I get asked by lots of people, "Where do I see social media going?"
As a rule, if any of my thoughts, blogs, talks or seminars are inspired by others, I will share who I have been talking to, reading from or listening to. This one goes out to my all time social media guru - Gary Veynerchuck
Since the era of social media has come upon us and has started to infiltrate the minds of all the marketing people in the world as something that they must exercise in some way, it continues to grow in ways that no-one could have predicted.
To that end, if the whole business of social media marketing, social media interaction, social media optimisation, is important, why are the many experts out there not moving with the times?
There are still many people out there who will charge for setting up your social media platforms and link them all to a blog, but a business without this already is behind the times somewhat! Granted, if you don't know how to set these up and link them together you will need help to do it, but you should be looking for someone like me, rather than me hunt you down.
If you have not already secured your twitter business name, your facebook page, the right web addresses for your business... stop reading this post and get the now. If you don't, someone may do it before you and you'll be stuck. Even if you don't intend to start using it right away, go and secure it.
Why do you need to be on these social media platforms then?
Many of the experts will tell you it is a great way to market your business and that you can make money online. What you need to do it build up a good list of followers/fans to be able to market to. So follow people, they will follow you back and then when they do you have a captive audience to market to.
No! That is not the reason to enter in and use social media in your business or organisation. The most important reason as a business to get into it is that it is becoming the customer service tool of choice.
A friend told me of a story that he was in the Airport and moaned on Twitter that his Easyjet flight was delayed. Within 5 mins he had a reply and within 10 mins he had someone from Easyjet looking for him in the Airport.
In one of his videos Gary tells the story of his brother who rang a restaurant to see if they had a table for the eventing, they said yes if he got there in the next 5 mins. They were there in 4. When they arrived they said that it would be about a 40 minute wait, so he got his phone out to make a call but the waitress thought that he was going to tweet so rushed into the back, came rushing back and sat them at a table immediately.
Brands and businesses need to monitor, engage and even using the search facility on Twitter and Facebook, answer some of the questions about the things people are asking. It is this level of engagement that will build trust and loyalty that will encourage them to buy, not the offers and constant stream of "Buy Now" tweets that you send out.
The restaurant that Gary talks about, they understood the power of a potentially negative tweet going out and did something about it. I'm going to try this one next time I get bad service.
Change the mindset of social media in your organisation today and you'll be set for the future.
If you need further understanding on how to deliver real customer service in social media, ping me an email ant [at] toinfinity.co.uk or message me thorough my twitter.
