Is Your Social Media Platforms Engaging Customers? Social media has evolved by leaps and bounds over the last few years. Today it has become a profiting marketing channel. Social media has also changed the dynamics of call center services. But are customers really engaging with brands using social media? A recent statistics revealed that Instagram is the King of Social Engagement. It has won over the much proclaimed names such as Facebook and Twitter. The social engagement rate of Instagram is only 4.21%, which is again about 58 times more than its closest competitor. The social engagement is higher for brands that deal with products for the youth. The social media engagement dips significantly for brands dealing with multi generational products. But the rates of social engagement are rising across all age groups. So, it is very clear that social media engagement is still in its nascent stage, but brands cannot do without it. The challenge for customer services is the diversity of social media networks.Creating Effective Social Media ExperienceThough the numbers of engagement are not staggering, yet social media engagement is a vital part of designing the customer experience strategy in the days to come. Just like all the other strategies a lot of thought needs to be put in. There are certain considerations that need to be accounted for while designing the social media engagement strategy. Before finalizing the strategy ask yourself the following questions:What type of customer experience you want to deliver through social media support?What customer emotions you want to evoke through contacts?What your customers want from social media contact?What is the valuable aspect for the brand in social media?The answers to these questions will help you choose the appropriate channel. Social media experience has certain expectations and characteristics. The answers to these questions will help you realize these. There are both rational and irrational parts of social media engagement.Emotional Value of Social Media EngagementEmotions are the most important part of social media engagement. The social media strategy should evoke the right strategy. Wrong emotions can destroy the customer experience and ruin your social media efforts. Customers are emotional and it is the emotion that instigates them to the next steps. The emotions lead a customer to take certain decisions on social media. Social media experiences can be broadly divided into three groups such as:Personal Experiences: This experience is evoked when users stay in touch with their friends and family members.Customer Experience: The experience comprises of the trend among modern customers. They want to research the social media before making a purchase. They will look through the social media and later go through many web pages to perform an in-depth research.Business Experiences: Most of the brands are now using social media for their business. Some of the tasks brands perform on social media include writing blogs and promoting them on social media, sharing industry updates, connecting with prospects and industry experts, etc.All these experiences have separate emotional value. You may strategize using any of these experience types, but understanding the multiple layers within each of these sections is important for successful planning. It is completely two different things – what customers say they want from social media and what the customers really want from brands. Only intense research can peel off the mystery hidden within these layers. Close monitoring of customers can help you understand just what they want and not what they think. Emotions are the joysticks for your social media customer services. It is important to understand the emotions well.The popularity of social media is increasing with every passing day. Though the numbers of social media engagement between brands and their customers is not very high presently. But it will definitely improve in the future days. The immense potential of social media networks makes them perfect for customer care services. It is no wonder that the reputed call centers have already started thinking and strategizing about social media contacts. For the time being social media customer support is only a part of the overall customer support mechanism, but this will change in a big way in the future days.
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 12:19:39 +0000
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