I hope everyone had a great Mardi Gras! If you’re a New Orleans restaurant owner, hotel manager or any person doing marketing for your business, I hope it was a successful season for you.
Last week, I put together a fun little post about the ways businesses are failing at social media. Unfortunately some of the worst offenders choose to ignore it, I still see them chasing away potential customers and ignoring complaints from customers. Maybe if I give them some tips on how to market your social media online the right way, they might listen to me this time. For the rest of you, you can join in. Take a read and learn a little bit more about how to do social media in ways that will attract new customers, improve your customer service and most importantly increase your bottom line. Done right, I promise you that it’ll be worth your effort!
Attract New Customers
I see far too many businesses jumping online and doing one of two things. They setup their accounts and forget about them for one reason or another. Maybe they think they’re too busy or maybe they just don’t know what to do post about. The other far too common thing is that they go overboard into spamming their followers with links and promotions.
Neither way is a good way to make new friends. Sure you’re marketing to these people, but in this age of social media it’s more than just that. You’re building relationships with long-term customers. You’re not just annoying them on their television in thirty second spots during their favorite show. You’re on their computer, going with them on their mobile phones and they choose to follow you. So give them a reason to follow or keep following you and you better make sure you’re interesting. Don’t just tell them to “buy, buy, buy,” like some used dirty car salesman.
No one likes being sold to! However, they love to learn more about your story. Talk about what makes your business different. Tell them about the new chef and his favorite food. Post pictures of things to see and do around your hotel. Join in the conversations about your business, your city or anything else relevant. However, don’t just tell them to come visit your business. Nothing scares people away quicker than the guy at a party who just wants to talk about himself and brag about his achievements. They’d much rather talk to the guy who is friendly and adds something to the conversation. Those are the businesses that social media users are going to visit.
Get where I’m going? It’s as simple as telling the story of your business without being pushy, then going out and joining relevant conversations.
You’ll know you’re doing it right, when you start seeing people appear on a regular basis commenting on your Facebook posts or retweeting you on Twitter. Don’t fall into the follower count trap. It’s not about how many people your billboard reaches anymore. Now it’s about the type of relationships you build with your customers.
Customer Service
In the past, upset customers might complain to a coworker in the next cubicle or the best friend on the phone. Now, they go online, vent to 250 or more of their closest friends, and the whole rest of the world that has an internet connection.
Believe it or not, this a good thing! Before they might leave a comment card or complain to the manager on duty. However, more than likely they just kept the complaints to themselves, their small circle of friends and made sure to never return to your business. Now you have a chance to resolve the issue before you lose the customer forever.
Unfortunately, this is where so many businesses fail. Their customers are online, but even if they have a Facebook page and Twitter account, they aren’t responding to those issues. The customer was upset before, now they’re even more upset when they don’t get any easy response.
Sometimes the solution is as simple as just listening to the customer and say that you hear them. Other times you may need to take further action, just like any other customer service issue.
You will need to monitor social networks and review sites for places where you can step in and it will take some time, but social media is just growing and isn’t going anywhere. It’s past the point where you can just ignore negative reviews because people are using these sites to find restaurants to eat at and hotels to stay in. If they see nothing but negative reviews, with no response, they will find some place else to spend their money.
A couple of suggestions. If you’re on Twitter people expect to see a response within an hour or two. It’s easy to setup alerts so that you can an email or notification on your phone, so that you know when there’s a customer issue that you need to take care of ASAP. You don’t have to sit on your computer, constantly reloading the page to see if there’s any new complaints. I can only imagine how quickly that would make you go insane.
With Facebook, you have a little bit more time. You have closer to a day, before the customer starts to feel ignored.
Review sites don’t exactly have a similar timeline, however it’s best to check in on them regularly to stay up to date.
Final Thoughts
You don’t have to be connected to your computer 24-7 to be successful with social media, but you do need to check in on them on a regular basis. If you make it part of your daily routine, it can be handled in as little as fifteen minutes a day. However, if you discover it’s something that you like doing, you may find that investing more time in social media leads to increased reservations or profits.