In parts 1 and 2, we talked about brand awareness and community building as part of a social media marketing plan that any PR pro or small biz owner can use. Today, we’re talking about the benefits of having excellent customer service online:

Customer service: (facilitating customer needs through reactive and proactive communications on and offline)

Good customer service means increasing positive and decreasing negative online sentiment. One trick that can help? Using social media channels such as Twitter as an extra line of customer service.

How: Keep social media channels open and monitored at all times so when there is an inquiry, whether positive or negative, you can intervene and provide help. If it is positive, thank the customer for taking the time to speak about you publicly. If it is negative, immediately offer to resolve the problem. Sometimes the largest protesters can become advocates with a little bit of love and attention. If you don’t provide some source of customer service or redirect online to someone who can help, you’re risking your reputation.

Measure your customer service effectiveness by taking customer surveys, looking at the number of online (and offline) issues addressed and resolved (and the outcome: success vs. fail), and by gauging sentiment online and in social media (how many positive things were said vs. how many negative things were said).

Look at your opportunities, plan them meticulously and define what each opportunity is for your organization. Establish goals for engagement online and develop a way to measure each goal. For example, to start you could set a goal of 10 positive engagements with customers on Twitter per week. Finally, track your goals for overall success in your social media marketing for you small business. If you pay attention to these three facets, you can master social media marketing–it’s easier than you think!

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy: The importance of consistency in online engagement

Filed under: Small Business, Social Media, Strategy by Stacey Acevero