Social Media Customer Relationship Management and How It Empowers Your Brand

Social media has become much more than just a way for consumers to keep in touch with one another. Facebook, Twitter, and, to a lesser extent, other platforms have evolved to become vital tools for businesses to reach their audience. However, you cannot simply use ads to boost visibility and website traffic. There is much more that social media can do for you, including helping you forge stronger relationships with your customers and empower your brand. Using a social media customer relationship management (CRM) tool can help you achieve those goals.

What Is Social Media CRM?

Before we touch on how to use a social media CRM to improve customer service and empower your brand, we need to explore what it is and why it’s even necessary. Doesn’t your existing website CRM do the same job? Not really. Your audience is far more likely to be found in significant numbers on social media, and using a social media CRM can allow you to not only connect with them, but to drill down into their posts to determine important elements, including:

  • Brand sentiment
  • Problems with products or services
  • Breakdowns in the customer service process
  • How your customer experience rates with your audience

Social Media Increases Brand Accountability

Social media may be infamous for its backlashes and meltdowns, but it has done some good, as well, at least where consumers are concerned. For instance, the rise of social media and the increasing need for businesses to be present has increased accountability for unfair treatment and empowered consumers. It has encouraged transparency in business practices, pricing, and other considerations, and it has helped employees share experiences with customers that uplift and strengthen the brand.

Using Social Media CRM to Deliver Excellent Service and an Improved Customer Experience

A social media CRM allows you to tailor the customer experience to provide the best results, while improving customer service at every step along their journey.

Personalised Communication – One of the most significant considerations in delivering an optimum customer experience and meeting expectations is to personalise your communications with your audience. A social media CRM allows you to do exactly that.

Not only do you have insight into your customer’s identity, but you can dig deeper into what they have shared about your brand, information about their interests, about the number of times and locations they have communicated with your company, and a great deal more. In comparison, a standard CRM really does little more than track basic communications, such as phone calls or emails.

Support Them – Your customers need your sport. What’s more, they expect it and deserve it. With a social media CRM, you have more opportunities to reach out and answer questions, provide feedback, and generally interact with them while delivering the support that is their right. This goes far beyond the capabilities of conventional customer support solutions, as well.

For instance, with a social media CRM system, you can communicate with your customers in real-time, in an environment they feel comfortable using. They can ask questions without needing to wait on hold for the next available operator, or search through page after page of FAQ content on your website.

You’re able to achieve positive resolutions for your customers in a fraction of the time it once required. That helps improve the customer experience and their perception of your brand, while also cementing stronger bonds.

Actionable Insights – Every business owner and decision-maker can understand the challenge with finding actionable insights concerning your audience. What are their pain points? What are their challenges? What is the thinking and doing that leads them to your website? A social media CRM makes gathering those insights simpler and helps ensure greater accuracy. Then, you can take action with the assurance that comes from basing decisions on factual information rather than a ‘best guess’.

It goes deeper than gleaning insights about your customers, too. You can also gain insight into the efforts of your teams and your company as a whole. From real-time sales forecasting to determining which channels are the smartest investment of time and your marketing budget, a social media CRM delivers tremendous advantages.

Developing Brand Advocacy – Every brand has them, but not all brands are able to identify them. We’re talking about advocates, those diehard fans who love everything about your company and are willing to promote you to their own friends and family in exchange for nothing. A social media CRM can help you identify brand advocates and even cultivate advocates from your wider audience by rewarding them for helping you to spread the word and making them part of your community.

In Conclusion

Ultimately, social media is more than just another way to spend marketing money. It’s a powerful solution that can empower your brand and help you deliver an optimum customer experience. A social media CRM makes it easier to do that.

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Richard Coen

With over 21 years of experience in Digital Marketing, 31 years in sales and 25 years in business development, Richard assists companies to develop key growth strategies on a local or international basis. He can assist marketers to achieve balance in their approach to key areas affected by the growth in digital marketing.