September 27, 2021
During the pandemic, we began spending much more time on social media and interacting more with brands online. Resulting in brands having to adapt and very quickly. Now, the restrictions are easing down, but audiences still have those high expectations of brands to communicate well with them, especially when they have a query, challenge, or problem. Consumers are demanding more now and will no longer tolerate a lack of response or engagement from brands. So, how do you engage well on social media, put a human face on your brand and avoid creating a bad perception of it?
Understand your business values
What are the values of your business and what do they stand for? What does your brand care about and believe in? And how can we back that message up? You need to plan and know what your business values are to be prepared if a controversial topic comes up.
Keep your tone of voice consistent
If you know your brand positioning, your values and who you are in social, then you can decide what tone of voice you will be using. One very important thing is the need to be professional but also human and keep a consistent message. It doesn’t matter which channel your audience chooses to engage on – there must be consistency, although you may alter your tone of voice slightly, according to the channel.
Work on internal alignment and culture
When you have a strong and defined culture, it can be easier to align on what you believe and say what the customers need to know. If there is no cooperation and communication between the marketing and customer service/sales teams, this can be a real challenge. So, it’s important to build that relationship internally.
Know your brand’s FAQ’s
One way to help your audience is to understand the frequently asked questions and answer those queries by, for example, posting them on your website or as a pinned post on social or create some content around it.
Build a framework of responses
On social, you can’t always stick to a script but it’s helpful to understand what the questions might be and how you can solve them in several ways. So put together some examples of how you might respond to your audience and be ready to deliver better customer service.
Be prepared for negativity
You should have a look at potential negativity and escalation and do some crisis planning. Work out what the worst-case scenarios are and how you’re going to deal with that as a team. You need to be prepared to deal with potential negativity in an efficient way.
Look at influencers and advocates
There may be some people, internal or external, who you might want to work with and try and engage with. So, come up with a system and some form of scoring that you can look at. For example, how many followers they might have? What kind of content they’re producing? Do their values fit with your brand values? Also, plan a program in advance and think about what the objectives are and what you want from them. It is also important to build a good relationship with them and show them you value their time and job beyond just paying them.
If you’d like to know more about how to interact with your audience on social and have a great engagement strategy, get in touch now!