It's easy to understand how important customer retention is for small businesses. Holding on to customers lets businesses make the most of their marketing budgets and boost profits. Creatively using social media builds customer retention. And it's a low-cost marketing technique that any business can use.
How to Use Social Media to Build Customer Retention
Customer retention is all about building relationships with people, and many believe there's no better way to do that than through social media.
Get to Know Your Customers
New customers and visitors to your website are often anonymous. Even if they place an order, you likely have very little information about them. With social media, you can make a more personal connection with your customers and start to get to know them.
Social media helps you learn about your customers' interests and backgrounds. If you want to know something specific, you can create a poll or ask questions through social media platforms. Once you get this information, you can develop and target marketing strategy and messaging to better connect with customer interests, needs and pain points.
Use social media marketing to interact with your customers. It could mean giving a shoutout to new Facebook followers, or it could mean reaching out to your LinkedIn company page audience by sending a short message introducing yourself.
Provide Real-Time Support
Customers are increasingly turning to social media channels for real-time support. Being active and responsive on these channels can help create a positive customer experience. Can a customer reach your business with a social media message about an issue or question about a product or order? If they can, you have a valuable chance to provide fast, responsive, and quality customer support.
Even if customers don't reach out to your small business directly on social media, you can still use alerts so that you quickly know when your business is mentioned on social networks. Tools like Hootsuite and Google Alerts can ping you if your business is mentioned, allowing you to stay ahead of bad reviews or to thank current customers for sharing their positive experiences with your business.
Quickly addressing customer concerns in real time through social tools can help you build customer loyalty through social media. It shows people you offer quality, responsive support. This can be a key method in building trust in your business to both drive new conversions and increase customer retention.
Enhance Your Brand Positioning
Your business's social media management techniques can also enhance your brand positioning, further building customer loyalty. When customers can connect with a business, they may be more likely to support it. By using social media platforms to give life to your brand, you're giving customers more ways to connect.
One of your social media customer retention strategies can include behind-the-scenes posts that let your followers see the people and effort behind the company's daily operations. You can post content about the missions and values of your business, and use content to showcase your products in action. Don't be afraid to get honest with some of your posts and let your followers see the people and passion behind your brand.
Get Your Audience Involved
Get your audience communicating with your business. People love to talk about themselves, and letting your target audience do that can help increase customer retention rates. Customer engagement helps to personalize your brand and establishes connections and relationships with influencers and other customers.
Customers are increasingly turning to social media channels for real-time support. Being active and responsive on these channels can help create a positive customer experience.
Don't forget that social media followers provide valuable information when it comes to developing and refining products and services. Ask them for feedback on social media and create surveys. Pitch new ideas to potential customers and your existing ones. This powerful type of market research can help you determine if you're onto a great idea or need to go in another direction. It also makes your customers feel like they're contributing to the business and that their voices are being heard. They may be more likely to become repeat customers when they have such a genuine connection with a business.
Don't Forget to Listen
There's quite a lot of value in simply paying attention to your space. Many companies use social media listening tools such as Sprout Social, Brandwatch or Meltwater to monitor customer opinion on their products and those of competitors. Keeping track of how potential customers feel keeps you one step ahead, with an eye on producing relevant strategies that will help you stay competitive in the future.
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