Connecting with clients online

Social media, such as Facebook, can be a great way to build a relationship with customers but it takes committment and, if managed poorly, it can turn off clients

If Northern Ireland Water had used social media more effectively during the recent water crisis they could have reduced the amount of public hostility they encountered,” says Dr Kevin Curran, reader in computer science and social media specialist at the University of Ulster. “The telephone lines were completely overwhelmed by the volume of calls and people couldn’t get through. As a result they ended up very frustrated. This is an example of where using social media to quickly get important information into the public domain could have worked in the company’s favour.

“Social media is not for every company but it is huge and growing rapidly,” Curran continues. “One in 13 people is a Facebook user and one in five online ads are now on social media sites, so it’s hard to ignore.”

Social media can be very powerful but it also has its drawbacks and making a lame attempt at getting involved may ultimately do more harm than good.

The advice from the experts is to look before you leap. In this context it is worth noting that computer giant Dell joined Twitter in 2007 but spent two years just listening to what people were saying before becoming active in terms of making exclusive offers to its Twitter followers.

“I think people need to recognise the strengths and limitations of social media and that they don’t have to buy in to everything about it,” says Sean Kirwan, business development director at Bang Ecommerce. “For example, social media is an excellent CRM (customer relationship management) tool. It’s an immediate way of getting feedback about your brand or product or service.

“It can help drive traffic to your web site and it can provide access to multiple markets simultaneously. It also allows you to target your online advertising and to build a profile for your company or brand much faster than traditional marketing strategies. On the downside, it involves time and you have to accept negative as well as positive comments. Get something wrong and you will know about it very fast. So will your competitors.”

Being successful on social media starts with selecting the right network and accepting that users like to be heard. If you hate the idea of hearing what your customers really think of you, stay away from it. If you’re open to improvement then followers give valuable insights into what needs fixing. In broad terms sites are divided into social sites (for example Facebook), professional sites (for example LinkedIn) and industry sites. Social sites are where companies with a product or service to sell generally focus their efforts.

“One attribute of social media is that it allows companies to target very specific customer groups,” says Curran. “I’m aware of a situation where when users changed their profile on a site from single to engaged this triggered a message from a wedding photographer offering his services.”

Once a company gets active in social media it is on a communications treadmill because consistency is critical.

If a company “disappears”, its followers notice. New users should also be aware of what is acceptable and what is not. For example, a company using a network to constantly hard sell will have a short-lived social media presence. People lose interest in what they perceive as social spam.

“Facebook is the best place for small B2C companies to start with social networking,” says Kirwan. “Putting an advert on Facebook is an excellent way of targeting a particular demographic, but in our experience most should only use this to attract ‘likes’ to a business page. The bounce rate is extremely high on adverts from Facebook directly to third-party websites. TweetDeck is a great way of monitoring what’s being said about your business and pushing Twitter feeds on to your website is a good way of keeping content fresh. A note of caution. In our experience start-up companies often spend way too much time on Twitter looking to attract followers and not enough time selling.”

Rookie mistakers in social media:

- Only posting sales messages

- Letting an outsider manage your social media; it’s best done in-house to ensure timely/appropriate responses

-Trying to set a standard tone for interactions. Better to establish basic ground rules and let those involved be natural

- Repeating messages/blogs. New is king in social media

- Not thinking before you post. Once it’s out there it’s out there

- Being critical of followers or competitors. This can come back to bite you

- Not responding to people personally. Users don’t like a one-size-fits-all approach

- Not following through. If you promise something then deliver it or people feel let down and leave

- Being boring. Followers like original campaigns with humour and whimsy

- Joining multiple networks and finding it impossible to keep them all going

- Assuming you’ve arrived if you have hundreds of followers. Follower volume is poor measure of social media success

KEY QUESTIONS:

What business needsdo I want social media to address?

Whose attentiondo I need to attract?

Which networkbest delivers my kind of customers?

Who in my organisationwill be responsible for deciding content and planning an ongoing social media strategy?

Who is goingto post content?

Does this time commitmenthave implications for the rest of the business?