If you want your business to succeed in the swarm of competition, you have to focus your efforts on your target market. More than ever, companies have to become 100% consumer-centric. That means providing an excellent customer experience that’s based on a thorough knowledge of your target audience and their unique needs.
By BOJANA VOJNOVIC
Listening to customer feedback is the most effective way to get to know your target market. And where do the majority of your consumers spend their free time?
That’s right, on social media.
True, website and email surveys are still a valid way to gain insight into your audience’s opinions, needs, and pain points. But nothing can beat collecting customer feedback through social media because that’s where people genuinely engage with brands. Now, let’s take a look at the best ways to do that.
1. Share Your Surveys on Social Media Platforms
To start off simply, consider the possibilities of social sharing. You (hopefully) already have an active presence on most popular social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And you already share content regularly to engage your audience. So, why not utilize your social reach to share surveys?
If you’ve already created a survey that you have on your website or send via email, post a link to it on your social media platforms. For starters, a lot more people will see it and potentially click on it. After all, people are less likely to pay attention to content they receive in the mail and even less inclined to do a survey on your website. Promoting these surveys via social media is an effective way to grab their attention and entice them to provide feedback.
2. Utilize Facebook Post Autoresponder
A great tool that can help you collect customer feedback on Facebook is this channel’s post autoresponder. Essentially, this is Facebook Messenger’s own chatbot that can be set up to immediately respond to comments on the selected Facebook post(s). Every time someone comments on the post you’ve connected to the autoresponder, the nifty Facebook comment bot will send that user a direct message.
This is how businesses can interact with their consumers directly and invite them to provide their feedback in a more natural and open manner. To further utilize this tool, create engaging posts that simply invite users to comment. For instance, offering discount codes, posting riddles, and asking interesting questions are all effective ways to facilitate interaction.
3. Obtain Direct Message Feedback
Social commerce is a booming $89.4 billion market, and it will only grow bigger in the following years. Modern-day consumers clearly enjoy the convenience of making purchases and getting info from companies through social media. By being open to direct messaging, you have the possibility to improve customer experience, make your interactions more personal, and successfully collect customer feedback.
Every social media platform features direct messaging. It’s always useful to have real-person support, but many queries can be resolved with the help of an AI-powered chatbot. The chatbot instantly gathers information about the user by analyzing their social media profiles. This allows them to create a more personal and customized chatting experience. And thanks to machine learning and language recognition software, a Facebook Messenger chatbot, for example, can provide clear answers to users’ questions.
A chatbot can start its work the moment a user sends a DM. As it provides quick, customized, and clear answers, chances are, these users will be considerably more interested in leaving feedback when the chatbot asks for it.
What’s more, you’ll get to learn a great deal about customer behavior and opinions simply by analyzing their conversations with the bot.
4. Make the Most out of Instagram Stories
Instagram, as a powerful marketing channel, is so much more than a place to share images. The rather amazing feature of this channel – Instagram Stories – can be an invaluable tool for interacting with consumers. For instance, it’s easy enough to start collecting feedback from your Instagram followers simply by posting polls or asking questions via Instagram Stories.
With Instagram Story Questions, users can simply type out their response. But the poll feature is an even better option, and it can be used in a variety of ways. For example, you can list the most popular products you offer and ask users to select their favorite. Or, you can have them select between their top go-to brands within the specific industry; options are endless and extremely informative.
What’s more, you can use Instagram Stories to switch things around and encourage your followers to ask you questions. You can even utilize various stickers to create guessing games, which are fantastic for engaging your audience and collecting feedback.
5. The Good Ol’ Social Monitoring
Just because there are plenty of new methods to collect customer feedback through social media doesn’t mean that the initial practice of social monitoring has become redundant.
Essentially, the stronger your presence on social media platforms, the more chance your customers will mention you. It may take a bit more time to sift through all of your social media mentions. Nonetheless, this is a truly efficient and concrete way to get realistic and 100% honest feedback. To make things easier, you now have a handful of tools at your disposal that can speed up the process of going through the mentions. You can even encourage the users to mention you by coming up with a hashtag yourself.
In Closing
When businesses start listening to what their customers have to say, their audience takes immediate notice. The concept is enough to boost brand reputation, widen your reach, and ultimately lead to more sales. After all, modern-day consumers want to feel appreciated and validated – and they have no problem returning the favour by showing loyalty to the brand.
