Why do I need a social media presence?

Are you among those who remember when email came out?  I was working for IBM at the time, and we used it for internal purposes, but we soon came to the realisation that if we had someone’s email address, we could type a message and send it to them… and they’d get it straight away!  How amazing that was to us at the time.  But as early adopters of email technology, we had no idea what impact it would have in business over the next couple of decades. 

Social media is a bit like that.  There were the early adopters, people who were amazed at who they could follow and tweet and how they could chat with each other quickly.  Then a few businesses joined the party, realising they could communicate with their customers and promote their products.  Now, mainstream businesses are joining in and beginning to plan social media strategies.  

For those who are still reluctant and wondering what they could possibly get out of it, consider it a dialogue with customers and prospects where you can informally ask questions or talk about what matters to your business.  You can let customers know about staff training, events, or marketplace intelligence, and provide the type of information that is not usually available through other channels.  You can’t easily update your website daily, but you can post comments freely throughout the day on facebook, linked in or twitter.

What about detractors?  There is a fear that people may use your social media pages to badmouth your company.  However, wouldn’t you want to know if people were disgruntled with your business?  And who?  The transparency provided by social media gives you an opportunity to do something about it. 

So, here are 3 good reasons for having a social media presence:

1. Customer service.  You can put in a very cheap customer service solution without great investment in time or money.
2. Transparency.  Keep track of what people are saying about you, which gives you an opportunity to address issues that you may not have even known you had.
3. Advertising.  It’s simple to create a presence and simple to maintain.  You can easily invite customers to follow you and run promotions or release new products.

In larger companies, the question is not whether to use social media, but how to keep track of all the comments posted.  

The good news is that social media can now be integrated with multimedia contact centre systems to capture, manage and deliver social media questions and complaints to the appropriate point managers or customer service staff.  This type of integration ensures your customers know they are being heard, and more importantly, demonstrates their importance by being given timely answers.