The Hidden Power of Your Customers: Four Keys to Growing Your Business Through Existing Customers

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR ENGAGEMENT AND CONVERSATION

If you discover your customers actively use social media, it may be a potential communication channel through which to reach out and interact with them. Social media tools can be especially effective at engaging in conversations and building relationships with customers—both consumers and businesses.

The way customers perceive your company online is part of their experience with your organization. According to a study by Cone Research, Americans using social media to interact with friends also want to engage with their favorite organizations and brands via that channel.1 Additionally, 60 percent of active online consumers feel they have a stronger connection with and are better served by companies when they can interact via social media. The study goes on to state, “… Americans are eager to deepen their brand relationships through social media.” Customers definitely view their interactions with an organization via social media as an integral part of their relationship with that brand. Therefore, this element of the experience needs just as much attention from your company as other parts of the marketing strategy.

Too many companies, however, want to become involved on social media sites without really thinking about or fully understanding why. Perhaps a company manager has read an article or heard about the latest social media technology and wants to start using it as soon as possible, without first identifying the goal for its use or ...