Call Recording Featured Article

While a billion or so ordinary people around the world were using social media for purposes that are…well, social…a curious thing began to happen. Marketing and sales professionals, who have operated under the assumption for decades that the best place to sell is where the people are, have embraced social media as vehicle for brand awareness, promotion, crowd-sourced marketing and peer influence that can be utilized by brands to further their messages in a more trusted package. (Most people find the opinions of friends and family more trustworthy than unsolicited marketing messages.)

At the same times, customers – who after all, having been using social media to communicate for a long time – are expecting to be able to express their opinions and seek help via social media channels. The result is that companies that don’t have a good two-way presence on social media are being left behind. They’re missing opportunities to market, and they’re unavailable when customers and prospects to reach out.

“As social media users, we all know that the quickest way to get a hold of a company is through their social media profiles, and customers are increasingly expecting timely assistance,” wrote Pareshwor Kharel for the Kathmandu Post. “If your customers are talking on social media and you’re not ready to listen and help them quickly, you’re not just turning away loyal customers but also hurting your brand. It is no longer a secret that building better relationships with your customers through social networking support can add up to huge rewards when it comes to adding value to your products and retaining loyal support from your customer base.”

Smarter companies, rather than building a piecemeal approach to social media customer support and social marketing, are beginning to look for more formal enterprise-friendly social marketing and support platforms. These are solutions that formalize the process for social monitoring (listening to what customers are saying about a company, an industry and competitors), but also allow companies to prioritize and respond to customer queries and conduct social marketing campaigns.

It’s critical to formalize the process. One mistake – an inappropriate post by a clueless employee, or an important post that is ignored for too long – can go viral and damage the brand in a matter of days. Mistakes aside, there is also evidence that fraudsters are using social media to pose as legitimate companies and “phish” for personal information. (This happened to PayPal over the summer.)

“As social media platforms become the predominant form of customer communication, so too do the threats to companies and brands,” wrote CSO’s Stacy Collett. “Nearly 600 new fraudulent brand accounts were created each month between April and June 2016 on social media sites Facebook, Twitter, YouTube (News - Alert) and Instagram, according to a study by Proofpoint. Of nearly 5,000 social media accounts connected with 10 top global brand names, nearly one in five was fraudulent.”

Early detection of these problems is critical. Experts recommend companies – even small companies – develop a strong social media presence for their own brand before someone else does. And while you’re engaging in monitoring to find out what customers are saying about you, ensure you’re also checking for fraudulent posts and sites. Companies should develop a response plan, so when they find fraudulent sites or posts, they know who at the social media company they should bring the issues to. Time is truly of the essence in prevention.

Awareness of the social media spheres and how they relate to your company is vital today. Not only for legitimate customers who may be reaching out to you (and finding you’re not there), but to prevent someone else from taking advantage of your brand’s reputation for personal gain.