they have a better feel for who you are, you can approach them via private message. Start off small with inquiries about their company. They will love to talk about themselves.
From there, identify some needs and finally, address how you feel you could best solve some of their needs with your product.
I know this takes a while and you still may get a “No,” but a “Yes,” could be a game changer!
Twitter is a little tricky because there are so few characters to work with. Like with Facebook, you can share their tweets and even favorite their tweets. You can tweet them questions and comment on their tweets by tweeting back at them.
Twitter can be a little easier to get lost in the shuffle and if they have a lot of followers, you have to really make your presence know.
After establishing a basic relationship, you can take this engagement to private message and really let them know what you are all about!
LinkedIn is built for business networking! If you join LinkedIn and don’t think someone is going to reach out to you to network, you obviously don’t understand the platform.
The good thing about LinkedIn is it gives you the opportunity to make more warm connections. You can get involved in groups in your field and use your network of business partners to reach out to others.
You can also look for companies that are in your niche and reach out to them directly.
LinkedIn is probably your best bet to make simple business connections, but it’s also the most obvious, which can work against you.
All three of these platforms have positives and pitfalls. It’s up to you to discover which works best for you!
Answering Questions
As with the feedback section, social media allows you to answers frequently asked questions to a bigger audience, instead of addressing each of these issues one at a time.
This also allows fans and customers to ask you questions that you may not have considered, which can actually serve to change your business practices and better understand your customer base.
Answering customer’s questions can be as easy as jumping on social media, checking out their post on your page and shooting them back a quick response. They will feel like they are appreciated as a customer and they will be more likely to buy from you.
Especially in internet marketing, you’ll probably get a lot of questions revolving around your credibility and the credibility of your affiliates.
If you are able to address these inquiries head-on, you can put your customers at ease that there is a real person out there that is looking out for their best interest.
On the other hand, if you let these questions slip between the cracks, you will very quickly lose the trust of your customers, which will lead to a drop in your sales.
Answering questions is quick and easy and it really could save you thousands of dollars! One quick response here and there could help to hold on to a customer that is making you hundreds of dollars a year.
I’d say that’s worth it!
Reaching Out To New Customers
One of the most important parts of opening up a dialogue is speaking with new customers. You can easily use social media to spread the word of your amazing internet marketing company and get people excited and on board.
If you do it correctly, you can build trust with your clients before they even take advantage of your services!
Imagine if a company reached out to you in a field that you really liked. Say you’re training to be an MMA fighter and a company that makes fight gear reached out to you, showing interest in your career.
They let you know that they have some of the best gear in the market that they think will improve your fight game. If you are willing to “like” their page and give them some feedback, they’ll send to over a free product and give you a discount on other products.
What would you think of this company? Would they be bugging you?
I’d wager that you’d love this company and welcome them reaching out to you! They’ve made your life better by getting a hold of you and you will gratefully fork over some cash.
The point here is that you have a service or product that you know your customers will love and if you identify the right consumers and reach out to them, they will be happy that you took the time.
Sure, since you are cold calling, some will get annoyed. Don’t let that get you down and don’t let that impede on your progress.
You can reach out to new customers on any medium, but the method changes significantly from medium to medium.
Facebook, for instance, has made it a lot more difficult to reach out to customers directly, so instead you may have to use Facebook ads to get a hold of them.
Twitter, on the other hand, still allows open lines of communication and with the hashtag function, you are better able to search for people who are discussing your niche and get in on the conversation.
From there, you can show new customers what you are all about and you can transition to sales and customer loyalty, while building your overall fan base.
Sure, opening a dialogue takes some time and effort, but if you are able to put in that extra time, you will see incredible results!
Social media is for everyone to be social, including your business. Take advantage of this and launch a campaign that will leave an impression with potential customers and other businesses!
3 Foolproof Ways to Use Social Media to Boost Your Internet Marketing Efforts
