As I am on social media a lot because of what I do, I come across many companies on Twitter especially who aren’t engaging or interacting with their customers. Even I don’t get responses from some companies even though I have over 40k followers! What makes me so special I hear you say? Well it's a missed opportunity for them. I would most likely Retweet (share) them to my followers – if people see me chatting to them, they will most likely follow them also. (and also it always makes me smile to see proper engagement from companies). I ALWAYS RT great customer service. If I have a great customer experience I always tweet about it too! I absolutely love this tweet from Three Mobile. I was booking Justin Bieber Tickets online for my daughter and was having difficulty so I panicked (well the teen panicked) so I tweeted to them asking for help….turns out I was trying to buy tickets on the wrong day! So I tweeted to let them know. The girl on the Twitter account responded with the lyrics to one of Justin Bieber’s songs! So it made me laugh, also I retweeted it, also it showed that Three had a personality! Since this tweet I have mentioned Three at every workshop I teach. Free advertising from me!
On the other side, I tried to make a payment to a waste company on Friday, it was 4.30pm and I was put through to their customer service team….I got a message saying their ‘opening hours were from 8am to 5pm Monday to Friday and to call back at that time.’ Er….it was 4.30pm. So I went on Twitter to see if I could tweet to them but I couldn’t believe it when I discovered that they had no Twitter account! It seemed that they had no social media presence at all according to their website there were no links to contact them on Social Media. This is a huge mistake as when I did a search on Twitter I discovered that others were talking about them too….but the company wouldn’t even be aware of it. It’s such a pity as I would have tweeted to them, and when the situation was resolved, I would have thanked them and tweeted to over 34k people.
According to Ireland Customer Experience report from Cxi.org, ‘Ireland is approximately two years behind the UK and four years behind the USA markets when it comes to world class customer experience. In Ireland, face to face interaction is highly valued and brands who excel in this area generate strong customer loyalty and advocacy.’
Social media is the easiest way to ‘meet your customers face to face’ online and yet Irish brands are not meeting customers’ expectations.
Customer engagement and building relationships is the most important aspect of social media marketing. Especially on Twitter. But lots of companies are not doing this at all. Social media is ‘Social’ not about selling. The secret is to build up relationships with other so that they do your marketing for you. Is your company engaging with your audience? Do you know who your followers are? Remember people always remember how you made them feel.
There is a great report from Cxi.org about Customer experience in Ireland.
According to a Content marketing survey with the Institute of Ireland and 256 media Only 26% of Irish marketers rate their content marketing efforts as successful or extremely successful. This compares to 42% in UK
This statistic proves that most companies are not sure HOW to use Twitter and other platforms correctly.
Twitter is rated as the most effective social platform (52% rating it effective or extremely effective)
53% of respondents have a person (or team) in-house who is responsible for content marketing.
The biggest problem facing Irish marketers is a lack of time. Finding quality content professionals is an increasing concern too.
All of the above results prove that we need to learn HOW to use time saving tools e.g. Agora Pulse – And proper training from leading influencers in these social media platforms is essential. Jenny Brennan has a whole series of webinars on Facebook, I have just launched my ‘Twitter for beginners to intermediate’ online workshops, Melonie Dodaro also has Linkedin tips galore online. So what is stopping these companies learning online if they can’t take the time out to spend a day at a workshop? Perhaps the basics of getting online needs to be revisited?
IrishExporters.ie recently did a Digital Marketing Research, Insights & Trends Publication which is very interesting! You can download a copy fromhere – This report was done by Voodoo marketing
From the sample of websites evaluated in this report:
Only 4% utilised the various mediums of content available to them
32% struggled to keep the content on their websites fresh and engaging
Only 12% of websites serve content in more than one language
96% rely on an international (global) website, which is controlled from abroad.
Of the 150 companies that were analysed 54% have at least one social media profile 36% use LinkedIn as their primary platform 7% update their social media profiles daily
Twitter launched a really simple way to increase engagement recently… Twitter polls. Check it out – see the icon beside the camera icon. You get two choices of answers only at the moment but it’s a start …..find out what your customers want! Do a blog post about the results afterwards.
If well executed, regular social media activity can become a significant traffic source to your website but also create a ‘Digitally looking your customer in the eye’ experience (Ted Rubin always talks about this).
‘The ultimate goal of using social media is to become an industry thought leader on relevant platforms. This is a slow process which requires dedicated resources within an organisation. ‘(Via Voodoo marketing)
Be ahead of your competitors. You have a huge opportunity here to enhance your customer’s experience via Social Media and show you are the most innovative, engaging business or person in your field. You could actually end up TALKING to your customers! Imagine that.